Al Jazeera: The Soros obsession: Why far-right conspiracy theories prevail

Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep, explained that "Soros conspiracies have always been a marker for the radical right as opposition to mainstream conservatism".

Explaining that such theories found currency among some leftists in the past, Ross noted that Soros has been blamed for economic crises, the tanking of currencies worldwide and backing an uprising against Serbia's former ultra-nationalist ruler Slobodan Milosevic, who was toppled in 2001. [...]

"In a way, he fits the perfect sort of historic epistemological category in the national socialist tradition," Reid Ross told Al Jazeera. [...]

According to Reid Ross, this rhetoric became prevalent among the far right during the era of the Tea Party, the ultra-conservative movement that sprung up in the wake of Barack Obama's 2008 election.

In 2010, the once popular right-wing Fox News commentator Glenn Beck aired a now infamous series deeming Soros as "the puppet master" pulling the strings behind global political developments.  

Pushing the conspiracy that Soros was complicit in the Holocaust, Beck said he had bankrolled civil society and liberal organisations as part of a plot to "form a shadow government, using humanitarian aid as a cover".

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DW Documentary: Italy's populists reach for power - Five Stars for Rome (May 27, 2018)

The Five Star Movement celebrated an historic victory in the Italian parliamentary elections. Luigi di Maio has been under consideration for prime minister. But what does the movement stand for?

The Five Star movement defines itself as grassroots and post-ideological. Its program of environmentalism, criticism of Italian refugee policy and the promise of financial aid for the socially disadvantaged appeals to both right and left-wing voters. A camera team accompanied the populist "anti-system party" on the campaign trail. Its core voters are in southern Italy, where unemployment is high and average incomes are low. Salvatore Micillo, who won 58 per cent of the votes cast in his constituency north of Naples, says, "Populism means addressing the people, and that's not bad: it's more about providing answers. The promise of a basic income of € 780 is intended to signal our intention of looking after our citizens. It doesn’t mean letting them stay at home, it means that the state will take you under its wing, protect you, give you work and trys to train you.” The candidates themselves project an image of modesty. "The ultimate goal of politics is not to do extraordinary things, but to prevent crap from happening," proclaims Party founder Beppe Grillo. But is the "MoVimento 5 Stelle" really ready for the responsibilities of government?

The New York Review of Books: Modi’s Full Court Press in India

The rule of law in India has been imperiled ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took power in 2014. Some threats, such as vigilantism by Hindu extremists, have been largely ignored by the state. Others, like the intimidation of journalists, have often featured Internet trolls encouraged by BJP leaders. The most troubling instances have come directly from the government: when it has used investigative agencies to prosecute political opponents—which, in the case of the Indian state of Bihar, enabled the BJP to join the ruling coalition—or when it has elevated people accused of violent crimes to the top rungs of leadership, such as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath. Yet recent events in the Supreme Court suggest something even graver is afoot—that the basic structure of India’s democracy may be shakier than it had seemed.  [...]

More than once has the Supreme Court been called upon to preserve liberal democracy in India. In 1973, the court ruled against attempts by the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to circumvent judicial authority and curtail the basic rights of citizens, such as the right to property. This was part of what one of her ministers called an effort to remake “the entire socio-economic fabric of our country [through] greater and greater State intervention.” The Gandhi government responded to its legal defeat by installing a sympathizer as chief justice, provoking other judges to resign. Two years later, when the government argued that the rights of citizens to life and liberty could be suspended, the Supreme Court agreed. Months of summary detentions, forced sterilizations, and press censorship followed, during the 1975–1977 period known as “the Emergency.” It’s unclear how Indian democracy would have survived if Gandhi had not called elections, anticipating victory—and then lost.

The behavior of the current chief justice has called into question once again the independence and credibility of the Supreme Court. In April, when opposition parties sought to impeach Misra—the first such attempt in Indian history—they listed five allegations against him, including involvement in a pay-to-play scheme, the falsification of official documents, and behind-the-scenes manipulation of sensitive cases. The outcomes of these cases have favored either Misra personally or the BJP.

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The Atlantic: The Tipping Point When Minority Views Take Over

Decades of work in sociology, physics, and other disciplines have supported this idea. Small groups of people can indeed flip firmly established social conventions, as long as they reach a certain critical mass. When that happens, what was once acceptable can quickly become unacceptable, and vice versa. Two decades ago, most Americans opposed gay marriage, bans on public smoking, and the legalization of marijuana; now, these issues all enjoy majority support.  [...]

After running a creative experiment, Damon Centola from the University of Pennsylvania says that the crucial threshold is more like 25 percent. That’s the likely tipping point at which minority views can overturn majority ones. “A lot of models have been developed, but they’re often people speculating in the dark, and writing equations without any data,” Centola says. “Our results fit better with the ethnographic data. It’s really exciting to me how clearly they resonate with Kanter’s work.” [...]

He stresses that the 25 percent figure isn’t universal, and will likely vary depending on the circumstances. Indeed, the stakes in his experiment were very low. Volunteers jostled over arbitrary norms, rather than, say, politically charged beliefs. And both the established group and the incoming activists had similar amounts of power—something that’s rarely the case in real life. [...]

This isn’t necessarily an uplifting message, Centola stresses. “It’s really important to be aware of how easily populations can be co-opted by people with an agenda,” he says. Russian-linked Facebook accounts bought a significant number of ads that targeted U.S. voters during the 2016 presidential election. The voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica used information from millions of people on Facebook to create psychographic profiles, and then used those to target ads supporting Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Brexit “Leave” campaign. The Chinese government has been seeding groups of activists into online communities to subtly shift discussions towards national pride, and to distract from collective grievances. (“We’re now looking at times in which these activists became more active to see if they reached this 25 percent threshold,” Centola says.)

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The Atlantic: The Price of ‘Machismo Populism’ in the Philippines

Displays of sexism are nothing new for the 73-year-old Duterte, who often flaunts his machismo. During the 2016 campaign, he was often photographed with young women sitting on his lap, and sometimes kissed them on the cheek or lips. Later, he drew repeated condemnation for his insults and misogynistic remarks: A rape joke about an Australian nun, and another joke about ordering soldiers to shoot female rebels in the vagina because “they are nothing without it,” an assurance to soldiers fighting ISIS affiliates in southern Philippines that they could rape up to three women and he would protect them. [...]

Duterte’s blatant sexism and misogyny, and the way his supporters applaud it and other Filipinos seems to tolerate or ignore it, come into direct tension with the advancements of women in Philippine society. Two women have served as president of the Philippines, an achievement that many developed nations cannot claim. (Both came into power by overthrowing a sitting male president.) A recent McKinsey Global Institute report also showed that the Philippines leads the Asia-Pacific Region on gender equality in the workplace. The country has also consistently ranked among the top 10 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report, which recognizes gender equality in labor force participation, education, health, and political empowerment. [...]

Duterte capitalizes on this.“Duterte’s brand of machismo is familiar to many Filipinos. It is combination of a tough father who would fight until the end for his family and a drunk uncle who is usually charming but would make people uncomfortable in family reunions for his inane comments. The president's personality is both complex yet familiar, which perhaps explains why some people give him a free pass because they have given a lot of other men a free pass before,” explained the sociologist Nicole Curato.

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