Why the Alt-Right’s Most Famous Woman Disappeared

October 20, 2020 6:40 AM

Lauren Southern could spew racist propaganda like no other. But the men around her were better at one thing: trafficking in ugly misogyny. (CONTENT NOTE: Full article describes incidents of Islamophobia, sexual harassment, racism, white supremacy, and rape threats.) Hutcheson looked uneasy as his girlfriend [Lauren Southern] continued to talk about her career ambitions. “All of us Europeans have the responsibility to reproduce,” he interjected. “Motherhood is to women as war is to men.” Southern’s eyes glazed over as Hutcheson kept talking. Finally, the waitress arrived with the bill. Hutcheson gestured for Southern to grab it. “Okay, cool. I’ll make it a business expense,” she whispered. Earlier, she’d told me that her boyfriend leaned on her financially.
posted by MiraK (64 comments total)

Needs a "leopardseatingfaces" tag.
posted by acb at 6:55 AM on October 20, 2020 [54 favorites]

"It's in my nature."
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:57 AM on October 20, 2020 [7 favorites]

Is anyone running a book on when she runs for the Australian Senate, and whether she'll be a Liberal or One Nation candidate?
posted by acb at 7:08 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I feel like you missed the money quote:

"He and Southern decided to go out to dinner, and to let me film them. Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries, such as ketchup, whose origins are in China, so the two, facing limited restaurant options, chose the British-style Oxley Public House in Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood."
posted by graventy at 7:14 AM on October 20, 2020 [43 favorites]

Remember that game from around the turn of the millennium called The Game? It was a simple game. If you thought of the game, you lost the game. That was it. There's a new twist to the game and it's played like this: if you think of these nazi assholes that you thought you had forgotten about, you lost the game. So yeah, I was made to think of Lauren Southern again, so I just lost The Game.
posted by NoMich at 7:16 AM on October 20, 2020 [18 favorites]

No way. Nazis don't get invited to my game.
posted by lauranesson at 7:19 AM on October 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

So basically, she's toned it down a little bit and moved to Australia, where she's still at the same game, only toned down a little bit (and now with a part-Asian husband and kid whom she can use as a shield against accusations of racism.) She sounds like a monster. I'm sorry I wasted half an hour reading about her.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:22 AM on October 20, 2020 [64 favorites]

She's a grifter, plain and simple. She doesn't have beliefs, just greed and opportunism.

I'm ashamed she's a Canadian. What a stain on our nation.
posted by signsofrain at 7:23 AM on October 20, 2020 [15 favorites]

It's really frustrating to see how many alt-right personalities are from Canada. Not only Lauren Southern, but Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy and Lindsey Shepherd too.

I blame Rebel Media
posted by thecjm at 7:24 AM on October 20, 2020 [17 favorites]

Wow. Reading that made me feel Grimey.
posted by Faintdreams at 7:30 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I work just down the street from the Oxley and it used to be one of my go-to choices for an after work pint. I am sad to see that lovely bar get its name dragged into this, but on the other hand...

Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries, such as ketchup

lolololololol what a loser.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:40 AM on October 20, 2020 [29 favorites]

I'm ashamed she's a Canadian. What a stain on our nation.

She's Australia's shame now.
posted by acb at 7:45 AM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am sad also for her kid. :-(
posted by brainwane at 8:04 AM on October 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

If there is a whiter food than tomato ketchup, I don't ... it's mayonnaise. Definitely mayonnaise. But tomato ketchup is really up there.

The article was a strange ride. I was pulled between horror at her and horror for her, feeling that she deserved a terrible comeuppance that she never is going to get, and unwilling to wish it was the sexual assault and/or internet persecution that her fans were always just about to give her. Now, I suppose, that this article has come out, things will get hot for her again, but I am sure she will survive it. It seems she always does.

Hopefully it can serve as an object lesson for at least some women: you can never, never be a cool enough girl.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:04 AM on October 20, 2020 [20 favorites]

I mean, I remember the year all the skinheads in Winnipeg went racist. Previously they all claimed to be SHARP. My friends grew their hair out. Year was maybe 1988 or 1989? There were definitely trad girlfriends.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:19 AM on October 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

That closing paragraph really got me:

There was never going to be a reckoning. No accountability, only retreat.

And the cancer continues to metastasize because we never hold these purveyors of hate to account. Will we ever?
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2020 [25 favorites]

This is a fantastic piece — it’s not easy to get this close to a person like this without getting sucked into their reality distortion field at least a little, but Lombroso clearly understands without forgiving.
posted by thesmallmachine at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2020 [11 favorites]

There was never going to be a reckoning. No accountability, only retreat.
posted by snerson at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

The thing is, I have met Women like her.

They've read the Handmaids Tale and would usher in that world in a heartbeat, because they sincerely believe that they would be in the position of the High Commissioners Wife.

They seem to wilfully ignore the fact that no-one is happy in Gilead, everyone is just disposable chaff for the next step up on the Power Pyramid.

I hope becoming a Mother to a Biracial child gives her enough perspective to become a decent human being and a not-terrible Mother.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:22 AM on October 20, 2020 [11 favorites]

It will not. Not by itself, anyway. The world is full of biracial children who have a clueless (or worse) white parent. Colin Kaepernick is one. And any man who would marry Lauren Southern has to be pretty ghastly himself.

What sort of "reckoning" should there be? Whenever there is a social reckoning, the right screams about "cancel culture." If we were a country that banned incitement or hate speech, there could be a legal reckoning, but it will be generations -- if ever -- before the majority of Americans might see some sense in that.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:29 AM on October 20, 2020 [31 favorites]

> And the cancer continues to metastasize because we never hold these purveyors of hate to account. Will we ever?

This sounds like a manifestation of the Paradox of Tolerance.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:34 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I was pulled between horror at her and horror for her, feeling that she deserved a terrible comeuppance that she never is going to get, and unwilling to wish it was the sexual assault and/or internet persecution

This was exactly my experience as well. I thought this article did a great job of highlighting the 'natural consequences' women like Southern face for joining with misogynists.

These consequences are the reason why I cannot stand people who get more angry at women who join misogynistic causes, than at the men who benefit and profit from misogyny without any of the costs women face. Like, even within my immediate circles there is WAY more anger - more vocal, more personal, more vituperative - against white women because 53% of them voted for Trump, than against white men even though ~70% of them voted for Trump. Some of this stems from plain old misogyny within ourselves, some of it from the personal sense of betrayal, but none of it is justified. Women who betray us pay a price nobody should have to pay.

It's not that their wrongs are cancelled out by the victimization they endure, but it does give us cause to moderate our stance against them, imo. It's a good reason to keep our ire focused on the people like McInney or Hutcheson (or even Southern vis-a-vis racism) who reap only the rewards. FWIW I think "cancel culture" is a superb way to deal with these assholes.
posted by MiraK at 8:45 AM on October 20, 2020 [29 favorites]

Does he make an exception for beverages so that he can have coffee or tea...? He can't have Coke because both the coca and the kola come from unacceptable places. He could have some yaupon holly tea, I guess; it's native to North America. But no, 'cause then he'd have to have to accept that nonwhite people invented it. Same with chocolate. So... nope! No caffeine and no theobromine for you, you understimulated doofus. Good luck getting any antioxidants or joy in your life from all that haggis.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:53 AM on October 20, 2020 [10 favorites]

When you view the world as a win/lose game, even if you're taking abuse and being partially victimized, it's just a spur to climb harder so you don't fall into the pit too. Remember, there's no way for everyone to win; if you move up the ladder, someone has to move down.

The important thing for her is to keep climbing, using everything she has. Her dilemmas are tactical and about what she's personally willing to tolerate, not ethical.

It's part crab bucket, part not caring about anything but your own situation, driven by being addicted to the social media like dopamine hits and the money that brings. She's winning. Why should she change, except to make more money? She's a grifter who has monetized hate.
posted by bonehead at 8:54 AM on October 20, 2020 [10 favorites]

They seem to wilfully ignore the fact that no-one is happy in Gilead, everyone is just disposable chaff for the next step up on the Power Pyramid.

That's conservatism for you: actual joy and meaningful freedom are immoral. In their place is a satisfaction with one's place in the great chain of domination, and the freedom to dominate those beneath one.
posted by acb at 9:01 AM on October 20, 2020 [34 favorites]

Good luck getting any antioxidants or joy in your life from all that haggis.

The antioxidants are hidden in the neeps. The joy in the water of life.
posted by biffa at 9:22 AM on October 20, 2020 [13 favorites]

actual joy and meaningful freedom are immoral signs of weakness. There is no morality, except as a concern trolling cudgel with which to own the libs.
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 AM on October 20, 2020 [11 favorites]

"Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries"

What about ingredients? Say, uh, black pepper? Theirs must be a miserable life.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:31 AM on October 20, 2020 [9 favorites]

"In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement."
posted by Epixonti at 9:42 AM on October 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

Her rise to social-media stardom was meteoric. Trump’s nativist presidential campaign coincided with the explosive expansion of the far-right media ecosystem. The premier outlet at the time, Breitbart News, was run by the future White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and the Canadian media executive Ezra Levant had set out to create an equivalent site in his country. He called it Rebel Media and asked Southern to audition after meeting the young firebrand at an energy conference where she peppered the speakers with questions.

Part of the problem is that the political will to give these assholes the Ernst Zundel or James Keegstra treatment seems to have evaporated here in Canada.

The 2010s saw dozens of lethal terror attacks by white nationalists, including Anders Breivik’s murder of 77 of his fellow Norwegians to protest Europe’s growing diversity, and the American extremist Dylann Roof’s killing of nine black worshippers in hopes of igniting a race war. Between the time Southern entered politics and the time she left, far-right extremists had murdered 11 Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, 51 Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand, and 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas (in an effort to target Mexicans). More than a hundred smaller attacks had occurred worldwide. Many of the killers were radicalized on YouTube, and some echoed the kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric Southern liked to use.

Let's not forget the Quebec mosque shootings.

The same fascists and racists, including Levant and Goldy, who played a role in inciting it, sought to use it as an opportunity to profit and to incite more attacks just like it:

The Rebel’s reporting on the Quebec mosque shooting, annotated
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:46 AM on October 20, 2020 [9 favorites]

I liked when she was refused entry to the UK. The other thing I like -- ironically speaking -- is how alt-right bottom dwellers like Southern always sell the idea of Western progress, but then when you buy into it, all you get is cavemen & bone broth.
posted by dmh at 9:58 AM on October 20, 2020 [27 favorites]

I liked when she was refused entry to the UK.

I mean. PEAK #CancelCulture, amirite. No access to their "own" haggis, lol.
posted by MiraK at 10:03 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

It's not that their wrongs are cancelled out by the victimization they endure, but it does give us cause to moderate our stance against them, imo. It's a good reason to keep our ire focused on the people like McInney or Hutcheson (or even Southern vis-a-vis racism) who reap only the rewards.

That's true, and yet my baser self remains unhappy. Like when I wanted Trump to get better so that the GOP could not profit from his death in the election, and then was disappointed when he did get better.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:08 AM on October 20, 2020 [7 favorites]

Okay... is anyone else bugged by her messed up blinds in that banner image?
posted by brundlefly at 10:25 AM on October 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

I think honestly and sadly, this is all really giving the idea of how so much of this is driven by entitlement and the failure to meet those goals. Gavin McInnes, secretly wanting to be a fictional alpha man or whatever the hell he promotes as the ideal, sleeping with all the women, but also having to do it only within the tribe of weird so that his wife doesn't find out. And even the way he phrased it - like he's the hero, the fantasy - shows that in his mind, he doesn't have anything other than his fame to fall back on. Her ex who wouldn't eat ketchup, wanting to be the dominant man and then having her pay for his bland European-only food. People being angry that she was the ripe age of 22 and wasn't married and having babies.
posted by corb at 10:33 AM on October 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

"Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries"

No, he doesn't.

He's just a very picky eater who likes saying over-the-top racist things to get attention from people who don't know how food works.
posted by box at 10:33 AM on October 20, 2020 [24 favorites]

The Card Cheat: This sounds like a manifestation of the Paradox of Tolerance.

Masterfully satirized in this classic Onion piece.
posted by dr_dank at 10:36 AM on October 20, 2020 [6 favorites]

Within the right-wing mindset, consequences are only for Those People. Not for Us.
posted by adamrice at 11:13 AM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

He's just a very picky eater who likes saying over-the-top racist things to get attention from people who don't know how food works.

Yeah, this makes no sense inasmuch as culinary fusion is probably the single most popular form of cultural interaction in history. Since time immemorial, every time two cultures bumped up against each other, their foodways start to mingle. Like, you can't help but notice some conspicuous similarities between the dominant foods of Greece ("the cradle of Western civilization!") and their eastern neighbors in Turkey, Iran, and the Arabic world. This convergence probably predates the Persian War. Noodles have a non-European origin. Several popular vegetables, including maize, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes, have non-European origin. The domesticated chicken probably originated in East or Southeast Asia (jury's still out on multiple independent domestication incidents, I think). The ubiquity of all of these foodstuffs worldwide is mostly a testament to just how powerful culinary cross-polination is. There has probably not been such a thing as food "originally from Europe" for several millennia.

If there is a whiter food than tomato ketchup, I don't ... it's mayonnaise.

I dunno, the Japanese have really adopted mayonnaise and made it their own.
posted by jackbishop at 11:46 AM on October 20, 2020 [12 favorites]

It's not that their wrongs are cancelled out by the victimization they endure, but it does give us cause to moderate our stance against them, imo. It's a good reason to keep our ire focused on the people like McInney or Hutcheson (or even Southern vis-a-vis racism) who reap only the rewards.

I actually disagree with this. Trying to get on the right side of face-leopards while they eat your comrades is actually worse than manipulating people to put your comrades on top. But both are reprehensible, so I don't really feel like I have pick who to find more horrifying.
posted by dame at 11:58 AM on October 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

What sort of "reckoning" should there be?

Tumbrels
posted by Madame Defarge at 12:30 PM on October 20, 2020 [6 favorites]

This is such a weird piece. It doesn't make me feel sorry for her, and it's not very illuminating about the alt-right. The misogyny was never hidden, as mentioned in the piece, they giggle about it on public panels. The only way I can make it fit into some kind of broader career goal is to assume she's trying to become and tradwife influencer and wants to "set the record straight" first by pretending like she was only even white supremacist adjacent. It seems to me that misogny:alt-right trolls::white supremacy:trad-wives, so I don't know what that gets her. Maybe the most likely explanation is that she found a messy exit because she was exhausted at being treated like sexy garbage by all her intellectual comrades, and she did the profile because she couldn't resist the attention.
posted by grandiloquiet at 1:03 PM on October 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

There’s... a reason there’s so few women involved which would usually be a serious problem if your aims are to rebuild a society in your image and raise your population’s birth rate. Someone who sees an opportunity there instead of a warning has to *really* hate minorities and Jews.
posted by Selena777 at 1:31 PM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

There’s... a reason there’s so few women involved which would usually be a serious problem if your aims are to rebuild a society in your image and raise your population’s birth rate.

It's only a serious problem if you think women are people who should get to decide whether they birth your specific children at the time of your choosing. If you think that you will simply be able to force your will upon the population you desire then their buy-in doesn't really occur to you.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2020 [5 favorites]

Even McInnes had not stopped sending flirtatious messages to her, she said. She didn’t know what to do, or whom to tell. If her father found out, it would “break him,” she said. He was a huge fan of conservative pundits like McInnes.

Whoah, that damage runs deep. Almost pitiably deep.

He warned us that the men were hungry, so things might get tense, but it also gave Southern a little leverage. “Half the pizza now, half after the interview,” Llewelyn-John said, only partly joking....The finished documentary would portray asylum seekers generally as opportunists looking to get rich, and would pluck from this campfire interview quotes that emphasized the migrants’ failure to assimilate into French culture rather than the dire circumstances from which they had fled.

...but I don't care. she can go fuck herself.
posted by Sauce Trough at 2:06 PM on October 20, 2020 [13 favorites]

"Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries"

Unless he's eating heather and grilled Aurochs, he's gonna have a bad time.
posted by tclark at 2:13 PM on October 20, 2020 [10 favorites]

To add: I'll also be saving my sympathy and redemption stories for people who actually try to redeem themselves, not just retreat and regroup, and pivot to a new grift.
posted by tclark at 2:30 PM on October 20, 2020 [11 favorites]

I feel like she's a deeply troubled person, injured early in life. That doesn't excuse her making things worse for women, immigrants, and well, everybody.

she was exhausted at being treated like sexy garbage by all her intellectual comrades, and she did the profile because she couldn't resist the attention.

That actually seems right. All the men around her are predators.

Finally, I hope she settles down somewhere nondescript and stays private. She's still young enough to figure her shit out.

The only way she knows how to make a living is by being a huge media troll d-bag. If she could move on from that, who knows.

Also, I'm fucking done with all the fascist flavors, so...I dunno.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:48 PM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Idiot fascist misogynist realises that the idiot fascist misogynists around her are idiot fascist misogynists.

I have no pity for her. Not until I see her working to undo the damage she has done and disposed of her ill-gotten gains in a worthy fashion.
posted by dazed_one at 3:00 PM on October 20, 2020 [15 favorites]

moderate our stance against them

If I meet her in person I won't punch her in the face
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 4:29 PM on October 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

Hutcheson refuses to eat food originally from nonwhite countries

Imagine being so racist that even colonialism is a step too far.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:35 PM on October 20, 2020 [17 favorites]

He's really not going to like the origin story of beer.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2020 [9 favorites]

Idiot fascist misogynist realises that the idiot fascist misogynists around her are idiot fascist misogynists

This strikes me as an oversimplification.

I live in a rural Australian town and regularly encounter women who talk much the way Southern has about much the same things Southern has. The common thread is that they have no fucking clue what any of the words they say actually mean, any more than do the knuckle-dragging beer, bong and ice-addled fuckwit boyfriends they habitually hang out with.

Ideas from social science and social criticism simply have no meaning for these people: within their circles they function purely as shibboleths. If you use words like "privilege" or "feminism" without the approved degree of lip-curling contempt, or words like "capitalism" with any hint of criticism, you're instantly marked as a legitimate target for a YouTube video in which you are "totally destroyed". Engaging with the actual ideas in anything even vaguely resembling good faith is never on the table.

I agree that Southern is an idiot but I don't see her fascist, racist, misogyinist tendencies as springing from any well of deep conviction. I think she's essentially yet another rebel-without-a-clue who has worked out that spouting tedious contrarian crap while nicely made up gets her an endlessly growing audience of bro fuckwits.

It remains to be seen whether the slow realization that misogyny is actually a thing will gel, for her, into a parallel realization that so are fascism and racism. Sadly, there is an oversupply of long-term performers in her niche that would suggest it never will. I expect she'll end up employed by Rupert, one way or another.
posted by flabdablet at 6:35 PM on October 20, 2020 [20 favorites]

I agree that Southern is an idiot but I don't see her fascist, racist, misogyinist tendencies as springing from any well of deep conviction. I think she's essentially yet another rebel-without-a-clue who has worked out that spouting tedious contrarian crap while nicely made up gets her an endlessly growing audience of bro fuckwits.

If she was only a shallow bigot and was 'just' doing it for the money or was one of deep conviction, does that make it less of a problem to the victims of her bullshit? Because it certainly doesn't change my opinion on whether or not to call her a fascist misogynist.
posted by dazed_one at 6:58 PM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

does that make it less of a problem to the victims of her bullshit?

Obviously not.

But for those of us actively engaged in the work of damping down this kind of crap via personal interactions inside our own communities, which I think is the only way any kind of dent ever actually gets made in it, I think some degree of insight into what's probably going on inside the other person's world can be useful in figuring out where and how our limited resources of time and attention are best applied.
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 PM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

“Hey Daniel, in your honest opinion am I a little crazy?” she texted me once. “Do you think I’m irredeemable and can’t go back to a normal life?”

She knew she was wrong, the shame got to her, but she still continued.

Yeah. You're fucking irredeemable. I'm just sad you ended up in my original home. The only thing I'm glad about is that you and your shithouse husband had to pay five and a half thousand fucking US dollars for a partner visa because your ideological brethren wanted to fuck as many immigrants as possible.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:50 PM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Good luck getting any antioxidants or joy in your life from all that haggis.

Hey, haggis is delicious and a source of joy! Of course, it probably wouldn't be if it didn't have the pepper and spices (not from Europe), or the mutton (middle Eastern) or oats (also middle Eastern) ...

Wait: if he never eats non-European food, how is he not starving? What is there in NW Europe? Salmon, mackerel, no cod anymore. You'd have to live off fish, venison, birch sap and acorns.

Back to the FPP: I think the only thing she can do, if she doesn't want to be in that world anymore, is to move into private life, basically disappear. I do feel for her, because I feel for all people and she's so young and young people do stupid stuff, but there's no real redemption to be had for the harm she's caused. For the sake of herself and her new family, I hope she can change and leave this all behind her.

That said, I never imagined I'd see Michael Coren (the contrary--right nemesis of my youth, though more Bill O'Reilly light than actual Nazi) tweeting in support of gay rights and multiculturalism.
posted by jb at 8:55 PM on October 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

Finally, the waitress arrived with the bill. Hutcheson gestured for Southern to grab it.

Sounds like a true believer in traditional gender roles!
posted by pulposus at 9:13 PM on October 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

I expect she'll end up employed by Rupert, one way or another.

She has popped up a few times on Sky New After Dark...
posted by the duck by the oboe at 11:10 PM on October 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

I really wish the Atlantic wouldn't waste time trying to humanize (and reimage) awful people.
posted by graventy at 10:03 AM on October 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

I agree that examining why people turn to fascist or white supremacist ideologies is potentially helpful when doing anti-racist, anti-fascist and recovery work, but... I do not think Southern (or most other prominent fascist/alt-right figures) was/is motivated primarily by financial gain. She funded an initiative to shoot at vessels doing aid and rescue work in the Mediterranean, which she personally took part in:

Southern has also collaborated with Europe’s far-right to deny aid to shipwrecked migrants. She helped fundraise for “Defend Europe,” a campaign to sail a boat in the Mediterranean that would intimidate non-governmental organization ships that provide aid for migrants who cross the sea on small rafts, which often capsize or become stranded. Southern was on board the far-right’s rented ship on its maiden voyage, Vox reported.

On a later voyage, the “Defend Europe” boat approached an aid vessel doing search-and-rescue work off the coast of Libya. The far-right crew shot “shot flares and yelled hate slogans” at the other ship, The Daily Beast previously reported. (“Defend Europe” later needed rescuing of its own when its engines failed in the middle of the Mediterranean.)

She and a few others made a lot of money promoting hate, but that money evaporates pretty quickly and most of the prominent figures in contemporary fascism commit to it after they start seeing losses, or never really see any actual profit. There are definitely some who are pure grifters, but many who begin that way end up ideologically committed and many more are ideological white supremacists to begin with. The current profitability of peddling hate does attract opportunists, but it can be dangerous to view them through that lens by default. There have been a few too many instances like Andrew Aurenheimer who get a pass for being "trolls" or "grifters" but turn out to be 100% committed, dyed in the wool Nazis.

From this article, it sounds like she has thought about leaving but she is still active in hate groups. I am always cautious about framing active bigots as victims, even in cases where they may be to some extent. There are resources for helping people recover from hate groups and I always hope that people in her position will reach a point of biting that bullet and committing to that work, but I don't hold my breath. It's the ideal situation, but it doesn't undo the harm they've done and really committing to leaving and fighting bigotry is a difficult lifelong task.
posted by Lonnrot at 10:28 AM on October 21, 2020 [7 favorites]

I get that there should be a human urge to understand people like this in their complexity, but it becomes very difficult when the answer to the question—'what happens when people with noxious dangerous ideas are forced to leave their societies, because they exceed bounds of tolerance, where do they go, what do they do?'—is 'Australia', and 'continue their careers'. This country is a dumping ground for the racists-who-couldn't-make-it, and our television media is schedule-packed with these second-raters. They, with our home-grown bigots, inspire murders and atrocities. In the broadest Australian accent I can muster, I say to Southern and people like her, who look at my country as a sheltered workshop for fascism: 'fuck off, we're full'.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:02 PM on October 21, 2020 [5 favorites]

Remember that game from around the turn of the millennium called The Game?

OH MY GOD FUCK YOU!! GODDAMMITT!!! I was WINNING! SHIT!
(Seriously, pretty much all of my friends have signed 3x5 cards informing them of their recent loss tucked into several volumes on their bookshelves. Don't judge me.)

Sorry for the derail.
DAMMIT!
posted by sexyrobot at 7:58 PM on October 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Aaaand...I took notes last time.
6 years, 87 days, 15 hours, 27 minutes.

SCREW. YOU.
posted by sexyrobot at 8:05 PM on October 21, 2020