Kill All Normies: From 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the alt-right

A discussion about the rise of the racist right and protofascism led by Angela Nagle. Angela Nagle is a cultural critic living in Ireland and writes for the Baffler, Current Affairs, Jacobin and the Dublin Review of Books. Her essay "The New Man of 4Chan" was published by Baffler in 2016, her essay "Palecons for Porn" was published in Jacobin in February of 2017, and her book "Kill All Normies" is out from Zero Books. The topics covered in this panel will include whether the radical left needs to change tactics in order to take on a new right-wing threat, how internet culture contributes to a climate that is conducive to the development of ideological racists, and just what motivates the "alt-right."

Moderator: Douglas Lain

Panelists:

Angela Nagle is the author of the book Kill All Normies. Her work has appeared in the Baffler, Jacobin, Current Affairs, the Irish Times and many other journals. Since completing her PhD on anti-feminist online subcultures, Nagle has become an expert on the online culture wars, appearing on many television and radio programs, including Chapo Trap House and Channel 4 News.

The New Man of 4chan: “THE FIRST OF OUR KIND has struck fear into the hearts of America,” announced one commenter last year on the giddily offensive /r9k/ board of the notorious, anarchic site 4chan. “This is only the beginning. The Beta Rebellion has begun. Soon, more of our brothers will take up arms to become martyrs to this revolution.” The post, dated October 1, was referring to the news that twenty-six-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer had killed nine classmates and injured nine others before shooting himself at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon.

What the Alt-right is really all about Currently the subject of a major Twitter storm, Nick Pell’s article for The Irish Times’ website “The Alt-right: everything you need to know” omitted the main thing you need to know about the alt right – that its central concern is race.

Shuja Haider is a contributing editor at Viewpoint and a writer for Jacobin. His essay "Safety Pins and Swastikas" was published in Viewpoint and reprinted in Jacobin in January 2017. Subsequently, he published "The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel," a genealogy of neoreaction, at Viewpoint.

Safety Pins and Swastikas If you had read in early 2016 about a National Policy Institute conference on the theme of “Identity Politics,” you might have assumed it was an innocent gathering of progressives. If you had attended, you would have been in for an unpleasant surprise. The National Policy Institute is an organization of white nationalists, overseen by neo-Nazi media darling Richard Spencer.

Ashley Frawley is a lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, Swansea University, Wales. She is the author of the book The Semiotics of Happiness.

Alfie Bown is the author of Enjoying It: Candy Crush, the editor of the Hong Kong Review of Books and was one of the organizers of the now defunct Everyday Analysis Collective.

A Liberal, a Tyrant and a Marxist From endless Trump mockery and political dank memes to Jonathan Pie and witty protest boards, the Left is laughing. Of course, politics and humour have long had a close relationship (whether we think of Boris Johnson or George Bush, Private Eye or Charlie Hebdo – it hardly needs proving) but there is nevertheless little doubt that laughter is a particularly prominent tool for the Left in this emerging age of social media politics. Laughing at the Right, and now at the liberal establishment, has become a defining characteristic of the Leftist community, but what should we think twice about concerning our new identities as individual humorist political commentators and apparent participants? Is this ‘progressive’ comedianism helping to battle the establishment’s attempts to retain or re-take power, or even to combat the rising alt-Right?

Capitalism Gets Knocked Down (and then gets up again)

Michael Roberts is a leading blogger on Marxist Economics. His book "World in Crisis" is a collection of essays that provide empirical evidence for Marx's theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and this panel will present information about the long economic crisis we've experienced since 2008. What are the political lessons to be drawn from the evidence that capitalism is inherently prone to crisis?

Moderator: Douglas Lain

Panelists:

Michael Roberts works in the City of London as an economist. He has closely observed the machinations of the global financial system from the dragon’s den. He has been a follower of the Marxist view of society for over 40 years.

Pete Dolack is the author of It's Not Over Learning From the Socialist Experiment and has written for The Ecologist, Z Magazine, Climate & Capitalism, and many other publications.

Terry Tapp is the author of A Serf's Journal: The Story of the United States' Longest Wildcat Strike. Originally from Central Appalachia, Terry spent many years working trade jobs, and wandering through the American south.

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