The MBL misappropriated the left’s protest repertoire and image

Evidence

I felt rage bubbling up inside of me from the pit of my stomach to my heart, lungs, and then my head until my mind was awash with waves of hot, red fury. I didn’t care if these guys, just a little bit younger than me, were right-wing. They were lying. They had tricked people, including members of the Movimento Passe Livre’s own family, into believing that they stood for something similar. They lied when they said that they were apolitical, and nonpartisan. They hid the nature of their group and who funded it. And now they were lying about their feelings, putting on another show of what they thought people wanted to see. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 671

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Brazilian far-right supporters adopted Ukraine’s far-right symbols as their own. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 730; The concentration camp legend originated on the political left — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 373; Right-wing actors mimicked leftist movement names to hijack protest meaning. (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Brand-building leaders and rage algorithms hollowed out the left’s mass movements from within #complicates (0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 1049
• Political movements that become media spectacles lose their real-world referent #complicates (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 888