In a time where tolerance and respect for minorities is slowly becoming mainstream, you could argue that the far-right has become counterculture. The far-right is VERY prevalent on both Instagram, Twitter and other social media.
Political extremism has always existed, but social media algorithms (and yes that includes the HN comment system) incentivize controversy while penalizing moderate, rational viewpoints as "unpopular." So these extreme views tend to bubble to the top of people's feeds, making them appear "very prevalent" to the average person.
This is one of MANY reasons that I have nothing to do with (most) social media anymore.
You could have said this at least for the last 70 years. It doesn't change the systemic issues that enable prejudice against minorities. This means prejudice is still more mainstream than tolerance. Recently, there was a SCOTUS ruling that allows one to refuse making websites for same sex couples. This whole case was based on a falsified request. https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-...
While I find it impossible to quantify, I think we can at least assure that prejudice is frowned upon by society. Things have definitely changed in 70 years.
>Recently, there was a SCOTUS ruling that allows one to refuse making websites for same sex couples.
No. It allows one to refuse making a product if making that product implies speech.
No, you can't. If it was, at a minimum SCOTUS wouldn't be playing games wrt signaling that it's OK do discriminate against same sex couples. Also at a minimum, we wouldn't have so much, let alone rising amounts of hate crime [0]. Unfortunately, society is pretty split on the whether prejudice is good or bad.
0 - https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-supplem...
The only conclusion I’ve come to is that everyone is a damn hypocrite. Everyone wants to discriminate against people not in their group because they’ve been brainwashed, and because people are assholes.
I can win a lot of arguments if I define myself as the only one who should be allowed to speak...
I honestly think modern conservatism could now be classified by a counterculture, because they define themselves more by what they're against than what they are for.
Seriously, over the years I've wracked my brain wondering why conservatism has moved so far to the radical fringe to the point where they simply seem to stand in opposition to even the most uncontroversial stances on things like global warming, healthcare, vaccines, basic human rights, etc. This is all I got.
The right has become a counterculture, and the best way to see what their next cause de jure will be is to see what's become commonly accepted as reasonable truth on the left.
Has conservatism "moved?" And if it has, has it moved to the right? If we were to time travel three generations ago, would the mainstream liberal culture then be more similar to the present day conservative culture or the present day liberal culture on the issues mentioned?
I submit that a present-day conservative would likely be a staunch liberal in those days. The Left has simply moved much further to the left.
... on social issues. The mainstream left and right, as far as those in power, remain about as similar on economics as they have since the right neoliberal movement took over both parties in the 80s—a position that both parties' extremes strongly disagree with, and that isn't particular popular among their electorate more generally (which is why Trump's just-say-what-R-voters-say platform fell, remarkably, outside that consensus) but which nonetheless drives most of both parties' activity, on that front.
As I got older, I eventually started to notice conservatives starting to blatantly ignore the science and facts in a way I had previously only seen from the left. Today, I feel like the situation has completely reversed itself, and the right is more likely to completely ignore reality, fact and science if it clashes with their current beliefs. I do see some of this on the left, but it seems like it's gotten so much worse on the right in the past 20 years.
Part of the appeal of these ideologies is clearly that they are offensive, not permitted on mainstream platforms, and therefore are something that their participants can "own" and that won't be co-opted by consumerism.
It's the same thing that fueled "Satanic" rock and similar things. Fascism is devil music. That most people are offended by it and mainstream authorities preach against it is a huge part of its appeal.
Elon Musk might be damaging this a little. It's hard to think you're a rebellious counterculture when you have one of the world's richest men acting as a public torch bearer.
The thing that mystifies me is that when parents get in on something it usually nukes the coolness factor, but the far right has an overwhelming supply of 50+ year olds on just about every platform and this has had no impact on its rise in popularity among the teens and twenty-somethings.
Also I'm not talking so much about Fox News right wingers. I'm talking about the 4chan /pol stuff. The stuff Fox provides is the radio-safe edit.
I disagree that it makes them cool. Counter culture generally contributes something different and important enough that it eventually becomes the culture and hence the counter cultural people become 'cool'. Extreme ideology of any kind isn't contributing anything. It's an attempt to feel different/special/part of a group, but there's nothing cultural about it and it's not going to receive any validation from outside the group (that would make it cool).
Musk's funding of the far right has the much more terrifying trajectory of a Hitler not an Enrique Tarrio.