Seems odd for the author to refer to Brand as being "alt-right" when his preferred conspiracy theories are of the classic far-left variety. If you move in leftist circles you will meet people with these sort of views quite commonly.
He also has good timing.
The recent revelations that Chomsky (always an assiduous conspiracy denier) was chumming with Epstein was a pretty major moment of schadenfreude for those of us on the left inclined to conspiratorial analysis.
There's overlap in these with left wing antivax sentiment and there's left wing criticism of liberal identity politics, but they don't use the same language and usually differ in their analysis in important ways.
The fact that at 35,000 feet the left and right can both be antivax and against identity politics doesn't really mean they're the same thing though, and Brand is now talking just like someone on the alt-right. Although the way that they're superficially similar may indicate how Brand can slip from the far left to the far right so easily and just chase after his audience.
(And the fact that I prefer to talk about identity politics and not talk about "wokeism" is why I'm solidly left-wing).
So take "Great Reset" plus "Anti-Woke" plus Bjørn Lomborg climate change skepticism and that adds up to alt-right to me. He may be on the populist side of the right wing and still be performatively anticapitalist, but its probably just a matter of time until he continues to slide over to the right. They also note in the article that his audience rejects his leftist view of 10 years ago:
> While some have been fans of his comedy for years, no one I spoke to—on or off the record—said they agreed with the broadly leftist views he voiced 10 years ago.
The memetic gene splicing here between the right and left is kind of worrying, though, since a populist fascist nationalist movement that combined with left-wing social safety nets for the in-group would be very successful in the current environment (similar to 1933).
The Overton window has been creeping to the right for the last half century, so traditionally leftist views like freedom of speech, a right to privacy, and being anti-war are now outside the window. Anyone who still holds those values is effectively far right, say the horseshoe-calling centrists.
Nonsense!
50 years ago you could have opinions on two different subject on the left, but in 2023 one of those opinions could have flipped but the other stayed the same.
Both the horseshoe and Overton window do not really account for these topical flips of opinion which renders both inadequate for explaining the ebb and flow of politics.