One of Fascism’s dirty little secrets is that it is and always has been an internationalist movement. For all the talk of hating globalists and loss of sovereignty the reality is that fascists travel to other countries and help fascists abroad whenever they are able. We saw this most clearly in the recent presidential election here in the US with Russian interference possibly swinging it to the fascist candidate. We’re seeing it again with the social media response to antifa’s recent actions.
Angee Dixson joined Twitter on August 8th and immediately began posting furiously—about 90 times a day. A self-described American Christian conservative, Dixson defended President Donald Trump's response to the unrest in Charlottesville, criticized the removal of Confederate monuments, and posted pictures purporting to show violence by left-wing counter-protestors.
"Dems and Media Continue to IGNORE BLM and Antifa Violence in Charlottesville," she wrote above a picture of masked demonstrators labeled "DEMOCRAT TERROR."
But Dixson appears to have been a fake, according to an analysis by Ben Nimmo, a fellow with the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council think tank. The account has been shut down. Dixson's profile picture was stolen from a young Instagram celebrity (a German model rumored to have dated Leonardo DiCaprio). Dixson used a URL shortener that is a tell for the sort of computer program that automatically churns out high volumes of social media posts whose authorship is frequently disguised. And one of her tweets attacked Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) for his alleged support of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, echoing language in tweets from Russian outlets RT and Sputnik.
This online propaganda campaign by fascist forces echoes the clandestine funding of far right parties in Europe.
A dossier of “Russian influence activity” seen by The Sunday Telegraph identified Russian influence operations running in France, the Netherlands, Hungary as well as Austria and the Czech Republic, which has been identified by Russian agents as an entry-point into the Schengen free movement zone.
The US intelligence review will examine whether Russian security services are funding parties and charities with the intent of “undermining political cohesion”, fostering agitation against the Nato missile defence programme and undermining attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy.
This new front in the propaganda war shouldn’t be a surprise given what we know about both Russia and 45. It is clear that the words of Twitler are quite in sync with this new campaign against antifa, in particular given the close cooperation with Russian propaganda bots during the election.
There needs to be a broad space to debate acceptable tactics in the face of these sorts of attacks on the resistance to fascism in the US and that means steering clear of incendiary claims of “both sides” even more so now that we see our enemies pushing that trope particularly hard.