This is an incredible tweet-either a direct dog whistle to …

want to take away America’s meat, guns, & Confederate flags. Some of this uproar links to AOC’s New Green Deal co-sponsorship comment, when she said “maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast lunch & dinner”- backlash was swift from the far right, who compared 2/

taking away hamburgers to Stalin. But the far right also targets soy burgers directly with antisemitic conspiracy theories about an orchestrated effort to reduce the US’ industrial power. It goes on. In 2016 Alex Jones tweeted a pic of himself w/a platter of raw meat & 3/

sausages & the phrase “Celebrating Americana with some Red Meat, f-you Obama!” I analyze all of these points in my chapter on food, fashion & the far right on Hate in the Homeland- so many other ways food unexpectedly is a gateway or focal point for far right extremism, from 4/

preppers to new vegan “nipsters” (Nazi hipsters) & straight-edge combat sports enthusiasts linking fitness, healthy bodies, anti-immigration & preparation for street battles in the coming race war. Extreme off-grid living linking paganism, “blood and soil” philosophy & the 5/

idea that humans are naturally tied to homelands (through organic metaphors like “roots” & “motherland”) are part of the same phenomenon. Men get the messages about red meat & manhood but women of course bear the brunt of extremist messaging about 6/

how nurturing white families connects to pure food, homesteading, gardening & producing white babies in a “racially pure” home. All of this is to say that a little tweet about meat-eating versus vegan eating politicians taps into a whole lot more than 7/

just food itself. Food is connected to identity in deep and abiding ways. Hate is honed in discussions of nutritious food, manly choices, & white women’s roles in preparing it for their families. Far right group in Greece held “Greeks only” soup kitchens- German and French 8/

groups put pork in their donated soup so Muslims/Jews couldn’t eat it. Lots more in my book. Takeaway here is that things you might not expect- like food- can be gateways & pathways to share extreme ideas. Long history of food being used by far right to exclude & sell ideas. /END

This is an incredible tweet-either a direct dog whistle to the far right or playing into the same hyper masculine bluster they do, positioning “real Americans” as red-meat eating patriots, in constraint to emasculated soy-eating liberals & feminists who 1/
h/t @jasonintrator

You May Also Like

This is an incredible tweet-either a direct dog whistle to the far right or playing into the same hyper masculine bluster they do, positioning “real Americans” as red-meat eating patriots, in constraint to emasculated soy-eating liberals & feminists who 1/h/t @jasonintrator

You May Also Like

This is an incredible tweet-either a direct dog whistle to the far right or playing into the same hyper masculine bluster they do, positioning “real Americans” as red-meat eating patriots, in constraint to emasculated soy-eating liberals & feminists who 1/
h/t @jasonintrator