Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
It's true that there is a thread you could use to link Bolsonaro to Trump to Johnson to Orban to Putin if you so wished. But it ignores enormous differences between them all and is frankly fantasy, not least because Johnson is socially liberal and a world away from someone like Bolsonaro in Brazil.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to insinuate with this. Is there a cabal of far right extremists acting out some coordinated plan? Honestly that isn't the point, 'though there is some evidence of it - see Steve Bannon. The point is surely that all the characters you list have several traits in common. These are, inter alia:

  • mendacity
  • amorality
  • opportunism
  • self aggrandisement
  • malignant narcism


They manifest as rightwing populists taking cues off each other because there is a gullible population out there that laps it up.

Why do you think Johnson suddenly discovered the repetition of rightwing conspiracy theories as a deflection tactic? That's straight out of the Trump playbook.