Brand once made a documentary about the far right. It has almost been scrubbed from the internet. It's a crazy watch, knowing he became what he was trying to mock in the film.
I know a handful of people that were liberal before 2020 that can be best described as right wing conspironutjobs now. I'm not sure what about covid and it's aftermath broke so many people's brains, but it did.
There’s a weird ‘crunchy granola to conservative nut job’ pipeline that you observe, in real time, with folks like Brand and J.P Sears. Hell, even Alex Jones had a moment where he really resonated with what would be considered politically left around the time he appeared in a small segment of ‘Waking Life.’
I see this a lot too. I immediately think of one person I went to school with who frequently posts a bunch of hardcore vegan, pro-environment stuff half the time, and then plenty of dumbass, "own da libz" shit the other half. The duality of man.
That explains this guy I knew from high school. When I first met him he was a huge pothead, would bring a flask to school and made fun of the "normies". Then he got really into the hardcore punk/straight edge scene, like to the point of punching people that smoked cigarettes at shows. Then he got crazy religious, became a missionary and told everyone he knew how they needed to be "saved".
Those people never changed, really. They have always been anti-institutionalists, first and foremost. It's just that now the anti-institutionalist party is now the Republican party, and the institutions they are dismantling range from the National Parks Service to the CDC.
That surprised me too. Started with COVID restrictions.
This quote from his Wiki is telling:
"During the spring of 2020, me being pro-freedom caused some backlash," but said that becoming a conservative comic "turned out to be great for my career." Also according to Sears, there are fewer conservative comics, and therefore he has a "niche" audience."
I think one of the biggest victories the right gained over the last decade was positioning itself as anti-establishment. People who were previously galvanized by more leftist rhetoric and social justice movements in the 2000s and early 2010s were fed conspiracy theory content to redirect their sentiment away from the government and toward marginalized groups
This is basically 70% of the population of Santa Fe in my experience. A bunch of people who shop at Sprouts, wear Patagonia, and have deeply antivaxxer talking points. They also seem to have some crazy xenophobia despite Santa Fe being the prime example of gentrified and commercialized native land
This is also way more Californians than people realize. It's most of the boomers that got left behind in the white flight of the '80s and '90s, and their kids. A lot of them wear tie dye, drive Subarus with dreamcatchers hanging from the rearview, and have right-wing bumper stickers and a pistol in the glove box.
My own mother has been into magical crystals and reiki healing for years… and now believes that Jews have a space laser that causes wildfires in Canada to convince the population that global warming is real.
My theory on Jones is he flipped completely when he went all in on Trump in 2016. He had always been "the opposition" through Bush and Obama. He went all in on Trump on the basis that he was "an outsider". But the principles he abandoned to do it were anti-authoritarianism and opposition to centralization of power. When he lost his last black reporter(Jakari Jackson), it became clear he wasn't the same guy anymore. Surprise surprise, Joe Biggs is in Proud Boys' leadership and convicted of executing a preconceived plan to storm the Capitol building. He used to be a lot more libertarian. But now it's freedom for me, not for thee(especially brown people). Owen is a massive tool as well.
This makes sense to me. "He'll never make it so he'll be the perfect candidate for my forever war." But then Trump won, and Alex actually had access to the White House (and could lie about having even more access knowing that he was working with a fellow liar) and that's a high he could never match if he opposed MAGA.
Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson is a beautiful example of someone on a similar wavelength to Alex trying to play the same game with a world leader who isn't in tune with the exact game the Republicans have been playing. Putin aims for a different hard-right justification of the war and sandbags Tucker whenever he tries to bring up American talking points that he doesn't understand.
I had a lot of friends go from vaguely Wicca environmentalist types to right wing Russian nationalists during COVID. shit’s wild especially since some of them are trans but they still happily parrot all the talking points about LGBT people being insane sexual predators
I remember I'd seen some of j p sears earlier videos and then went back to him later and it blew my mind how much of a 180 he'd taken. The covid times really did have such an incredibly dramatic effect on some people.
A few months before covid shit kicked off I broke up with a gf, she too went from never talking about them to full on tin foil hat conspiriloon
Straight up I grew up in the Austin area and Alex was well liked by mostly leftist anti-government guys I grew up around. Trump winning truly broke something in the collective unconscious because almost every single one of them became neocon crazies almost immediately.
Vaccine skepticism did it. People were ostracized for not vaxxing (for good reason) and ended up turning to conservative ideologies to cope with their isolation and cognitive dissonance.
All of these people were inherently selfish to begin with, hence the reluctance to get vaccinated, so the ideologies were an easy fit.
Most of the talking head types did it because money. The rich (see billionaire enemies and foreign country enemies) are pouring tons of money into right wing echo chambers. If you need money or if people with principles won’t listen to you anymore, the best option to keep your job is to move right.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~Upton Sinclair
I'm the opposite, I got more liberal the older I got. I'm special! /joke
But yeah, it was Trump and all the shit conservative people started doing in 2016 that pushed me way more left.
i used to think "How did German people become Nazi's and commit a genocide?" When Trump was elected I realized "O, they were always evil, just like the people who voted for Trump".
I know I have no way to prove it, but I really do believe that microplastics and PFAS/PFOA combined with social media has really messed up society. One is chemically making people irrational and irate, and the other is fueling it by giving everyone a voice and getting self-confirmation via echo chambers.
Dicky Barrett (Mighty Mighty Bosstones) got on the anti-vac train. There are a few songs on their last album that feel like he and the rest of the band were not on the same page, but they didn't know it yet
It's simple. Owning-the-libs content is easy to make, popular amongst idiots, and it's profitable because their targets are gullible, will believe nonsense, and are easily parted from their hard-earned money.
that may be the case but there are a lot of people that were on the left and shifted to the right explicitly when they started their grift after covid. a complete 180
it was like watching people who have been anti russia my whole life telling me that they are actually the good guys and we should be just like them.
i think thats the people this person is talking about
Probably has something to do with the fact the government lied about everything in terms of Covid. From its origins, lockdowns, deplatforming anyone who questioned anything, the efficacy of vaccines, etc…
MAGA was in office when COVID began. So you were lied to by MAGA, then flipped to MAGA? Make it make sense.
Either way, casting your vote for a sexual predator and 34-count felon is a deeply fucked up thing to do. There isn’t really anything that should flip you to vote for someone like that.
rapists and other losers flip to the right because they know that right wingers are stupid and will defend/give money to someone because they agree with them
Also the right wing tends to be extremely fucking horny for "born-again" stories, which is why douches like Steven Crowder, Dave Rubin, and Candace Owens all have the same "I used to be a libtard, now I have seen the light and am a christofascist" backstory.
It's worth pointing out that everyone who was involved in British left-wing activism in the 2010's, when he first started his shite revolutionary cosplay, thought he was a fraud and a prick. Few things turns a bunch of commies and anarchists against you like trying to bring the police into the fold by posting #lovethepolice all over the internet.
True and its also on brand for certain types of "progressives". You see this a lot in Los Angeles. People who are socially progressive but have money so they don't like taxes. And they are really into "alternative medicine". Homeopathy, all-natural, etc.
They just need a little nudge to turn full conspiracy nut trumpers.
In the Messiah Complex special he advocates for communism throughout the whole damn thing. It was one of my favorite stand-up specials ever and I am so fucking disappointed.
So he made a documentary to mock the Far-Right when he himself was a Left-Wing drug addict and was sexually assaulting and raping women? Not the own you think it is...
Thats not even the worst example: Saul of Tarsus literally was hired by Rome to go around and kill Christians, and then he had a conversion, became the Apostle Paul, and wrote 90% of the New Testament.
It was said about PT Barnum's local attraction but is usually attributed to him, kinda similar to that boxer not inviting that grill we associate with him.
Like I always say, grifting as a leftie is all cool, and no one will call you out on Reddit or social media, even if it's pretty obvious. Same with Elon, it was obvious that he was a grifter from the jump, but of course, the media back then was too busy sucking him off. All the "evidence" about him comes out the moment he shows his true colours. He was always a POS-grifting con man, but he "believed the right things" at the time, and our media swept all he did in the past under the rug. Regardless of your politics, we need honest media to burn grifters and con men. The dude mixed his personal finance with the finances of his startups, which was fraud at the bare minimum, but if you say "the right things," things like fraud barely matter but come out when you get off message. He never founded any of his big successes. This was public knowledge, but it only matters now when he is no longer on message.
It’s because of their inclination to see people as inherently good or bad and actions as things to be forgiven, instead of actions being good or bad and people as things to be forgiven. It’s a flawed worldview based on tribalism where as long as you’re “one of the good guys” (based on what team you’re on) then it shouldn’t really matter what you do.
They just conveniently leave out the part in James where it's noted that faith without works is dead, because deep down most of these people know the only thing that makes them "Christian" is saying a few special words.
For them, that's enough to satisfy the superiority complex.
That group of people are already fully willing to believe whatever they are told without evidence as long as they like the message. It's grifting on easy mode.
Dude, it's so funny how guys like Andrew Tate and Conor McGregor became the darlings of the right just because they rail against wokeness and diversity. To say nothing of Trump himself.
Well it's a handy angle, because you can simultaneously argue a) women are just out to destroy men, b) the media are just out to destroy truth-tellers and c) it doesn't matter because I'm forgiven for my sins, and a certain demographic will accept all of it at face value.
a) Join the proletariat, brother, it's all just big Nazi corporations trying to steal your attention and money (stealing attention and imprisoning people in their homes is only good when the government and Faucci do it) b) listen to the most troglodyte tyrant streamers like Vaush grifting you undergraduate level Marxism as if they are astrophysics professors while begging your for donations. c) Donate to the above streamers to these streamers as they pretend to "fight fascism" while their whole existence is entirely bullshitting 16-25 year old who didn't go to college while getting paid by big tech media companies. d)I'm the only human being in existence who can figure out that Ben Shapiro is a mid-wit.
e) Take that my Envagelical daddy for not loving me!
....bbbbbb its different when we do it! No it isn't, there are better leftists to listen to.
Well that would work. Nothing like the conspiracy theorists to bitch and moan about cabals of the 'pedophile elite' before immediately and unreservedly defending the pedophile elite at every opportunity. Well, I guess Brand is (presumably) only a regular rapist. But I don't see that as much difference in response.
He may be legally, but given one of the victims in the documentary was only 16 when he met her, I’d argue that’s still paedophilia. A 16 year old may be old enough to consent to sex with an adult but a 16 year old does not an adult make.
It's a camo for despicable people. Curiously it's always people like this that go on about virtue signalling, as if everyone is as spineless as them and just pretends because they want to profit.
And the effect is stronger when it comes to traits that we internalize as party of our identity (e.g. religion and politics). So much shitty behavior is rationalized by this and that's why it's important to check this effect, especially in socially detrimental situations such as "locker room talk", racist attitudes, etc. I saw a textbook example of that bias the other day while reading another thread wherein a commenter was adamant that every man of any age would take the opportunity to fuck an 18 year old unless they were gay.
Of course it's entirely possible that your correction also suffers from that same bias.
I know a dude like that. Started bragging about banging three new women in a week and was surprised when everyone's reaction was "gross dude" and not "hell yeah".
You’re right. She still could have had an original thought to come up with that on her own. I meant more that it’s just a principle that can apply to people for all sorts of stuff. Cheaters are always worried that their partner is cheating, for instance.
No, It wouldn’t because I don’t walk around lying all of the time or justify any behavior by assuming everyone else is doing it, too. Observing shitty behavior doesn’t mean I’m also actively doing the same shitty things.
I can’t stop laughing, he was 1. Trying to tell everyone that God is real and 2. He assumed defecting to “God” was going to shield him from rape charges… these “celebrities” are sometimes excellent entertainment!
My favorite part is the people/bots? Defending him on instagram saying how the charges are only being brought forward now because he’s converted to Jesus and conservative views🙄 Almost as if they’re correlated🤔
The funniest part is religion and their believers are so morally bankrupt that they let every one of these grifting grotesque abusers, with obviously no morality, and lives that are filled with sin and hatred, join them and become their mouth pieces on a global platform without even a hint of pushback.
Christian snake oil salesman. “Buy this necklace to block 5G signals.”
IF that actually worked, why is my dentist laying a heavy lead blanket on me instead of just telling me to wear this necklace with a stupid cube on it!?
They don't need any imagination. The right wingers of North America and Europe are some of the dumbest specimens to have ever exist with a large sum of cash backing their propaganda machines.
It takes no effort to permanently get on their good side so long as you forever tow the line that everyone they hate is literally communist/Jewish/Chinese/Illuminati Satan and deserves genocide. They'll throw themselves under a bus and demand it be rolled back over them 20 more times before they'd let you face anything even remotely considered a consequence for your actions.
It was apparently an open secret among comedians a lot longer than that. They cut jokes about him being a sex offender from the TV show Roast Battle in 2017. Notably after that show, his appearances on British TV became very sparse.
Apparently Brand quit the show because Kathrine Ryan started talking publicly about the complexities of working with a sexual abuser or denying herself a job opportunity, and was calling him a sexual preadator on set. Although the show did edit out those 'jokes'.
Unfortunately Brand was still rich, ruthless and litigious, so it was really hard for his victims to come forward. Maybe this means he's running out of money.
There's apparently a WhatsApp group for female comedians that discusses male comedians and men in the entertainment world who are potentially dangerous to work with. It's rumoured that group was initially set up because of Brand.
Yep. Could see him thinking…there’s an audience I haven’t bored yet and they’re very forgiving of rape and such. Plus dumb enough to believe my bad acting. Should be able to milk these rubes for years…Jesus willing.
It works though, my FIL eats this shit up. He has those dumb My Pillows that he ordered from Fox News commercials even. He's an attorney that went to Princeton... Or was, now I think he has the honors but none of the skills left, his brain is potato thanks to conservatism.
Point is, it's obvious to us because we can critically think and parse out the noise, these other idiots are one Hannity Report away from eating everything out of a spoon.
The whole "I found Jesus so it's all good now bro" defense is morally repugnant.
Yeah, good for you I guess, Mr. Brand... but what about the people you victimized? Is you "finding Jesus" enough for them to heal while you claim moral superiority" Fuck off.
Honestly, if there's a tried and true method that works 60% of the time every time, and if you don't have the shame stopping you from using that method, why wouldn't you use it? There's always some lowlife demographic that will feed on the rest of society's discarded garbage and it just happens to always be right-wingers.
I assumed it was the other way around; that he would never be credible as a born again “Christian” unless he gave his devotees a long line of sexual assaults to deny.
I know, it's Reddit. And yes, it's possible it's all a fake, but I've also known many people who became Christians because they realized there was something very wrong in their life, and they found Jesus to be sincerely helpful. It's possible it's not fake.
It's not necessarily grift, and it likely rarely is; these guys are true believers. When you have to face that you're a piece of shit, one of the only ways to live with yourself with any sense of peace is through religious renewal -- washing your sins away and putting your sense of destiny and karma in a higher being that will take care of everything.
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u/dcrico20 22h ago
That story broke a year or two ago and he immediately became a born again christian.
The grift and sleight of hand with these freaks is so obvious now that it’s frankly embarrassing what little imagination they have.