Comment (1)

• Klein's book is magnificent. It helped us understand how Australia's Coalition wrecked the Voice Referendum by importing strategies (if not actual strategists!) from Steve Bannon's alt-right and Donald Trump's MAGA cult, via the Murdoch media and cyber trolling. A lot of our fellow progressives have been wondering how so many 'alternative' people in our circles went over to the far right during the pandemic. Klein explains this as 'diagonalism', a horseshoe shape in which the extreme ends nearly meet. She also unpacks how influencers of the wellness movement became top spreaders of misinformation. She does so with compassion, but does not let them off the hook. On the one hand, they were hit hard by the pandemic, as many ran small hands-on businesses, from gyms to healing circles or massage. On the other, they were disaster profiteers, whose herbal remedies filled a vacuum while science was still testing vaccines. Hence 'wellness warfare'. She concedes that widespread concerns about Big Pharma or Big Tech are legitimate, albeit misapplied. Yet she also delves deeper, tracing the Nazi roots of body-purity and a tendency to discard, even punish, the 'unfit'. So much more to say but I'll finish with one more point, an urgent one: we progressives need to be kinder, more welcoming, more ready to live with contradictions. The people who don't fit all our ideological ideals are the ones flocking to the Mirror World: a dangerous place where populism is taking democracy apart. Thanks for your wonderful review. Best wishes from Louisa John-Krol
  Posted by Louise Krol

  17 January 2024