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Finding the EDL rally in London heartbreaking. 150,000 people - and many more online - who clearly care deeply about their country and want to do what they see as the right thing. Having their illiteracies exploited by shameless grifters promising simple solutions to complex problems. It's tragic

For transparency, I should say that this wasn't my first reaction to this rally. My first reaction was one of anger. Especially at comments online like "this is the safest London has been in years" and "the government are lying to you, there's clearly 8x that number there".

It's the same with climate skeptics. The people posting illiterate comments online are not the people that you should be angry at. The people you should be angry at are those manipulating illiterate people into acting this way, and of course the people paying them to do that.

Getting angry at these people is like getting angry at your Sim. It's not their fault that they have collapsed in a puddle of tears instead of making dinner. You have to look at the factors that led them to do that. And fix them.

Honestly the overlap between climate skeptics, far-right movements, anti-vaxx beliefs, anti-intellectualism, and fans of authoritarianism is staggering. It’s also a development that has really only happened in the last decade or so - the merging of these ideologies. 1/n

My spouse and I had the misfortune of having weekly “Freedom” protestors outside our apartment for 2 1/2 years (we moved) and the firehouse of conspiracy and bigotry was mind boggling. I’m a “very online” person but they were shouting about meme conspiracies a week or two before I’d even see 2/n