Funny how the guy raised in a wealthy family in an apartheid country turns out to be racist. Almost as if his views were shaped by the fear that their wealth would be targeted in a country which does not discriminate based on ethnicity.
If anything, the far right is treated with kid gloves. They organise, not just protests, but outright riots and pillaging, in service of their ideology, and everybody ends up tiptoeing around the word used to describe violence for a political cause: terrorism. And for once it would not be the bullshit, hyperbolic use of the term. They want to force a change in policy through violence.
Finally, social media has not just played a big role in these riots. It has accelerated the decay of Western democracies. Granted, they were in bad shape. The ambient complacency and mediocrity of politicians in the last 50 years, with a very few rare exceptions, has already largely degraded the functioning of Western States.
Citizens are ready to vote for just about anybody, as long as they promise a change. This is notably why an at-the-time largely unknown Obama managed to jump over a political heavyweight like Hillary Clinton. He promised change. Now, the disappointment was that the change he presided over was far from what he promised, but this stemmed from another current ill of democracies : the fear to upset large corporations and the economic power they wield, coupled with the general lack of clear economic vision for public intervention in the economy.
In the end, social media allows the drunk and bitter weirdo, who was spouting nonsense at the local bar, to reach a worldwide audience, while hiding just how much of a dick they are. Coupled with the lifting of inhibitions due to general anonymity and the general ignorance of how States actually work, has made social media a perfect storm of social deconstruction and promotion of hatred, expressed in any form.
I am not quite sure democracies will survive this, all the more so, because non-far-right politicians usually run on a simple message of “far-right bad”, which, while true, does nothing to alleviate the circumstances which make it enticing to citizens.
