Welcome to the first 2021 edition of Side View, a curated guide to new and overlooked content on politics, policy, and public affairs. This week: the price of free speech, baby-eating robot hosts a cable TV news broadcast, and the history of Bellingcat.
FIGHT THE RIGHT
The threat of right-wing terrorism in the US — already apparent to front-line officials — is increasingly being recognised at high levels of the US government in the wake of Trump’s removal. Paging Peter Dutton: the effort to coordinate the fight against right-wing terrorism internationally was stymied because the Trump administration refused to call right-wing terrorism right-wing terrorism. Plus ASPI’s Fergus Ryan on why Russia and China — two regimes who normally love censorship — are happy to help keep the far-right online.
Meanwhile Republicans are abandoning their party in the wake of January 6 (it only took a coup attempt, not four years of Trump). An ex-QAnon believer explains (and apologises) to Anderson Cooper for believing he was a baby-eating robot (I can’t believe, even in 2021, that I just typed that). And the much-beloved (by the Right) CPAC conference threatens to sue journalists for merely asking questions.
MEMORIES AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
Ideological myopia or, remembering the late Robert Fisk. Whether you liked Gillian Anderson’s portrayal or not, Thatcher was more complicated than we remember. For those with especially long memories: Hail, Caesar — Augustus and the grimmer truth of the transition to empire. And hail seizure (sorry) — Why pellet ice is wonderful.
