Multibillionaire X owner Elon Musk has undoubtedly become a destructive force in American politics, from his apparent “Nazi salute” at Donald Trump’s inauguration celebration to his labeling of the US Agency for International Development as a “criminal organisation” that needs “to die” and his devastationous austerity policies that he enthusiastically pursues as head of the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to his apparent “Nazi salute.
However, the United States does not restrict Musk’s narcissistic political ambitions. He has set his sights on regaining this success by assisting Trump and his far-right MAGA movement in gaining control of the US.
The South African’s “world tour” aimed at igniting far-right sentiments and putting radical, Musk-friendly figures in political positions in the UK.
For the past year, Musk has been vocal about the voices of the far-right in Britain, including Nigel Farage, co-founder of the English Defence League, and Tommy Robinson, the party’s leader. He once more tweeted “Free Tommy Robinson” in the beginning of January! and shared a link to the UK far-right leader’s controversial documentary titled Silenced.
In the documentary, reportedly , commissioned by US far-right radio host Alex Jones’s InfoWars, Robinson falsely claims that Syrian refugee schoolboy Jamal Hijazi had violently attacked English schoolgirls and threatened to stab a boy at school.
In response to a viral video of Hijazi being beaten at a school in Yorkshire, Robinson made the same claim a few years earlier in 2018. More than a million people watched his Facebook response video. Hijazi’s family faced death threats as a result.
Subsequently, Robinson – known to be funded by right-wing groups in the US – was smacked with a libel case from Hijazi, which he lost. He was ordered to pay Hijazi 100, 000 pounds ($125, 260) in damages, cover his legal costs to the tune of 500, 000 pounds ($626, 300) and was served with an injunction preventing him from publicly repeating his false claims about the Syrian schoolboy.
By making the documentary Silenced, in which he repeats his false claims about Hijazi, screening it for the public in London’s Trafalgar Square in July and widely sharing it online, Robinson violated the injunction. As a result, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in October.
Of course, none of this features in Musk’s rants about Robinson.
Instead, he uses Robinson and the Hijazi case to propagate a wider far-right racial myth, which is that women and girls in the West are threatened by mass immigration from other countries, and to try to influence domestic politics in the UK.
Musk is well aware that this trope has recently become popular in the UK.
After a Welshman of Rwandan descent stabbing and killing three girls at a dance class last summer, the UK was swept up in obscene anti-immigration demonstrations and riots. However, the real trigger for the violence was not the crime itself but the misinformation spread by far-right groups and activists, including Robinson, that the suspect was a 17-year-old asylum seeker named “Al-Shakati”.
The ten-year-old “grooming gang scandal,” which is related to the frequent abuse of white girls by predominantly British men of Pakistani descent in Rochdale, Rotherham, and Oldham, has also given Musk and the British far right the opportunity to push stereotypes about race and immigration.
Local authorities and security forces have been accused of trying to cover up the controversy since it first emerged, a cover-up effort to avoid being labeled racist and anti-Islam.
Despite “legitimate concerns” that the far right would profit from “the high-profile convictions of predominantly Pakistani offenders across the country, a 2022 report into safeguarding measures in the town at the heart of the scandal, it was ultimately determined that there was no cover-up.
The truth and all its nuances, however, do not concern Musk. He has continued to push the “cover-up” narrative because he felt it serves his purposes and alienates the general public.
Recently, he has claimed that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who led the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008 to 2013, had failed to effectively deal with these “grooming gangs”. Starmer served as Crown Prosecution’s head for six years, according to a tweet from him. Starmer must leave and be held accountable for his role in Britain’s worst mass crime ever. Jess Phillips, the parliamentary undersecretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, was described as a “rape genocide apologist.” Additionally, a number of posts on Mushroom published requests for King Charles III to oust the UK Parliament and impose new elections.
Although Musk’s tweets and blatant support for figures like Robinson may not cause immediate change in the UK, he is undoubtedly setting the stage for the country’s far-right’s rise politically and economically.
As part of his global campaign against far-right agitation and support, Musk has also traveled to Germany.
The tech mogul and DOGE leader has thrown his weight behind the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Musk praised the far-right party in an opinion piece that was published in the conservative newspaper Welt am Sonntag in late December, calling it the “last spark of hope” for Germany. He suggested that the party could keep Germans safe and preserve German culture because of its commitment to limiting immigration. He remarked that “a country must maintain its core values and cultural heritage in order to remain strong and united.”
On X, Musk and AfD leader Alice Weidel had a live conversation in the early part of January. On it he warned “only AfD can save Germany” from what he said was a migration-induced rise in crime and “wokeish liberal education system”, including “gender studies”, that supposedly plagues the country. For her part during the conversation, Weidel claimed Adolf Hitler was not a conservative or libertarian, rather, “he was this communist, socialist guy”. She also thanked Musk for the mainstream exposure, saying, “Elon, it’s a completely new situation for me that I can just have a normal conversation, and I’m not interrupted or negatively framed”.
In late January, Musk went on to address an AfD rally in Halle, Germany, via videolink. He once more remarked to the crowd of thousands that the far-right movement was “the best hope for the future of Germany.” He added that the German people were “an ancient nation which goes back thousands of years” and AfD supporters needed to “fight, fight, fight” for the country’s future. In seeming reference to the AfD’s neo-Nazi links, Musk also said Germany needs to “move beyond” feeling guilty for the Nazi crimes of the past and Germans must “be proud of German culture, German values”.
Musk is likely trying to get the AfD to win a victory in Germany’s February 23 elections by publicly supporting the party and giving its leader a platform to promote her extremist agenda without question.
Trump is attempting to advance the extreme right in a number of other nations.
He, for example,  , has struck up a close bond with the right-wing prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. They are both a fan of Lord of the Rings and xenophobic. He has described Meloni as “even more beautiful inside than she is outside.” Meloni has called Musk “a genius” who has been unfairly portrayed as “a monster”. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that Musk had a hand in facilitating Meloni’s growing relationship with Trump.
Musk has revealed his admiration for Argentine President Javier Milei in public beyond Europe. Milei’s “chainsaw” austerity measures were an inspiration for DOGE. Milei was also present at Trump’s inauguration.
In September, Musk met with El Salvador’s “cool dictator” Nayib Bukele, who has made global news for his highly controversial “mano dura”, or “iron fist”, policies against gang violence and his mega-prisons. According to reports, the Trump administration is considering putting its criminals, including those who are citizens of the United States and who are legal residents, in Bukele’s lockups. By storing convicted US criminals in his mega-prisons in exchange for “exchange for a fee,” Bucele has stated he is willing to “outsource part of] the US prison system.” He added: “The fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable”.
In addition, Musk’s far-right influence has taken on a whole new meaning and has begun to appear in countries he hasn’t yet spoken to or visited.
He, for example, has said very little if anything at all about Polish politics. However, a recent poll found that nearly 45 percent of Poles would support a candidate that the billionaire has supported.
It is, of course, early days in Musk’s attempted global far-right revolution. Some of his moves may succeed, but others may not have the desired political impact. However, it is still a concern that Musk has been able to meddle as much as he can in various international political systems. One can only hope that Musk’s global actions will soon receive a concerted backlash.
Source: Aljazeera
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