Liam Gillespie

New blog post with @identitiesjournal.bsky.social on my recent article:

Thank you! :)

We then critique the widespread idea CTs are spreading bc we now live in a ‘post-truth’ era. We argue the ‘post-’ of post-truth severs the past from the present by portraying CTs as a ‘new’ problem, effectively masking the historical continuities of racism that have enabled CTs to take hold.

We argue that framing racist CTs as the 'irrational' obsession of extreme actors discursively portrays them as being incompatible with liberal society. This obscures both the role of paranoia in liberal society AND its racialised structure. We critique this as a postracial manoeuvre.

Race still matters: the (post) racial politics of conspiracy theories - Contemporary Political Theory The proliferation of conspiracy theories is seemingly on the rise. Among them, are many that are explicitly racist. Examples of this include Great Replacement Theory, White Genocide, QAnon, and Eurabi...

New article out with Sahar Ghumkhor and Sean McMorrow! Here, we offer a critique of dominant approaches to understanding the spread of racist conspiracy theories.

Open access: doi.org/10.1057/s412...

Elon Musk reposting Trump and saying: Free Le Pen! Donald J. Trump @realDonald Trump The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison. It is the same "playbook" that was used against me by a group of Lunatics and Losers, like Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, and Lisa Monaco. They spent the last nine years thinking of nothing else, and they FAILED, because the People of the United States realized that they were only Corrupt Lawyers and Politicians. I don't know Marine Le Pen, but do appreciate how hard she worked for so many years. She suffered losses, but kept on going, and now, just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about - Sounds like a "bookkeeping" error to me. It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!

With reactionaries, as always, hypocrisy is always the point

They can literally disappear people for a tattoo or expressing an opinion and call it justice but stealing millions from the public purse is an "bookkeeping error" and the sentence a "witch hunt"

Et voilà: our NEH grant with Harriet Murav for “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union” has been terminated. This project does not, the letter notes, support “the furtherance of the President’s agenda.” I guess work on Jews surviving genocide is out of step with the agenda of this presidential administration whose only use for Jews is the weaponization of Jewish safety to destroy higher education.

My @nehgov.bsky.social grant “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union” was canceled by “DOGE.” The project doesn’t support "the furtherance of the President's agenda.” Jews surviving genocide: out of step w/ the agenda of using Jews to destroy higher ed.

Interview: ‘Gender critical’ feminism as biopolitical project (Fran Amery) - Reactionary Politics Research Network This interview is based on Fran Amery's article '‘Gender critical’ feminism as biopolitical project' (2025)

I did an interview with @reacpolrn.bsky.social about my article on 'gender critical' biopolitics:
reacpol.net/gendercritic...

Abstract here:

‘Sovereign Citizen Gets Roasted’: On the Nomophilia of Sovereign Citizens and Their Settler-Colonial Critics - Liam Gillespie, 2025 Sovereign Citizens have gained mainstream attention by refusing to recognise law. This attention often entails ridicule, as illustrated by viral Sovereign Citiz...

New article day! My latest piece on the nomophilia of Sovereign Citizens and their critics. Open access: doi.org/10.1177/0964...

📢New Blog 📢

Our member, @odiloncaldeira.com, discusses the rapid development of neofascism in Brazil and the future of Bolsonarism.

reacpol.net/brazil-neofa...

Interview: Far-Right Women’s Appropriation of Feminism in France (Charlène Calderaro) - Reactionary Politics Research Network This interview is based on Charlène Calderaro's article 'Far-Right Women’s Appropriation of Feminism in France' (2025)

📣New blog📣

Our member, @calderarocha.bsky.social, discusses her recent article on the appropriation of feminism by a far-right women's collective of 'identitarian feminists.' Check it out below!

reacpol.net/farright-fem...

Opinion | Universities Gave Us the iPhone, the Jet Engine and Gatorade. We’re Tossing That Away. (Gift Article) The postwar compact on research that powered America’s economic and military dominance is under threat.

This is about Columbia bowing to authoritarianism but hello hasn’t this degradation also been a slow burn? The long kowtowing of universities to political and market demands. The “event” of capitulation happens because the groundwork is there

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/o...

ICYMI check out our timely interview with @emmyeklundh.bsky.social and Sebastián Ronderos about their paper on the role of affect and fantasy in political identification. A must-read for anyone working on reactionary politics!

Amazing work all can't wait to read!

Webinar 6: The haunting past: memory and far right studies (20/03/2025) - Reactionary Politics Research Network This webinar series, co-organized by RPRN, CASEI and C-REX, aims to initiate and facilitate a much needed discussion about the methodological, ethical, political, personal, practical and professional ...

📢Webinar announcement📢

Our ethics of researching the far right webinar with
@crexuio.bsky.social and CASEI returns on Thursday 20th March with a session on memory and far right studies. Check out the full details and our line up of great speakers below!

reacpol.net/webinar-6/

Online Hate: From the Far-Right to the ‘Alt-Right’ and from the Margins to the Mainstream by Aaron Winter (2019)

Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream (2020) by Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter

I see experts warning & writing about the mainstreaming of the far right. It's already happened & should not have taken a nazi salute & overt fascism to see it. If you think counterextremism or liberal centrism are solutions, you have not really been paying attention. Better late than never though.

The Mexican Repatriation was the repatriation, deportation, and expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many were repatriated, deported, or expelled range from 300,000 to 2 million (of which 40-60% were citizens of the United States, overwhelmingly children) [4):fn 2015]

For those who doubt that the US would ever deport US citizens.

Excited to see this out! I spoke with @reacpolrn.bsky.social about my recent article on the mainstreaming of the far right:

I do appreciate the call to sign our solidarity into actions pushing to save ‘science in the US’. The call issued by the academic community in France is ‘endearing’ given that the scholasticide in Palestine ongoing for over a year & more hasn’t sufficed to strike a chord in our hearts.

i hope academics understand very clearly that columbia didn't lose their funding because of protesters against genocide. if they honestly think that, then they're going to get gutted by fascists who played them like the fucking fools they apparently are.

Blog: Elon Musk, Nazi salutes and the reactionary redefinition of fascism (Aaron Winter) - Reactionary Politics Research Network Blog post by Aaron Winter on Elon Musk, Nazi salutes and the reactionary redefinition of fascism

📣New Blog📣

Our member @aaronwinter.bsky.social discusses Elon Musk's Nazi salutes and how reactionaries have sought to redefine fascism for their own ends. Check it out below!

reacpol.net/musk-fascism/

The liberals now starting to realise it was never really a bulwark, American democracy was founded on and reinforces racism, and the far right is part of that system ... Better late than never. It'll be forgotten by next election (midterms).

DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA Announce Initial Cancellation of Grants and Contracts to Columbia University Worth $400 Million

Columbia University thought there wouldn’t be any material consequences as long as it appeased those in power.

Thank you!

Important argument on how the frame of "mainstreaming" risks creating an illusion that all the things the far right stands for in terms of social inequality and violence are ontologically distinct or even alien to liberal democracies... They are not.

'On the proximity of the far right and the misuses of the ‘mainstreaming’ metaphor' by @liamgillespie.bsky.social

New from #Identities, with #OpenAccess:
doi.org/10.1080/1070...

@nasarmeer.bsky.social @aaronwinter.bsky.social @tandfresearch.bsky.social

Banning the Nazi salute is one thing, let’s talk about the consequences Neo-Nazis feed on fear and controversy, and their response to new Australian laws banning their symbols is hard to predict, says a University of Melbourne exper

It's a follow-up to this piece I wrote when the laws first came out: pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/ban...

We need more than a ban on Nazi salutes to fight racism While addressing racist gestures is important, criminalisation is not the only answer. We must meaningfully deal with the underlying social, political and cultural conditions that enable their use, ex...

Article from me on the criminalisation of racist symbols/gestures. In short, criminalisation is problematic and plays into the hands of groups like the NSN...

pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/we-...