When speaking to Tommy Robinson at the far right demonstration in London today, Elon Musk wore a t-shirt saying "What would Orwell think?" So let's dive in - what would George Orwell think about Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk? 🧵
George Orwell went to Spain to fight fascism. Literally. Not to take holidays, but to stand against the likes of Robinson and Musk. Orwell saw in Spain how fascist "leaders" turned resentment into organised cruelty. That is why he bled in the trenches there.
When Musk invokes Orwell at a far-right march, it’s more than ironic; it’s Orwellian: twisting language and truth so that oppression sounds like freedom and hate sounds like duty. To give Musk credit, he must know this.
Orwell went to Spain because he was an internationalist. He believed fascism was a danger to all humanity and that solidarity must cross borders. No "Britain first" for him. He sought to expose propaganda and lies wherever they came from, whether from fascists or Stalinists.
Orwell hated the theatre of moral absolutes that let people excuse cruelty as duty. “They are only doing their duty” was his warning about bureaucratised violence of the kind being carried about by ICE in the USA and often cheered on by Musk.
Orwell despised grandstanding that masked real power. He hoped to see “a world in which no one is rich, and no one is poor.” Whereas Musk aspires to be the first trillionaire.
In 1941, Orwell warned that Britain could not be both democratic and have extreme inequality - war and fascism would exploit those contradictions. Still true in 2025.
Orwell said extreme wealth is dehumanising both for those who have it (isolating them, breeding cruelty, corrupting moral vision) and for those forced to serve it. Socialism is needed not only to lift up the poor, but to liberate the wealthy from the moral prison of their own riches.
In "Keep the Aspidistra Flying", Orwell shows how obsession with money poisons relationships and drives people to cruelty. Wealth, or the pursuit of it, produces hierarchy, contempt and shallow values. Elon should probably read this one.
Orwell was literally a peniless immigrant in France. It's all there in "Down and Out in Paris and London". It taught him empathy for the poor, who he wrote about as human beings. This is the antidote to the xenophobia that was being pedalled in London today.
Orwell loved English working-class culture, literature, and humour - but not Britain’s ruling class, nor its empire. He saw English patriotism as a way of glossing over empire, inequality and decline.
He called for a “revolutionary patriotism” that would reject empire and class privilege while preserving genuine affection for ordinary English life. This is the opposite of Reform and their billionaire backers. Orwell would also remind us: don’t let outrage be your only politics. Go to hospitals, foodbanks, union meetings, refugee hostels. Real solidarity is built in the ordinary places where people live and struggle. Defend the small decencies that make life liveable.
Tactical note: treat incendiary rhetoric from billionaires and provocateurs as political acts, not credible claims. Counter their story by exposing the interests behind it and the people who pay the cost. Who's funding Tommy Robinson and why? Orwell insisted on two things - truth and the dignity of ordinary life. So when Musk labels a whole movement “the party of death”, call it what it is: incitement, lies, propaganda. And it's Orwellian as almost all the USA's political murders are commited by right-wingers.
If you liked that thread, check this one which we felt deserved to reach more people. And give us a follow. bsky.app
“First they came for the communists...” This is the incredible story of the German pastor who wrote those famous lines, and his journey from Hitler fanboy to his opponent and victim.🧵
What would Karl Popper tell us about those who marched on Saturday? bsky.app
Karl Popper was the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Jewish by birth, he fled the N*zis in 1937. What does his Paradox of Tolerance tell us about "Tommy Robinson" and those who marched with him in London on Saturday? 🧵