Pemberton Says Cornell Case Campaign Reveals Right-Wing ‘Desperation’
Key Takeaways
- •Journalist Nathan Taylor Pemberton argued in a New York Times opinion article that the right-wing online campaign against Jane Doe reflects desperation and depleted ideas rather than genuine momentum.
- •Right-wing commentators have labeled Doe's gang rape allegations against seven Cornell men a hoax and instead cast her as the true aggressor in the case.
- •The campaign against Doe has included doxing her identity and address as well as a swatting incident that sent law enforcement officers to her family's home.
- •Pemberton likened the tactics to Gamergate, the 2014 anonymous harassment campaign against women in the gaming industry that he called a formative origin point for the alt-right.
- •He questioned the campaign's timing, arguing it diverts energy from midterm elections that could diminish President Trump's political power and may alienate prospective voters.
The online right has regained momentum through a new smear campaign targeting Jane Doe, the accuser in the Cornell 7 sexual assault case, but the effort reflects what writer and journalist Nathan Taylor Pemberton described as “desperation” and ideological exhaustion.
Pemberton, who has extensively researched modern right-wing, far-right and alt-right movements, made the assessment in a Monday opinion article for The New York Times, his former employer: He wrote that the movement had been left disappointed and demoralized by President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, but had recently found a new source of unity as right-wing figures mobilized against Doe.
“The online right has that old spring to its step,” Pemberton wrote. “The infighting brought on by Donald Trump’s chaotic second-term agenda has settled down and the anonymous accounts have been posting at a furious clip. What is the source of this newfound unity? The accusations brought by Jane Doe against seven men at Cornell have given the online right what it’s been missing most: a woman to hate on. The social-media celebrities and talking heads of the right have jumped at the chance to pick apart Doe’s allegations of a gang rape — labeling it a 'hoax' and a 'witch hunt.' Unable to dispute the basic narrative of the assault, including a lurid fraternity group chat, they’ve elected to argue that Doe is the actual aggressor, a once-willing participant in sexual debauchery now seeking vengeance against her hapless partners.”
The campaign has included attempts to “dox” Doe by exposing her real name and address, along with the distribution of photos and videos purportedly taken from her social-media accounts. It culminated in a “swatting” incident that sent law enforcement officers to her family’s home. Both tactics are staples of coordinated online harassment: doxing refers to the publication of a person’s private identifying information to invite abuse, while swatting involves placing a false emergency report designed to send armed police to a target’s address. Related coverage has also appeared in Alternet: https://www.alternet.org/megyn-kelly-cornell-maga/.
Pemberton said the tactics echoed Gamergate, the 2014 online campaign against women working in the gaming industry. He described the movement as a largely anonymous digital attack intended to damage the women’s reputations and drive them out of their professions.
“The onslaught against Doe and her supporters is taken directly from the playbook that established them: Gamergate,” Pemberton wrote. “In 2014, a mostly anonymous digital horde waged a full-scale assault on women working in the gaming industry in an effort to damage their reputations and drive them from their professions. They harassed and doxxed their victims and fabricated and disseminated conspiratorial rumors about them, all at a critical moment when the online world was first starting to function like the social media-dominated internet we know today. Gamergate is a formative origin point for the alt-right, whose members and ideas have been absorbed into what is now called the new right.”
He argued that the return to those formative tactics showed how limited the movement’s current ideas had become. Pemberton also questioned the timing of the campaign, given the prospect of a midterm election that could weaken Trump’s presidency.
“As a political tactic, resorting to a decade-old strategy of harassment should be evidence that the right’s bag of tricks is painfully meager,” he explained. “It’s also a bit baffling. In the face of a midterm election that could knock Mr. Trump’s presidency down into a posture of feeble lameness, the right’s online surrogates are instead burning crucial bandwidth on a grotesque persecution of a sympathetic woman — all while pushing a scolding grievance message about sexual values that is more likely to scare away new voters than bring them into the tent.” Midterm elections, held at the halfway point of a presidential term, can reshape the balance of power in Congress and, with it, an administration’s ability to advance its agenda.
Additional background on Gamergate is available from The New York Times:
