I try to limit my posts on politics to the times when I have something to say that others aren’t saying. The commentary in the mainstream media on Saturday’s events in Charlottesville has mostly been very good.
But I do want to point out here how a propaganda stunt by an ugly minority has backfired on its organizers, even though their web sites are claiming that it was a great success and just a beginning. They were greatly outnumbered. Some of those who were photographed with torches were embarrassed to be seen there, faces contorted with hatred. They tried to backpedal after their photos went viral in social media. If you read some of the comments in social media this weekend, then you know that this right-wing extremism, hatred, and gullibility extend far beyond the losers who carried torches in Charlottesville on Saturday. As long as the Republican Party stokes, or tolerates, this rage in its base, more white terrorism is inevitable.
The theatrics of their propaganda intentionally evoke the Nazis. I’m not sure how they think it will help them, unless they suppose that it makes them look powerful and that it evokes fear. Their most conspicuous web site, I believe, is the Daily Stormer, if you can stomach it. It appears to have been hacked by Anonymous during the weekend. Clearly they see Trump as their Hitler. I do, too.
Why is this happening?
All trails lead to the Republican Party, to the Republican media including Fox News, to professional provocateurs for the Republican Party including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and to Donald Trump and the White House.
It is not enough to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis. It is the Republican Party that brought us this.
Update:
The backfire has kept growing such that, two days later, Trump was finally compelled to condemn the Nazis: Trump denounces KKK, neo-Nazis as Justice Department launches civil rights probe into Charlottesville death
Republican politicians start coming around, though Mitch McConnell is still being a coward: ‘Vile bigotry’: Politicians respond to violent protests in Charlottesville
My heart is just sad…thank you for your insight,
Trump came out with an “alt-left” category to accept some of the blame. I suppose he doesn’t know that the real alt-right was created to accept socially-liberal conservatives as opposition to the traditional, socially-regressive version of the GOP. But that alt-right has been co-opted by far-right racists, “race-realists”, and other Republican bastards that promote hate and separatism as policy as opposed to limited government. In truth, the alt-right I described as “socially-liberal” either was a guise or it didn’t have much footing.
Trump seems to still have some pretty good propagandists working for him, since “alt-left” has a nice false-equivalence ring to it. Except of course that the alt-left didn’t kill anybody.
Now I want an alt-left T-shirt.
I’m just now reading that The Daily Stormer has lost it’s Russian hosting.
Even Russia?? Incredible.