Consider this a continuation of the diary I started a few days ago, when events were unfolding in Charlottesville. I have noticed several of us have been paying attention to the aftermath, and there have been some cogent comments. Let’s hope to continue that.
Again, my intention right at the moment is not to offer an extensive analysis but just to keep up with events as they unfold.
Some things that I hope we can agree on as a starting point:
- The broad coalition of folks who put themselves on the line in Charlottesville this past weekend deserves our respect. So too do those who have attended vigils and demonstrations in solidarity of our counterparts in Charlottesville.
- The folks who are putting themselves on the line are not props to be used to air personal grievances. Right now, none of that stuff matters. What matters is the issue at hand.
Okay. A few things of note over the course of the last 24 hours:
- tRump’s Tuesday press conference can only be summarized by one word: clusterf*ck. He doubled down on the false equivalence of neo-Nazis and what he dubbed “alt-left”. He referred to said neo-Nazis as good people. Plenty of neo-Nazis saw it for what it was: encouragement. Donnie: your David Dukes are showing. Even the NY Post pundits get it.
- In addition Donnie deleting a retweet of an image seen as advocating violence against journalists, there are right-wing sites (FauxNews and Daily Caller, specifically) scrubbing their sites of posts encouraging their visitors to drive through protests. These are sites usually considered part of the “mainstream” as it were of the conservative movement, and they advocated ISIS-style acts of terrorism. That isn’t sitting well with me, to say the least. Shouldn’t sit well with any of us.
- The White House Occupant has no intention to visit Charlottesville: “Why the hell would we do that?”
- At a point in our history where efforts to deradicalize white supremacists are urgently needed, WH aide Katherine Gorka (wife of white nationalist Sebastian Gorka – also a tRump insider) worked to end funding for those efforts.
- tRump’s Manufacturing Council is hemorrhaging members, as CEOs of companies and organizations many of us would usually find ethically challenged have finally had enough in the wake of 45’s more than tacit support of the Unite the Right rally goers. It is almost unheard of for me to give acknowledgement to a big pharma CEO for doing the minimal in the name of human decency. But we live in strange times. Of course there are tons of folks still left on that council. When will they resign? Some pressure needs to be put on them, pronto. When dealing with fascism, those with the most power need to stand up and be counted, rather than silently bicker. A few have stood up. The rest? We’ll see.
There’s probably a lot I am missing. Have at it. One thing: let’s go after the bad folks, not each other.
Onward.
Four cowboys sang me this song in excellent harmony tonight while I was eating dinner.
Got the message but I’m not seeing this valley right now.
I am reminded of that climactic scene in The Big Lebowski where Walter, Donny, and The Dude faced off against the nihilists. Walter’s words are useful: “These men are cowards. There’s nothing to be afraid of…”
We know how it turned out for the nihilists. We’ll eventually be okay. It may get a bit uglier until then. But we’ll persevere. There aren’t any good alternatives.
Donnie has a heart attack and dies in that scene.
I think the more appropriate quote here comes from the Big Lebowski himself:
“NOTHING IS FUCKED?! THE GODDAMN PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE MOUNTAIN!”
Jeffrey’s response seems related to the current circumstance as well:
I… the royal we, you know, the editorial… I dropped off the money, exactly as per… Look, man I’ve got certain information alright? Certain things have come to light, and uh, ya know, has it ever occurred to you, that uh, instead of uh, you know running around, uh uh, blaming me, given the nature of all this new shit, you know it, it it, this could be a uh, a lot more uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean it’s not just, it might not be, just such a simple, uh… you know?
Getting a bit late, but I am tempted to find my DVD now.
I get it. Certainly seems that way.
Another friendly Walter reminder, which seems appropriate in approaching the so-called “alt-right”: “This is not a worthy fuckin’ adversary.”
So many ins and outs and what have yous.
Thanks Don.
>>He doubled down on the false equivalence of neo-Nazis and what he dubbed “alt-left”.
I’m really hoping that one positive outcome of this will be to kill that awful insult “alt-left”, which Trump did not create and which had become very popular among centrists like Markos Moulitsas wanting to smear anyone left of them. There is no group anywhere on the left to compare with the neo-Nazis and Klan who we saw in Charlottesville.
If we can get away from a lot of needless slagging of one another, that will be a positive. There are a number of pejoratives that need to be swept into the dustbin of history – alt-left, neoliberal, etc. There was no room for all the needless divisiveness back when tRump was emerging as a front-runner in the GOP primaries and as the GOP nominee, and even less room now (if that is possible). The threat was blindingly obvious then, and even more so now. Hell, if tRump didn’t appear decked out for David Dukes ‘n Boots Night at the local saloon, he sure is now. We need solidarity going forward. Onward.
The only remotely comparable leftist groups (and I will avoid using the word alt-left to describe them) are the Maoists and their like, and they are only in a few 3rd world countries today. They dont exist in the US, though we had a few minor leftist criminal groups such as the SLA in the 70s.
That’s about right. The only self-proclaimed Maoists in the US these days are probably Tumblr tankies.
“The function of the term “alt-left” is to collapse the distinction between the activist left and the racist right. That’s why reactionaries like Sean Hannity use it. That’s why Donald Trump has taken it up. We are likely to hear a lot more about the alt-left in the coming months and years–and if liberals continue to use it, they will be doing the right-wing’s work.”
https:/newrepublic.com/article/144361/liberals-helped-create-trumps-new-bogeyman-alt-left
The New Republic.
The alt-left was invented by people like Neera Tanden to link the Sanders supporters with racists. Consider this from Markos, who is supposed to be a “progressive”
Markos Moulitsas ✔ @markos
And many on the Left WANTED this. https:
/twitter.com/danpfeiffer/status/896395272976072705 …
6:03 PM – Aug 12, 2017
94 94 Replies 54 54 Retweets 229 229 like
The forces of division post election are coming from moderates in the party who want to hold on to power, and it is VERY noticed among the Sanders people.
I will say again what I first said in Philadelphia last year: The Democratic Party is on the verge of tearing itself apart.
The past few days have more fully revealed that Tanden, Moulitsas (and his sidekick Armando) and a few others aren’t independent operatives. They are following orders to push the “alt-left” garbage at any and all opportunities. They have less decency than a mushmellow like Mitt Romney who managed to find all the right words and no more or less:
Today even the NYTimes felt it necessary to weigh in on this:
Trump made use of “alt-left” in an effort to hold onto his non-alt-right GOP base. Centrists Democrats are using it in an effort to hold onto the currently wobbly FDR Democrats. Not effective for Trump because he can’t make use of it without also being squishy on the KKK and Nazis. Not effective for Democrats because it’s code for their intended target, Bernie Sanders who continues to enjoy net approval ratings that put national Democratic politicians to shame.
“The past few days have more fully revealed that Tanden, Moulitsas (and his sidekick Armando) and a few others aren’t independent operatives.”
Absolutely zero evidence provided to back this assertion. That’s nice and responsible.
The “alt-left” term is small potatoes. It’s not a real problem, as you willingly admit when you describe it as an ineffective way to marginalize people who are further to the left of the Party. Slinging around “neoliberal” and other signaling terms are similarly ineffective in marginalizing more moderate people in the Party.
The President is attempting to help the KKK and Nazi Party organize and wield more political power. Perhaps Trump and his people would be more important to propagandize against right now.
Can you not ever see any issue in its full and less simplified version as other than Democrats good and Republicans bad? (Not that Republicans aren’t bad, but that is rarely the full story and limiting it to limits the effectiveness of the interpretation. Do you need another reminder of how many public offices at local, state and federal levels the Democrats have lost and Republicans have gained over the past eight years? Whatever it is that you and the DP think they are doing, the facts say it’s not working. Get rid of Trump — not that anyone to the left of Congressional rightwingers — would object, then you’ll have to deal with a President Pence and a) he won’t fall as easily as President Ford did and b) the DP will have nothing other than “we suck less” in their quiver.)
There is no “alt-left.” Nor does anyone to the left of center right Democrats self-identify as “alt-left.” There’s only left/progressive-lift/liberal-left and they are hardly “small potatoes.” That’s unlike neoliberals who did self-identify as neoliberals before exactly what neoliberal meant became more known to the general public. From early on, until it became too toxic, they hid as DLCers. Then “third wayers.” Nobody outside of their group concocted and imposed those labels on them. They self-identified as such and have also used labels such as “business and/or corporate friendly Democrats,” “moderates,” and “centrists.” Often throwing in “pragmastists” and economic globalists. They changed their self-descriptor word so often without changing anything else, that they could now call themselves tutti-fruitis and few would be deceived.
It’s never an insult to refer to a group by the word they have chosen for their self-identification. Even if they have replaced that word with another word that is equally or more descriptive or more suitable to those with-in the group. However, time and less frequent usage of the old word ends up making it sound archaic or not sufficiently polite to everyone. That’s not the case with neoliberal. If that group doesn’t like it, maybe they should stop being neoliberals.
OK. I got it. Propagandizing in a non-stop effort to drive division among those of us on the American Left is your #1 priority, even in a comments thread to a diary which discusses the President’s overt support for the white supremacist movement. He means both of us harm, yet you can’t put your peculiar pursuits aside for a hot second.
You have convinced me you care for this and little else. That’s about the only thing you’ve convinced me of in this post chock full of coded signifiers.
The hypocrisy and projection is amusing at least. We could go back and search the archives and find these same folks criticizing HRC (doing the right wing’s work she says) for calling out the “Alt-Right” publicly and the fact that much of his core supporters were deplorable.
But there’s really no point. The ankle-biters are always going to be with us.
The Democratic Party is a collection of tens of millions of individuals. The Democratic party is not an “it”.
No one in the Democratic Party is responsible for anything Donald Trump does and says. The alt-left term he used was one of the very least offensive things he said.
The term isn’t the problem, the declaration that people who are murdered and maimed are part of a political movement which deserves particular blame for their own murders and hospitalizations is the problem. Our President blames people across the broad left political spectrum for all the country’s ailments. He targets Hillary much more frequently and viciously than anyone else on the left.
Of course there are moderate Democrats who have problems engaging in good faith conversations with those further to the left. That’s a substantial problem. I think Markos’ tweet here was a poor exercise of his leadership. But he’s not in Democratic Party leadership anywhere that I’m aware of. He’s a leader in the liberal movement, one who many people respect and respond to. But we don’t lack for leaders; we’re divided among them to an unfortunate degree.
I’m uninterested in stoking divisions within the progressive movement or Democratic Party. But I can tell you from here in California that there are people from across the broad left political spectrum who are “…forces of division post election…”. It’s valuable for us to be honest here.
I want more people who are sincerely interested in pushing our Party to the left to become better at engaging in good faith persuasion conversations. Most are perfectly fine at this valuable skill; some who have increased their activism within and outside the Party have some work to do in this area.
Browbeating confrontations and unwillingness to engage in a civil discussion of agreed-upon facts and circumstances is a problem for this leftist. For example, some of the actions around the attempt to create a single payer healthcare system in California appear counterproductive to me. The personal animus against the Assembly Speaker is maximal from some people and organizations. That personal animus fails to be honest about the barriers in the way of the passage of a single payer system, the insufficient level of support from the California electorate being a primary barrier.
When the attempts to recall the Speaker fail, as they will, it’s possible that this method of pursuing the single payer goal will have been a damaging waste of time and resources. For example, those spending time in Southern California trying to take the Speaker out could be spending time defending a State Senator who is in danger of being recalled by well-funded Orange County right-wing reactionaries, a State Senator who is being targeted because he has been voting as a solidly liberal Democrat on behalf of his moderate Senate District.
These are worthwhile discussions to have. These discussions should be rational and respectful. It’s unwise for any individual or group to talk about the Democratic Party tearing apart unless the party cedes full leadership control to them immediately, not in the face of an openly fascistic political movement led by a nasty, mass media-dominant demagogue who actively wishes to hurt us all.
Just wanted to add my two cents and say amen! Bottom line: the quickest way to turn me off as a reader/listener is to yell, bully, or browbeat me. If the goal is to move me into the opposite of what one claims to be advocating, I suppose that works like a charm. At that point it’s more a matter of psychological reactivity (or some such thing at work). Very few folks like feeling coerced or manipulated. There are going to be disagreements within this broad coalition and there are ways of dealing with those points of contention. I’m pretty good at listening, including those with whom I disagree a lot, if they generally are pretty cool about it. Otherwise, life’s too short. Okay, that’s all the meta I can handle tonight. Bigger fish to fry.
In both factions. Kos with his alt-left tweet but also Nina Turner with her proclamation that there is something wrong with Democrats who don’t support “Medicare for All” as if single payer is the end goal rather than universal coverage. We saw this play out in the DNC chair race as well.
We are also seeing it with people denying the work that activists from all “factions” of the party are doing all in a bid to say but but “my people” are the true leaders of fight against Republicans and Trump while no one else is really doing anything.
The complete transcript of tRump’s press conference defending the Charlottesville rally
Honestly, I don’t pay much attention to FauxNews. Presumably Fox and Friends is still on tRump’s side. But these comments from Kat Timpf on one of the other shows Faux has on suggests that at least some on that network were having none of it – Linkage.
Vice had someone in the field to document what unfolded in Charlottesville. Not exactly happy and uplifting, but necessary viewing to know what we are dealing with.
I watched the whole piece; don’t need to see it again. The lead Nazi is enjoying being flamboyantly evil in front of the camera. He likes the attention he is getting from his hateful childishness.
I don’t blame you. Once is more than enough. The lead Nazi definitely seemed full of himself. Definitely enjoying his 15 minutes of fame. Was carrying around a ridiculous number of firearms. Some other videos floating around twitter featured a guy I can only characterize as the worst “Dude” impersonator ever – seemed to be a ringleader for much of the violence that happened Saturday afternoon.
Psychologists surveyed hundreds of alt-right supporters. The results are unsettling.
Much of this did not surprise me. Make of it what you will.
I think what’s most disturbing about those findings is that I expected to see them.
There was nothing particularly shocking to be found. Early in 2016, for example it was already obvious that there was a strong relationship between authoritarianism and support for Trump relative to other GOP candidates. Not surprised to see that authoritarianism is still part of the mix. Economic insecurity? Not so much. Imagine that.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with this. Yes, authorianism is linked with Trump support. But it is insecurity (economic and otherwise) that makes people want authoritarians. People around the world want food and security first, and only then do they want freedom (and to be honest, you can’t expect a starving man to care more about the bill of rights then his next dinner). Otherwise, you have to believe that Germans had a spontaneous outbreak of pro-authoritarian beliefs in the 1930s.
In the US we have the added factor of an easily identifiable demographic that people can blame for their insecurity, so the authoritarianism is against ‘those people’ rather than the insecure ones (or at least so they believe).
Incidentally, Fields flunked out of the military and was working as a security officer making $1300/month. He was raised by a single paraplegic mother. This is not atypical of the neo-Nazi membership (I’m not talking leaders).
People who cannot be shamed generally have some fundamental shame to which they have become armored.
People have failed to ask where exactly all those KKK and American Nazis of the 1930s went during subsequent decades and what were the stories of their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And who were the local friends of those descendants? For example, the Richmond IN region was a stronghold of the 1920-1940 KKK. Some of the German ancestry areas of the Midwest were home to pro-German sentiment (and pacificism or neutralism) during World War I and neutralism or pro-Nazi sentiment during the 1930s. During World War II, it was shamed underground, might have had a disguised breakout during the Joe McCarthy era and shamed underground again.
The Southern Resistance to Reconstruction never ended; there are still hardliners.
Whatever the alignment between the homegrown US white nationalist racists and American Nazis of the 1930s, it was interrupted by WWII. The former was centered and most overtly strongest in the south. Give the “Rebs” a war against a real or fake demon and they’re there. The latter were subsumed in the GOP.
It took a while for the nationalist racists to get there because it meant giving up their WWII glory and New Deal benefits. Ike was the GOP precursor — a symbol of WWII (so, that covered the war glory) and didn’t trample of the parts of the New Deal that nationalist racists approved of. Organized labor rights was one that the GOP could trample on. The economic incentive for that in the south wasn’t hidden. No or the weakest possible unionization in the south was how they attracted businesses to relocate.
That was process was complete by 1980.
Goodbye. Pepe: The End of the Alt-Right, by Angela Nagle, author of Kill All Normies. She seems to think that the alt-right as we know it essentially ended this past weekend – that what will morph from that will be something smaller in numbers but more militant. Make of this what you will.
She’s full of shit. We aint that f-in lucky for this to be over already.
Watch who reaches out to employ the folks fired for outing themselves as militant bigoted white nationalists. That will be instructive.
Watch for other monuments being taken down pre-emptively like the monument to “our boys in Gray” in Durham NC. There are people willing to draw a felony to get that job done.
As it was in the 1930s, it is a coalition of traditional (not Alt at all) left organization (including the Wobblies, for example) that have moved into this action.
A Democratic sheriff was put in the position of having to decide what the law was in this case. A straight-forward felony prosecution of one person was his decision.
Wonder when the folks in Marlboro County SC realize that the stone company sent them a Yankee soldier in the small angle-topped field cap instead of a Confederate in the broad-brimmed hat. The current moment might be a good one for them to dispose of it. What will the Sons of the Confederacy do when the fact of their monument becomes widely known? (I bet some Northern town has a renegade rebel statue shipped by mistake.)
Time once again to reread Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem and in particular her argument of the banality of evil in Nazi Germany. Milton Mayer makes the same discovery and argument in They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945. To put the US realities on it, it is helpful to read Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry. And to realize that the invention of the cotton gin spread the society and culture across the South and the Nat Turner rebellion at the moment that abolitionism was becoming militant (and national magazines were first subsidized by the US Post Office) put the country under the sort of of ideological siege current politics is recreating and that period took from 1830 to 1860 to go from rebellion to Republican victory to Secession to Civil War. The issue was stopping the extension of slavery; the existence of slavery only became in doubt with the Emancipation Proclamation, and it took Frederick Douglass and others many long hours to get that bit of persuasion done.
The issue, as it has been since it reappeared in 2014 is equal protection of black people and other minorities under the law from the extension of white rights into white privilege. It seems now that white privilege is always asserted with the threat of another civil war. Too bad the police are aligned with that position and tolerate white aggression. One hesitates to think of the police response had the Huey P. Newton Brigade of Black Open Carry had shown up in Charlottesville; those gentlemen and ladies in this case were tactically and strategically smart not to leave the Dallas area.
Trump is a sideshow. The real political battle is locally in dismantling the institutions of racism and the symbols and stories that hold it in being. That work is most needed in the unreconstructed South but it is also needed in the areas in which the Alt-Right coalition and its soft fringe in the Republican and Libertarian parties are using its thought for motivating voters in all states of the US. The Ohio River Midwest was well represented geographically in Charlottesville.
Change this reality in the local areas and Trump and his ilk are no longer acceptable candidates.
One good step: Baltimore takes down Confederate statues in middle of night
Indeed. An excellent move that more cities should emulate. Especially cities outside the Confederacy that were roped in on the “healing the nation” bullshit at the turn of the 20th century.
The very interesting fact is that the oldest large city park in Atlanta and once (currently?) home to its zoo is named Grant Park.
Anything named for Nathan Bedford-Forrest, PTG Beauregard, Wade Hampton or Ben Tillman must go anywhere. Students at Clemson University have been seeking a renaming of Tillman Hall (the “Old Main” administration building) for some time. Fraid the last to turn will be Bama and Ole Miss.
Lexington is also in their crosshairs – the assholes who created havoc in Charlottesville intend to hold a rally in Lexington, KY – no date set yet.
Trump’s Aides Tried to Conceal His Crazy, Racist Beliefs From the Country
This passage in particular is noteworthy:
Had MSNBC’s talkshows on as background noise while I was trying to work on some other things last night and noticed that this point was brought up at various junctures: Trump has been expressing a lot of what he was saying yesterday and worse in private. This is who he is. That’s the reality. The article goes on to ask why staffers would stay on with this racist buffoon. He has yet to get anything regarding infrastructure building off the ground, which would go a long way toward rebranding the GOP as a white worker’s party (in much the same way as the Nazis did in the 1930s).
Regardless of what he’s expressed behind closed doors, he’s certainly telegraphed his views and intentions for a long time and those should have served as a warning.
Jacob Kornbluh
GG response:
(With her smiley face firmly in place during Trump’s presser, unclear where Mrs. McConnell stands on the narrow question of the opinion of Trump’s presser performance.)
Kelly has also dispatched anonymous sources to reveal that he too “upset,” but that was more to soften the impact of his posture and facial expression during the presser.
What Is the Alt-Left? 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Basically the upshot is that this term originated in August 2016 in such sites as World Net News, and got picked up by Sean Hannity (and Trump) around that time. It’s used to create the sense of false equivalence when convenient. As has been mentioned elsewhere on this blog (and some other corners of the Internet Tubes that I keep tabs on) there is no real “alt-left” in existence, now or ever. Like a lot of other sloppy pejoratives that I see used either to assault or in a more defensive manner, all that ends up coming of it is a series of stupid pie fights. There are more important things to focus on. I know where my focus is.
Happily spread by Joy Reid on twitter. And Al Giordano. Especially people like Al Giordano.
I’m with Leighton Woodhouse: there’s probably one person who I can think of who embodies the supposed “alt-left” and that’s Michael Tracey.
I had no idea who Michael Tracey was until now. I was better off not knowing. So it goes.
The rightwing media, media persons, politicians, and of late think-tanks have always searched for and coined new epithets and pejoratives and ways to besmirch and discredit words in use for self-identification by those the rightwing views as their enemy. Neither appears to be more prevalent than the other (although the latter once established may be more persistent) and both forms are easy enough to trace back to the 19th century and it was ugly then as well.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t or not for long. A couple of recent vintage that didn’t are “Demorats” and “cheese eating French surrender monkeys.” “Democrat Party” instead of “Democratic Party” has been somewhat more effective which I’ll touch on later.
A key consideration in assessing any epithet is not only who/where it was created and the intent of that creation but also who else makes use of it to disparage the original intended target or a new target.
Consider both “neoliberal” and “alt-right” that today many view as epithets. However, both were self-identification constructs to differentiate themselves from others. And so far, those words used by opponents of those two groups haven’t strayed from the original meaning or been misapplied to non-affiliated individuals or groups.
I’ve personally identified myself as a liberal, socialist, wannabe pacifist and feminist for so long that it persists in my mind and in the face of those words having been turned into epithets. During/after the Great Depression liberal replaced progressive. Not because the worldviews differed that much but because progressive was identified with the Republican Party.
All four of those self-descriptors have been trashed over the years and not just by Republicans. A large number of my fellow travelers have withered under the assault. Instead of feminist — a reproductive freedom advocate, of liberal — a progressive, of socialist – a Democrat, and a wannabe pacifist is a human rights advocate. None of those substitutions are the same and all are weaker and/or more limited descriptors.
Epithets for all of those self-descriptors have also been concocted and imposed on those like me. Those are false constructs that have nothing to do with the freely chosen self-descriptors and have no purpose but to “otherize” and smear. Although using them reveals unsavory characteristics of the speaker/writer.
Refer to it as the Democrat Party and that erases any doubt about the speaker. (Or it did until Democrats began slipping up and occasionally using it.) Refer to a feminist as a feminazi and the speaker is more than likely a Nazi (even if they’re too uneducated to know it).
When a person uses “alt-left” as an insult, the origin of the term doesn’t matter much to the intended target. The one hurling the insult is the one defining the target as an enemy and isn’t too fussy about the origin of an insult or that it’s non-descriptive.
Booman Tribune ~ Charlottesville: The Fallout Continues
I get a bit curious here. I have seen this, but as a non-USian and a non-native speaker I don’t quite get it. What associations are used to make “Democrat Party” worse then “Democratic Party”?
Here’s a very brief primer. Bottom line is that “Democrat Party” is used as a pejorative, primarily by right-wingers, and has been fairly consistently over the last few decades. Back in the 1950s, Sen. Joe McCarthy loved to use the epithet to drive home the point that he thought that the Democratic Party was insufficiently democratic (i.e., too sympathetic to communists). The epithet more or less stuck from there. Usually if I see “Democrat Party” used by someone on blogs or social media, I can fairly safely bet what the writer has been reading or viewing – if not specifically at least fairly broadly, and usually it will be very right-wing, or something prone to conspiracy theorizing and so forth. So yeah, inside the US it’s kind of a big deal.
I’m sure you are many good things but a pacifist is not one of them.
Breaking story in WaPo:
Trump’s two main CEO councils disband in wake of his controversial Charlottesville remarks
The White House line is that Trump decided to break these councils up. I’m guessing that’s the line used to save face. Guessing that more CEOs were about to head for the exit doors.
According to NYT’s Glenn Thrush, next target is the infrastructure council (via Axios.
Sort of a shadowy group. Not sure who the CEOs are on it. Questionable if there has been any council meeting.
Like a lot of folks here in the Pond and elsewhere, I am a stickler for Godwin’s Law. There are exceptions. Godwin himself this past Sunday tweeted in response queries about how to describe the Unite the Right thugs who terrorized Charlottesville, “By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I’m with you.”
Daily Stormer was briefly back with a .ru domain. Anton Shekovtsov’s thread offers the details: the site found its new domain, and was pulled down again shortly after it went live. In the meantime, I’ve found another useful person on twitter to follow, as he does appear to have some expertise on far-right groups.
We’re at mid-week, just a few days after the horrific events that unfolded in Charlottesville when the Unite the Right rally hordes descended. Some things we can take away from the fallout:
First, if it wasn’t already obvious what Trump stood for, it should be now. His true colors are there for all to see. They always were. The David Dukes of the world know damn well who they are supporting and why.
We’ve seen universal disgust (most prominently among left-leaning and liberal sites, but even some isolated disgust in unlikely places like FauxNews) at Trump’s statements about Charlottesville in the days since, especially at yesterday’s press conference.
Whatever superficial goodwill Trump had with the CEO class in the US has apparently evaporated. Will be interested in the consequences of that development moving forward.
Attendees who terrorized Charlottesville residents have been outed to some degree and are facing some consequences for their behavior – including being fired from jobs. Very few arrests, but perhaps some more forthcoming? One of the assholes featured prominently in the Vice News episode covering Charlottesville is certainly convinced there’s a warrant out on him. We can only hope. One of the mouthpieces for the neo-Nazis, The Daily Stormer, has been shut down for now. It may end up essentially underground.
If recent events make it more difficult for these assholes to think they can tweet their hate safely from their dorm rooms, offices, or wherever, all the better. We’ll see.
A white supremacist rally planned next month in College Station, TX was cancelled. I believe something is planned for Boston this weekend. Be alert! Whoever shows up will undoubtedly be militant and expecting to start violent confrontations (I know – Captain Obvious statement of the day).
As we try to make sense of the various threads over the days and weeks ahead, this much is clear: last weekend marked a turning point. Whether it is one that leads eventually to better days or not is unclear. What is clear is we need to stay united. We are not each others’ enemy. The enemy was on full display last weekend.
Thanks for this, Don.
No worries. Lots happening in Booman’s absence, and wanted to make sure there was some fresh and relevant content.
Yes, in Boston there’s supposed to be a “Free Speech” rally on the Common, whose organizers swear up and down they’re not connected at all with the Charlottesville people, nossiree! They just want to give people a voice, that’s all. But that’s not necessarily so, and at least one would-be speaker, a certified despicable, has already pulled out; while the city and state are well prepared to keep a tight lid on things. Much more information here: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/08/15/what-we-know-about-the-free-speech-rally-pla
nned-this-weekend-on-boston-common
showed up en masse in counter-protest and basically swamped the so-called “free speech” rally into a pathetic fizzle-out.
A bright spot in the ocean of ongoing horrors. (Yeah, I know, mixed metaphors. So sue me.)
The Guardian – Trump disbands business councils as CEOs flee after Charlottesville remarks . Not good people to begin with or they wouldn’t have been on those business councils to begin with and have been consistently or intermittently supporting/funding Republicans since they let their sheets show in 1964.
The Trump strikes back:
Ends up as more of a wet noodle, like the one in June, as Amazon regained some of its early morning losses later in the day. Was this Trump testing out his current power in the marketplace? Can’t be too encouraging. Or was he sending a message to corporate America that he’ll burn down anything on his way to a forced retreat out of office? Methinks he overestimates himself and underestimates those with the power of mega-wealth. Still, collateral damage is likely.
GQ has a fun story today:
A Charlottesville White Supremacist Stripped Down to Escape Protesters and We Got It on Video. The video is a hoot, but also kind of pathetic. Neo-Nazi dude gets separated from his mob, gets chased down by people who are very pissed off about neo-Nazis fucking with their community and human decency, and has to make a decision. The choice is classic: take off the polo shirt, claim that he’s not really a neo-Nazi, that he just wants to have fun, and then makes his way to safety. Look, this reminds me of what the WAR skins were like back a few decades ago. They were menacing in groups – especially if they could isolate a single victim – but alone? Total cowards. The whole effing lot. The guy who filmed the video is finishing up a documentary on confederate monuments and makes a number of cogent statements about white privilege. Make sure to check it out. And little Mr. Chicken-Nazi? He deserves his infamy.
Hundreds carry lit candles across UVA campus against white nationalism
In times like these, it is comforting to note that there are people who are willing to light up the darkness. We are not alone. Always remember that.
Shep Smith of FauxNews commented on how impossible it was to find Republicans to come on the air and defend Trump’s remarks regarding Charlottesville earlier this week. When the going gets weird…right?
Jennifer Rubin is not someone I’d ordinarily link to and I suspect once our current long national embarrassment comes to its sure to be sordid ending (whenever that might be at some point in the future), I doubt I shall do so again. In the meantime, she has become one of several conservative critics not only of Trump but of the GOP more broadly. A couple days ago on her WaPo blog, Right Turn, she laid out what she saw as the bare minimum the GOP would need to do in order to atone for making a Faustian bargain to support Trump. Fat chance of any of it happening, but at least she gives an idea of where the bar might be set.
According to some folks on the ground in Charlottesville, antifa were often the line of defense between other counterprotesters and the neo-Nazis.
So far, everywhere the Alt-Right coalition do their Nazi-KKK thing two things happen:
One of the results of white flight is that there are a lot of cities that can easily rid themselves of Confederate memorabilia. Most striking are New Orleans and Richmond.
What will be interesting to watch are the attempts to gain an Alt-Right event success outside the South. They’ve already tried Berekeley (with no success except to stoke the worry of the “Alt-Left”.) The Boston rally looks like an attempt to bring out the Ivy League and Seven Sisters Alt-Right. We already know that some of the elders of those types hang out in the White House. It will be interesting to watch whether there is a post-Millennial generational shift. (I’m betting not, but we’ve been surprised before–Gen-X Reagan fanboys and fangirls, for example).
There is indeed a political realignment going on.
My prediction for Boston: There’ll be a ragtag scattering of rabble at the alt-right gathering, all white, many loser-types looking in vain for a fight. None of them will have battlegear as the police will be confiscating any such thing they see. The anti-white supremacist rally will be orders of magnitude larger, well-controlled, and refusing to take the bait — which will be largely out of reach anyway, as the Boston Police, no stranger to controlling mass gatherings, will keep the two sides well insulated from each other.
In short: The right-wing rally will be a laughable flop — and the media will make that clear.
That is what I am hoping – and I suspect the sentiment here is unanimous in that regard.
Latest expectations I heard on local public radio news: around a thousand for the rally; around 20,000 for the counter protests. Security barriers and cameras are already in place on the Common; the Frog Pond (popular wading pool for little kids) will be closed and all vendors of food, drinks, souvenirs, etc., told not to set up tomorrow; and the Swan Boats in the adjoining Public Garden won’t be operating.
There’s a large open space on the Public Garden/Charles Street side of the Common where I would expect the authorities to channel the counter protesters, while keeping the rally people clustered a short but defensible distance away at the Parkman Bandstand. No weapons, shields, etc., allowed; backpacks are, but are subject to search — and you can bet they will be; nobody’s forgotten the Marathon bombing.
Not saying things can’t go south if enough assholes are determined to go at it; but I will be very much surprised if they even get a chance to try.
Correction, sort of: I just read a news story saying that among the “severe restrictions” in the rally permit is a ban on backpacks. The radio broadcast said they’d be allowed but subject to search, but perhaps that pertains only to the counter protest.
Details: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/08/17/these-items-will-be-banned-on-the-boston-com
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I hope you are right about that.
I suspect the Ivy League Alt-Right will lie low now that Steve Bannon has left the White House.
I also suspect that the Boston PD will be rougher on the counter-protesters than on the Alt-Right protesters and that the Alt-Right will scrupulously obey Massachusetts (but not necessarily Boston’s) gun laws.
The Alt-Right will be trying to restore its image or respectability and harmlessness.
I don’t know of many, if any, Confederate monuments in Boston.
Maybe 40 to 50 “Free Speech” rally folks showed up; didn’t even go ahead with their speeches; cops formed up protectively around them and escorted them off the Common through crowds of shouting protestors, into police vans — and they looked scared shitless, haha. Got some water thrown on them, a water bottle or two, but not assaulted.
Tens of thousands of counter protestors marched to the Common; overwhelmingly peaceful. A few hotheads tried to fight through the wall of cops to get at the rally-goers and got taken down and arrested — I’m talking around a dozen. But given how high passions have been running, it’s been remarkably restrained on both sides — cops and protestors alike.
Now it’s already dispersing peacefully. The cops here in Boston are thoroughly trained in deescalation and handling crowds without turning into Gestapo, and it shows. I’m listening now to one reporter describing how one protestor engaged in multiple confrontations with police, was given multiple opportunities to break it off, before finally escalating it into an arrest. And no, he didn’t get beaten; like all the other arrests I saw on TV, just taken to the ground, handcuffed, then picked up and escorted to a van.
This one went well. Was checking a bit of the coverage on MSNBC. Hopefully things go equally well in the other locations where similar neo-Nazis try to organize.
Boston authorities apparently declared a no-firearms policy for the protest march. That probably kept a lot of cowardly Alt-Righters away. And it helped that order be issued that MA does not have an open carry law, as VA stupidly has
The Boston PD also made clear they would be proactive in handling disturbances. Again, keeping away plenty of RW violence nuts who like them a good rumble, especially when they’re in a large group of heavily armed nuts.
Smart effective policing in Boston, it appears — are Berkeley authorities taking note? And I understand their arrest total, for a fairly peaceful protest, was 20. Contrast that with the violent Charlottesville protest which resulted in a total of 8 arrests — and some of those just for public intoxication. Of course, Boston authorities had the criminally negligent, pitifully inadequate police response lesson in VA to learn from.
The mayor of Charlottesville, the police chief and Gov McAuliffe all have plenty to answer for. I knew TMac was a corporate centrist; I just didn’t know he was stupid.
Boston Police have decades of experience in dealing with mass events, from political demonstrations to the Marathon to sports championship celebrations — which I scarcely need to remark can turn into wild riots. The current city and police leadership are believers in a strong reliance on community relations and being prepared for events so as to head off trouble before it can get rolling.
It’s kind of unfair to contrast Boston’s handling of today’s demonstrations with Charlotteville’s; at least if my guess is correct that that town has far less experience in dealing with this sort of thing and didn’t know in advance what they were going to be facing. Also, rightwing troublemakers had plenty of warning that in Boston they were going to be badly outnumbered and not allowed to bring in weaponry, and their bully tactics were going to be shut down hard. I daresay a lot of them stayed away because they were afraid to show up.
That’s letting Charlottesville and VA off too easy. They didn’t need decades of experience, just some common sense and maybe a glance at the news coverage of recent right vs left encounters where the police stood aside while rioting ensued, such as the events earlier this year at Berkeley.
In any case, they had days to prepare how to handle things, and since when do police departments not err in preparing on the side of the worst case scenario. The C-ville police and VA troopers also had the Friday night torchlight events to contemplate, a protest march that turned ugly as police watched passively. Maybe, just maybe, after that ugliness, police officials and Gov Mac might have concluded it would be a better idea to have police actually do something productive to prevent further violence, such as placing themselves between the two factions and immediately arresting the first people who got too aggressive.
8 arrests, including for drunkenness. Just wow.
Note too that TMac didn’t complain later that the police weren’t experienced enough in handling such situations. He complained, feebly, that the Alt-right nutters had more firepower than his men. Charlottesville and the VA state police, for some strange reason, must be the only police orgs in the country who haven’t yet militarized themselves to the teeth as if going into actual combat.