Meanwhile in Washington. pic.twitter.com/d7Pdqc8U7Q
— Nein. (@NeinQuarterly) August 18, 2017
I love this image from Spiegel Online. It’s been one hell of a week since all hell began to break loose in Charlottesville. Another weekend is coming up, and no doubt the neo-Nazis will try to do more damage.
Before even contemplating this weekend, let’s note a few things. The Presidential Committee on the Arts resigned en masse. Their letter is epic (and not just because the first letter of each paragraph forms the word resist). And contra the White House occupant, they broke up with him, not the other way around. Carl Icahn, of all people, has abandoned ship and will no longer advise the White House on regulatory matters. Organizations planning events at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort have abandoned those plans. Salvation Army and Komen are pretty right-wing. And even they are done, apparently. It’s okay, though. He’ll always have his Evangelical Advisory Board. Republican Jesus approves, apparently.
There is speculation that Trump is now a lame duck in office or has effectively abdicated the office. At minimum, he’s not going to get talent in cabinet positions. Poach Democratic Senators from red states? Fat chance. Some speculation early this month in Bloomberg that Sen. Manchin would get the nod for a cabinet post. It would be quite the coup. A GOP governor in WV would get to pick a Republican to take his place, thus reviving zombie Trumpcare, etc. Manchin has very publicly stated, “forget about it!”
Bannon got canned by the White House and landed immediately back at Breitbart. Weird times, folks. Weird times.
Right-wing organized rallies are happening this weekend, in Boston and elsewhere. We’ll want to keep a close eye on that. It’s likely that this time around the neo-Nazis (forget the alt-right label) will get outnumbered significantly by folks representing a variety of ideologies yet holding one very important thing in common: a sense of basic human decency.
Perhaps I’ll update this diary, or more likely will post links in the comments as time permits. Booman should be back soon and as much as he may be disgusted by the US political climate, it will be good to see him back.
Rumors are flying that Sebastian Gorka is on the way out. We’ll see. Photos of Gorka wearing a bocskai jacket (worn by members of Vitézi Rend) both as a young man and more recently while at Trump’s inaugural ball, have also been circulating on social media such as twitter tonight. The bocskai is from what I understand a uniform that has a great deal of currency among Hungary’s own right-wing nationalists, such as the anti-Semitic party Jobbik. Interesting times. Interesting times.
My very favorite satire of the Trump Administration is this piece of art.
Among the details this glorious piece gets right is that Gorka really does drive a Mustang.
Now that was beautiful.
While we’re on the topic of satire, McSweeny’s takes a stab at all the discussion about the “alt-left”:
The Alt-Left’s Radical Agenda
A bit amusing, if nothing else, and the authors capture how various labels (some of which, like alt-left, were cooked up by our actual enemies) we see used among our own circles are needlessly divisive, given many of us appear to fundamentally agree on stuff. Maybe not on how to pronounce antifa (hopefully I did not pronounce that wrong while typing!).
A local Charlottesville newspaper had a story on Jason Kessler, responsible for organizing the Unite the Right bloodbath last weekend. He is believed to have been self-identified as a liberal until relatively recently. Even hung out among the Occupy folks (until he wore out his welcome) back when Occupy was still a thing. Make of this what you will. Noticed the conspiracy theorists at Gateway Pundit are convincing themselves he is a Soros plant and that what happened last week was a false flag operation.
That Soros is a busy guy.
.
What’s great about these false flag claims is that a number of the other chief participants in the Charlottesville action are people who have been leading the Nazi/white supremacist/MRA movements for a while now. For such dominant people, these claims sure do seem to imply that the leaders of the deplorables lack agency and intelligence.
Speaking of pathetic false flag claimants, the Seattle Police Department pulled off an awesome satirical dismissal of Alex Jones yesterday.
Some activists who have more energy than patience and – I suspect – also are driven by a desire to find a setting where they fit in and can use their energy, and not so much by an ideology, have a tendency to bounce around in mutually contradicting groups. I have seen a few like that.
So no Soros needed.
Before I forget, thanks, Don, for picking up the burden on this issue while Booman was recovering his sanity. Good job.
No worries and thanks. This is an issue that matters a lot to me, so one way or another was going to weigh in.