There is a guy in the Vice News documentary QAnon: The Search for Q who is asked if he really believes what he’s been saying, that Michelle Obama is secretly a man. Rather than give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, he simply says, “I hate that woman, so why wouldn’t I say something like that about her?”
I thought about that guy when reading two separate pieces by Steve M. over at his blog. The first was about how performative mean-spiritedness is the point of a lot Republican behavior. Acting shitty towards people the Republican base doesn’t like gets your rewarded. And if opportunities to be cruel aren’t available, then simply hassling your enemies will do. See, presently, Sen. Ron Johnson forcing the Senate clerks to read aloud the entire COVID-19 bill, or Sen. Tom Cotton using a procedural move to delay the confirmation of Merrick Garland as Attorney General. In our context, saying nasty stuff about Michelle Obama is a no-brainer because she’s someone folks don’t like. The overall point is just to be dick because being a dick works.
The second piece is about the stage at the recent CPAC conference in Orlando. As Steve M. correctly observes, it’s simply not true that the stage was intentionally built to resemble a Nazi symbol.
https://twitter.com/WiseAsASerpent/status/1365710402693197828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1365710402693197828%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnomoremister.blogspot.com%2F2021%2F03%2Fmy-unpopular-opinion-sometimes-stage-is.html
But, liberals and progressives don’t like the folks who run or attend CPAC conferences, so why not make this allegation? Right? Shouldn’t we get rewarded too for saying nasty untrue things about our political opponents?
It really does work both ways. There are plenty of progressives who’ve built enormous followings by working with this exact model, especially by attacking Democrats. I’m thinking of FireDogLake, Glenn Greenwald, and Katie Halper just to name three off the top of my head.
I don’t do this, so my following doesn’t grow by leaps and bounds. It’s also why you should follow me on Twitter and Facebook and get a subscription here so I can continue to do what I do without being punished for it.
I worked as a stage hand in Nashville, and built plenty of stages for conventions and concerts.
That design doesn’t look like any stage I ever built, and I built a LOT of those things. Here’s an example. This was for a big Christian Rock tour.
Now if the Forward and Yashar Ali say it’s not the case—and it seems they’ve done the research—I’ll accept that.
But I have a hard time believing it’s anything but. Especially since 1, the neo-Nazi alt right has specifically said they’re using that symbol specifically because the swastika is so well-known, and 2, because a neo-Nazi alt right tactic is to do something provocative, and then when they get called out they play coy. Like with their “OK” symbol or the Hawaiian shirts.
So color me skeptical.
I heard that the design came from a *design* firm, which seems normal, since its not in the expertise of the CPAC operators to come up with a slick stage design. So that means either A) the rune is a coincidence and not a rune B) the CPAC people gave them a picture of the rune and said give us a stage that looks like THIS or C) a designer at the firm thought it would be cool to put the rune in the stage design because Ci) they like nazis and this would be a secret sign or Cii) they hate nazis and this would troll them like no designer has never trolled a nazi before. Personally I like Cii over A, because the stage is not just similar to the rune, its EXACTLY the rune on the nazi’s collar.
There is no record of the old Norse ever adding serifs to the basic design. Only Nazi’s ever use the serifs like you see on the Nazi collar, or on the flag of the 7th SS division.
As Yogi Berra said, “its too coincidental, to be a coincidence”
That design looks pretty hazardous, like it would be easy to inadvertently step off an edge. If I were on a jury for a plaintiff who had been injured that way, I would likely be sympathetic.
Would professional designers really be ok with such a design absent some incentive?
I’m going to have to say that calling Glen Greenwald a progressive is a very nasty, cruel, and untrue attack on progressives, which is easily debunked.
How are you so sure that the stage wasn’t intentional?
Because it was designed by a company run by a liberal who wouldn’t have agreed to build a Nazi stage.
More to the point, ““The designs, renderings, drawings, specifications, materials and other documents used or created as part of the proposal are owned by Design Foundry,” the contract reads.”
I was wondering if the basic designs were provided to DF, and they unknowingly designed the Nazi stage, which was a possibility in my mind given previous articles I read in the Forward about how the Nazis are used more subtle slurs. But that language seems to settle it. DF designed it, and by actual coincidence, it just happened to be a Nazi symbol.
That, in its own way, is kind of amazing.
I’ll check you out on Facebook, but i draw the line at twitter. I should drop Facebook too though.
I read Steve M’s take on the stage the other day, and I’m okay with his explanation. There seems to be a reasonable case made by the company responsible for the stage. But the fact is, I feel like I have so many real, substantial, and ongoing things to be outraged about, that my capacity to gin up any more outrage about this stage is just not there. Even if next week the CPAC organizers come out and admit that it was their intent, for whatever reason, to reproduce a Nazi symbol, I don’t think it would motivate me to be any more outraged than I already am, even it we just were limiting my outrage to that which concerns our response to COVID. That one thing is enough. My tank is full, and my emotional reserve for more outrage is just tapped out.
As for the argument for equivalency of outrage purveyors on the left, I agree with a lot of that. This is largely why I have had to significantly throttle back my consumption of liberal media outlets, and my social media circle has shrunken to only a very few sources for my information. We have all lived through an awful four-plus years of psychological abuse at the hands of the worst elements of humanity, many of whom called the shots for all of us during that time. I have an ample supply of outrage to motivate me for the foreseeable future. I understand there is a place and need for constantly exposing everything that continues to occur with the fascist takeover of the Republican Party. It is necessary in order to understand how deeply rooted the fascism is, and the places which will need attention and monitoring as we try to undo a lot of the damage that has been done. But I am just not personally constructed to be able to absorb the daily litany of awfulness that is uncovered and reported. A lot of people are, and that’s why I’m okay with them doing it, I just can’t add it to my emotional basket right now. Like a lot of people, I am trying to balance my emotional well being with being properly informed. For me. that’s a tricky balancing act after coming out of the emotional siege we all suffered from 2015 through the inauguration in January. I’ll let those who are better equipped than I to argue about the CPAC stage, and I will keep working on my personal recovery from one of the most awful periods in my memory.
The right and the people that populate it are so awful in word and deed right now, you don’t need to imagine anything, like whether the stage design was to recreate a Nazi rune symbol, in order gin up something to bash them with. (BTW, sometimes bashing of your opponent is a required activity of a political party or campaign, and it should not be “above” us to consider doing that when the situation calls for it.) Over 500K Americans have died from this virus, millions on the verge of homelessness, and their main focus is Mr. Potato Head. These people create their own insult material.