"Do you think it's a coincidence that everybody like me loves Trump and supports him?" -white supremacist tells me. https://t.co/aCTjOZZXG6
— Steve Peoples (@sppeoples) July 23, 2016
Just for the record: Yes, the white supremacists have found a home in Trump’s Republican party. Dave Weigel, in the Washington Post, last Thursday:
Geert Wilders strolled toward Quicken Loans Arena, drawing the usual amount of double takes. Clad in a trim blue suit, wearing sunglasses under his silver-blond coif, he stopped to talk to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and a small crowd of foreign journalists began to gather.
“He heads the Freedom Party in the Netherlands,” King explained to a delegate who was wondering about the fuss. “A little bit of controversy here and there, but who among us hasn’t created some?”…
Whenver two or more racists and bigots are gathered together, surely there you shall find Steve “Pig Muck” King.
… In another year, the far-right Wilders would not have made it past the Republican National Convention’s perimeter. He has proposed moratoriums on new Muslim immigration to his country and a similar halt on mosque construction. “I don’t hate Muslims,” he has said. “I hate Islam.”
But the rise and nomination of Donald Trump had inspired Wilders — and expanded his American fan base. He was just one of many people who might have been labeled extremists, and whose views are rejected by the old elite of the Republican Party, but who attended the convention and related events with a sense that their politics were finally winning…
Many members of the “alt right,” racially conscious and opposed to new immigration, came to Cleveland with the same praise of Trump’s revolution. They held meetings, co-hosted parties and happily met the news media. Richard Spencer, the president of the National Policy Institute, held a cheeky sign encouraging journalists to “interview a ‘racist.’ ” Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigration and race news site VDare, stopped by a Tuesday night party headlined by Wilders…
For a week, those people had their run of Cleveland. The Tuesday night party, billed as a “fab” gay rights celebration, took over a dark rec center and paused for 30 minutes of speeches. Wilders was just one speaker; the event’s poster portrayed the anti-Islamist activist Pamela Geller and the provocative Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos as superheroes, charging into a fight behind Trump.
All of them congratulated the hundreds of conservatives in the room for seeing that liberal Western democracy in general, and gay rights in particular, were under siege from Islam…
Geert Wilders speaks at a "Twinks for Trump" party. Check out the art. pic.twitter.com/146EZMS7cj
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 20, 2016
Steve Peoples, for the AP, on Sunday — “Energized white supremacists cheer Trump convention message“:
They don’t like to be called white supremacists. The well-dressed men who gathered in Cleveland’s Ritz-Carlton bar after Donald Trump’s speech accepting the Republican nomination for president prefer the term “Europeanists,” ”alt-right,” or even “white nationalists.” They are also die-hard Trump supporters.
And far from hiding in chat rooms or under white sheets, they cheered the GOP presidential nominee from inside the Republican National Convention over the last week. While not official delegates, they nevertheless obtained credentials to attend the party’s highest-profile quadrennial gathering.
Several gathered in the luxury hotel well after midnight following Trump’s Thursday address, a fiery appeal they said helped push the Republican Party closer to their principles.
“I don’t think people have fully recognized the degree to which he’s transformed the party,” said Richard Spencer, a clean-cut 38-year-old from Arlington, Virginia, who sipped Manhattans as he matter-of-factly called for removing African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews from the United States…
Trump’s “America First” message, backed by his call for a massive border wall and focus on immigrants who are criminals, has energized people like Spencer. He described their mood as “euphoric.”Seizing on that energy, former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke on Friday announced a bid for the Senate. The Louisiana Republican likened his policies on trade and immigration to Trump’s in an announcement video.
“I’m overjoyed to see Donald Trump and most Americans embrace most of the issues that I’ve championed for years,” Duke said. “My slogan remains ‘America First.'”
“America First” was first used in 1940 by the America First Committee, a short-lived isolationist faction that formed to pressure the U.S. government not to join the Allies’ war against Germany….
… But, now that the “serious” RNC Republicans have wholly ceded their national apparatus to a Twitter-fueled failed businessman/reality star, their proud forty-year history of rodent copulation means they’re already hard at work trying to spoil the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, as well. And there are always disaffected supporters of losing candidates gullible or angry enough to help the ratfvckers out…
Are you fucking kidding me https://t.co/0a8NkLr8Kf pic.twitter.com/oDpFA6BMZZ
— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) July 23, 2016
Translation, kinda: Someone with access to the official Wikileaks twitter account wanted to know if the three-parentheses twitter-designation had been co-opted from its start in the NeoNazi sewers to a mere ‘tribalist designator’ for ‘establishment climbers’? Answer: Yes, a number of non-Jewish tweeters — including for a while our own Blogmaster — started using the triple-parens to show their rejection of the NeoNazis. This quickly destroyed its usefulness for the self-described “anti-racists” who think racism will be solved once all the Jews are, at a minimum, exiled to Israel… because then the NeoNazis will be able to purge all the not-white people who cause racism, by existing. (I didn’t say it made sense, just that it’s what these ‘Europeanists’ claim to believe.) The tweet has been scrubbed from Twitter, but on the Internet nothing disappears forever.
We're getting an object lesson in why Jews tend to be liberal: you (we) know that once racism is legitimized, anti-Semitism is right behind
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 24, 2016
People, don't be too harsh. Think of everything Wikileaks exposed about Russia.
Oh. Yeah. Right. Never mind.
— (((Jake Turk))) (@71djt) July 24, 2016
Ryan
I don’t see how this doesn’t get worse. Imagine if someone halfway competent is the messenger for Trumpism.
JGabriel
Dave Weigel via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Step 46 on the path towards mainstreaming racism and fascism: when the appalling becomes cheeky.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
I know we have quibbled in the past on the nuances of the word mucker, but I am hereby authorizing you to use “Steve ‘The Mucker’ King” for convenience in the future.
ETA: Ditto for Peter King (R-NY), if necessary.
JGabriel
AP via Anne Laurie @ Top:
Well, that’s a new a definition of white supremacist – a person who thinks being called a white nationalist is somehow better than being called a white supremacist.
Debbie(aussie)
Do these European nationalists plan on leaving the Americas to you know the ‘ native Americans’? And where pray tell does one ‘send’ those who don’t fit the European standard and what about part Europeans….oh for crap sake the racist pigs are an abomination. We are so fortunate to have them too; ‘go back where came from’, you first, asshole!//
Edited for spelling errors
hellslittlestangel
No, but they’re catching on, shit-head.
OzarkHillbilly
I have no more fvcks to give when it comes to these assholes.
Anne Laurie
@Steeplejack: Pete King is The Mucker. He’s a mean thug, but not actually much interested in arguments outside his chosen LunGuylunt fiefdom.
Steve King is the King of Pig Muck (Manure) Mountain — his Iowa voters being deeply indentured to CAFO pig factories & the resultant ‘manure lagoons’. Steve King wants the rest of the world reduced to wallowing in the pigshit he loves, because he resents anyone who isn’t a proud dumb racist monster.
Betty Cracker
@Ryan: Once we win this election, we need to regroup and start addressing that through aggressive coalition building. Because you’re right: The tangerine-hued buffoon has demonstrated that there’s a significant market for white nationalist politics in the U.S. Trump might prove too ridiculous a figure to take it global, but you can bet your boots some rich racist goons somewhere are looking the next Trump.
sukabi
@JGabriel: it’s about branding… wonder if they’ve had Luntz hold focus groups to determine which name would be an easier “sell” …
raven
@Betty Cracker: The Blair Brown character on Orange is the New Black got called Betty Cracker on the episode we watched last night! Sue da bums!
Ian
Fuck him, fuck his incorrectly poured manhattans, (drink-not a place) and fuck the fact that he his from the town that many Americans of all ethinicities are buried in honor for their service. How can this asshole think this?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
It’s always been there, it’s nothing new. This is the inevitable backlash to 8 years of Obama from those on the political right. Seeing as the GOP has been dog whistling past the graveyard since Nixon, it was predictable that they would retreat into full bore racial resentment as a relief valve for their ideological frustrations.
This is who they are, who they’ve always been.
Betty Cracker
@raven: I saw that! Outrageous!
Pangloss
@Betty Cracker: I think (and hope) that Trump is their only hope to use that method to achieve power. He had about 96% name recognition, and his brand (phony as it may be) is a competent, even wildly successful businessman who knows how to get things done. That’s an attractive brand in an era of political stalemate and cynicism. The reporting of his frauds hasn’t had the same exposure as his 35-year branding exercise that he’s a financial whiz. I think showing his taxes would bust the illusion he has any real business sense. Demographically, the GOP’s “Trump gambit” window of opportunity is closing. For whites in the US, the current mode age (most common age of all individuals) is 55. That’s probably going to be 56 or 57 by the next election. It’s 33 for asians, 24 for blacks, and 8 (!?!!?) for latinos– that’s an astounding disparity.
Keith G
Moved
Thor Heyerdahl
Why don’t we ever see butthurt dudebros commenting on threads like these?
They’re scared they might have to stare at the ass end of their pony?
Poopyman
@Pangloss: I read a retweet somewhere that said that releasing his taxes would be problematic for Trump since it would show that Putin claims him as a dependent.
Another Holocene Human
@Ian: Have you ever been to Arlington? Large Hispanic population; anger bear whites; high prices; close to DC; depressing as hell.
burnspbesq
Every time you eat bacon, you’re empowering and enabling Steve King.
amk
so, why is then adelson willing to bankroll this kkklown?
burnspbesq
Who, other than egregious poseurs, drinks Manhattans in 2016?
msdc
“racially conscious”
“race news”
C’mon, Weigel. This is how racism gets mainstreamed.
amk
@msdc: yup. it struck me too. wtf, does ‘race conscious’ even mean?
hitler was born in the wrong century.
msdc
@Another Holocene Human: Have you ever been to Arlington? Lots of federal workers; liberal politicians; the powerhouse behind northern Virginia’s tilt to the Democrats. For a long time the surrounding counties referred to it as the People’s Republic of Arlington.
Joel
These guys have always been with us, but it’s disturbing to see them crawl out into the open.
Barb2
@amk:
That’s a very good question.
Or here’s an idea for a book.
Super rich c a s X n o — owner who happens to be Jewish. He bank rolls political candidates. He takes gambling to the next level.
New foreign player makes a deal with Super rich c a s X n o owner. Foreign player loose bigly at games of chance. This money goes into campaign slush fund and is sent to THE GOP’s Presidential candidate. This guy is a known racist and antisemitic.
Email leaked, the world yawns. Other stuff catches media’s attention – nude women, bathrooms checkpoints installed in all public buildings in states with Republican governors. So far the only “perverts*” caught are grannies wearing depends.
The end. (Snark).
* perverts used in new laws because political correct language has been outlawed by state legislatures.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Neither do I
NorthLeft12
@OzarkHillbilly: OH, I might be misunderstanding you, but I think we all need to give a few effs for these racist d-bags.
Personally, I am pretty fed up with how many are letting their ugly sides show, and will do all I can to encourage them to keep their odious views hidden. I will, and already have, try to engage them in open discussions, but do not hesitate to call them out on their bigotry.
This includes my own father and a step brother in law.
sm*t cl*de
How about “vile neo-nazi filth”? Is that better for them?
Woodrowfan
@msdc: What MSDC said. White racists don’t fit that well into Arlington. Prince William County is more their speed.
Woodrowfan
@NorthLeft12: for the first time I saw a kin (probably 20-ish) wearing a white nationalists t-shirt in public Friday when we went to see “ST:Beyond”. Granted we’re in NC and not northern Va, but I was surprised. (It was FWIW a shirt for Satanic Warmaster I think. Had an SS-style eagle with a five-pointed star.)
NorthLeft12
I am hoping that this election is used to obliterate the Donald’s brand. After this epic beat down and exposure of his sleazy underside, I look forward to the Trump name being associated with failure, bigotry, ignorance, entitlement, immorality, selfishness, hypocrisy, and fraud.
A “Billionaire” who promotes steaks in a box. Yeah, right.
NorthLeft12
@Woodrowfan: Did you ask him about his fashion choice?
Woodrowfan
@NorthLeft12: no, somehow seemed like a bad idea.
ruemara
@Joel: they’re crawling out from both sides.
Matt
And of course they love nothing more than whining about how people they don’t like “insist on using PC terms” or “play identity politics”, all while insisting on their preferred euphemism. At least the Nazis had the moral conviction to just admit they were evil dickbags; these twerps can’t even manage that.
Shana
@burnspbesq: I love a good Manhattan. Add a dash of amaretto and it’s sublime.
BTW, since this is an open thread. We have a cat who’s not crazy about having to share the house. We now have, temporarily, a second cat. We’ve been keeping new cat in the basement since Thursday, letting him upstairs when original cat is outside. OC (original cat) has seen NC (new cat) through the patio door, knows NC is in the basement but isn’t reacting as badly as a few years ago when we tried to integrate my late father’s cats into our household. We bought some calming treats at our local pet store, and I’ve given OC a few of them, one a day which may or may not help. Also NC isn’t an alpha like one of my dad’s cats, while OC is definitely an alpha.
Any advice on making this work would be helpful.
Paul in KY
@Ryan: Man, your fainting couch will be broken by mid September.
Paul in KY
@sm*t cl*de: How about racist loser scum? Works for me.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
You’re both right…I think there’s a couple articles up today reflecting that if it weren’t for Trump’s lousy organizational skills and lousy message discipline, he’d almost have to be doing better here. Next time around there will be a younger, more coherent, more positive, face on this ugly, ugly party that the GOP is becoming.
Paul in KY
@Shana: Just have to let them sort it out. With time they’ll come to an understanding. Will probably never be bosom buddies. Have to show OC that NC is part of family now & loved, etc.
Miss Bianca
@raven: Is Blair Brown on that show? I’m listening to an audiobook she is narrating – Isabel Allende’s version of “Zorro” – so now I’m curious about her acting work.
Immanentize
@amk: one word — casinos
Mnemosyne
@Ryan:
This is the thing that keeps me up at night. We are very, very lucky that neo-fascism is visiting us in the ridiculous person of Donald Trump rather than a more credible spokesmodel, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll be so lucky next time if we don’t fucking crush this asshole in November and discredit him and all of his followers.
Chris
@Ryan:
That’ll be 2020 or 2024.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I don’t doubt that Trump is going to lose, and likely lose hard. It’ll take a lot of work, but I think we’re going to beat him. But how long will it take to scrub this shit from our society? He’s unleashed all kinds of vile shit upon the U.S.–or, I should say, this shit has always been there, festering, but he’s really given these people new scope and a feeling of freedom to spew their hatred. I worry that we’re going to see a lot of violence in this country for years. That asshole in Charleston last year was only the harbinger.
Big Jim Slade
White supremacists are the perfect example of why they couldn’t possibly be right. They’re complete idiots.
shortstop
@Pangloss: Trump gets this far because he’s Trump, true, but now he’s normalized this stuff and given permission for people to be open about it. The next person could be much slicker, much less a buffoon, and will actually do much better because people will be able to use the “See, he’s not Trump; he’s normal” argument.
Feathers
@msdc: Amazing how you can racially map the Union lines in Northern Virginia, even today. I was having coffee at Poets & Busboys in Shirlington and I got talking to the black guy sitting next to me. He had just moved from Philadelphia, he was living not too far away in Fairfax, but liked hanging out for coffee here. “Don’t you realize you’re behind Union lines?” I pointed out that he was living in the old Confederacy, and that Fort Ward marked the local boundary. I could see his head just churning.
When I was growing up, it was The People’s Republic of Alexandria, but I guess we’ll welcome Arlington to the club. Arlington was very white when I was growing up, but as stated above, it now very Hispanic. There are also lots of condos/apartments on the Subway line, which seemed to be filled with bros, just waiting to get out of this hellhole and move to the outer suburbs like a decent human being. #notallcondopeople #buttoomanyofthem
J R in WV
@Poopyman:
I saw a more likely explanation: That his Russian (all foreign) loans would be spelled out on a special IRS form for that specific information.
That would be a blow to his independence. Beholden to foreign magnates. And even that wouldn’t be the worst information. The terms of those loans probably aren’t on the IRS forms. What if they are callable loans on demand of the lender? They could ruin Trump’s business empire with a certified letter. Total control over his every action at that point.
Who could vote for a man subject to that kind of foreign control?