The only good thing about being the out party is that you get to collect scalps. We should do our damnedest to make overt white nationalist, domestic abuser, misogynist and vote fraudster Steve Bannon the first scalp collected from the incoming shit-gibbon administration.
Making a lot of noise helps. In the Beltway press, the earliest reports about Bannon’s appointment were paired with the news that Priebus was named chief of staff and mostly focused on the latter pick, as if it were utterly unremarkable that a man who ran an anti-black, anti-immigrant, MRA hate site would be running the shit-gibbon’s strategy shop from the West Wing.
But throughout yesterday, the push-back kept building. Democrats in congress made a stand, which drove more news about the Bannon pick:
Harry Reid:
President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House.
It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide.
Nancy Pelosi:
After winning the presidency but losing the popular vote, President-elect Trump must try to bring Americans together – not continue to fan the flames of division and bigotry.
Bringing Steve Bannon into the White House is an alarming signal that President-elect Trump remains committed to the hateful and divisive vision that defined his campaign. There must be no sugarcoating the reality that a white nationalist has been named chief strategist for the Trump Administration.
Ed Markey:
If the saying is true and you are the company you keep, Donald Trump has chosen to champion the positions of neo-Nazis, white nationalists and anti-Semites by appointing Steve Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor.
There is no place in our society, let alone the White House, for purveyors like Steve Bannon of hate and violence against any group of Americans.
I’m in the process of contacting every single elected official who represents me to ask if they’ll denounce the appointment of a white nationalist to a key role in the West Wing, and if not, why not.
I’m certain the shit-gibbon will make many other appalling picks, but Bannon’s is especially important to thwart for a few reasons. The first, obviously, is that the appointment reinforces the chilling message the election already sent: black people, immigrants and women are second-class citizens.
But it’s also critical to deny the shit-gibbon the opportunity to elevate the global media conglomerate operating under the Breitbart name to state-run media status. Breitbart served as the shit-gibbon campaign’s propaganda arm during the election. It must not be ensconced in the White House to operate as the American version of Russia Today.
Let the racists, misogynists, anti-Semites and anti-immigration hysterics have their little hate site — free speech and all of that. But don’t ask me to fund the goddamned thing. That’s where I draw the line.
SenyorDave
STEVE BANNON BLACK FRIDAY BOYCOTT
I can’t speak for everyone but this Bannon thing has me very angry. Not as angry as last Tuesday night, but enough so it kept me up last night. Numerous groups have gone on record as opposing the hire, but it’s pretty obvious that Donald Trump doesn’t care what they think.
So where do we stand? We have a man who manages a white supremacist website as a senior adviser to the president-elect. This man will have a position and an office in the White House paid for by our tax dollars.
There are two things we know Donald Trump cares about: money and power. Let’s leverage that in the battle to get Bannon out.
Protests won’t do it, eventually they’ll die down, and the media sure as hell isn’t going to do anything. They normalized Trump’s behavior before the election; they will normalize having a white supremacist as a senior adviser to the president.
I propose the following: A boycott of Black Friday. Estimate how much you were going to spend on Black Friday, and donate 25% (or whatever you can) to charity. This time of year is very tough for charities, and that extra amount would be wonderful. Your local food bank, homeless shelters, Meals on Wheels, literacy programs, Toys for Tots, etc. The Girl Scouts are selling cookies in some areas, but $50 worth and have them sent to the troops overseas (they will do that for you).
If just 5% of the country agreed to do this, Trump would listen. Black Friday is crucial to retailers, helping to make or break their year. There is very little leverage available; our money is one of the few things out there. I guarantee that Trump would listen to corporate America.
And if he were to get rid of Bannon? It would be nice to still do the charity thing, or at least some element of it.
Betty Cracker
@SenyorDave: Great idea. Are you on Twitter? There’s a #StopBannon hashtag trending. Post your idea there!
SenyorDave
I’m not a twitter person, don’t know how (I work for a media company and they would probably fire me for that). I will post on the four blogs that I regularly post on. Betty or anyone else, please feel free to post on twitter, this idea is not proprietary!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It also rubs in the Trump voters face “oh, he wasn’t serious about racism”
Gin & Tonic
Before I could even get to doing anything about this, I got a Tweetstorm (well, stormlet) from my Congressman speaking out forcefully against Bannon. Replied to support him, as some of the other replies he got were hideous. Haven’t heard from the Senators yet, but I will be calling them today, and expect support. One of the advantages of living in a blue state.
Botsplainer
I’ve been operating under the premise that Donald Trump is the last president of the entity known as the United States of America, as it is currently comprised. I’m also greatly fearful for the lives of residents of Washington DC and Manhattan.
Hope I’m wrong.
The other thing, looking at my monthly insurance premium, it has dawned on me that the primary business of American business is selling vapor – expensive plans and programs that greatly enrich the C suite but don’t provide much of anything for the purchasers.
NotMax
Occurs to me the loony right could save a lot of time by cranking out now the avalanche of outrage and accusations over the “suspicious” and “criminal” behavior of the outgoing administration as evidenced by leaving the hard drives of White House computers cleaned and pristine for the incoming gang.
Face it, they’re going to run with that claptrap anyway. Makes a much sense to do it now as in late January.
hovercraft
@SenyorDave: This is a great idea. As you say there are few things likely to change the Shitgibbons decision making, this could be one of them. Anything we can do do to stop this deplorable excuse for a human being is worth a try.
They never allowed Obama a moment of breathing room, and he was a decent human being appointing people with knowledge and experience, this asshole is just putting in loyalists who are as clueless as he is, and intent on destroying us, we must fight him every step of the way.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
My housemate said last night that she couldn’t be in Washington for the inauguration and would be taking a few days on the other side of the country.
I’ll still be here, but I can’t pretend I’m not apprehensive. I’m afraid of the whole thing turning into a riot, for which black and liberal protesters will be blamed whether or not they actually behaved badly and/or threw the first punch. And the crackdowns that come next.
Poopyman
My rep Steny Hoyer is already all over this. A USNews piece ends with this:
I seem to recall someone once saying “Hope is not a strategy”. You’d think folks would pick up on that fact, but this is what’s left to “many Washington veterans”.
gogol's wife
CT Mirror:
Connecticut’s senators have jumped on a bandwagon of opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist in the White House.
Bannon, the executive editor of Breitbart News before joining the Trump campaign in August, is criticized by Democrats and some political strategists as being too closely allied to the “alt-right” movement.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he is “deeply troubled” by the appointment of someone associated with a web site that is “antisemitic, racist and homophobic.” The appointment does not need congressional approval.
“He really should have no place in an upcoming administration,” Blumenthal said. “I hope the president-elect will reconsider and reverse this decision.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called Trump’s announcement of Bannon’s appointment, made on Sunday, “very troubling.”
He said it adds to the concerns of Muslims and minority groups about the direction of a Trump administration.
“The fears that exist today in these communities are real,” Murphy said.
WereBear
@SenyorDave: This fits right into my own idea of boycotting Christmas buying this year.
Donations, cookies, some toys for the kids; but I can’t afford an extravaganza under these circumstances, and I am certain I am not the only one.
Spread the word. I like it.
JPL
Although I agree with the boycott, won’t the current president be blamed?
Bannon is in the White House because his boss believes in the same ideals. Trump on the trail, painted non-whites as them. If Bannon resigned, he would still guide the President-elect, nothing would change, except it would provide cover for Trump to look more inclusive.
imo
Emily68
A little off topic, but how can we get journalists to ask Trump & him minions about their plans for preserving their emails? I realize that even if we could get someone to ask, the answer would have little to do with what’s really going to happen, but still, it would be nice if the Trump guys thought their email procedures might actually be of consequence some day.
terraformer
There will be appointments all over the place that we hate. Bannon is the first, and possibly the most distasteful. I have to get my head around the fact that there will be horrible people in positions of power and influence throughout the administration. We have to consider that they know Bannon is unacceptable, and will perhaps be thrown overboard and someone else appointed instead. Maybe that was the plan all along, and then they can say “we listened” and most of the media will say that they “responded,” and evermore whenever something horrible like this comes up after, they can say “look, we already replaced Bannon” and we should just leave them aloooooooonnne now.
Poopyman
@JPL: Sorry, the “more inclusive” ship sailed last Tuesday. He’s already on record with Bannon as first pick above all (I think) Cabinet posts.
Agitate, agitate, agitate.
Ella in New Mexico
No Bannon.
No Trump children getting Top Secret Clearances.
No Gingrich, Giuliani or Bolton, no demagogues or unqualified celebrities to run my country.
cmorenc
Since Bannon’s announced role in the incoming Trump Administration is “chief political strategist”, this indicates that fanning racial and cultural hatreds and divides in similar fashion to the campaign is a deliberately intended key part of Trump’s political strategy in office. Why else would Trump bring Bannon in-house rather than keep him at a publicly safer distance as an outside advisor?
Gin & Tonic
@terraformer: I am somewhat heartened, or at least moderately hopeful, by the fact that this is an individual who has very seldom faced real criticism. Everything so far was WWE-style play-acting, or he’d just threaten to sue people and they’d go away. Now he will be the most public person in the country, and I do not think his ego is capable of handling real, prolonged serious criticism. And he can’t threaten to sue, say, Harry Reid. Well, he can, but Harry can just say go DIAF.
WereBear
@terraformer: Cripes, we have got to STOP second guessing ourselves based on what these rat bastards might do in response.
They don’t make any sense. They will complain about ANYTHING. Months of ridiculous email speculation proved that.
We just do the right thing and let the chips fall.
Betty Cracker
@JPL & @terraformer: Could be. I’m not under any illusion that the jettisoning of Bannon would make the shit-gibbon team any less odious. But I think it’s worth standing up to denounce this racist piece of garbage. It shouldn’t be normal to appoint white nationalists to influential positions.
If enough people raise hell, the shit-gibbon’s minions will have to keep addressing it, and maybe they’ll decide to cut his ass loose to quell the furor. Sure, they’ll put someone just as evil but with less public baggage in his place. But the fact is, the shit-gibbon wanted this vile shit-stain in an office next door, and if we can collectively deny him that, it’s a victory.
cmorenc
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’m not exactly pining for the days of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft, but how terrible it is that this trio would be a vast improvement over Gingrich, Giuliani or Bolton. Of course, we’re grading “improvement” here on the kind of curve only possible in the vicinity of a black hole (in the astronomical sense) – Gingrich, Giuliani, and Bolton ARE the black hole that sucks any nearby human decency down a singularity in space.
Josie
@WereBear: This
The Truffle
@terraformer: I imagine the alt right will be spitting nails if the talking yam throws Bannon under the bus.
Best strategy? Play these people against each other. Step back and watch them tear into each other.
Poopyman
@WereBear: I think Terraformer meant to say
I.e, media’s response. not his/hers.
JMG
Eliot Cohen, foreign policy official under Bush, wrote a piece yesterday saying his Republican colleagues in that community should be willing to serve in the Trump administration. Then he met with the transition team, came out and tweeted that they were horrible people full of horrible sentiments and no one should work for them.
Trump appointees will come in two sizes. Ideological fanatics of all kinds, from anti-abortion to white nationalists. Big-time grifters in for the ripoff possibilities. There will be some overlap of course.
c u n d gulag
Hedley Lama… Er, Donald J. t-RUMP, on his cabinet post preferences:
“I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.”
There’s more I could add to that list, but I think you know who… what they would be.
I hope every newpaper, news magazine, TV news show, etc., pre-sets the following in bold letters, for easy and often repeated access:
“After ___________ (fill-in the blank) Screw-up (Tragedy/Disaster), TRUMP SAYS TO ________(fill in the blank), YOU’RE FIRED!!!
It won’t be long before he’s down to Breitbart commenters and the white janitors he sorta knows at Trump Tower and his other properties being the heads of the ________(fill-in the blank) cabinet post – but no maids! At least unless they’re 10’s and white.
Denali
I am wondering if it would be useful to ask a friend who lives in my neighboring District of Chris Collins, to contact Chris Collins, who is on the Transition Team, to voice disappoval of the selection of Bannon.
Quinerly
@Gin & Tonic:
I guess you heard that Linda McMahon of World Wide Wrestling is on the short list/perhaps at the top of the list for Commerce Secretary
jenn
Opportunity to do something useful, rather than worry online. Reposted (slightly edited) from yesterday:
There’s been several discussions in here about what we can do, but I didn’t know until Perfect Tommy just commented, that the 2016 election isn’t over yet. There’s an election in Louisiana on December 10, and Foster Campbell needs support. If he wins, the Senate will be 51 R-49 D/I. Campbell needs support of both money and phones/canvassing. His website is here: http://www.fostercampbell2016.com/
This is something helpful we can do! Let’s do it!
El Caganer
@The Truffle: Certainly Yertle and the Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver should be asked every time they appear in public if they support the President’s choice of a misogynistic, racist antisemite as his closest advisor.
Quinerly
@JMG:
Linky? I guess I can Google.
rikyrah
Make them OWN this choice., and that includes the phucking media trying to mainstream him.
Ella in New Mexico
@JMG:
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
No one will stop any of this. Listen to Kay, join your local party and start there.
Botsplainer
I’m super pessimistic this morning.
I think we’re stuck with Bannon and the whole crew of incompetents.
Face it, this is the era of the strongman and reflexive extreme nationalism and ethnocentric domestic policy across much of the developed first world. There are some better places – China, Vietnam, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Southern Africa, Cambodia, Canada, the Baltics, Italy and Central and South America come to mind – but most of Europe, Russia, Australia, the US and England have gone apeshit.
artem1s
any strategy has to involve getting Ryan and the rest of the GOP to own Bannon. If they think they are at risk of looking bad there might be some hope they will step up an do their fucking jobs. Every text, email, communication has to include language that effectively says, Reince Priebus is OK with working with and supporting white nationalists. MAKE THEM OWN THIS SHIT.
Poopyman
@Ella in New Mexico:
So an addition to the huge sign at the top of the hill that says
there’s now a sign that says
I suspect that putting up unqualified and untested candidates is their idea of draining the swamp. It’s a feature for his base, not a bug.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Botsplainer:
I’m with you, unfortunately. The center didn’t hold.
Botsplainer
@JMG:
I’m intrigued to see if David Clarke, the glorified process server from Milwaukee, gets tapped to run Homeland Security.
He’ll probably tap Omarosa for FEMA, just because.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
Go over to LGF, someone posted a bunch of tweets of WWII vets in their 90’s all voting for Trump. WWII vets folks. This country stared fascism right in the eyes. The guys that beat Hitler voted for it.
hovercraft
@WereBear:
I wanted to respond to one of your comments from this morning’s thread.
THIS.
These people are miserable, they never had the balls/guts to live the life they truly wanted, they were too afraid of what their neighbors and friends and family would say. So they wake everyday doing the same shit over and over again, slowly dying of misery and boredom each day. Then they look at the big cities their kids are running off to as fast as they can, in most cases never to return, and they blame the people there for their misery, for the loss of jobs and opportunities for those kids. They hate college elites for the same reason, they are stealing their kids, teaching them unacceptable things like tolerance, and even worse acceptance of all those things they wer taught were taboo. When most of the kids come back home from the big cities or from college, whether to visit or to stay, they have changed, they no longer hold the same values and views they were raised with, and this scares these people. Their entire way of life is slowly being erased, even their kids are participating in this erasure, so they rose up and showed cosmopolitan, elitist America that their still here, and they have a say in how this country is run. The bad news for them is that in spite of the damage and destruction they and their Shitgibbon can do to this country over the next 4 years, they will still fail to turn back time. Like a cornered rabid dog they can take a lot of others with them as they die, but they still die.
Back to the point of this post, #StopBannon. We lost the first round of this fight, but preventing them from putting like Bannon into positions of power is a first step in fighting them for out countries future. We need to spend every day for the next 4 years preparing to banish these racist, misogynist, xenophobes, anti-LGBT, neanderthals back to where they came from. The mistake we must never make again is underestimating how many of them there are out there, and how much they hate us for the way we live, and most of all because we are happy.
Betty Cracker
@The Truffle: I like the way you think.
@Botsplainer: I’m oscillating between despairing and feisty myself. But we’ve got to try, damn it.
bemused
Karl Rove’s famous quote cited by Ron Suskind 2004 popped into my head this morning and now I can’t get it out of my head.
Rove said people like Susskind (I would include most of us liberals) were “in what we call the reality-based community who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality- judiciously, as you will-we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do.”
I interpret Rove’s remarks as expressing contempt for the Democratic Party and liberals as “all studies, no cojones” and “You fools can’t do a damn thing to stop us”.
I think there is some truth to the left spending too much time analyzing issues before actually agreeing on a few approaches or actions to appeal to most liberals to get behind. I’m encouraged by so many people gathering ideas and plans to fight back as quickly as possible. This battle needs a massive bombardment of actions coming from all directions.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: That authoritarian prick is all over Twitter just itching to bust heads and denouncing PBO for racism. He’s a complete lunatic. In other words, yeah — probably the top pick for Homeland Sec.
Ella in New Mexico
@WereBear:Cripes,
My feelings exactly. Last thread, Momsense and some others were “sadly” handwringing about how an “O’Keefed”-up, out of context and obviously doctored video that was long ago dealt with will “sink Keith Ellison” as DNC chair.
A. Only if we let it.
B. For once, we can collectively fight back and when it’s only turned on us, FUCK POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
It’s like we keep on fighting over which of the three forks we’re supposed to use for salad when there’s a God-damed Silver-back gorilla stuffing his face with his fists at the head of the table.
Gator90
Wasn’t Bannon named to this position in part as a tip of Trump’s MAGA hat to the overt white supremacists and anti-semites who supported him? To let them (and the rest of us) know they have an honored place at the table? No way Trump jettisons Bannon.
trollhattan
@terraformer:
Not impossible–he might be an amuse bouche distraction. These bastards have proven more prescient than I gave them credit for: never underestimate the stupidity of the American public. e.g.,Mitch McConnell’s USSC gambit has paid off completely, at zero cost to the perpetrators.
Botsplainer
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I wouldn’t feel real sanguine if I lived in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beirut or Jerusalem. Undoubtedly, that idiot Netanyahu has something inflammatory and stupid up his sleeve that will imperil the entirety of the world.
Wouldn’t put much past ISIS, Modi or whatever cabal is running Pakistan right now, either. I have to count on cooler heads in Tehran and Ankara, and at Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Quaeda/Taliban.
And that sucks.
Ella in New Mexico
@Poopyman:
Maybe America needs to hear over and over again that hiring celebrities for important, skilled positions who lack the essential resumes to do them is not a good idea. Hiring Sarah Palin for Interior Secretary is like hiring the actor that does the Maytag commercials to fix your washing machine.
Or some such analogy.
Over and over again.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
I’m trying to imagine that walking mediocrity from Milwaukee County trying to knuckle career Coast Guard admirals to do stupid shit, and the idiot expression on his face as they patiently try to explain their capabilities, protocols, skills and experience to no avail.
trollhattan
@Botsplainer:
I’m guessing Bibi gets his war on and Gaza and the West Bank are in the crosshairs.
Odd bedfellows, because Trump and Vlad are busy propping up Hezbollah’s BFF in Syria.
FoxinSocks
Spent all day yesterday calling my Congress critters. Spent all evening walking my family through how to call and helping them write a script. And you know what? We’re already making a difference. One of the first Congressmen I called, his staffer told me the following, “There’s nothing we can do. Trump won and he can pick whoever he wants.” I told him the Congressman was one of the most powerful people in the country, had a built-in soapbox, and that I expected him to fight like hell using every tool at his disposal.
That afternoon, I checked the news and the same Congressman was suddenly leading the charge against Bannon.
Calls work. Keep at it.
senate. gov house.gov to get your rep’s numbers.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
The same media currently grilling leading dems for why they “didn’t reach out” to cranky Anglos and said mean things about nice people like Governor Scott Walker. “If you’d played nice, you could have won.”
This is where their energy is going. Trump is on “Wait and see” status.
Betty Cracker
@Gator90: Maybe not. But thanks to all the hell-raising that has already occurred around the pick, at least more people know who that prick is. If the shit-gibbon is going to have a white nationalist pile of shit in the West Wing, the more people who know it, the better.
Betty Cracker
@FoxinSocks: Well done!
hovercraft
@Poopyman:
I agree, not sensible person would volunteer to be a crew member on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.We all know how that story ends, unfortunately the rest of us are the passengers, some of us will make it off, but far too many will go down with the ship. We need to begin making preparations now so that as many as possible survive this catastrophe.
@JMG:
I’m amazed by all of these people who refuse to believe their lying eyes and ears, these people have TOLD US WHO THEY ARE, BELIEVE THEM !!! Why does everyone keep giving them the benefit of the doubt? I want to believe in the tooth fairy, but I’m a grown up. Stop appeasing them and hold them accountable, call out every dumb appointment and show the people who should have known better the error of their ways. The true believers will never regret sticking it to the liberals and the elites, but there are a bunch of morons who let themselves get conned. Try to reach them.
Botsplainer
@trollhattan:
Beirut, too, because you can’t punish that city enough for being unable to field adequate security forces to secure the southern half of the country.
hovercraft
Ex-House Intelligence Chair Abruptly Leaves Trump Transition Team
The rats are already fighting amongst themselves. We need to keep them going, show everyone their incompetence.
Sab
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Cut them some slack. My father is one of them. He has dementia. In his prime he adored Hillary. Now he watches Fox because of the scantily clad bomb is and we wanted to vote for Trump because Fox told him taxes.
schrodinger's cat
@Sab: Why should I cut them slack when they want to kill me? They are using our basic decency against us.
hovercraft
@FoxinSocks:
Well that is heartening. I’ll call my congresscritter Frank Pallone, and check why he hasn’t announced his opposition to Bannon yet. There is a facebook page to get Corey Booker to speak up, I also haven’t seen anything from Bob Menendez yet, so I’ll hit them up too.
Sab
@Sab: what is wrong with autocorrect. What appears above is NOT what I typed. I even corrected it and it still reverted to gibberish.
Tokyokie
I remember reading, several years ago, so I don’t have a link, about a study about nationalistic movements. The study concluded that such movements, were, virtually without exception, covers for criminal activity by state actors. My guess is that Bannon’s long-held desire to bring down the entire social structure is to create chaos similar to that which existed when the Soviet Union collapsed, which would enable him and his cronies to seize assets under cover of government policy and place him and his ill-gotten gains beyond the law. And until he proves me differently, I’ll assume that’s his game plan.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
I can’t agree with everything on your list, but there’d be some monumental irony in liberal democrats having to flee the West for Argentina in the same way that Nazis did seventy years ago.
WereBear
@hovercraft: Thanks.
Betty Cracker
@Tokyokie: And of course Trump and his entire family are consummate grifters too, so they’ll all be in on the con together. Grand Theft Treasury.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
I can’t agree with everything on your list, but it would certainly be ironic if liberal democrats had to flee to Argentina in the same way that fascists did seventy years ago.
Chris
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
You might as well point out that 1940s America made it a policy to isolate and round up certain citizens based exclusively on their race, even at the same time that they were supposedly fighting fascism (and that’s not even counting the racist policies that were in place long before the war). Or that the HUAC that was supposed to, among other things, investigate fascist activities in the U.S. declined to investigate its most infamous fascist organization, the KKK, because it was “an old American institution.”
The reputation for antifascism of the Greatest Generation is somewhat overdone. The plain fact is that most of those vets would’ve mobilized no matter who we were fighting and that generic patriotism/nationalism probably had more to do with it than anything else.
ETA: and a lot of the way we relate to fascism today is something that took form gradually, over the course of years, after the war and the wide publication of the events of the Holocaust, not at the time.
Chris
@hovercraft:
And let me add to this: this is what they actually mean when they call liberals “smug.”
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Emily68: Bury newspapers like the NYT and Washington Post with inquiries about this–why aren’t they covering it pre-emptively? Given problems past administrations have had, given the need for accountability, given the bad feelings Trump’s campaign has raised, and given the issues over his Russian connections, we need to know from Day 1 what’s up there.
I would also bury the editorial offices–and, in fact, the publisher’s suites as well as the owners with the business over Bannon. Sulzberger deserves to have his tootsies held to the fire, given what his paper has done with and to Clinton, and it needs to be public. Bezos might merit somewhat more gentle handling–after all, there’s Farenthold’s work to consider, so telling him his paper is an essential guardian of American democracy and civil rights, as well as simple decency and we hope he won’t let things slide but will keep up the good fight is probably the best place to start.
But hang the NYT, and any other paper that seems to be falling into line on this, out to dry. Shame them. I suspect, in many cases, they might actually twitch harder over the anti-Semitism than the other, equally horrible components of Bannon’s worldview. While screaming “This is how the Holocaust started” might not be the best approach, stating that having someone who thinks the same way as the Nazis that close to the levers of power is a disgrace, and anyone who enables it is also a disgrace, period, is not a bad starting point.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Betty Cracker: We may not be able to stop it. But I don’t want any adult English-speaker in this country who is not living in the middle of the wilderness like Ted Kaczynski able to claim they didn’t know. I want them to wear this like a crown for years to come–whether it’s Arthur Ochs Sulzberger JR, Senator Corker of Tennessee, Senator Cotton of Alabama, or Chief Justice John Roberts. Like the slave who murmured in the ear of the general riding his chariot through Rome in triumph “Remember you will die as well someday”, I want them to hear “You can’t ignore it–these people are horrific bigots; don’t pretend it isn’t true, because everyone know.”
CM
Given what we already know about Trump and how he lives and now the news about security clearances for his children, it looks like (thanks to the perversities of the electoral vote system) the actually well-off white people of this country have chosen a leader who is a cross between Mussolini and Louis XIV. What a fustercluck.
WTF
@Emily68:
RE: GOP Emails
You probably missed this but Pence has already made moves to prevent anyone from seeing his emails.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/politics/mike-pence-email-lawsuit/
CM
Make that Mussolini, Louis XiV, and maybe Bernie Madoff. Betty, you began this thread by writing, “But it’s also critical to deny the shit-gibbon the opportunity to elevate the global media conglomerate operating under the Breitbart name to state-run media status… It must not be ensconced in the White House to operate as the American version of Russia Today.” Trump is going to turn the White House into the PR firm, booking agent, and boiler room for the Trump brand around the world.
Shalimar
Nothing is going to get Trump to replace Bannon before the administration even starts. It’s still a great idea to get the racist white supremacist connection out there now so we can highlight it again and again when they actually do racist things.
WTF
@Gator90:
Trump Jettison Banner?
Nor will any of the rest of them. He’s their new general and wonder boy and will lead them on to victory after victory.
The prof. who predicted a Trump win is now saying that Trump will be impeached by Republicans! Because Pence is a manageable party line conservative.
We can only hope.
Bannon will probably be around as long as he can produce results, even if he is a Leninist who wants to destroy both the Rebuplican and Democratic party establishment, our cherished democratic institutions, the mainstream media and the whole damn state.
Bannon thinks The National Review and The Weekly Standard are left wing magazines and wants to destroy them also.
Out of his own mouth if you believe Radosh. I’m inclined to believe him.
WereBear
@Chris: Nope. This is what they mean:
THEM: “How dare you act all superior to me!”
US: “All I’m doing is making better grades/acting compassionately/not being bigoted/saying women are people too/saying science improves our lives/saying gay people are people too/sticking up for art, music, and literature/saying POC are people too/wanting worldly accomplishments/seeking self-improvement which are all good things.”
THEM: “Exactly! How dare you be all superior to me!”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand repeat.
alce_e_ ardilla
Called my congressman Paul Tonko, to voice my displeasure at Bannon’s appointment, and to my gratitude, found that he had already demanded that the Bannon appointment be rescinded.
Tokyokie
@Betty Cracker: I’ve always assumed that’s the vision Bannon sold him.
Ab_Normal
@SenyorDave: Hm, what if I’m already boycotting Black Friday because I’m having a birthday party instead?
AMinNC
Yesterday I called both my Republican Senators – I very nicely and politely asked the staffers:”What is Senator X’s position on White Nationalism?” Burr’s staffer paused a few seconds and then said, “If this is about Steve Bannon, the Senator hasn’t made a statement about this yet.” I then asked, “Will the Senator be making a statement about this appointment soon?” She said she didn’t know but she’d note my comment. They were clearly getting a lot of calls, and the staffer sounded a bit frazzled.
The Tillis exchanges were VERY interesting. At the Raleigh office they noted my concern and then suggested I call the DC office because they might know more about a forthcoming statement. The intern there (very sweet, very inexperienced) was flummoxed when I asked about Tillis’s position on White Nationalism. She said, hold on, I’ll find someone who can answer that for you. Then about 30 seconds later she came back with “Senator Tillis does not support white supremacy.” I said, “That is wonderful; I should certainly hope he wouldn’t!” I then asked if he was going to speak out about Bannon’s appointment, because the anti-semitic and racist things he published at Breitbart were horrifying. She said she didn’t know but that they had been getting A LOT of calls about that. I then said “YAY, North Carolina,” and she laughed along with me – it almost felt like she was changing her mind about being there working for this guy. The whole exchange was just as pleasant as I could make it – we were able to agree that white supremacy was wrong, and it seemed like she wanted Tillis to say something too.
My last call was to our Democratic Representative, because ALL Dems need to speak up against this stuff. Rep. Price is a good Dem., and a measured man, but he keeps the lowest of low profiles. I indicated that I would really like to see him step up on this – it’s what good people should do. Congress critters hear so often from the right – it’s about time they regularly hear from us too.
Marmot
Dang it! Wasn’t there a thread devoted to collecting legislators ‘ responses?
I just called Rep. McCaul to ask whether he supports the appointment of a white nationalist to the White House. The staffer said that hundreds of calls have come in about that very topic, so far. And McCaul does not have a position on it yet but is very interested in what constituents think.