Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

I really should read my own blog.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The revolution will be supervised.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

This fight is for everything.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Decline & Fall Open Thread: If A Nazi Screams on the National Mall…

Decline & Fall Open Thread: If A Nazi Screams on the National Mall…

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… and can’t get the attention they so desperately demand…

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51Comments

  1. 1.

    BR

    I’m still waiting for folks to replicate the amazing and in my opinion best response: Tuba brigades. There was such a march back in NC a couple years back and a random Tuba player took it out and played the ants go marching and other things behind them and took video and spread it around — they looked like fools trying to look tough with a blurp-y sounding Tuba soundtrack. That will dismantle them more effectively than outrage or anything else.

    I wonder who might put out the Trumpet — or Tuba — call to Tuba players to unite and march to mock these folks whenever they try to organize.

  3. 3.

    jl

    Good news is that the vast majority of these toxic fools’ marches can’t get a turnout of even 100 people. So, this was a big one, but tiny compared to the past:

    List of rallies and protest marches in Washington, D.C.

    1925 – August 8, Ku Klux Klan march. Between 25,000 and 50,000 Ku Klux Klan members march to show support for the KKK and demand immigration restrictions based on race and nation of origin.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rallies_and_protest_marches_in_Washington,_D.C.

    And there was a Christian fundamentialist pro-war march in 1970, brought out around 50,000. Not very relevant to this thread, but I thought the idea of a Christian pro-war march several hundred years after the Reformation was interesting.

  4. 4.

    jl

    And, what is with all the weirdo variations on the US flag, besides the Betsy Ross flag?  Any commenters recognize a flag that is some new fashionable  fascist symbol?

  6. 6.

    joel hanes

    @jl:

    a Christian pro-war march

    It was 1970.   The Republican President was all in for Viet Nam.

    Conservative/authoritarian followers gonna follow.  It’s what they do.  There’s a reason that the collective noun is “flock”

  7. 7.

    Kent

    My grandfather and great uncle used to shoot Nazis for a living.  In Italy and France.

    They would not have put up with this shit.

  8. 8.

    BR

    @Martin:

    I did once ask some students if they knew any band members who’d be up for that, but it didn’t go anywhere.  I wonder if anyone on the blog is a band alumnus and can reach out to their alma mater.

  9. 9.

    Martin

    @jl: Well, an American flag modified to incorporate a fasces is bit on the nose. Doesn’t really leave much to interpretation.

    So, these  aren’t necessarily nazis, they could be a different, comparably wholesome breed of fascists.

  10. 10.

    Kent

    @joel hanes:

    @jl:

    a Christian pro-war march

    It was 1970.   The Republican President was all in for Viet Nam.

    Conservative/authoritarian followers gonna follow.  It’s what they do.  There’s a reason that the collective noun is “flock”

    Billy Graham pressured Nixon to wage war crimes against the civilian population and basically do genocide in North Vietnam.  He was an even bigger warmonger than Nixon or Kissinger  https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/27/the-preacher-and-vietnam-when-billy-graham-urged-nixon-to-kill-one-million-people/

  13. 13.

    Duane

    If they’re such proud Americans, they shouldn’t  be ashamed to show their faces. Maybe DC needs to ban masks in public. Be out and proud Nazi scum, or don’t be out at all.

  14. 14.

    jl

    @Martin: Thanks. I can be slow on subtext. So, those things that looks like vacuum cleaner rotors are supposed to be stylized fasces? OK. Good to know.

     

    Edit: But I’m still wondering if some of these flags are official symbols of an official organization, or they just came up with it, kind of the like the ninja tortoise battle costumes that the proud boys (right?) improvised for their protests… which seem like long ago. What happened to them? A lot of them looked so fat and flabby, maybe they are having trouble getting out and about for a vigorous and brisk protest march?

  15. 15.

    Martin

    @Kent: Sure. Ivies aren’t culturally a great fit for poor kids, but they’ll get a free ride. Oftentimes cheaper to go there than a state school.

  18. 18.

    joel hanes

    @Kent:

    Yes.  People act as if Franklin is an aberration, and seem to remember Billy Graham through some kind of golden, genial haze.

    I despised Graham senior for diligently working to destroy the proper wall between church and state, destruction that continues apace.

    The “National Prayer Breakfast” is inappropriate for American governance, and inappropriate for followers of Christ.  (See Matthew 6, especially 6:5)

  20. 20.

    jl

    @Martin: I was thinking that the flags with the diagonal red stripes and the ones with the red striped chevrons are supposed to recall the Nazi version of the swastika. But I thought that was kind of a  stretch and weak. Not sure I would have thought that if I hadn’t known they were fascists.

    I don’t think most people would ‘get it’ right away, unless they were well versed in symbolical insinnuendo and knew who these people were, if these doofuses don’t have any stability or system for their goofus flags.

  23. 23.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Nothing says “white pride” like marching with your faces all covered up. //

    And as a Cal grad, even I approve of siccing the Stanford Band on Nazis. Actually especially the Stanford Band. I’ll even chip in for their breakfast of donuts and beer.

  26. 26.

    Martin

    @Kent: So, a lot of that is self-selection. As a university that historically has tried very hard to support low-income students, we were rewarded by a higher percentage of low-income applicants.

    Little spoken of truth is that some universities turn down students on the basis of need – basically, they don’t have the financial aid pool to support them. One thing they do is try and market themselves as more upscale to discourage those students from applying, fearing that they will not fit in, or get as much support.

    Lots of things are working against you if you’re poor.

  27. 27.

    mrmoshpotato

    … and can’t get the attention they so desperately demand…

    …punch a bunch of Nazis in the face and throw them in the sea?

  28. 28.

    Ladyraxterinok

    @Kent:

    Son a 90 grad. Ex a science prof at a state u, income under 50,000. Son got significant financial aid from u. Son basically stunned by spending and waste habits of most students he saw. Felt many just coasted cuz knew they had good jobs after grad. Only Oriental heritage and a few others took studies seriously according to him

  29. 29.

    Kent

    @Ladyraxterinok: Son a 90 grad. Ex a science prof at a state u, income under 50,000. Son got significant financial aid from u. Son basically stunned by spending and waste habits of most students he saw. Felt many just coasted cuz knew they had good jobs after grad. Only Oriental heritage and a few others took studies seriously according to him

    I was from a lower middle class/working class family and I attended a wealthy liberal arts college, not quite Stanford-level but similar demographics.  I remember the first time I realized I was not like them was when the talk before Christmas was about how the big college New Years Eve party was going to be at X___ mom’s apartment in Paris and that everyone was going to be there.  Well, not *quite* everyone.  Then later during Spring finals when the posters started going up about the big college 4th of July bash that was going to be in Prague that year.  Not for me though, I was working 60 hours/wk all summer in construction to pay the tuition balance after  I maxed out student loans.   This was in the 1980s.

    At my 10 year reunion there was a friend from a wealthy NYC family who said “my accountant says I’ve been paying for a storage unit for the past 10 years.  Let’s go see what’s in it.  So we gathered up the beers and drove over to this storage unit near campus, opened it up, and there in the center of the floor was a single milk crate full of old English lit books and a very beat-up old drum set.  We tossed them in the dumpster and he stopped the $75/mo monthly rent he (his accountant) had been paying for the past 10 years.

    It has only gotten much worse since then.

  30. 30.

    TriassicSands

    The reason there are so few is because all the white supremacists in DC are in the White House.

    For a minute I thought it was a reunion of the entire Trump inauguration crowd.

  31. 31.

    bjacques

    @BR: kazoos are easier to source. These are pix I shot of the Klan march (Heritage Not Hate, brah) in front of Rice U, July 1 1990, the Saturday before the G7 Summit. A few familiar faces in the parade. They loved being shouuted at by the local RCP but hated being serenaded by “Der Fuehrer’s Face”. The Rice Marching Owl Band (MOB) could give ‘em what for but would consider it infra dig.

     

    Whoops, link

    https://flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157655951344939

  32. 32.

    Kent

    @TriassicSands:

    The reason there are so few is because all the white supremacists in DC are in the White House.

    For a minute I thought it was a reunion of the entire Trump inauguration crowd.

    They aren’t that few. But a lot of them can’t afford the gas money to get to DC or the terms of their probations won’t let them cross state lines.

  33. 33.

    BethanyAnne

    I still say that if I won that lotto, I’d pay for particularly bad tuba players to follow every White Power parade. They would be instructed to play “March of the Valkyries” to the best of their limited abilities.

  36. 36.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Martin: I remember reading somewhere that Stanford will provide scholarships etc for anybody that gets in so that cost of the schooling is not a barrier. I just wonder if that just means tuition only or does that include housing because housing and other non schooling expenses in the Bay area I would have to believe will run you another $10-15K. That would still make it out of reach for a lot of people. My niece got a merit state school scholarship that didn’t cover housing here. I believe her parents shelled out around another $8-10K for housing and other expenses.

    I live in Tempe, AZ where ASU is. I avoid the actual college areas because of traffic and parking but when I do make the occasional trek there it always blows my mind with the luxury vehicles I see driven by the students. I don’t claim to know model years etc but I see plenty of what look like i new(er) Benzes, Audis, Lexuses, Teslas etc. BTW this isn’t something new. I’ve seen this for years and ASU is a pretty cheap school even for out of state tuition.

  37. 37.

    bjacques

    @Martin:  if we’d heard of those and could get them in 1990, we’d have definitely gone that route. As it was, we caught major stink eye from the marchers, so job done.

  38. 38.

    Kent

    @Mai naem mobile: You don’t think those are the cars of the adjunct faculty?  I hear adjuncts make the big bucks these days.

    But yes, I teach at a HS where the cars in the student lot are nicer than those in the teacher’s lot.

  39. 39.

    smike

    @Martin: I met a tuba player (high school band) who could wail on ‘flight of the bumblebee’. He was better than any other horn player I heard.

  40. 40.

    smike

    @Mai naem mobile: In the 70s I was hitting cars with leaflets (Southwest Texas State) and ventured into the parking area underneath the new women’s dorm. It looked like a mixed brand car dealership lot. It was an interesting revelation to me. I think I just wandered off…

  41. 41.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Kent: I doubt it because I’ve seen the drivers. They look young and they look like students . There is a newer condo complex that I drive by pretty much every day which is popular with students. Parking lot has a lot of luxury vehicles. I have a friend who is a realtor. She has a client who lives in Phoenix who just bought a very small apartment complex as an investment in Tempe in the neighborhood of a $1M because his daughter is attending ASU and she will live in one unit and they’ll rent the others out. I’ve had family friends buy a  cheaper condo or house for their kid in while in college as an investment but an apartment complex was a little shocking even for me.

  44. 44.

    SFAW

    @Kent:

    You don’t think those are the cars of the adjunct faculty?  I hear adjuncts make the big bucks these days.

    I assume you were joking, since adjuncts are notoriously shat-upon

  45. 45.

    SFAW

    @jl:

    And there was a Christian fundamentialist pro-war march in 1970,

    Onward Christian soldiers

    Marching as to war

    Kill your Christian brothers

    As you’ve done before

  46. 46.

    Robert sneddon

    @Martin: The Founding Slaveowners were big on Roman history and the fasces were part of their creation mythology — the Latin tag “E Pluribus Unum” was a part of that. Even a hundred years later the Lincoln Memorial depicted the saviour of the Union resting his hands on Roman-style fasces. It’s as American as apple pie, the German American Bund and redlining.

  50. 50.

    Darkrose

    @Mai naem mobile: Stanford class of 1991–Corey Booker was our senior class president. My financial aid package covered tuition and housing, and had a work-study component.  I had outside scholarships that paid for books and my meal plan.

    I also got into UC Berkeley. It was way too overwhelming coming from a small Catholic prep school, and as an out-of-state student I wasn’t eligible for much financial aid. I chose Stanford and have never regretted it.

  51. 51.

    ET

    I live in DC and I  am not the only one who had no idea this was going on.

    I will say that based on the photos that I thought there were more of the cockroaches. Wonder if there were more cops herding them.

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