Trump: Fear-mongering in Florida
The President gathered supporters around him, and blatantly lied to them, so as to increase support for his policies.
Let’s cut to the chase: it was already disturbing for the President to feel as if he needed the warm glow of an adoring crowd just shy of a month into his presidency. While on the one hand there is no doubt that any person who runs for that office likes attention and affirmation from their supporters, on the other we expect a balance to exist between the egoism one expects of a politician at this level of office, and then naked hunger for adulation we are seeing from the current occupant of the White House.
However, when the rally includes the need to blatantly lie to the crowd, that kicks the disturbance level up several levels. When the lie is used to increase the fear levels in the crowd, that further enhances the level of concern. And, for the trifecta, when a politician blatantly lies to induce fear so as to create momentum for a policy goal (and one aimed at specific set of people) then the level of concern we should have as citizens should be huge (if one can even use that word any longer).
To wit, via the NYT: ‘Last Night in Sweden’? Trump’s Remark Baffles a Nation
In this video we have the President of the United States making up some dramatic event in Sweden linked to refugees and for the express purpose of creating fear of refugees (specifically of Muslim refugees) so as to stir support for his “extreme vetting” and his recent Executive Order on immigration.
Mr. Trump did not state, per se, that a terrorist attack had taken place in Sweden.
But the context of his remarks — he mentioned Sweden right after he chastised Germany, a destination for refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war and deprivation — suggested that he thought it might have.
“Sweden,” he said. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris. We’ve allowed thousands and thousands of people into our country and there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing. So we’re going to keep our country safe.”
Not only is the Sweden reference apparently a falsehood, but the overall content of his rant is as well. First, the notion that the US has admitted refugees without vetting is, quite frankly, a lie. And second, the notion that the terror attacks in Europe were committed by refugees is incorrect as well:
Contrary to Mr. Trump’s allegations, nearly all of the men involved in terrorist assaults in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, in Brussels on March 22 last year, and in Nice, France, on July 14, were citizens of France or Belgium.
Here are some Swedish reactions:
Henrik Selin, political scientist and deputy director of the Swedish Institute, a state agency dedicated to promoting Sweden globally, said he was puzzled by Mr. Trump’s remarks.
“I do not have a clue what he was referring to,” he said in a telephone interview. “Obviously, this could be connected to the fact that there has been a lot of negative reporting about Sweden, since Sweden has taken in a lot of refugees.”
The country processed 81,000 asylum seekers in 2014, 163,000 in 2015 and 29,000 last year, with another 25,000 to 45,000 expected this year, according to the Swedish Migration Agency.
Mr. Selin completed a study recently focusing on negative news reports about Sweden’s intake of refugees. It found numerous exaggerations and distortions, including reports falsely claiming that Sharia law was predominant in parts of the country and that some immigrant-heavy neighborhoods were considered “no-go zones” by the police.
“Those reports were highly exaggerated and not based in facts,” Mr. Selin said. “Some of the stories were very popular to spread in social media by people who have the same kind of agenda — that countries should not receive so many refugees.”
As for the cover-up alleged by Mr. Horowitz, Mr. Selin said: “That kind of claim has been in the political debate for 15 years now. But nobody has been able to prove there is a cover-up. On the contrary, the fact is that crime rates are going down.”
He added: “Swedish authorities have nothing to gain from hiding the truth. We are quite keen to ensure that the debate and the story about our country is fact-based and nuanced. We are more than happy to talk about the challenges our country faces as well as the things that are going well.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s comment, Anna Kinberg Batra, the leader of the opposition Moderate Party, said in a statement, “President Trump has to answer himself for his statements, why he makes them and based on what facts.”
Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom declined to comment because, her press secretary, Erik Wirkensjo, said, “It’s hard to say what Trump is talking about.”
In an essay in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the journalist Martin Gelin speculated that “Trump might have gotten his news from the countless right-wing media in the United States that have long been reporting that Sweden is heading for total collapse.”
He added: “Among Trump supporters, there are common myths that Sweden is in a state of chaos after taking in refugees from the Middle East. These are incorrect, made up and gravely misleading news items like this have spread to right-wing sites like Breitbart, Human Events, Drudge Report and Fox News, as well as the popular conservative radio programs that reach millions of listeners every day.”
The last several days have seen the following from the President:
- Attack the free press (not just criticize, but attack to the point of calling them “the enemy of the American people+).
- Gather crowds of supporters so that he can enjoy their cheers and adulation.
- Use fear and lie to that crowd so as to motivate support for policy.
This is all authoritarian behavior. This is dangerous.
I know that attacking the press, especially the “main-steam media” is red meat for his supporters, but this is taking that approach to a whole new level.
The gathering of crowds for rallies at this stage is very troubling. It was bad enough that he had his “thank you tour”/victory lap back in December, as it would have been better for the country if he had reached beyond his base at that point to build a bigger connection to the population, but he declined to do so. Now he is retreating to a comfortable bubble (less than a month into his presidency!) and is trying to use that bubble to motivate support for policy.
And to do all of this based on clear untruth simply adds to the level of concern. Whether he is repeating some half-baked internet meme or making up a story out of whole-cloth doesn’t matter: it is using a lie to incite fear and to use that fear for policy purposes.
Appealing to crowds based on their personal support of a politician so as to induce fear of a specific group of people by way of falsehoods should set off alarm bells.
“Actually, the main problem is career bureaucrats speaking out against Trump and his administration’s plan to undercut their agencies with family-mob style politics.”
–
Dr. James Joyner
I don’t know how anyone could look at the crowd picture at the top of your post and not be afraid for our country.
Trump has incited a mob and I question whether they can be turned back. What information could possibly be seen as legitimate, let alone persuasive, to a people this fervently supportive of this man?
@Lit3Bolt: Don’t even get me started.
Melbourne is the new Nuremberg.
There is no shortage of good Germans in the United States.
Additionally, despite the truth of the following:
as long as 40 or so percent of the population (including 91% of the GOP) are ok with what Trump is doing, we can’t expect a return to anything even vaguely resembling normal or truthful.
Our hearts go out to our Swedish friends. As further reports have come in the casualty count has risen to zero.
More seriously, since the late 80s (Limbaugh) and mid 90s (Murdoch) we’ve been building a Right Wing propaganda apparatus that Goebbels would have died for. It makes big money telling an audience of about 35% of the country what they want to hear, and only what they want to hear. They have a positive feedback loop in which the personalities push the audience further from reality and the audience pulls the personalities further out. They’ve now constructed a complete alternative universe. If you believed what they believe about Hillary, you wouldn’t have voted for her either.
With the Southern Strategy the Republican Party helped create this situation and they have evolved to depend on it. As long as the Mighty Right Wing Wurlitzer convinces the rubes the Rs care about abortion and gays and blacks and rust belt jobs, the Rs can get away with destructive tax cuts and regulatory reduction. (And being conservative, many of the Rs believe their own lies, believe they actually care about the cultural stuff.) And now even the concept of objective reality is under threat.
Trump is not an aberration, he’s the inevitable result of what Rs have been doing for more than a generation. And frankly I don’t see how to turn this around.
@Lit3Bolt: exactly so
This reminds me of the question posited by David Brooks, which is very relevant today, of whether we can stay together as a country and as a nation. When there are such stark divides between the media choice, political affiliation, religiosity, inclusiveness, and economic opportunity that correlate with geography (rural vs urban, coasts vs heartland), people are essentially living in different realities. Edwards’s Two Americas wasn’t wrong, it was premature. Time ran an article in 2000 that I read growing up entitled “two nations, easily divisible”. That is more true now than ever.
There are very smart people who grow up in Appalachia, get educated at UNC, Duke, or Harvard, and then move to the coastal cities for jobs and cultural amenities. They never look back. When we self-segregate like this, it has the effect of furthering the political polarization. Furthermore, we cross-boycott products from Trump states and Trump-supporting companies, while at the same time Trump supporters flock to these in retribution. The opposite happens as well. See: Uber, Starbucks, Nordstrom.
There’s no obvious solution to this. Eventually, if it keeps up, the US will fracture as a country. It’s the same everywhere. Londoners live in a very different reality from those in the Midlands. It affects me personally as well. Call me an elitist or globalist all you want, but I admittedly feel far more kinship and affinity for a multilingual well-traveled educated professional from Chile or France or Singapore than I do with a religious blue collar worker from a different part of the US who likes hunting.
this must be the first time in history that a politician lied to the public….
get over it, he won- enjoy at least 4 yrs of being able to criticize a sitting president.
Look, Trump really is more appalling as many on the left thought that he would be, but …. Republicans are willing to look the other way right now because: (1) they control Congress and they’ve got the numbers to by-and-large do whatever they want, and (2) many Republicans fear the angry, bitter, and resentful White voters who installed Trump in the White House.
It’s probably going to take something seismic, like: (i) disclosure that Trump knew of and supported Russian efforts to influence our election, (ii) Trump’s tax returns show that he’s financially into Russian oligarchs for hundreds of millions of dollars.
EVEN THEN Trump supporters aren’t going anywhere because any facts that show Trump to be a malevolent and vindictive autocrat are going to be rejected as fake news.
@bill:
You’re too stupid to know you’re stupid.
Well, we’ve had our Beer Putch, Reichstag fire to be along shortly.
Sad that Outside the Beltway will be among the first to be blocked by the coming U.S. firewall. You guys had a good run, nothing to be ashamed about.
Shortly after, we will provide Papers, Please to buy groceries, send email, and travel anywhere.
There has yet been no serious check on this GOP disaster, so we must assume everything fascist is on the table once more.
Who is going to stop them, exactly?
@S. Fields:
It doesn’t look so bad. Look at the woman in front taking the selfie. The guy right above her seems like a hate fueled monster, but there appears to be a woman in pink directly behind him helping hold up the sign. And the doofy guy with the mustache who can be seen under the angry man’s sign looks just like my father. To the left of the angry man, everyone seems happy. To the right, same way.
They just look like people.
Unless your point is that the frightening part is that these are just people, and that they are enthusiastic despite the reality of what they are enthusiastically supporting… That you cannot find the monsters because they are just people.
@al-Ameda:
And on top of the Trump supporters, we get President Pence.
Remember, though, that two years ago everybody was saying that at the Presidential level, the Republicans were doomed by demographics. Old white people are still dying off at the same rate. Dems do well following Republican screw ups, and there look to be a lot of Republican screw ups in our near future.
@bill: I cannot remember not criticizing a President. I’m not sure why you think we couldn’t criticize Obama…
I mean, even claiming he was born in Kenya, or that he’s a secret Muslim, or referring to his wife by her Klingon name would get you the fond approval of 27% of the population, and that’s crazy shit.
@gVOR08:
I certainly hope so.
@gVOR08:
American conservatism today is incoherent and self-defeating.
Conservatives love their healthcare and social security and strong military, but don’t want to pay for it.
Conservatives rely on immigrant labor to drive wages down, but they also want to deport all illegal immigrants.
Conservatives want to do business with the entire world but also want to start needless racial and religious wars.
Conservatives claim to love their country and values yet hate at least half of their countrymen merely for differences of opinion.
Conservatives want strong law and order, just not for themselves (aka deregulation).
Conservatives want limitless religious exemptions but only for their religion (aka no Madrasas with school vouchers).
Conservatives are always strong and assertive and the majority yet simultaneously always victims of oppressive, all-powerful minorities.
Conservatives claim to hate government overreach, yet cheer Trump for government overreach.
Conservatives are so afraid of terrorists they make it easier for terrorism to happen (lax gun laws, deregulation, disinformation).
Conservatives claim to hate “safe spaces,” yet have self-segregated themselves from liberal society for more than a generation now, creating a generation of brainwashed idiots who can’t interact with the rest of the world in a productive fashion.
A gay Neo-Nazi who wants to be a bottom for Trump and Putin is the keynote speaker at this year’s CPAC, which is all you need to know today about American conservationism. The rank and file have embraced a total peasant mentality, even to point of sexual submission.
@Eric Florack: I don’t think you understand Lit3Bolt’s reason for quoting our host.
@Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker:
It was a parody anyway, but that’s another aspect of American conservatism: it is almost impossible to satirize and parody.
Eric Florack doesn’t realize, or doesn’t care, how dangerous it is for Kushner and Bannon to operate their own parallel State Departments and Security Councils.
When you can’t even get disgraced generals on probation to join your administration, that’s a problem.
Per Sen. McConnell’s rubric using his own words, we now must wait until after the next election to fill the vacant SCOTUS seat.
The White House has officially and repeatedly called yesterday’s rally in Florida a “campaign event”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-holding-campaign-event-florida-saturday/story?id=45521140
From McConnell’s official website, March 2, 2016:
http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2016/3/mcconnell-reiterates-to-president-the-american-people-will-be-heard-senate-will-observe-biden-rule
Sorry, Judge Gorsuch – just following McConnell’s guidelines.
@Lit3Bolt:
But, of course, that’s the point — the 50% they hate aren’t real Americans. They are liberal, or gay, or nonwhite, or Catholic/Jewish/Moslem/Buddhist, or have some other disqualifying characteristic that distinguishes them from real Americans, the Americans this continent was destined for, manifestly.
It really is that ugly.
@DrDaveT:
The way American conservatism is pro/regressing I suspect anti-Catholic hysteria will make a comeback, especially if the Pope Francis continues to oppose Dear Leader.
All of this reminds me of the occasion when a female co-worker gave her future husband a set of briefs showing a picture of Pinocchio with the caption: “Please lie to me.” That seems to be the mindset of DT’s worshipful listeners.
@Lit3Bolt:
From what I’ve observed, the most ardent Trump supporters are far less conservatives or Republicans (whom they refer to as cuckservatives) than they are white ethno-nationalist populists. They were never really happy in the Republican Party, which does, after all, have some blacks, Jews, and Hispanics in its constituency, but it was the best they could manage till Trump came along. Trump got the endorsement of The Daily Stormer, the newspaper of the American Nazi Party, and the full-throated support of The Crusader, the Klan newspaper.
They’re not fond of Papists, it’s true, and they hate blacks, Hispanics, and Muslims, but they reserve their most intense hatred of those whom they refer to as “The Jooooz,” `because the Jooooz stir up all the the other minorities.
At the most extreme end of an extreme group, there are those who want to cleanse the United States of anyone who can’t prove that he or she is of pure, undiluted Anglo-Saxon or Germanic ancestry, which by my guess, given at the rate which Americans happily intermarry, would leave the country with a population of about 127 people.
You see, Trump is going to make American white again. Not necessarily Protestant, since some of the Stormers appear to worship the Norse gods.
It just appalls me that there are so many of these people.
@CSK:
It’s hard to separate the true believers from the true grifters from the true authoritarian submissives at this point, because modern conservatism doesn’t seem to have an end goal other than trying to keep/attain power to fulfill their darkest, self-centered fantasies.
And all for some dog-faced, toad-chined, rat-toothed pale white troglodytes to keep their safe space.
The most delicious irony of conservatism is how it will destroy itself with climate change. The human race won’t go extinct, IMO, but the tropics will become too warm for habitation.
Hey conservatives: Guess where brown people live?
Like it or not, our descendants will be speaking some pidgin Spanglish sooner rather than later. Thus passes the “white race…”
Just a reminder that during the campaign Pres Trump advocated ‘tightening up’ laws regarding libel and slander to make it easier to sue media outlets.
What could go wrong?
Mr. Trump says many things that make people scratch their heads, but just wait. Soon Ted Cruz’ father will be indicted in the Kennedy assassination, and everything will fall in place.
I wonder if Hillary Clinton had direct ties to the Russian mafia and Putin that James Joyner would be worried about career bureaucrats in the CIA undermining her administration.
Just kidding, I don’t have to wonder.
So. I’m in business and sales.
I have just cleaned out my anti-Trump tweets. I can’t risk the backlash, especially from what appears to be the continually enraged Trumpkins.
That’s fear. Mine.
It’s only been one month.
Let’s hope that the real conservatives decide to rally behind McCain, and we watch this country split to three parties: liberal dems, conservative GOP and the wackadoo ethno-nationalist populists.
I tweet anti-Trump tweets about a half dozen times a day. I do it under my pen name, as a public person, knowing they can retaliate.
@Lit3Bolt:
Sounds like White Genocide to me… Better secure those borders before it’s too late.
@Lit3Bolt:
You see a gay neo-nazi who wants his authoritarian daddies, and I see a man who will say anything for a buck — a man who is playing a character and would be aghast if he cared, but has realized that there is a meal ticket to be had being “controversial”.
He’s like Sarah Palin, but more effective. I love Sarah Palin since all the money she pockets could have otherwise gone to effectively opposing things I care about. Milo Yiannopolis (or whatever) does more damage because his schtick (sp?) allows to many people to say “see, I’m open minded and accepting” while enabling them to do terrible things now that they’ve checked off the “open minded and accepting” check box.
I expect him to get killed. Either because of a left wing nutjob, or a right wing nutjob when the tide turns against him (he makes a point of mentioning his black Muslim exboyfriend). I am surprisingly ok with that.
Here is an interesting fact: according to the local police there were about nine thousand people at the Melbourne rally. Not very impressive turnout.
@Slugger:
There were thousands more outside, but not counted.
Let’s not delude ourselves that Trump doesn’t have a broad base of support from the “I’d kill Jesus for 30 liberal tears” crowd. It’s going to take a while to penetrate that fog of cognitive dissonance and self-righteous self-pity.
@Gustopher:
I was hoping more for a crystal meth OD myself, but YMMV.
@Name Withheld:
Why on earth would a “real conservative” really behind a spineless loser like McCain?
@Lit3Bolt: I was just watching a video of him a friend sent me, where he was defending the molestation of 14 year old boys (he alleges to have had a “relationship” with a priest, and speaks warmly of it*), and he really doesn’t seem like the crystal meth type. Internal consistency, smugness… too aware.
He’s just going to wander around pressing people’s buttons until he presses the buttons of a crazy man with a gun. We really ought to have better gun control — he’s British, I think, does he not realize that every crazy can person get a gun here?
@CSK:
Are these the same people who went nuts when Idris Elba was tapped to play Heimdall in the Thor movies?
It’s pretty obvious what is going to happen.
Trump is inciting the flames of his redneck base and fomenting anger in Muslims.
Soon there will be a major incident…not one he has made up, like Bowling Green or Sweden…a real incident.
And when that happens he is going to take action. It will be mis-guided and counter-productive. It will be drastic, authoritarian, and tyrannical. It will be devastating to freedom. It will be a black spot in our history; think Japanese internment or Jim Crow.
The SCOTUS will be 5-4 Republican. The Republican Caucus in Congress is made up of pu$$ies. The press will be cowered into inaction, branded as “the enemy of the people”.
There is no one that can, or will, stop this fool and the damage he will wreck on the Republic.
This is how Liberty dies.
@rachel:
Yes. The movie people, I’ve read, quite deliberately cast a black Norse god to distance themselves from these people.
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
NYT has an op-ed this morning by Ann Ravel, recently retired vice chair of the Federal Election Commission, talking about the complete dysfunction of the FEC as the three Republican commissioners simply refuse to enforce election laws. They seem quite happy with dark money dominating elections.
And speaking of dark money, I’m seeing constant TV ads supporting Gorsuch. The sponsoring organization appears to be a Koch front. That alone should disqualify him.
@Gustopher: Authoritarian movements always allow a certain number of clowns into the organisation. Lord Haw Haw in Germany would be a good example, I think. And I don’t mean the funny clown kind, I mean the useful idiot kind. Milo is that and more, a propagandist for hatred whose sole job is to prepare the ground for those who are to be done away with first. Obviously that’s not how Milo sees it. He sees himself as a teller of difficult truths, and if those truths turn out later to be lies, well, that’s a necessary casualty in the war against everything that isn’t Milo, or as white as Milo.
As far as I can tell they are for children but also for killing unborn ones with no restriction, no apology, and no need for a fee. They are for LBGT and women’s “rights,” but ally themselves with Muslims who practice FGM, oppose abortion, treat women like cattle, and promote and engage in honor killings, and advocate death for LBGT people. They are for women’s rights, but want men who think they are women to use women’s washrooms. They are for free speech, but shut down anybody who disagrees with them, and, of course, ally themselves with Muslims who oppose freedom of speech and thought as part of their core dogma. They are against racism but try to stir up old racial animosities and conflicts that had long been resolved, buried, and forgotten. They are for poor working people, but oppose the tax and the regulatory structures that create jobs. They are for poor working people but favor unrestricted immigration that drives down wages, crowds out jobs, and absorbs the funds of public welfare schemes. They want free education for all, but oppose letting poor and middle class people have the right to choose their schools, unlike the rich people who do. They shout “Love Trumps Hate!” as they bash opponents with bricks and poles. They have spent decades denouncing the military, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI as oppressors of the people, but now want those agencies to sabotage an elected president. The wealthy ones denounce gun ownership and walls but live behind protective shields of men with guns and walls around their exclusive properties. Hollywood stars who made millions living in the land of make-believe denounce non-existent Trumpian “brownshirts” and bravely proclaim their resistance! They are for the environment and prove it by flying to environmental rallies in their private jets. They, well . . . you can go on with this sad litany.
@Kev:
Wow…you are really chugging down the kool-aid.
What extremist web site did you copy and paste that fictitious litany from???
@Kev:
Can you tell me who these people are who want to kill unborn children? Apparently you think it would be OK if they paid a fee??? Or apologized?
@Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
GishGallop.com.
@Kev:
You were caught plagiarizing before.
Now you’ve done it again.
You should be banned for spamming and plagiarism. If you’re going to make dumb comments, then at least make original dumb comments.
@Kylopod: That’s a beautiful explanation right there.
Kev’s post is in interesting insight into how simple minded people like him/her are. If you don’t hate on Muslims you’re obviously aligned with them. It’s like Bush’s you’re either with us or against us on a personal level. They completely ignore the complexities of life.
@Pch101: Did you Google it yet? I did. Here apparently is the source:
http://www.thediplomad.com/2017/02/madness-and-chaos-left-in-time-of-trump.html
The most hilarious part is the paragraph immediately following the excerpt Kev lifted:
Do these folks ever look in a mirror?
@Matt:
Exactly.
Gadzooks…If I hated on every religion that I thought was completely ridiculous I’d have very few people to talk to. Like Catholicism is rational? Their Bishops rape little boys fer chrissakes!!!
@Kylopod:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
@Kylopod:
I did Google it.
I made a point of not posting the link, as that helps the source website.
@Matt: The irony is that what they’re calling “aligning with Muslims” includes a lot of stuff Bush supported.
@michael reynolds: You’re in a relatively protected class for sales, though. How many Trumpistas who might be enraged by your tweets actually read or buy books for their children or grandchildren?
Milo has been bounced from the speaker line-up at CPAC, apparently because of the tape he made in praise of ephebephilia.
@CSK: In other words, overt racism and anti-Semitism aren’t deal-breakers for CPAC.
@Lit3Bolt: I’ve noticed that Trump supporters’ defense of the man’s actions as Prez fall into one of two categories:
1) See, he’s actually doing the [appalling] stuff he promised he’d do!
or
2) Suck it up, libtards! You lost and we won!
I never hear any defense from them that what Trump is doing is ethical or will actually help the country.
@CSK:
Vocabulary building. Even Wiktionary didn’t have that one. But Wikipedia to the rescue:
Ephebophilia is the primary or exclusive adult sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid 20th century. It is one of a number of sexual preferences across age groups subsumed under the technical term chronophilia.
I take it Milo wanted boys. Chronophilia is another new word to me.
@CSK @Kylopod
And now the right-wing trolls / Trumpkins are screaming liberals got him banned.
WTF – since when is CPAC liberal? Or are they straight up admitting that nobody in-house cared about how problematic this guy is until he started yapping and the rest of the world realized he’s a hot mess and want nothing to do with it? Conservatives – you know, the ones who tend to think gay = pedophile in the first place – are the ones who told him to take a hike because they don’t want to be associated with him.
@gVOR08: Having my vocabulary improved is one of the reasons I hang around the smart kids. And you will admit that ‘ephebephilia’ was never in the Reader’s Digest section ‘It Pays to Increase Your Wordpower’.
But thinking just for a moment about the deeper — I dunno — can I say ‘significance’ of this Milo person, is it possible for whatever movement it is that goes by the name “conservative” to sink further from anything that could be actually called “conservative”?
I stand amazed at the present Republican and right-wing-leaning side. Which I suppose is their actual intent.
Poor Milo…he just lost his book deal too…what a terrible shame…maybe Bill Maher can invite him back on his show so he can at least have some kind of relevance…
Wow, I guess someone at CPAC figured that a self-admitted boy-raped Neo-Nazi who advocates boy-rape and Jew-baiting was finally a bridge too far.
Anyone want to defend Milo’s free speech rights to speak at colleges now?
Because I was polishing up a speech about how productive it would be to eat babies and quality recipes that take 30 minutes or less …surely everyone would want to hear that lest they violate my rights to Free Speech…
@An Interested Party: And his fellow employees at Breitbart are reportedly threatening to quit if Milo isn’t fired.
@JohnMcC:
Milo is the culmination of something that has been going on for a couple of decades, where “conservatism” has gradually morphed into trollism. Limbaugh planted the seeds in the ’90s, and Ann Coulter helped bring it to fruition the following decade. Baiting liberals wasn’t just something they did, it became practically their defining philosophy.
The trick was to make reactionary attitudes seem cool and subversive, to make intolerance attractive by casting it as rebellion against an oppressive elite. Above all, it was a strategy for dealing with the way racism, sexism and other -isms were driven underground in the late 20th century. Since modern Western culture has long thrived on the destruction of taboos, the key to reviving traditional bigotry was to present it in a similar light. Trollism was the perfect vehicle for this revival because it was devilishly fun and provided them with an airtight excuse for anything that came out of their mouths–can’t you take a joke, people?!
As Milo put it in his laudatory piece about the alt-right last year, “For the meme brigade, it’s just about having fun. They have no real problem with race-mixing, homosexuality, or even diverse societies: it’s just fun to watch the mayhem and outrage that erupts when those secular shibboleths are openly mocked.”
Never mind that in practice the right, including the alt right, is pretty damn serious about its basic beliefs. And when you consider what happened to Leslie Jones, the idea that this is all fun and games becomes harder to justify. But it’s convenient for them to think of themselves as pranksters showing up humorless scolds, because it relieves them of intellectual integrity and moral responsibility while enabling them to think of themselves as the true sophisticates who are the only ones in on the “joke.” It sure beats arguing about tax rates.
I checked to see what the most popular conservative websites are. WTF is westernjournalism.com? Or conservativetribune.com? Never heard of them.
The problems in Sweden have been known, documented, and reported on credible and reliable news sources. And this was long before Trump got in. Just because it is not mentioned on the wane stream news networks in this country does not mean is not happening. I use alternative sources and have some ears on the ground that tell of troubles in parts of Sweden, but not all. These include a military officer who has been in and out of there, a tech security worker who worked over there recently, a cargo pilot that has flown over there, and a travel agent who knows what is going on where. My neighbor has a amateur radio setup and talks to people in various countries daily*. They report of areas in Sweden that are not safe . And a friend who has relatives in Sweden talks of crime waves that used to not exist. Look at events of the last few months over there.
When you hear similar descriptions and accounts from widely differing people, than you know there has to be some basis in fact.
What we are seeing is a coordinated attack upon the Western Civilization – Judeo Christian values, culture, and traditions. I am not blaming this on the legitimate and peaceful Islamic peoples: they are trying to preserve their cultures too, but the rise of extremism, terrorism, and radicals are major threats to their culture also. Look at the wholesale destruction of ancient historic sites by ISIS ! And in this country we see our past leaders – Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison under unprecedented attack and defamation by the elitist university radical professors.
*Imagine the excitement of picking up a mike and talking daily to horsemen in Afghanistan (they tell you what is really going on ), military officers in outer Mongolia, and Sherpa guides in Nepal !
See:The Spectator: “How Sweden became an example of how not to handle immigration”
World Tribune: “Swedish police admit refugee crime wave is out of their control “
See: Dr. Albert Mohler _ “History, sin, and memorial”, “Inundated with bad news”, “Trump’s Latest Executive Order on Refugees”
NYT: “Swedes Begin to Question Liberal Migration Tenets”
@dxq:
A lot of right-wing media leads back to funding from Richard Mellon Scaife, including Western Journalism, WorldNetDaily and NewsMax. Same s**t, different URLs. You’ll also find Joseph Farah tied to all of these.
@Pch101: I must admit I’ve never heard of WesternJournalism up to now.
@Pch101:
And people still dump on Hillary for talking about the vast right-wing conspiracy. Mellon Scaife is deceased, but his money and organizations live on. Alongside the Kochs, ALEC, Norquist, and gawd knows who else.
@gVOR08:
Around the time she first made that comment in the late ’90s, a Democrat (I can’t remember who) was asked about it in an interview, and he said something along the lines of “I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy. I’d call it an industry.”
@Tyrell: And here I thought they were going through a revival in popularity due to the portrayal of 4 of those 6 men in an award-winning Broadway musical named after one of them. Silly me…
@Kylopod: I just just want to echo this, because I found it so insightful:
@Tyrell: You are basically asserting that anecdote and hearsay is how you form your opinions.
And while I will concur that being able to speak to people all around the world via radio is pretty cool, you can’t use that as a basis for forming full opinions on policy.
@Tyrell:
Except this isn’t true. I mean, sure, you can find someone somewhere with a radical critique of one (or all) of the above. But, on balance, it is far more likely that one is going to find a respectful, if not fully approving, discussion of these fellows.
I know this is self-promoting after a fashion, but it is also an example of where I have actual, real experience: my recent book, written by four PhDs, all of whom would be considered “liberal” and published by Yale University Press (that bastion of conservatism, yes?) is incredibly respectful of Madison in particular, and of the Federalist Papers in general (which would include Hamilton specifically).
@Tyrell:
I’ve seen reporting (sorry, don’t care enough to find a link) that the individual cops involved have come out and said, no, they didn’t say that, the conservative agitator film maker selectively edited to make it sound like what they said about a few high crime neighborhoods applied to the whole country.
Selective editing in a conservative “documentary”, hoocudanode.
@Tyrell: There are many MANY areas in the USA where you aren’t safe. If you’re gay that era just increased dramatically.