My Facebook feed has been filled up with postings about the unfortunate clash between white nationalists in Charlottesville and those who came out to protest them.
“White supremacy: Are US right-wing groups on the rise?” (BBC) suggests that roughly 10,000 Americans might qualify as active white supremacists. In a population of 325 million, that’s roughly 1 out of every 27,000 people old enough to hold a firm political point of view.
How is it that such a small percentage of the population can capture such a large mindshare? Here’s an idea from UK-based Brendan O’Neill:
It’s becoming so clear now why the war of words between SJWs and the new white nationalists is so intense. It isn’t because they have huge ideological differences — it’s because they have so much in common. Both are obsessed with race, SJWs demanding white shame, the alt-right responding with white pride. Both view everyday life and culture through a highly racialised filter. SJWs can’t even watch a movie without counting how many lines the black actor has in comparison with the white actor so that they can rush home and tumblr about the injustice of it all. Both have a seemingly boundless capacity for self-pity. Both are convinced they’re under siege, whether by patriarchy, transphobia and the Daily Mail (SJWs) or by pinkos and blacks (white nationalists). Both have a deep censorious strain. And both crave recognition of their victimhood and flattery of their feelings. This is really what they’re fighting over — not principles or visions but who should get the coveted title of the most hard-done-by identity. They’re auditioning for social pity. “My life matters! My pain matters! I matter!” The increasing bitterness and even violence of their feud is not evidence of its substance, but the opposite: it’s the narcissism of small differences.
[Note that I don’t subscribe to the characterization of a clash that left a woman dead as a “war of words,” but perhaps the above was written prior to the confrontation in Virginia?]
Friends who are reasonably analytical are inferring from news coverage of this gathering of a few hundred people that Nazi ideology is sweeping the U.S. Is that reasonable? What if the media had simply refused to cover this gathering? None of the counter protesters would have showed up (and therefore none would have been killed). Nobody other than locals in Charlottesville and their Facebook friends would ever have found out about it. Especially if you don’t agree with it, why give a platform to an ideology that is persuasive to 1 in 27,000 adult Americans? Is there some concrete political advantage to be gained by featuring this fringe group?
Sampling of what I’ve seen on Facebook:
Racist white nationalist groups showing your colors: you will only unite us against your hatred. Thanks to the true patriots who speak out against you.
Trump supporters: When Trump refuses to call out the bigots (unlike virtually everyone else, Republican or Democrat), it’s because he thinks they’re his base. [i.e., Trump is desperate for 10,000 extra votes spread across the nation]There was a terrorist attack in the United States today. But our commander-in-chief chose to play to his base — rather than call it for what it was.
White supremacy laced bigotry lingers everywhere, even in the left-leaning bastion of Berkeley. I’m hopeful that before too long, we can look back on this disgusting period of revitalized hate and discrimination thankfully in that some long festering pockets of discrimination have now, finally, openly exposed themselves. Now that we can all witness the ugliness in plain sight, we just need to root them all out. More of this! [link to “Berkeley’s Top Dog fires employee who went to white nationalist rally” about a purported white supremacist named “Cole White“! Next question: does having unpopular political views qualify someone for disability benefits? Who is going to hire this guy?]
Just to be clear, those were actually white supremacists in Charlottesville and they’ve found an ally in Donald Trump [gathered a response: “Trump cannot specifically disavow the KKK, racists, Neo-Nazis, or White Supremacists as they represent a substantial portion of his base and he fears alienating them.”]
Update: The comments below, which the moderators are struggling mightily with to keep the number under 50 (at which point the Harvard software provides no interface to the first 50, but you can find them at http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2017/08/15/the-unfortunate-events-in-charlottesville/comment-page-1/), contain one interesting theme, which is also all over the media. People are apparently desperate to hear scolding/soothing words from President Trump. This strikes me as a good illustration of the general phenomenon of Americans viewing their President as a god-like figure with special powers of insight. The theory is that someone a statement from Trump will cause people to change their views on the merits of neo-Nazism? Why is Trump more persuasive than a beloved Hollywood celebrity, a popular religious leader, or a scholar? The same people who rejected Trump as an authority on the behavior of women who circle around rich guys and reality TV stars (“when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”) now accept Trump as an authority on the subject of political philosophy.
There was a widely circulated Twitter comment that the US seems to be re-enacting the street fights between Nazis and Communists during the Weimar Republic.
An eyewitness account which you may find interesting. Two Blocks from the Culture War: A Local Perspective on Charlottesville, by William Antholis, director of the non-partisan Miller Center.
Another behind-the-scenes look at how the Unite the Right rally was organized: Kevin Roose on the Discord chat app. (Greylock is mentioned in the story – apparently they’re a Discord investor.)
reddit.com/r/The_Donald asks: “Black people who were never slaves are fighting white people who were never Nazis over a confederate statue erected by Democrats decades ago, and yet somehow it’s Trump’s fault?”
[Response from Russil, moved by moderator] It’s not Trump’s fault, but his response is … interesting. From Twitter:
John Harwood:
Someone fanning the flames and there are open financiers and it did start with occupy wall street. But as philg noticed it is a fairly miniscule percent of population, even on the left which is considerably larger than number of Nazi wannabes. Sadly someone want either orange or Nazi revolution. I normally lean libertarian but seem that at least some folks need 99% tax on income over $1 million, retroactively. Only some.
@Russil:
The violent part of the counter protesters is exactly equivalent to the violent part of neo-Nazis, in the same way as Communists ideology implementation is/was equivalent to the Nazi ideology as was represented by the third Reich, the former with a much higher body count.
Thus, calling oneself an “errant Marxist” should as reprehensible as calling oneself “an errant Nazi”. But it is not. I wonder why ?
I think it is so ridiculous. Trump is the first president to have a Jew as a kid. Now everyone is accusing him of being a NAZI. Please! It just goes to show you most news is now fake.
Ivan: I would suggest that the Nazis are uniquely reprehensible because Germany was one of the most civilized countries in the West. It had the best-educated population in Europe; its achievements in mathematics, music, science, and literature were outstanding. So its reversion to barbarism under the Nazis, and its systematic slaughter of the Jews in particular, stands out as particularly horrifying.
(In contrast, most of the people who starved or were shot by Communist regimes were in China and Russia. China’s history includes a lot of famines and wars, so Mao’s record doesn’t seem as bad. I don’t know that much about Russian history, but I think in the late 1800s and early 1900s it was still regarded as somewhat backward, trying to catch up with the West, and sometimes described as semi-Asiatic.)
Back to Charlottesville: Is America headed for a new kind of civil war?
The BBC may have suggested that there are about 10,000 white supremacists in the US, but to Democratic Party cheerleaders every single one of the 100 million or so eligible voters who _didn’t_ vote for Hillary is literally a Nazi.
Russil: Does anyone who has read Mein Kampf qualify as a “Nazi” worth our attention? The Nazis of the 1930s controlled the world’s most effective military, the world’s most advanced manufacturing economy, etc.
An illustration of why the simple “Nazi” term doesn’t make sense…
Someone tells you “Bill is a hero because he fought Nazis.”
If we extend the term “Nazi” to a few thousand present-day Americans, the above statement now could mean
1) Bill was in the infantry and served on the front lines.
2) Bill was flying an airplane and being shot at by anti-aircraft guns
3) Bill spoke truth to power by posting on Facebook that he doesn’t support Nazi political and social ideas.
—————
My Facebook friends are saying that, while a few hundred white supremacists may not seem significant, Hitler started out small so it is imperative that we drop everything and pay attention to each gathering. By the same logic we can’t miss by investing in startup companies because Apple, Facebook, and Google started out with just a handful of workers and customers.
Russil:
You consider between 30 to 70 million people who perished during the three years of the Chinese Big Leap Forward “not as bad” ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
What sort of convoluted logic is that ? If a country is “backward”, like Russia or China, then 10 victims killed by communists count for one killed by Nazis ? I imagine Khmer Rouge vanishing half of its country population is a mere statistical error on the alt-Left genocide meter if one follows this kind of reasoning.
Philip: it’s definitely a challenge to figure out how to deal with neo-Nazis. I thought this article was pretty good: History’s lessons on dealing with Canada’s neo-Nazi groups.
How not to deal with them: with a riot.
A more constructive approach: a counter-rally at a different location.
Philip: “An illustration of why the simple ‘Nazi’ term doesn’t make sense -”
Is there any real confusion here? The modern groups are usually called neo-Nazis, not Nazis. Obviously they’re not a concrete military threat, as Nazi Germany was.
[Response from Philip: I just did a quick search on my Facebook. Both friends and newspaper headlines are using the term “Nazi” rather than “neo-Nazi.” Here’s an example:
This is who you enable when you say, “There were only a few Nazis.” or “They were doing a legal protest with a permit.” or “They’re trying to protect our Southern heritage and protest the removal of statues.” Your side has actual Nazis. You have no argument.
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005365876/president-trump-charlottesville-robert-lee.html says “when [the Trumpenfuhrer] declined to specifically condemn Nazi and white supremacist groups.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-nazi-82nd-airborne-division-condemned-racist-salute-d-day-white-supremacist-heil-a7894661.html is headline “Nazi In Charlottesville…”]
Ivan: Surely you’ve noticed that Nazi Germany is generally regarded as uniquely evil. I’m suggesting that part of the explanation is that Chinese or Russian misrule is regarded as typical. When’s the last time that China had a humane and enlightened government? If you don’t like my explanation, what’s yours?
Is it so strange to value more highly the lives of those who are closer to you? Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor (1998):
The moral obligation to the stranger does exist – but it’s weak.
Russil, things are different in USA. Neo-nazis are usually outnumbered. But violence should be condemned and never used first, only in self-defense and only against violent offenders. In the beginning of XX century clan ruled democratic party in the south and had tens of millions of followers, and now it is almost non-existent without any military confrontations.
Anonymous: “But violence should be condemned and never used first, only in self-defense and only against violent offenders.”
I completely agree.
Philip: to clarify, in #7, when I was talking about the unique reprehensibility of “the Nazis”, I was referring to Nazi Germany rather than neo-Nazis. (It’s interesting that neo-Nazis admire and seek to emulate such a universally reviled movement, but that’s a different topic.)
Russil: I’m not sure how many Americans “admire and seek to emulate” Nazis. All that I know is that there are a lot of Americans, including dozens in my Facebook feed, who enjoy asserting that there are Americans who “admire and seek to emulate” Nazis.
That circles back to my original question… what benefit are these folks deriving from being seen to resist “Nazis”?
Russil:
No doubt that you noticed that I noticed “that Nazi Germany is generally regarded as uniquely evil”. And that’s what bothers me because as I mentioned many times the Communist genocidal record is much worse that Nazi’s.
In no period during its recorded history did Russia suffered the level of atrocities in sheer numbers as it did during the Communist rule and the German occupation. Why, then, do you call it “typical” when the proper adjective would be “unique” ? I am less familiar with the Chinese history, but I do not recall that the number of deaths prior to the Communist rule was ever experienced there either at the sale it had been during just three years.
My explanation is that the Left in this country has been (and still is) in love with the marxist ideology for many decades since 1917, and tried (and still is trying) to whitewash communist crimes for the obvious reason of not to be associated with the murderous ideology. As a recent example of excusing violent left behavior, note how the “progressives” are adamantly refusing to include the “antifa” thugs as responsible for violence in Charlottesville.
A secondary reason is perhaps that the Left does not really care about the savages from China, Russia, or Cambodia, as you indicated, unless the savages can be used for some useful ideological purpose.
Surely, there are different degree of infatuation with Marxism, some may experience mild non-violent flu, like Stiglitz did, others may become truly sick with rabies, like the “antifa” crowd.
O’Neill put it well, “It isn’t because they have huge ideological differences — it’s because they have so much in common.” Essentially, we are dealing with the same violent totalitarian phenomenon with some minor differences not really important for the final outcome and history has shown that many times regardless of whether the disease sufferers label themselves “neo-nazis” or “antifa”.
My explanation is that the Left in this country has been (and still is) in love with the marxist ideology for many decades since 1917, and tried (and still is trying) to whitewash communist crimes for the obvious reason of not to be associated with the murderous ideology.
Are you serious about this? Who would the Left be in this case? Is there evidence that Nancy Pelosi or Bernie ever tried to whitewash crimes of communist regimes? It sounds unlikely.
And both crave recognition of their victimhood and flattery of their feelings. This is really what they’re fighting over — not principles or visions but who should get the coveted title of the most hard-done-by identity. They’re auditioning for social pity. “My life matters! My pain matters! I matter!”
I wonder if this guy is referring to the Black Lives Matter movement. If he is, he’s a jerk. The BLM people are concerned about the way that police treat black citizens and they’re trying to do something about it. They want results, not just “recognition of their victimhood”. Also, he throws around that acronym – SJW. I’m still waiting for a definition of it.
Also, regarding this statement:
“Trump cannot specifically disavow the KKK, racists, Neo-Nazis, or White Supremacists as they represent a substantial portion of his base and he fears alienating them.”
Quite a few journalists who have been overserving Trump closely for the last couple of years have come to this conclusion. It appears to be the best explanation of his behavior during the past few days.
Vince: Of course Brendan O’Neill is “a jerk”! He refuses to condemn the white supremacists as uniquely evil and refuses to praise the counter-protesters as uniquely virtuous!
Ivan: “Why, then, do you call it ‘typical’ when the proper adjective would be ‘unique’?
Is despotic rule not typical in Russian history? There’s a lot of comparisons between [Stalin and Ivan the Terrible](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4l01fz/was_stalin_an_admirer_of_ivan_the_terrible/), for example.
In China, there was a half-century of chaos prior to the establishment of the Communist regime: the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the warlord period, the Japanese invasion, civil war. Before that, there was the Taiping rebellion, which killed tens of millions of people, and national humiliation at the hands of the West.
I would argue that Marxism has been thoroughly discredited by the failures of both the Soviet Union and Maoist China. Communist regimes claimed to have a superior economic system, and they failed: they used a tremendous amount of coercion and force, with millions of victims, and they still suffered from very low productivity compared to their capitalist neighbors (East Germany vs. West Germany, North Korea vs. South Korea, Maoist China vs. Taiwan or China today).
This is all widely known. The Berlin Wall attests to the fact that East Germany was basically a giant prison. In terms of public opinion, it’s generally known that the Communist regimes were totalitarian nightmares. There’s no cover-up by the Left. But public opinion still regards Nazi Germany as even worse.
> What if the media had simply refused to cover this gathering?
This was heard many times about candidate Trump in the wind-up to his election as president. (It was said many times in my house.) (It turned out he had a substantial base invisible to many on the left and right.) I think regardless of the number of supporters of alt-right ideology, word of their activities would have gotten out via their own posts on social media, right?
Here’s some more alt-right activity people may not be aware of.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/there-was-another-right-wing-terrorist-incident-this-weekend/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdok/pr/man-arrested-trying-detonate-what-he-thought-was-vehicle-bomb-downtown-oklahoma-city
Philip: “I’m not sure how many Americans ‘admire and seek to emulate’ Nazis.”
About 10,000, according to the BBC.
“That circles back to my original question… what benefit are these folks deriving from being seen to resist ‘Nazis’?”
Violations of widely held norms always attract a lot of attention and condemnation. It’s like how reports of particularly outrageous crimes get a lot of attention on television and the Internet.
Apparently Trump was out there today saying that not all the people marching with torches Friday night, chanting “Jews will not replace us”, were neo-Nazis and white supremacists. According to Trump, there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Chris Arnade on Twitter:
The real politik here is that all the left would be whole Gandhi non-violent peaceful passive resistance if it weren’t for the fact that the right is armed to the teeth, talking civil war with genocide, and marching straight down the Hitler trail. Just sitting around singing KoomByYa is tantamount to suicide!!!
The NY Times and other left leaning press is going nuts because Trump keeps saying that there were both left and right extremists present and breaking the law in Charlottesville.
Somehow the fact that the ONE nutcase out of all the extremists on both sides who were undeniably clubbing each other and throwing “colored fluids” on each other who went really wild and actually killed someone happened to be a right wing extremist means that ONLY the “alt-right” is now to blame for the whole show. And anyone (especially Trump) who says otherwise is a Nazi himself.
So let’s do a thought experiment – let’s reverse the situation and assume that the guy driving the car was an antifa who ran over a bunch of Nazis and killed one. First of all, would that reverse the situation and mean that Trump and everyone else should have denounced only the left? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that if Trump had denounced ONLY the left in that case, the NYT and everyone else would be pointing out how both side were at fault, that the nutcase was not representative of all leftists, that he was in any case pushed over the edge by the outrageous conduct of the Nazis, etc. and that Trump should have denounced both sides.
Second, and this is even worse, wouldn’t a lot of folks be implying (or more than implying) that said Nazis only deserved what they got and that the antifa guy is really a hero who should get a medal or at the very least be left off because what he did was justifiable?
Philip: “I’m not sure how many Americans ‘admire and seek to emulate’ Nazis.”
About 10,000, according to the BBC.
That’s the BBC estimate of active white supremacists. The total number of deplorables is much higher. There are tens of millions of them.
[Moderator, trying to keep number of comments below the display limit of 50, added similar comment from Neal] White supremacists like those who demonstrated may be small in number but they represent a more extreme version of attitudes which remain too widespread. The persistence of such attitudes remains a major challenge for American society and I see no evidence that the President or his administration have any interest in working in it.
Jackie: I don’t think that’s true at all. See the bipartisan response to the Steve Scalise shooting.
Russil:
“Is despotic rule not typical in Russian history?”
Yes, it is.
However, you are carefully avoiding hard numbers for some reason. The number of victims during the communist rule is unprecedented in the Russian recorded history.
As you should know, the 30 million deaths during the Taiping rebellion happened during the entire 15 year period, whilst marxists exterminated probably twice as many of its own population during just three years. I’d call that a unique marxist “achievement”.
The Cambodian communists obliterated *half* of the country population. The known Left celebrity, Noam Chomsky, wrote an entire book to deny the fact of the Khmer Rouge genocide, likely for the reasons I mentioned earlier.
“I would argue that Marxism has been thoroughly discredited by the failures of both the Soviet Union and Maoist China. ”
Apparently, not as “thoroughly discredited” as one might imagine, not at least as much as Nazism is. Clearly, it is comme il faut for Varoufakis to use the cute self-appellation of “errant Marxist”. Is it also accepted in a polite economic society to call oneself an errant Nazi ?
“Are you serious about this? Who would the Left be in this case? ”
In no particular chronological order, the names of the Left marxist apologists that come to one’s mind:
Noam Chomsky as the Khmer Rouge genocide denialist par excellence.
Pablo Neruda
Olof Palme
Arthur Ransom
Jean-Paul Sartre
Walter Duranty
Lillian Hellman
Charlie Chapline: “The only people who object to Communism and who use it as a bugaboo are the Nazi agents in this country.” He’s cute, isn’t he ? A real antifa he was !
Not sure who chairs the department at Yale:
http://whc.yale.edu/marxism-and-cultural-theory
et cetera, Google is your friend.
Chomsky didn’t deny the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Every other person on your list is either dead or not American. Most are both.
[response from Ivan moved by moderator: “Every other person on your list is either dead or not American”
I did not realize the Yale University “Marxism and Cultural Theory” course was taught by ghosts !. How droll.
Is michael(dot)howard a zombi per chance ?
https://spia.umaine.edu/organizer/socialist-and-marxist-studies-series/%5D
Ivan: I’ve been thinking about it some more. I suspect Hitler gets the blame for the dead (soldiers and civilians), wounded, refugees, and general devastation of World War II. People don’t generally remember the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
The best argument I’ve seen for the moral equivalence of Hitler and Stalin is Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Vince: I’m afraid Chomsky did indeed try pretty hard to downplay the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge – an example of confirmation bias. Bruce Sharp/a>.
Analysis from FiveThirtyEight. Is Trump’s response to Charlottesville really about politics?
Unfortunate events? Phil, by definition it was a terrorist attack. Nazis have no place in civilized societies
Anonymous: A terrorist attack? If two opposing political groups in another country had a violent clash, would you call it “terrorism”?
We have a government that controls or spends roughly half of GDP, which means that there is more at stake in our politics than ever before. With a population that has expanded to 325 million, individual voters have lost power. Usually our political groups fight with words, but what makes the U.S. so different from other countries that we shouldn’t expect violence in our politics? Our system of government has reached such a high degree of refinement that all 325 million inhabitants of the U.S. are happy with it?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_violence
Separately, I tried out Jackie’s thought experiment on my Facebook friends.
They responded with outrage and complained of “false equivalence.”
They cited the passionate Democrat who shot Republicans at a baseball game and pointed out that Democrats had condemned this particular individual.
Apparently none of them could think of an equivalent group of Democrats that was worthy of condemnation. For example, because the shooting was done by just one individual, it wouldn’t have made sense to condemn Democrats who had called for a “revolution,” equated Trump with Hitler, predicted doomsday if Republicans were able to exercise political power, etc.
And then they circled back to “Nazis” being uniquely bad, e.g., “Next Donald Trump will be saying that both sides in World War II shared blame.”
So I think that they proved Jackie’s point!
The NY Times has been running a series on “Things I remember fondly about Communism” – women had better sex under Communism, etc. Never mind the millions of dead in the gulags, the sex was great!
Is it in any way conceivable that they would ever run a series on “Great things I remember about Nazism”? How prompt and clean the trains were, etc.?
I have a unique perspective on this because when WWII started, my mother ended up in Russian territory and my father ended up in the hands of the Germans. There is no question that the Germans hated Jews more, but aside from that, I’d rate them about even. My father ended up on a cattle car going west into a German labor camp, my mother on a cattle car going east to labor on in collective forest (not farm mind you – on a farm there would at least have been food). Neither got much to eat. If anything, the difference was that the Germans were more organized at everything. Even their cruelty was more organized and anal. Every morning they would line up all the starving prisoners and account for every single one. They kept great records – I have seen my father’s, neatly typewritten. Name, date of birth, place of birth, occupation (he lied because he figured that they didn’t have much use for fishermen in a concentration camp. Carpenter – that sounds useful.)
Stalin was more of a big picture guy and didn’t sweat the details as much. Hitler would spend hours with Speer going over architectural plans. They showed Stalin the plans for the Metropole Hotel in Moscow with two different alternatives on the left and right. He quickly scribbled APPROVED on the plans so they had to build it exactly that way.
Didn’t Trump say this on Monday:?
“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its names are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” the president said during an impromptu press conference Monday. “We are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator. We are equal under the law, and we are equal under our Constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America.”
Why isn’t Trump’s Monday statement covered more?
Also, in reviewing video of the event it seemed that the alt-right protesters were chanting “You will not replace us” – not as widely reported “Jews will not replace us.” Although there were probably some chanting the latter (maybe by mistake?). I’m not sure I understand the “Jews will not replace us” chant. It doesn’t seem to make much sense.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
The way we look at things is highly colored by our political views, but coastal liberals swim in a leftist sea and so are no more aware of it than fish are aware that they are swimming in the water. And when a coastal liberal gets pulled from his little aquarium and is left gasping on the dry land of blue state America he is shocked that there is a whole ‘nuther world out there where 100% of the people don’t just naturally agree that Trump is evil and that cis white men should just all just hurry up and die or at the very least have the decency to shut up and step aside so that the diverse can assume their natural place as the future leaders of everything.
Jackie:
“The NY Times has been running a series on “Things I remember fondly about Communism” – women had better sex under Communism, etc. ”
Thanks for the reference, quite hilarious if it were not so sad…
Apparently the series is being run by non-American un-dead Marxist apologists as was recently suggested.
I’m not sure I understand the “Jews will not replace us” chant. It doesn’t seem to make much sense.
First of all, by definition extremists view things from an extreme lens, so their view DON’T make sense to a normal person.
From an anti-Semitic POV (and make no mistake – some of the demonstrators were bona-fide anti-Semites), the Joos are the wizards behind the curtain who manipulate us with their control of the media and Hollywood, etc. All the bad, leftish ideas that are destroying America – Joos are the ones behind them – they thought of them, they are out there foisting them upon the gullible public, etc. The Joos are the driving force of leftism. While the Joos are not numerous enough to replace the founding stock of America themselves, they are the ones who are advocating for more immigration, etc. “The Joos will not cause our replacement by manipulating the public to favor open borders and civil rights” is too long and complex to chant, so they go with “the Joos will not replace us” instead.
In the minds of these folks (and that’s what makes them Nazis), Judaism and Bolshevism are synonymous. All Bolsheviks are Jews and all Jews are Bolsheviks. They are utterly convinced of this and it’s useless to tell them otherwise.
My text is Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. A political abomination can grow from a very small deviant core. Violence against such a core is profoundly wrong and regrettable, but apologizing for and encouraging such a core is simply an unacceptable risk.
I have opposed Trump as a politician from his first announcements. I can see how his persona appeals to a sizable demographic, and there was a decisive sliver who held their nose only to defeat Hillary and (primarily) her judicial appointments agenda. I also despise Hillary, but that sliver must now account for where we find ourselves today.
This is not a day for flippant or snarky comments. I am alarmed and ashamed for the intransigent muddle that is national politics.
[Response from Philip inserted by moderator to keep comment count under 50: “A political abomination can grow from a very small deviant core” … isn’t acting on this the very definition of selection bias? Out of thousands of small deviant cores, a handful of successful political movements have grown. To a student of probability theory, that is not an argument for paying attention to every small deviant core. (Separately, paying attention to and giving a national stage to a small deviant core is presumably the best way to help those deviants gain adherents.) If you buy into this kind of reasoning, why not invest in the next startup company you hear about, certain that they will grow the way that Facebook has?]
Phil – thanks for testing my gedankenexperiment. I was pretty sure it would turn out exactly the way I said it would, but it’s nice to have real world confirmation.
Actually, I missed a phase in the way it would go down in the reverse situation. The softball shootings were unusual because the attacker was undeniably pegged as a leftist immediately because he had left such an abundant paper trail. If you remember the Giffords shooting, the attacker was, based on nothing, immediately pegged as a Republican (and so the shooting was really somehow Sarah Palin’s fault). White men with guns are assumed to be right wing by definition. (This is in contrast to incidents of Muslim terrorism, where, even though the attacker shouts Allahu Akhbar! , the initial reaction is always ” at this point, we don’t know what motivated Mohamed ___ to do this.”) Later on it came out that the Giffords shooter was truly insane and could barely be thought to have a political point of view, but if he did he leaned left and he had never even seen the Republican ads that supposedly “caused” the attack. But by then the myth was well established and some people believe it to this day.
philg, as to risk assessment: The risk of a startup not succeeding is irrelevant. The risk of an avowed dangerous ideology succeeding must be addressed, but not by blind violence. President Trump is not willing to even denounce this dangerous ideology in convincing verbal terms, which is the minimum duty of a governing politician.
[Response from Philip: If you think an ideology adhered to by a few thousand people out of 325 million is “dangerous,” wouldn’t it make the most sense to ignore those few thousand people rather than give them weeks of continuous press coverage?]
[Similar posting from Neal, moved by moderator to stay within 50 comments total] @philg: Unlike a random start-up the ideology in question has a history in the US; a history which has cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives and many more their freedom.
[Response from Philip: If you’re fearful of this ideology, isn’t that all the more reason to ignore a rally of a few hundred people in a country of 325 million? As noted in my original posting, if people who didn’t support this ideology had refrained from showing up to counter-protest and had refrained from writing sanctimonious articles in the media, how would any of us even be aware that a few hundred purported Nazis had gathered somewhere?]
Craig: “Why isn’t Trump’s Monday statement covered more?”
It was. But then at Tuesday’s press conference he defended the Unite the Right rally, saying that they weren’t all neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
As a Redditor points out, this was a white-supremacist rally, organized by a white supremacist (Jason Kessler) and with neo-Nazi speakers. So it’s not surprising they were chanting “Blood and soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!” There’s a Vice documentary on Charlottesville which you may want to check out. The reporter, Elle Reeve, spent quite a bit of time talking to rally organizers and participants.
It’s pretty remarkable in 2017 to have a US President who’s openly sympathetic to white supremacists. I’d describe this as a major development in the ongoing political crisis in the US: Trump is single-handedly weakening the legitimacy of the American Presidency. I suppose libertarians might consider this a good thing (maybe the government will get smaller?), but I think they’re underestimating the possibility that this turns into outright civil war.
Nazi wannabes are dangerous and need to be taken care of. But there were different groups protesting taking the statue down, not all of them alt-Nazis or racists, and thy had permit. First day protests were peaceful and neo-nazi came later on. I do not have strong opinions on statues but there are many non-racists who regard confederacy as their history. General Lee himself thought that institution of slavery was appalling and it should be rooted out, there is his correspondence form 1855 where he expressed this opinion. He could easily be in place of another southerner, U.S. Grant, but turned down the job because he thought his allegiances were with his home state of Virginia
So some see it as historic. Publicized, non-punishable violence did definitely started on the spectrum of the left, since few years in the prior US administration. Philg just recently discussed treatment of author Charles Murray and shutting down of free even academic speech. Again, I am not a fan of Charles Murray but nobody protests 99% of swivel that comes out social ‘scientists’ form many university, including Ivy League, because mobs like it. Most journos and commentators use this as a political opportunity to get at Trump and have not been to Charlottesville themselves and have only faint idea what transpired. I am sure that on-going department of justice investigation will bring things to light. White supremacists are being prosecuted for real crimes that they bound to commit as dumb criminals they are, and by conservative – leaning authorities, such as in Texas http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/08/15/largest-white-supremacist-gang-crackdown-nation-puts-89-prison/ But violent anti-liberal values left is getting eulogized as they jump at Nazi tiger tanks with bare hands instead of beating up some harmless douche exercising their freedom of speech according to their understanding of intelligence.
Karl Denninger actually has a good post on this topic and it’s long term affects on society. Here’s the first portion of it.
“Let me say this just one more time:
That someone is a Neo-Nazi, a White Supremacist, KKK member or racist does not render them bereft of the First Amendment. Just as being a member of BLM or the Antifa does not render them bereft of the First Amendment.
It is not acceptable, legal or excusable to meet speech by any such person with violence.
Period.”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3425535
A lot of people, the politician and the media is using this unfortunate event to discredit a president who speaks his mind and to shutdown a group with extreme ideology.
I much rather see any such group — be it I believe with their cause or not — protest in public vs. having them go underground and cause chaos with no trace. Also, trying to shut them down will not work as this will only strengthen their resolve.
In addition, I’m also not comfortable with the idea of bringing down statues or symbols that once represented what was acceptable but not anymore today. Many of our founding fathers, including Washington, were slave owners, so shouldn’t we demand his picture be removed the $1 bill? Are we trying to alter history here to please some but not others?
the other Donald: Trump did and has “disavowed” before, but it’s never enough for some people. If he does it, he doesn’t do it “convincingly.” (Which is really about one’s lack of belief, not his lack of seriousness.) You’re like the evangelicals who want the baptized to “get saved” at THEIR church just to make sure.
This isn’t just about Trump, either. People do this to all non-leftists in the public eye that suspect of having Bad Thoughts.
If you were serious about wanting to halt any possible spread of a troublesome ideology held by a miniscule part of the population, you would want to protect their freedom of expression. You would want everyone to see them and hear them and so spark innumerable discussions nationally about how disgusting and morally wrong their views are. Instead you want to silence them. As if stopping them from expressing themselves publicly would stop the the vile thoughts in their heads and the private conversations.
The impulse to silence wrongthinkers is the passive aggressive version of the same impulse that compels totalitarians to toss people into death camps.
George A.: I agree that it’s reasonable for even extremist groups to be able to protest peacefully in public. From the Vice documentary, though, this looks more like a paramilitary group which seeks to stage an insurrection.
Matthew Yglesias discusses the difference between Washington, Jefferson, and the Confederate leaders:
@Russil what if Washington was not successful as such the US is now a British country? In that context, should some group be going around and demanding the removal of his statues or symbols such as flag [1]? Should we have groups protesting Washington after 150 years since his “failed” revolution against the British?
[1] Btw, this is what started all this protest, but no one wants to talk about it.
George A.: If Washington hadn’t been successful, I assume there wouldn’t be any statues of him to argue over! We certainly don’t have any statues of him in Canada.
Russil, but I am sure you have statures of French military and civic leaders in Quebec, despite the fact that they lost to British, for sake of inclusion of French-speaking Canadians. Here it mostly serves the same purpose, for most of southern population.
Anonymous: Interesting, thanks for the explanation. I think the closest Canadian analogy would be Louis Riel, who led two failed rebellions and was hanged. There is indeed a controversial statue of him.
Let me try that again: Link to comments 1-50.
Philip asks why Trump’s commentary on Charlottesville is important. Zack Beauchamp: This expert on political violence thinks Trump is making neo-Nazi attacks more likely.
Trump has repeatedly disavowed the Neo-Nazis. The fact is that the “resistance” (including most of the press, and some Republican saboteurs) will never be satisfied and never bow to facts, especially when there is such an easily discernible bogey-man target as Neo-Nazis.
For many this is all about wounding Trump, for many it is more of the typical identity politics butt-hurt hysterics that we have come to expect from modern discourse.
This political script has been regurgitated so many times it has lost all meaning.
To answer Phil’s point, the President, in so far as making mollifying statements, is worthless. We have obliterated any semblance of political hero worship such that everyone is a cynic, and nobody truly believes anymore. Even if what the President says is true, the press just spins it according to their agenda.
This political script has been regurgitated so many times it has lost all meaning.
It is meaningful for the Democrat base – I’m sure that the fund raising appeals are going out this very moment.
As far as the voters go, it changes very few minds. Blacks already vote almost 100% Democrat – there’s no (legal) way to get them to 110%. The Democrats spent $50 million on one white Congressional District near Atlanta and couldn’t swing it.
philg, I don’t thank you often enough for hosting this forum.
This thread has been an eye opener, and I’m beginning to understand how difficult it is to communicate in a few drive-by words when the subject is truly dead serious.
Above being Charm School Translation of “That’s not what I said!”
Over and out.
philg: I’m not fearful of the extremists under discussion, did not say I was fearful of them, nor is it reasonable to infer I am fearful of them from what I actually said. Your suggestion that the correct tactic for addressing the subject demonstration would have been to ignore it warrants consideration. However, the argument you advance in support of your position assumes that the extremists could not possibly have obtained significant publicity without the involvement of the counter protestors and your Facebook friends. Maybe; maybe not.
I question the 10,000 figure given the numbers that turned out at Charlottesville (500+).
How do they capture large mindshare? They believe and say outrageously vile things. Nazis get attention. The press will write about it every time because it generates readership/viewership.
Why does the media write about this fringe group? It is not because of a secret cabal of media publishers that decided to write about Charlottesville to gain political advantage for their side. This fringe group is featured in the press because it “sells newspapers”.
Outlets that slant both left and right are going to write about it for the same reasons. Increased readership or viewership.
Nazi rallies are still rare and most people find Nazis outrageous. The media is going to cover every Nazi rally until they become common and stop generating huge readership/viewership.
I’m not sure if philg is implying that the media is showing bias here by covering Charlottesville. Or if he’s wondering why they didn’t act against their own interest (increased viewership) by self-censoring. I think he’s missing the obvious. The media is always chasing viewers/readers.
I think it is reasonable to say that Nazi ideology is growing in the US when the President doesn’t condemn it. (Is it “sweeping”? I don’t know. Depends on your definition of “sweeping”. I only say it is growing.)
Given his Jewish daughter, I don’t believe the President is an actual white supremacist. But Trump has shown a pattern of cowtowing to any group that (1) supports him, and (2) is sufficiently large. This is true even if that group is generally reviled. Sometimes Trump seems to go out of his way to cosy up with groups that are sexist, racist, xenophobic, etc.
The President believes the white supremacist group is large enough to generate worthwhile political capital. So he says things like “there are many sides” and this keeps the supremacists happy. It would be easy to take
the common view that white supremacists are bad and say so unequivocally. But he couches is language to appease them.
I think that president clearly condemned neo-nazis and white supremacists, as well as other violent elements, and the situation is being investigated. Large majority of American public and probably even larger majority of southerners are against removing what are deemed historic monuments. I am not sure but I think they were installed by Democrat politicians when klan was running democratic party, as late as 1930th, (klan exerted great influence on it till mid 1960th and probably through southerner Clinton administration, his mentor was a well known racist, as was senator Gore Sr.) I doubt historic and artistic significance of these pieces of art but I am no art expert. But definitely people fed up with attacks on intelligent thought and speech and thus many support the monuments not because they like them but because they were indicator of past peace arrangements and thus are part of history.
The problem with Trump’s denunciation of Nazi’s is that it is like a Pit Bull dog denouncing Rottweilers. It doesn’t fool cats, it just fools other Pit Bulls.
The problem of Trump’s moral equivalence was not the explicit mention that there is violence on both sides (which can be technically true in many left-right clashes, but I’m not fully aware of the specifics in this case, so, for the sake of argument, I’ll admit it). The problem is that his true colours behind such statement were revealed a few days later, when he said there were “very fine people” on both sides. There are no good people that associate themselves with Nazi-flag wielding mobs. And the assertion that “neo-nazi came later on” is not true, as the torch parade was the first event, where there were shouting “White lives matter”. These people just care about their “white genocide”, not statues, so digging for technicalities (like the argument of cultural preservation, or “they had permits”) is rather disgusting.
No *reasonable* person is going to say that there aren’t idiots and violent offenders on the far-left. As I said, I don’t know enough about this case in specific, but any G20 meeting serves as an example. Western Europe in particular suffered a lot of left-wing terrorism in the 1960s and 70s. Those paying attention are in fact worried that this is only getting to get worse in the USA: https://news.vice.com/story/extremism-experts-are-starting-to-worry-about-the-left
No *reasonable* person is going to argue that Stalin, Mao or Lenin were better souls than Hitler, but just counting numbers and saying that Communism was worse isn’t also reasonable: Hitler made tactical errors and got deposed quite soon. Back of the envelope calculations gives Mao 1.3-2.3 million deaths/year, Stalin 0.7 M/year and Hitler 1M/year – not very precise though! (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/03/10/hitler-vs-stalin-who-killed-more/). It’s true, communist regimes were deadly and in many cases still enjoy appallingly undeserved lack of condemnation or even praise – perhaps because Hitler set out effectively and efficiently to be evil fast and messed with the wrong people (without getting to the Bomb fast enough). In any case, none of this exempts radical violent left-wingers from condemnation.
Despite his claims of him “alone can fix it”, Trump’s speech is hateful, ignorant (General Pershing?!) and divisive. His lack of clarity – when he readily insults anyone else he doesn’t like – muddles the situation and his backflips show he’s trying too hard for the wrong reasons. No, there weren’t “very fine people” on both sides, even if there were left-wing fanatics present.
Wow Francisco Delgado, you actually listened to several of Trump’s speeches. I am taking my hat off to you.