Donald Trump has canceled all press events today. Yesterday, he ran from reporters who asked him to call terrorism “terrorism.” Donald Trump, the “alpha” whose campaign dared Democrats to condemn “radical Islamic terrorism,” who finds it easy to condemn department stores and TV networks and Hollywood actresses in intemperate language, that man cannot find it in himself to risk the ire of his base by calling white supremacist terror “white supremacist terror.”
Donald Trump’s cowardice has made the Republican Party into the murderers’ party, the lynchers’ party, the party that stands idly by while their supporters murder anti-racists. The party that is, just maybe, a little happy to see it happen.
Tag: Fascism
Racists rally in Charlottesville VA
The largest hate gathering in decades is going on now in Virginia. White supremacists of all stripes, including the KKK and Nazis, are marching openly and proudly, chanting racist slogans like “White lives matter” and “Jews will not replace us.” One counter-demonstrator has been murdered and nineteen injured by a man who deliberately drove his car into a crowd.
The President of the United States has condemned…both sides. He is not in the habit of condemning violence, of course, inciting it is more his style. Now that the logical consequences are here, he suddenly doesn’t want the credit.
Trump openly incites violence against reporters
Today the President of the United States posted a video on Twitter, a modified version of an old pro wrestling show, in which Trump pretends to knock someone down and punch him repeatedly. The video has the CNN logo in place of the guy’s face. Watch the video here.
CNN responded in a statement:
It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.
When some reporter gets killed doing her job, is Donald Trump going to take responsibility? Will Republicans be calling for civility then, or just say she had it coming?
Death threats against Texas theater company
In New York, Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park put on a production of Julius Caesar. The character of Caesar was made to resemble Trump, and of course Caesar was assassinated, so Republicans lost their minds. Unprecendented! Liberals would never have stood for something like this directed at a liberal President! Never mind the fact that there was a 2012 production of Julius Caesar that featured a charismatic black guy in the role of Caesar, obviously Barack Obama, with not a peep of actual objection from actual liberals. There’s no reason for facts to get in the way of the rage.
So why am I surprised that a Texas, repeat Texas, theater troupe has started getting death threats for producing Shakespeare?
Republican calls for lynching
Removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans prompted an elected state legislator from Mississippi to write, and I am not making this up,
The destruction of these monuments, erected in the loving memory of our family and fellow Southern Americans, is both heinous and horrific. If the, and I use this term extremely loosely, “leadership” of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED! Let it be known, I will do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.
That’s right. Openly called for lynching people he disagrees with. Do you need to ask whether he’s a Republican?
Trump praises mass murder
You read that right. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been praised on multiple occasions by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump specifically likes Duterte’s anti-drug program, which consists of summarily murdering drug suspects, 9,000 people so far. He called Duterte on the phone to say so.
“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” said Trump. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.” …
White House officials initially characterized the April call as “a very friendly conversation,” during which Trump had invited Duterte to visit Washington. That development reportedly surprised White House staffers and drew widespread condemnation from human rights groups, which have accused Duterte of condoning a lawless drug war that has terrorized the nation with a campaign of extrajudicial killings carried out by vigilantes and police officers. Duterte has seemingly embraced this barbaric depiction, comparing himself with Adolf Hitler on a mission to kill millions of drug addicts.
Republicans like it when reporters are beaten up
Republican candidate Greg Gianforte beat up a reporter, lied about it, and got charged with assault anyway because there were witnesses. Republican lawmakers are cool with him beating up reporters, mostly.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), for example, was quoted by the Associated Press saying, “It’s not appropriate behavior. Unless the reporter deserved it.” Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) denounced violence, but said “the left” has “precipitated this tense, confrontational approach” nationwide. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) went further, but even his concerns came with a caveat.“I do not think this is acceptable behavior, but the choice will be made by the people of Montana,” Ryan said during a press conference in Washington.
That’s right, the people of Montana will decide if a violent criminal is allowed in the Republican caucus, because as far as Congressional Republicans are concerned, being a violent criminal is not disqualifying. As long as you’re violent toward a reporter, that is.
Rank and file Republicans openly praise the violence.
A guy who’ll slap a reporter around deserves office most of all.
This guy is a hero. He gave this reporter what he deserved. What they all deserve. They are the enemy of the American People. Evil incarnate. They must be destroyed root and branch.
Anyone who smacks a scum-sucking reporter can’t be all bad. Hope he wins the election.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Republican, even thinks this is a good time to joke about shooting reporters. Apparently it’s not something that makes you lose Republican votes. Gianforte won the election.
Spicer: Hitler not as bad as Assad
I didn’t set out to write about nothing but fascism today; this is just how the news broke.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer not only made the fool’s mistake of comparing Assad to Hitler, Hitler came out ahead in that comparison. Because, said Spicer, even Hitler didn’t sink to using chemical weapons. Given a chance to fix that awful answer, Spicer said, and I am not making this up, that Hitler “was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing.”
So German Jews were not Hitler’s “own people”? Or is it just the method of gassing people that makes the difference?
It’s technically true that Hitler’s methods were different from Assad’s, but “rounded them up into camps and then put them in gas chambers” is … not really better. Especially when Spicer’s way of saying this was “He brought them into the Holocaust Centers, I understand that, but … “
Let’s just take a moment to consider that word choice. Not concentration camps, not death camps, but “Holocaust Centers.”
Le Pen denies French collaboration with the Nazis
Steve King’s pal Marine Le Pen pretends to be a “populist” and denies that her politics are the fascist politics of her father, Jean-Marie le Pen. That pretense was damaged, perhaps along with her ambitions to be elected President of France, when she denied French complicity in rounding up Jews during WWII.
Le Pen the Younger disclaims her father’s racist baggage, and presents herself as a populist/nationalist in the model of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump (themselves notorious racists, but of the sort who make recourse to dog whistles instead of out-and-out racism, at least some of the time).
On Sunday, Le Pen disclaimed French responsibility for the notorious “Vel d’Hiv” incident in which French police rounded up 13,000 Jews and crammed them into the Velodrome d’Hiver so that Nazi occupiers could deport them to Auschwitz, saying “”I think France isn’t responsible for the Vel d’Hiv…I think that, in general, if there are people responsible, it is those who were in power at the time. It is not France.”
The remarks came just a couple weeks before the French general election, which has many around the world nervous, given the recent success of other crypto-fascist “populists” around the world.
Do I need to add that Le Pen is a Trump supporter?
Judge who blocked Muslim ban is receiving death threats and receiving 24-hour protection
This is what domestic terrorism looks like. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson ruled last week to block the latest Trump Muslim ban, citing “significant” evidence of “religious animus.” In a normal government, the administration would say they disagreed with the court and/or were disappointed in the ruling, perhaps say they would seek new legislation. But this is your new Republican government, and they’re not big fans of the separation of powers:
And just to review, the Republican Party officially stood behind Trump when he delegitimized the judicial branch of government. So why would anybody be surprised when the authoritarian followers start making death threats to judges? While U.S. Marshals guard Judge Watson around the clock, I’m sure other federal judges are getting the message loud and clear.