charlottesville antics

[grue]

From my perspective ™ Trump is not a factor in the rise of white nationalism but is partly a symptom - not to say that WN brought him to power, but to say that WN supported Trump for some reason. Now this overt torch-bearing, flag waving cult-like thuggery of the KKK and nazis may not itself be "on the rise", but the question is: was it ever a widespread thing? I mean, the huge crowds you see in nazi photos were largely composed by people whom I have a hard time believing to be supporters of genocide. They were there to watch the parades, and to celebrate Germany the same way large crowds show up to celebrate Obama or the Pope. It was the brutally efficient propaganda machine of the nazi regime that brought it all under the symbolism.

I don't believe that nazi Germany was composed of millions of the same chinless inbreds that paraded the streets in Charlottesville. But those chinless inbreds are crucial tools in a) setting fear and b) normalizing violent discourse. As for a), the results are clear: by having those muscle-brained baboons march the streets, immediatly the antileft rethoric of "oh the other side was antifa aka communists aka stalin" immediatly set in. This is important because even though there is widespread condemnation of the fact that Trump didn't repudiate the nazis from the get-go, I can't say the same is true for his statements of "blame on both sides". I would bet some money that most people actually agree with Trump on that one.

And this is partly what I mean when I say that I feel like this is an orchestrated effort. By having the mindless thugs out there, the "peaceful", reasonable-minded rght-wing can emerge out of the woodwork and speak at ease. And the problem here is that the USA's brand of "right-wing", in europe, is actually the far-right. Just to be clear, Theresa May is more or less a kind of a Hillary Clinton in the UK. While Trump, who most people agree to be right-wing, but not far-right, makes speeches worthy of a Marine Le Pen - who in french standards is bordering on fascist (I would argue she is a de facto fascist).

So in truth I disagree that this isn't a growing movement. I made a point about youtube pundits because those guys, holy shit, right at this moment you have middle-aged, middle-class white men making money hand over fist from commentating on the happenings in the feminist, antiracist or other leftist fronts. And guess what, they tear it down - with half-baked, often ignorant, sometimes flatout made-up arguments. These people have been organizing, they are structured, and they are relentless. Also, they have the support of a certain political influence on the right. These are the people calling for the freedom of speech of nazis - even in this case, you will see them make the points of "well yeah the death is wrong and I'm definitely not a nazi you guys, but nazis should have a right to organize regardless; not the antifa though, the antifa are terrorists!" They fan the extremist flames because the chinless morons will tke the fall for these people, who thrive.