Politics of Hate category archive

Via Job’s Anger.

Thom discusses how our compliant corporate media run after shiny things and miss the stories that matter.

Josh Marshall continues to explore Donald Trump’s desire for total victory, seeing hints of it in the current kerfuffle over Mitt the Flip as a possibility for Secretary of State (emphasis in the original). A nugget:

If you haven’t kept up on this little sub-drama in the Trump mega-drama, Trump staffers have been floating word for days that Trump will require Romney to publicly apologize if he wants to be Secretary of State – almost literally a ritual humiliation to enter the Trump inner circle. More pointedly, Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway – now some sort of senior advisor to the transition – has repeatedly said in public that if Trump chooses Romney it would be a betrayal of Trump’s supporters.

Der Spiegel points out 20th Century fascism manifested itself in many different ways. Fascism in Mussolini’s Italy was different from fascism in Hitler’s Germany was different from fascism in Franco’s Spain and so on. They point to the work of Umberto Eco, who grew up in Mussolini’s Italy, who sought to find commonalities among various fascist regimes and posited a theory of “Ur-Fascism,” the common threads that allowed all of them to be referred to as “fascist.”

They then apply Eco’s theory to Donald Trump’s beliefs and actions. The result is fascinating. Here’s a bit:

In point five, he writes that Ur-Fascism “seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” Here, it sounds as though Eco could have been writing directly about Trump, AfD or Marine Le Pen.

Point six states: “Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. That was why one of the most typical features of historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.” It would be impossible to more aptly describe Trump’s appeal to his voters.

This is a must-read.

What means this term, “responsible”?

Part of the problem is something I’ve remarked on for years. For some fool reason, people will believe stuff they read on a computer monitor when they would not believe the same thing if they read it in the Encyclopedia Britannica or heard it from the mouth of god herself.

Facebook and Twitter do not generate the seeds of stupid, but they sure as hell allow them to spread and flourish in fertile, febrile fields.

Judge Lynch.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Sit down and shut up.

In the middle of a longer article about the Petulant Elect’s attempts to intimidate the press, Solomon Jones notes the following, which should be obvious, but seems not to be.

Though Trump eventually went on the record Tuesday to tell the New York Times that he disavowed the white nationalists who are among his most ardent supporters, Trump’s actions say otherwise. He appointed as his chief strategist Steve Bannon, who gave voice to white nationalists. He chose retired general Mike Flynn as national security adviser after Flynn said fear of Muslims is “rational.” He chose Alabama U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general after Sessions was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 because of numerous allegations of racism.

Those actions have consequences, as we’ve seen in the rash of hatred and bigotry that has been unleashed in the wake of Trump’s election. When bigots are emboldened to physically assault women who are wearing a Muslim head covering, or to paint swastikas on walls in Trump’s name, or to threaten black students attending an Ivy League university, America is in danger.