A White Christmas.

Ann Coulter (Shutterstock)

Ann Coulter (Shutterstock)

Ann Coulter attended VDARE’s Christmas Party, piling yet another conservative onto the unapologetically white supremacist platform. We’re going to be seeing more of this, like Bill O’Reilly’s recent adoption of white supremacy. I had thought the normalisation of fascism and the open agenda of white supremacists might take at least a short while, but apparently not. The open embrace of white supremacy should be ringing alarm bells all over the place, but I no longer have even the smallest bit of faith in people hearing those alarms and waking the fuck up.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported Wednesday that Coulter was spotted Dec. 9 at VDARE’s annual gala and even gave an impromptu interview to John Derbyshire — a U.K. expat famous for being too openly racist for the National Review.

[…]

“VDARE’s list of contributors, in fact, is akin to a Rolodex of the most prominent pseudo-intellectual racists and anti-Semites,” wrote the SPLC’s Stephen Piggott. “They include names like Jared Taylor, who once wrote that black people are incapable of sustaining any kind of civilization; Kevin MacDonald, a retired professor who wrote a trilogy claiming that Jews are genetically driven to undermine the Christian societies they often live in; and the late Sam Francis, a white nationalist ideologue who wrote several key racist books.”

This is Coulter’s second star turn at a white nationalist event since the fall, Piggott noted, “In September, she spoke to the annual “Writers Workshop” event put on by the anti-immigrant and white nationalist publishing house The Social Contract Press (TSCP).”

The TSCP is a Michigan-based publishing house that specializes in the writing of white supremacists.

[…]

The election of Donald Trump has emboldened many U.S. racists and spurred them to reveal their true colors.

Via Raw Story.

Not Rainbow as in Gay, No.

The Ark is lit up with a big totally-not-gay rainbow.

The Ark is lit up with a big totally-not-gay rainbow.

Ken Ham has decorated the “ark” with xmas lights, in a bid to take back the rainbow from all those icky queer folk.

On his website this week, Ham announced that he would be lighting up the Ark in rainbow colours as a Christmas treat.

He wrote: “Our special Christmas event at the Ark Encounter started on Friday, December 16. We’ve decorated the whole Ark property with beautiful Christmas lights. And, for added ‘wow factor’, we’ve lit the whole Ark in beautiful rainbow colors. It’s gorgeous at night!”

Simply gorgeous, dahling.

However, he wants to make crystal clear that it’s not rainbow as in ‘gay’, but rainbow as in ‘God will bring death to sinners’.

Ham wrote: “In recent times the rainbow has come to represent… the LGBTQ movement.

“Indeed when the US Supreme Court legalized gay ‘marriage’ last year, the White House was lit up in rainbow colors.

“Sadly, people ignore what God intended the rainbow to represent and proudly wave rainbow-colored flags in defiance of God’s command and design for marriage.

“Because of this, many Christians shy away from using the rainbow colors. But the rainbow was a symbol of God’s promises before the LGBTQ movement—and will continue to be after that movement has ended.

“As Christians, we need to take the rainbow back and teach our young people its true meaning.”

Ham then prophesied a global catastrophe that will exterminate sinners like gay people.

He wrote: “Although God promised He would never judge the earth with a global Flood again, He is coming to judge sinful mankind a second time. This coming judgment won’t be with water but with fire.”

Right. So, you want to teach children that the rainbow is a symbol of El Shaddai’s promise he’s really, truly over his genocidal tantrums, but of course, that promise only applied to grisly deaths by water, and the fire is coming. Christianity, warped to the core.

Via Pink News.

Goosestepping Along…

CREDIT: Fox News screengrab.

CREDIT: Fox News screengrab.

Gee, just one post ago, I was commenting on how the constitution will glaringly highlight the hypocrisy of conservatives. Didn’t take long for blowhard Bill O’Reilly to jump onto the white supremacy ship. And I just don’t want to think about all the small-minded conservatives who are going to drink the poison kool-aid with nary a thought.

On Tuesday night, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly embraced white nationalism, criticizing minorities and liberals for trying to strip power from “the white establishment.”

“The left wants power taken away from the white establishment,” O’Reilly said, “They want a profound change in the way America is run. Taking power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that.”

O’Reilly was reacting to renewed criticism of the Electoral College after Donald Trump was officially enshrined as president-elect. Trump won the Electoral College vote on Monday despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.9 million votes. Clinton received 48.2 percent of the votes, compared to 46.1 percent for Trump.

[…]

“Newspapers like the New York Times and LA Times have editorialized to get rid of the Electoral College,” O’Reilly said. “They well know that neutralizing the largely white, rural areas in the Midwest and South will assure liberal politicians get power and keep it… the left sees white privilege as an oppressive force that must be done away with.”

Hypocrisy, writ large and flaming, right there. The shameless dirty tactics and gerrymandering the republicans indulged in this election, to block people of colour from voting, and finding ways to conveniently lose those votes, why that was perfectly okay, yessir! There’s never any wrong as long as it’s amoral conservatives doing it, then it’s just dandy, fine, and of course it isn’t an unethical, illegal, sleazy thing to do, oh no. I’ll let The Cursing Hedgehog express my feelings about this one:

tuhina_en

Full story at Think Progress.

Oh, The Constitution.

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The Constitution. My feelings about it? Fuck the constitution. That superannuated paen to the rich and the immoral should have been scrapped long ago, and been replaced with something progressive and relevant. The very worst of people worship that ragged document, twisting it to support evil ideologies and actions; much like people with their holy books of myths (for the hard of thinking, yes, that includes the bible). Gun fondlers adore it, as do all manner of right wingers. Republicans routinely mouth off about their constitution love, and how great and grand it is, etc. It isn’t grand. It isn’t great. It’s a document of its times, put together in the flush of a successful genocide, by wealthy, bloodthirsty men, who weren’t overly concerned with moral or ethical behaviour. You can, of course, see the appeal to republicans, but more than anything else right now, the constitution highlights the abject hypocrisy of all conservatives.

Republicans are always the first to scream “constitution!” whenever there’s something proposed which they don’t like, and they are always the first to search for the tiniest of constitutional violations in the case of someone they find appalling, like President Obama. The conservatives went lunatic fringe, searching for anything which could constitute a violation, so they could oust him from office. Now, the pres-elect will be violating the constitution in the same manner he violated a very long line of women, but who wants to bet the republicans will be zealously pursuing those violations with an aim to impeach? I don’t imagine I’ll have any takers on that bet. I’d be willing to say they are going to find every gorram excuse in the book to absolve Donny in all the violations, and with that, they will demonstrate how little they actually care about that supposedly hallowed document.

What kind of nation allows the loser of a national election to become president — and then does it again 16 years later?

What kind of nation retains an electoral process that was originally designed to inflate the influence of slaveholders?

What kind of nation permits its Congress to write a time bomb into law that periodically forces rival factions into a game of chicken that could wreck the world economy?

What kind of nation fights a civil war over the question of whether people of African descent are people or property, and then looks the other way when the loser ignores the resolution of that war? What kind of nation waits until 1965 to guarantee black people’s right to vote?

Americans speak of our Constitution as if it were a religious text. To label a law “unconstitutional” is not simply to say that it violates some procedural rule or legal technicality, it is to label it fundamentally unAmerican. To do so is to question the values of any lawmaker despicable enough to support such a law, and to suggest that those values are at odds with who we are as a nation.

But our Constitution has not served us nearly as well as we would have been served by other systems adopted by our peer nations. Nor has it lived up to the expectations of its drafters.

Now, our country is facing a man of superlative ignorance. A racist. An admitted sexual assaulter of women. A man poised to violate the Constitution the very instant he takes the oath of office. A man who openly encouraged Russia’s efforts to usher him into the White House. A man who owes his election to the underhanded efforts of deep state actors within our nation’s internal police agency. A man who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. And the Constitution has placed this man in the White House.

The Constitution gave Donald Trump command of the world’s most powerful military and an nuclear arsenal that can eradicate all life on Earth. It let him name a racist as our nation’s top enforcer of its laws. It let him use his office to sell hotel rooms to foreign diplomats. The Electoral College has voted. Trump will be our next president. This is what the Constitution hath wrought.

It did this because our Constitution remains the product of a compromise with moral monsters who believed that human beings could be owned as property. It did this because our Constitution offers no guarantee, or even much in the way of likelihood, that the men and women elected to lead the country will share the preferences of the nation as a whole. It did this because our Constitution fosters voter ignorance. It did this because our Constitution can be gamed — and was gamed quite successfully by the Republican Party.

Emphasis mine. And right there is exactly what the constitution means to conservatives: a means to get their way, to make sure fascism comes marching in, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible. Nothing is sacred to conservatives, nothing at all. Well, no, a couple of things are sacred to conservatives: the state of their wallet, and the power to oppress and destroy other people.

The full story is at Think Progress, a highly recommended read.

ETA: It seems that even those republicans who might have spoken out are now too overcome by fear to do so. Ain’t fascism fun?

ETA: It’s begun, let’s write special laws, and Donny can just pardon people as he goes along!

Fuck every single person who has brought us to this, and fuck all those who will stand by silently, letting it happen.

White Nationalism, A Global Affair.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Eurasian Movement (far right) takes part in a Russian nationalists’ rally in support of Serbia in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, April 27, 2008. CREDIT: AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel.

Many Americans, primarily conservative, bigoted ones, are often found across the ‘net, bemoaning globalism. American wannabe nazis don’t have issues with globalism, they embrace it.

Aleksandr Dugin, is a radical, Trump supporting, self-proclaimed philosopher from Russia. Traditionalism and cultural purity are two of his most valued philosophical tenets. And while his influence may be overstated in Russia, his ideology has infiltrated white nationalist circles in the United States and parts of Europe.

One of Dugin’s biggest fans is Richard Spencer, the head of the racist National Policy Institute (NPI) and the man who popularized the term “alt-right.” Dugin’s work has been published on Spencer’s former website Alternate Right. And Spencer’s wife, Nina Spencer (who also goes by the aliases Nina Kouprianova, or Byzantina) has regularly translated Dugin’s work into English on her blog (though the blog gives the disclaimer saying that translated words are not necessarily the views of the translator).

[…]

Spencer’s adherence to Dugin’s ideology was shown as recently as last month when he tweeted a message of Dugin’s, using the same “swamp” metaphor that President-elect Donald Trump has employed when pledging to “drain the swamp.”

The Swamp is to become the new name for globalist sect, open society adepts, lgbt maniacs, Soros army, posthumanists and so on. Drain the Swamp is not only American categorial imperative. It is global challenge for all of us. Every people now is under power of its own Swamp. We all together should start the fight agains russian Swamp, french Swamp, german Swamp, and so on. We need to purge our societies from the influence of Swamp. So instead of fighting between ourselves let us drain it together. Drainers of the whole world should be united.

So, a purge. A purge of all those undesirable types from all societies everywhere. Does it take three whole guesses to figure out what their solution to all us excess people might be?

Full story at Think Progress.

UPDATE: Bannon and Dugin, Common Ground.

Bannon referred to Dugin while answering questions at a talk hosted by the religious right wing Human Dignity Institute in the summer of 2014.

“When Vladimir Putin, when you really look at some of the underpinnings of some of his beliefs today, a lot of those come from what I call Eurasianism,” said Bannon. “He’s got an adviser [Dugin] who harkens back to Julius Evola and different writers of the early 20th century who are really the supporters of what’s called the traditionalist movement, which really eventually metastasized into Italian fascism. A lot of people that are traditionalists are attracted to that.”

Bannon is referring to Dugin here. Dugin is a proponent of traditionalism — a philosophy in which all moral and religious truths come from divine revelation and are perpetuated by tradition — and counts Evola, an influential Italian fascist, as one of his influences. This speech took place in 2014, when Dugin’s support for the annexation of Crimea had him prominently in the news.

The Patriotic Duty of All Americans.

Republican Michael 'Duke' Lowrie is running for state Rep. in Louisiana's District 8 (Duke Lowrie official website).

Republican Michael ‘Duke’ Lowrie is running for state Rep. in Louisiana’s District 8 (Duke Lowrie official website).

The patriotic duty of all Americans – be the best bigot you can be! Yet another bigoted xenophobe is running for office. A republican, natch.

Mic.com reported that Michael “Duke” Lowrie believes that it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to withhold their consumer dollars from businesses that benefit Muslims in any way.

The former paramedic and firefighter announced this week that he is running to represent Louisiana’s District 8 in the state House. He told the Shreveport Times that he stands by remarks he made about not supporting Muslim businesses or companies that hire Muslim workers.

“We are a Christian nation. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real. Too many times, politicians are sometimes so afraid to speak the truth because of the PC culture in which we live. I’ll call it how I see it. We must tackle Islamic extremism head on. I believe President Trump will do that,” Lowrie said in a statement on Friday.

No, we are not a Christian nation. That’s even written into all those old documents xenophobes such as yourself revere. I’m not a Christian, but so far, no one has shown up to revoke my citizenship. I wish you nasty, evil bigots were afraid to speak your lies and poison, the world would be a nicer place if you all put a lid on it. Since when do people who are doing nothing except working hard equate to terrorism? Only in the heads of xenophobes like Mr. Lowrie.

In a November, 2015 Facebook post, Lowrie wrote, “Many of you may or may not know but Shreveport – Bossier was one of the cities on the Islamist kill lists. Perhaps they despise our hospitality here or our over the top support for our military. Regardless the fact is the Islamist (sic) seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and god.”

They despise us for our hospitality! Our hospitality is so famous! Oh, so is our extremist support of military! It’s a pity these fools can’t be poisoned by irony.  Right now, I’d settle for them being able to discern fantasy from reality. Here’s the FB post:

So friend’s. The time has come that we must face and take action against this evil that has been placed before us. All day I have prayed and contemplated what to do. Many of you may or may not know but Shreveport Bossier was one of the cities on one of the islamist kill lists. Perhaps they despise our hospitality here and or our over the top support for our military. Regardless the fact is the islamist seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and god. There are many who worship, if you call it that, islam here among us. I do not believe they deserve the peace of our culture or the continued fruits of our society while following this religion. I for one will no longer knowingly go to or do business with any establishment that has someone who I know is a follower of islam working there. I will challenge every islamist I see to denounce their false god and religion. Those islamist here walk among us in stores and we act is if they are no different than any of us. Well im sorry they are different. Their religion demands you convert or die.

Why yes, Muslim people do walk among other people, often in stores. That’s called shopping, Mr. Lowrie. Most people have to do that sooner of later. If their religion demands you convert or die, then why haven’t you converted or died yet, Mr. Lowrie? It just couldn’t be that those people who share that Christian faith of yours simply want to live their lives without undue fuss, right? (And yes, it’s the same damn religion. Same god. Abrahamaic religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.) Even in the wilds of nDakota, I know a fair number of Muslim people, and no one has talked religion at all, let alone stated “convert or die!” For fuck’s sake. Oh, and “the peace of our culture”? Really? A country filled with white bigots, toxic with aggrieved entitlement mentality and way too many guns, a peaceful culture? You’re part of American “culture” Mr. Lowrie, and I’d say peace is the last thing on your mind, given your fantasies.

The “ISIS Kill List” conspiracy is a misinterpretation of an ISIS propaganda effort from March of 2015, according to Snopes.com. ISIS published a list of U.S. service personnel it deemed as enemies of Islam and their home addresses.

Snopes said, “Although the March 2015 ISIS report was treated seriously by the U.S. military and law enforcement at the time it was issued, the Pentagon noted that the list seemed to be more of an ISIS social media scare tactic using information taken from publicly available online sources than an actual threat.”

Lowrie and others among the conspiracy-minded view the “Kill List” as a blueprint of what targets the terror group plans to “destroy.”

An inability to face reality should be an automatic disqualification to holding office. How I wish.

The election to fill the House seat takes place on March 25. So far, Lowrie is the only candidate who has declared.

Oh, please, someone with a brain, step up!

Via Raw Story.

The Ambassador to Israel…

David M. Friedman, left, with Donald J. Trump and his daughter Ivanka in 2010. Mr. Friedman has said he does not believe it would be illegal for Israel to annex the West Bank. Credit Bradley C. Bower/Bloomberg.

David M. Friedman, left, with Donald J. Trump and his daughter Ivanka in 2010. Mr. Friedman has said he does not believe it would be illegal for Israel to annex the West Bank. Credit Bradley C. Bower/Bloomberg.

Once again, a Trump pick has proven to be the worst possible choice. David Friedman has been chosen as ambassador to Israel, and he’s considered to hold scarily far right views, even among the far right. I’m sure he has a “good brain” though, and that will make the specter of no peace whatsoever okay.

President-elect Donald Trump named David M. Friedman as ambassador to Israel on Thursday — proving that the Israel-Palestinian peace process is basically screwed for the next four years.

Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer and previously a Trump campaign adviser on Jewish world issues, has zero diplomatic experience and holds far right views on Israel — even among the far right in Israel. Friedman opposes a two-state solution because he believes that the number of Palestinians in modern-day Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza — currently over 6 million and expected to equal the number of Israeli Jews by the end of 2017 — is exaggerated.

“There are always creative ways to allow people to live in peace,” Friedman told Haaretz in June. “It is not always about the land. We don’t accept the idea it is only about land. Nobody really knows how many Palestinians actually live there.” He also told the publication that Trump doesn’t see a Palestinian state as “an American imperative at all.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that Friedman doesn’t believe Israeli settlements on Palestinian land — which are considered illegal under international law — are an obstacle to peace. In fact, he is president of the American Friends of Bet El; the Bet El settlement was build on private Palestinian land without approval, but Friedman’s group has sent it millions of dollars over the past few years. (Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has donated at least $20,000 to the organization.)

[…]

Friedman has also called for the United States to “veto any United Nations votes that unfairly single out Israel,” labelled the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement as anti-Semitic, and called Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands a “false notion.”

The appointment of Friedman falls in line with Trump’s own views on Israel and Palestine. The president-elect has shown remarkably little interest in helping the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Instead, he has said the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank should “keep moving forward,” promised to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and pointed to the illegal wall separating Israel and the West Bank — referred to as the “Apartheid Wall” or “Berlin Wall” by Palestinians — as inspiration for what the United States should do on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Think Progress has the full story.

No Peace for Our Time.

profits-of-the-indian-agent

This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ‘ … We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

British PM Neville Chamberlain, 1938

Make no mistake: Donald Trump’s Administration is coming for Indian Country—we’re suddenly big targets on his radar. We haven’t had quite this big of a place on the national and international stage in a long time. It makes sense—Native communities have about 25% of the nation’s on-shore oil and gas reserves and developable resources and this upcoming administration is oil-thirsty.

And they’re coming for what Tribes have; Dakota Access was the warm-up. Trump’s line-up of cabinet nominees tells us that his Administration is coming squarely for Native land and Native natural resources. Rick Perry, who sits on the Board of Directors for the Energy Transfer Partners (the company that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline), was nominated as the Energy Secretary. Trump also nominated Scott Pruitt to be the new head of the EPA; Pruitt said that “hydraulic fracking, a technological innovation that has done more to reduce carbon emissions in this country than any other technological advancement of our time.” No really—that’s what he said. He also wrote a letter to Obama In 2012, Pruitt and Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal wrote a letter to President Obama asking to eliminate a Bureau of Land Management proposal that requires oil companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking operations on Native American land.

These cats want to separate Native people from our lands and mineral resources. It’s westward expansion, manifest destiny!

Again.

Gyasi Ross has an outstanding article up at ICTMN about the current political mess, and what it’s going to mean to Indian Country:

The Thing About Skins: Make no mistake, Donald Trump’s Administration is coming for Indian Country.

In an earlier edition, Marty Two Bulls made his feelings about certain Indians active in the current mess quite clear:

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© Marty Two Bulls.

The Twelve Days of Trumpmas.

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The Religious Reich have a Xmas wish list, one they fully expect Santa Trump to fulfill. Just the wish list here, click over to Right Wing Watch for the grisly details.

After jettisoning all of their rhetoric about public morality and personal character in order to help Donald Trump get elected, Religious Right activists are now hoping the president-elect fulfills the promises he made to the social conservative movement during his campaign.

Trump, who received the support of around eight in ten white evangelical voters, spent months boasting that he is a “great Christian” who will restore the long-lost holiday of Christmas and create “the strongest Christian lobby.”

[…]

“Like President-elect Trump, we have much to celebrate this Christmas season,” the National Right to Life Committee declared in its December newsletter, rejoicing in Trump’s anti-choice policies and Cabinet picks.

As Christmas approaches, Religious Right activists are reminding Trump of the good deeds they did to help elect him and demanding that he, in turn, deliver on his promises. Here are just 12 of the gifts the Religious Right is expecting from Trump in the new year:

  1. Nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court.
  2. Repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  3. Sign the First Amendment Defense Act.
  4. Rescind Nondiscrimination Protections.
  5. Defund and Investigate Planned Parenthood.
  6. Reinstate the Mexico City Policy.
  7. Codify The Hyde Amendment.
  8. Sign a 20-week Abortion Ban.
  9. Sign The Conscience Protection Act.
  10. Repeal The Johnson Amendment.
  11. Federal Voucher Funding.
  12. Curb Immigration, Ban Muslims and Stop Refugee Resettlement.

The details aren’t pretty. If all this is managed, we’ll be well past the welcome to fascism stage. Via Right Wing Watch.

NC: Repubs Attempt Coup.

Rep. Garland Pierce (D-Scotland) addresses protestors during a special session at the North Carolina Legislature. CREDIT: AP Photo/Gerry Broome.

Rep. Garland Pierce (D-Scotland) addresses protestors during a special session at the North Carolina Legislature. CREDIT: AP Photo/Gerry Broome.

The Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature is not happy that voters last month chose a Democratic governor and a liberal majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court. And today, they could take advantage of an “emergency” legislative session to pass a series of bills that would minimize the impact of the voters’ choices by limiting the power of the other two branches of government.

This is from an earlier article on Think Progress, about the panicked coup attempt by NC repubs, who aren’t at all happy that Cooper won the election. In doing so, they have pulled out the dirty tricks playbook:

The Republican leaders of the North Carolina legislature called an emergency special session this week ostensibly to send funding to parts of the state devastated by Hurricane Matthew. Yet they used the opportunity to rush through a series of bills designed to limit the power of incoming Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who unseated Republican Pat McCrory by a narrow margin in November.

“It now seems to me the hurricane session was just a ruse to get us here,” Sen. Jane Smith (D-Columbus) complained.

Rev. Dr. William Barber, the president of the North Carolina NAACP, agreed, and called the move “an insult to the democratic values held by all people of goodwill in this state.”

“It is immoral, it is unconstitutional, and this illegal session is a direct attack on the people of North Carolina,” he said. “To convene in Raleigh under the pretext of a special session called by the Governor to provide relief to those affected by the hurricane and wildfires continues the worst of this extremist legislature’s legacy: making unjust laws to give more power to themselves, on the backs of those most vulnerable.”

There are now active protests taking place once again in North Carolina, where it just wasn’t enough for the voters to speak their mind and oust McCrory.

Via Think Progress.

Oh, How Conservative Times Have Changed.

Herblock March 29, 1950 cartoon that originally defined McCarthyism.

Herblock March 29, 1950 cartoon that originally defined McCarthyism.

McCarthyism hadn’t been long over when I was born, and the effects of the hunt for communists and other undesirables had far reaching ripples. The John Birch Society was still going strong, and Russia was most definitely perceived as The Enemy. This sentiment echoed right on down the 1960s, and I remember being called a commie hippie more than once. Anything conservatives didn’t like was labeled “commie” – engaged in activism for peace? Commie. Against the Vietnam war? Commie. And fluoride in the drinking water was a commie plot, too. You couldn’t get away from the intense anti-Russia sentiment, it was everywhere, and there was a great and abiding fear of Russia, too. The Cold War was everywhere, and Nikita Khrushchev was in the news every 5 minutes for years.

If there was one thing you could count on from conservatives, it was their united hatred and fear of Russia. Although this quieted down in subsequent decades, it never really went away, in spite of Gorbachev and Glasnost. There were always cons somewhere, pointing a trembling finger at Russia. Given all that, it’s remarkable just how much things have changed, in a very short time.

A new YouGov/Economist poll found that among registered Republicans and Trump voters, more than a third now hold a “favorable” view of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though a majority still view Putin negatively, right-wing media — which spent years holding Putin up as a “better leader” than President Barack Obama — set the stage for Republican opinions to shift in the autocrat’s favor, leading to a nearly 50-point swing in support from conservatives in just over two years. And after the United States intelligence community publicly disclosed that its members believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election, many right-wing media figures doubled down on their support for Putin and are downplaying Russia’s involvement in the election.

Putin is an authoritarian “strongman” who has cracked down in Russia on freedom of speech and freedom of the press, signed into law draconian anti-gay legislation, and invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine. Nevertheless, for years, right-wing media have praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader, comparing him favorably against Obama. Fox figures have consistently lauded the Russian autocrat as “a real he-man” and have claimed that Putin has “come to the diplomatic rescue” of President Obama. One Fox host even went so far as to proclaim that she would like Putin to be president of the United States “for 48 hours,” so he could fight ISIS. In 2014, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan suggested that Putin is “one of us” and applauded him for “planting Russia’s flag firmly on the side of traditional Christianity” with his policies against reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights — evidence, Buchanan suggested, that God is on Putin’s side in his clash with the West. Even conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh once admitted that Putin was “saying things I agree with” when the Russian president announced that he “opposed the adoption of Russian orphans by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender foreign couples.”

Primed by right-wing media, Trump voters now hold a more positive view of Putin and Russia. Since July 2014, Republican voters’ opinions overall of Putin have improved by 56 points, and in 2016 they voted for a candidate in Trump who is openly sympathetic to the autocrat and even invited his government to hack personal emails from Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. According to the poll, 35 percent of Trump voters and 37 percent of registered Republicans now hold a “favorable” view of Putin.

netgraph

Now, even though the U.S. intelligence community has stated that its members are “confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations,” some right-wing media are siding with Putin and downplaying the severity of the hacks.

My, my. A complete shift from Enemy to Saviour. Via Media Matters.

Got Hitler?

"Got Hitler?" mug. Screenshot.

“Got Hitler?” mug. Screenshot.

Got Hitler? Got Retard? Got Pepe? These mugs were recently pulled from an online Walmart store.

In a listing that no longer appears on Walmart’s site, a company called JM Holdings LLC was selling a mug with the words “got retard?” emblazoned on the side, in the style of those “got milk?” ads. Walmart, like Amazon (which also had a listing for the mug that has since been removed), allows other companies to sell products through its site. This gives the other company a way to reach millions of potential customers, while Walmart.com’s offerings are that much more robust. It is a problem, however, when Walmart appears to be selling mugs with offensive terms on them.

[…]

JM Holdings told Vocativ that the slogans on these mugs are not necessarily intentional, but are generated based on words in the dictionary.

Anyone who believes that, I have some lovely bridges in my garage. You might get away with this excuse with the word retard, but Hitler and Pepe? I don’t think so.

When informed about the Hitler mugs, a spokesperson for Walmart said the company would be reviewing JM Holdings’ entire inventory.

Via Vocativ. Unfortunately, an otherwise good, succinct article is littered with the usage of “alt-right”. This has to stop. When you’re discussing the sale of a “Got Hitler?” mug, it’s safe enough to go with nazis.