They
say you can take the measure of a man by who his enemies are. It is at
least as accurate to say you can judge them by their supporters. And
Trump’s supporters represent an embarrassment of riches of America’s
misinformed and ignorant. For Republicans it’s “us vs. them” but it’s a
lot more complex than that.
These are people who decry the radicalization of Muslims but here in
America, we’re pointing a finger at the wrong people. Trump, for
example,
has been very good for business at white supremacist site Stormfront.
The people we
should be pointing a finger at include Coulter, and – predictably – Bachmann, are praising
Trump’s stance on Muslim immigrants. Coulter was the most exuberant and
over the top,
calling Trump’s statement her “best birthday gift ever!”
So Muslims are no more worthy, in Trump’s eyes, of American citizenship than Mexicans? What Coulter is so ecstatic about is, in
Stephen Colbert’s words, Trump’s willingness “to offend every group in America except white people.”
Colbert mocked the impossibility of Trump’s proposed plan, but
Coulter has (she thinks) an answer to this: the same people who said
banning Muslim immigrants is impossible are “the same people who said
the exact same thing about building a wall” (which, for the record, has
yet to be built and is therefore not a worthy cornerstone upon which to
build an argument). But Coulter is a McCarthy fan and bluster will
always mean more than facts.
Bachmann was, surprisingly, lower key if betraying just as great a level of radicalization as Coulter:
“Trump is right. Obama’s insane open-door immigration policies are getting innocent Americans killed.”
Not the wide availability of assault weapons or the Republican cabal’s refusal to
ban sales of such weapons to terrorists. She went on to claim,
“No one has a right to enter the United States. Until we can set
up a working, fail-safe vetting system, Trump’s idea is the only one
that ensures the innocence, safety and security of all Americans,
Muslims included.”
Oh, so we’re protecting Muslims from themselves. That’s nice.
In general, Republicans went ga-ga for Trump’s fascist pronouncement,
not just the base but the shrieking heads as well, including Gaffney, Starnes, Brody, and the un-American anti-Family Asshats’ Fischer (who doesn’t think much of Jews either), if only to trumpet via Twitter that he went there first:
Fellow AFA puke inducer Sandy “Gays Make Amtrak Crash” Rios
said Trump’s plan is a “great idea.” So what if it’s unworkable!
“If that’s deeply bigoted, I guess I sign up because I
think that’s a great idea myself. I’m not sure how we’ll do it but I
think it’s common sense. That’s my position on it and I’m not ashamed to
say that.”
Imagine racist bigots not feeling shame. I know that’s a new one.
Wingnut hack West called Trump’s plan “perfect,” and as Right Wing Watch
observed, Breitbart’s Nolte “offered a more unusual defense” with this tweet:
Left/Media pretend to care about religious liberty for Muslims.
'Christians' will be forced to buy rubbers & participate in gay marriages.
If you are familiar with Nolte’s Twitter screed, this won’t surprise
you. It also won’t explain it. But then, Nolte “gets that a lot.”
Graham, that lesser son of a religio-wingnut huckster,
also says
Trump is right, but here again misinformation and ignorance rear their
ugly head, as Graham basis his argument on a false premise:
“For some time I have been saying that Muslim immigration into
the United States should be stopped until we can properly vet them or
until the war with Islam is over.”
Of course, we are not at war with Islam. Even the shrub was quick to point that out, and
repeated the point
over and over. Yet for Graham, “Politicians in Washington seem to be
totally disconnected with reality.” While that is probably true in a
great many cases, it does not mean that Graham himself is any better
connected with reality.
Heidi Beirich, Director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, spoke, in a
statement on
December 8, of “a well-funded effort to vilify Muslims in the United
States” and of the “mainstreaming of hate and extremism.” Bachmann is
wrong. It is not Muslim immigrants who are a threat to Muslims, but as
Beirich said, demonizing rhetoric. That rhetoric comes from people who
call themselves 'christians'.
None of this will have any effect on Trump or his fellow racists.
Obviously, to be great again, America must, like Germany in the 1930s,
be for only one group, and that one group is increasingly identified as
“white 'christian' Republicans.” The last two are sort of synonymous at
this point, with Reince Priebus of the RNC having already identified
the Republican cabal as a religion, while the white thing goes without
saying, as big a no-brainer as those who preach it’s gospel.
At Stormfront, a forum member who’s signature is “nothing surprises me anymore” posts that Buzzfeed Bans Pro-Trump Opinions from Site – Breitbart
“The Jew machine is operating on full-blast,” he says by way of
conclusion. Anti-Islam? Don’t forget Anti-Semite. These are the rank and
file of the Trump cult. This is the end result of radicalization
here in America.
We look at various causes of radicalization and in looking at these
right wing figures we see not only the reason for the radicalization of
the Republican cabal, but the causes of Trump’s radicalization. Trump is
abetting the process through his own rhetoric, and so it continues. the shrub said we are at war against evil, not Islam, and he was,
for once, correct, and many of those evil people are right here, at
home.
The war on terror is not a simple matter of “us” versus “them”
(radicalized Muslims) when so many of “us” are radicalized 'christians'.
A wild raccoon probably didn't expect a big chimp challenge when he
wandered through the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee.
A few days ago, "Downtown" Randall Brown was visiting the zoo with his
son, Will White, when they spotted something unexpected in Chimp Ridge.
A raccoon had somehow got inside the chimpanzee enclosure, and had been
"treed" by the youngest and most inquisitive member of the group,
7-year-old George. While the other chimps looked on from nearby, George grabbed a stick and was trying to poke the raccoon.
Brown started recording the scene, and he and other visitors are amazed at what they are seeing.
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