Trump inauguration

[Shroom Man 777]

This is what you were getting at, then, Shroom?

Sure and I connect that to the civil rights situations around the world right now and the thoughts and words of the likes of MLK, Malcolm X, Mandela and others. And to what Dragon Angel and Flagg and others are saying. And Journ's understandable reluctance.

[Wild Zontargs]

The best such a group can hope for, and more than it deserves, is to simply be ignored, like a group of poker players might somehow choose to ignore a cheat. But the usual fate of someone who gets caught cheating at cards is to be kicked out of their participation in the game, possibly with violence. And the more blatant the cheating, the more inevitable it is that they won't be allowed to play.

The catch being, we have referees (police, judges, etc), and they are the only ones allowed to do the kicking-out, with or without literal kicking. And for good reason:

Part of the bargain of civilization is ceding the authority to commit violence to the State. (Has its own problems. Beats the alternative.) Lord knows there are people I’d love to beat the shit out of in the street, but if I don’t get to then neither do you. No, I don’t give a flying fuck who they are; you don’t get to do that.

Lefties say, “Well, that’s Nazis, they only do that to Nazis; Nazis are different, you have to shut that shit down, etc.” Great. Except that Lefties pull the same “shut this shit down!” stuff on mainstream Righties on college campuses, all the while calling them Nazis.

Hell, Lefties said Ted Cruz was a Nazi, Mitt Romney was a Nazi, George W. Bush was a Nazi. I’ve done human rights work that had me working in proximity to the U.S. military, so at a professional meeting a Lefty called me a Nazi.

So if you tell me that I’m a Nazi, and tell me people I respect are Nazis, and tell me you’re in favor of going out and beating up Nazis, guess what? I am suddenly very interested in the physical safety of Nazis.

And I’m Jewish.

Lemme tell you a true story.

In 209 BC, two Qin Dynasty army officers, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, were ordered to lead their troops on a march to provide reinforcements. Massive flooding delayed them. They couldn’t make their rendezvous time. In the Qin Dynasty, this carried the death penalty. No excuses.

“What’s the penalty for being late?”

“Death.”

“What’s the penalty for rebellion?”

“Death.”

“Well — we’re late.”

And that’s the story of the Dazexiang Uprising.

How does full-on streetfighting start in the United States of America? My guess is: pretty much like that. “What’s the penalty for kicking the living shit out of Leftist protestors?” “Oh, Jesus, we’d be demonized as Nazis.” “…what’ll they do if we don’t kick the living shit out of Leftist protestors?” “They’ll — hmmmmmmm….”

[Simon_Jester]

The best such a group can hope for, and more than it deserves, is to simply be ignored, like a group of poker players might somehow choose to ignore a cheat. But the usual fate of someone who gets caught cheating at cards is to be kicked out of their participation in the game, possibly with violence. And the more blatant the cheating, the more inevitable it is that they won't be allowed to play.

The catch being, we have referees (police, judges, etc), and they are the only ones allowed to do the kicking-out, with or without literal kicking. And for good reason:

1) Did you miss the part where we're talking about actual literal neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Not Trump. Not some random Fox News guy. Actual, avowed, card-carrying members of movements that themselves identify as aligning with Naziism.

Your "lol libruls calling their enemies Nazis" line makes a great soundbite, but you're ignoring what the discussion is about.

I mean, you're sending a message here about the American right, center, and spiteful-fake-ass-trolls-pretending-to-be-left-for-lulz.

It sounds like you're telling me they're all so politically tone-deaf and stupid that they will let real Nazis creep into the government and start taking power? And that this is somehow right and good, because it's a fitting comeuppance for all those 'leftists' who used overblown rhetoric and whom you have an ill-defined visceral dislike for.

Did I get that right?

Because in that case you sound an awful lot like a songbird calling for cuckoos to lay more eggs in your nest, as a fitting comeuppance for all those other birds who tried to warn you about cuckoos.

[Wild Zontargs]

Did you miss the part where we're talking about actual literal neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Not Trump. Not some random Fox News guy. Actual, avowed, card-carrying members of movements that themselves identify as aligning with Naziism.

So deal with them through the established channels and techniques. What magical Nazi powers do they have that prevent them from being dealt with in the same way as any other political extremists, but which disappear as soon as they're in pain? If they're committing crimes, arrest them and put them before a judge. Otherwise, treat them the same way you would any other street-preaching loony.

It sounds like you're telling me they're all so politically tone-deaf and stupid that they will let real Nazis creep into the government and start taking power? And that this is somehow right and good, because it's a fitting comeuppance for all those 'leftists' who used overblown rhetoric and whom you have an ill-defined visceral dislike for.

Did I get that right?

Um, no? I'm saying "normalizing punching people because they have unpleasant political views will rapidly erode social cohesion, to a much greater degree than having to shout down their nonsense would." That doesn't mean "let Nazis run the government", it means "let them rant on the street corner / InfoWars while 10x more people point and laugh at them", just like we did with Westboro Baptist and all the similar shitheads.

[Joun_Lord]

And what I say to Joun Lord...

The alternative to all this, to one group murdering another group or recklessly allowing them to die by abusing power... The alternative to chaos is democracy. It is civil society. It is the idea that peaceful transitions of power are possible, that everyone has a right to exist and be free, and that this right is not negotiable.

The problem is that groups whose opinion is "other groups do not have a right to exist and be free" cannot be a part of this civil society.

Think about a card game. You know the one rule that basically all card games include? No cheating at cards. Because it doesn't matter what the rules of the game are; the most fundamental rule is that you're not allowed to ignore the other rules. You're not allowed to hide an ace of diamonds in your sleeve, you're not allowed to deal from the bottom of the deck, or mark the other player's cards. Because anything you do for your own benefit, that breaks the framework of the game, breaks the game itself.

Certain political factions believe in breaking the framework of civil society. They do not believe in reasonable argument or debate. They do not believe that their opponents have a right to exist at all.

As a consequence... their views are intolerable as a part of civil society. They cannot belong, any more than a man who cheats at poker can have a valid place in a poker game.

The best such a group can hope for, and more than it deserves, is to simply be ignored, like a group of poker players might somehow choose to ignore a cheat. But the usual fate of someone who gets caught cheating at cards is to be kicked out of their participation in the game, possibly with violence. And the more blatant the cheating, the more inevitable it is that they won't be allowed to play.

I do understand that but my point was that part of democracy is even letting in people with horrible opinions that frankly should have died a long time ago but like guilt from devouring a whole box of donuts its persists.

But my point was opinions, as pertaining to the 1st Amendment especially. Opinions are different from actions and until actions become reality I do not believe denying the rights of anyone, even people who say they want to deny the rights and lives of others, to be a healthy thing for democracy and freedumb.

To put an example, say Martians come to Earth and I as a redneck tap into my bloodline and become a hateful fuck. I say the Martians should have no rights, aren't human, aren't even alive, and should be killed off. Saying that makes me a horrible piece of shit, makes me someone worthy of getting slapped around like a teenage boy's dork after finding his first nudey mag (or nudey site to be more modern, do they even make porno magazines anymore or are they still hanging on like newspapers?). However my right to say that bullshit is part of a free society as is your right to call me a fucking cunt.

What isn't part of a free society and should not be tolerated, even violently, is if I actually began directly threatening the damn dirty Marzoids, attacking Martians, creating bills and law stripping away their basic Martian rights, did more then just say horrible crap but actually do horrible crap, do illegal stuff, do more then be a hateful windbag.

To use your card analogy though no doubt shittily, it is the difference between someone saying that cheating is fine, that the rules of the game are unimportant and actually cheating. One is a dickish move but the game continues along just fine while the other breaks the game.

That is the point civil society is broken, that is the point people need to resist with every fiber of their being. My point has been its not to that point, that people like Durr Duhrer Trump is not directly attacking or threatening people, shitbags like Spencer are currently all words, that currently society exists still intact. But the fear of such fucks, the still currently unfounded fears, risk breaking society, risk destroying our free speech rights and beyond by jumping the gun and attacking people for words, no actions, FOR FUCKING WORDS. Sometimes not even that. The fear of Trump is not even based on words, Trump hasn't said anything horrible about certain at risk groups.

Its all currently unfounded fears. Its the same as the dumb fucks who not to long ago did the same thing about Obama. The moronic gun owners who said Obama would ban all the guns, and there were words and actions to back this up, and the hysterical right wing fuckers who said Obama would turn the US into a Muslim theocracy or surrender to the Chinese or completely hang Israel out to dry or any of the other unfounded fears. Now years later I can still walk into a store and buy a gun pretty darn easily, I ain't speaking arabic or chinese, and while Israel wasn't the biggest fan of Obama they still exist strong and murderous.

I'd like to think we on the left are a bit more logical, a bit less prone to hysterics and giving into Trumped up fears based on misinformation, opinions, lies, and outright fantasy predictions of the future. I'd also like to think I'm a millionaire with a nice house and a car not old enough to legally drive itself but clearly what I think doesn't match reality.

Doing drastic shit for words, for fears, to violate peoples rights over those things would destroy society far faster then Spencer or Trump ever could. To use the card analogy again, its like the person saying cheating is a-okay but not actually cheating but then another player punching the cheating is fine player. That breaks the game just as much as if the guy was actually cheating but the thing is he wasn't cheating, he just said he supports it. Same with kicking the guy out, now you are left with a card game short one person and the cheater is fine guy free to find underhanded ways to destroy the game, to have his actions not be seen and heard, whatever cards he was holding not able to seen.

You don't stop following the rules just because another player says he is fine with not following the rules. You don't decide yourself to become the arbiter of the rules, to declare something illegal when someone does something you dislike but not actually illegal. You let the rules, the dealer enforce the rules until there is no choice but to take matter into your own hands and you don't do something preemptively based on shoddy evidence like your name is George Dubya and the game is Iraq. You don't stoop to their level, you don't go lower.

Our society has handled outright Nazis before, has handled extremist assholes in power, has handled far worse then Trump and Spencer who did far more then say bad things and make some people afraid. We have fought against some of those people, we bleed, we killed but I don't yet think we are anywhere close to the point of any bleeding. Until that time nobody should bleed on either side. That has been my point.

[Dragon Angel]

Trump hasn't said anything horrible about certain at risk groups.

what

[Simon_Jester]

Did you miss the part where we're talking about actual literal neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Not Trump. Not some random Fox News guy. Actual, avowed, card-carrying members of movements that themselves identify as aligning with Naziism.

So deal with them through the established channels and techniques. What magical Nazi powers do they have that prevent them from being dealt with in the same way as any other political extremists, but which disappear as soon as they're in pain? If they're committing crimes, arrest them and put them before a judge. Otherwise, treat them the same way you would any other street-preaching loony.

The basic, not-red-herring issue here is that over the course of 2016 and rolling into 2017, we are seeing a change that is unprecedented in modern times in the US.

We're seeing would-be fascists, including white supremacists, including literal neo-Nazis, getting much closer to the levers of power in the government than they have been in any previous presidential administration for several decades- maybe ever, since the presidencies of the '30s and '40s and '50s were actually quite unkind to that kind of mindset.

They aren't being laughed at nearly as hard as people would have expected ten or fifteen years ago. People are right to view this with alarm. If things were still normal, they should be laughed at. If they're not, that sends certain signals. It signals to other people with similar attitudes that these views are normal or accepted, causing their support base to grow over time. And it signals to the targets of potential oppression that it is now "open season" on them.

[Joun_Lord]

what

Nothing I can find has Trump saying anything shitty about the LGBT community, though I will retract that statement if you have anything. Trump is actually considered pretty pro-LGBT by many. The real worry is other people like Mike Pence and of course the Republican party itself which despite having a penchant for truck stop restroom blowjobs, Grindr hook ups, and rent boys is surprisingly anti-gay.

He could be considered racist, though some would argue he's just an insensitive asshole, and is atleast somewhat sexist and definitely a dick to some women (though that is not automatically sexist).

[Wild Zontargs]

The basic, not-red-herring issue here is that over the course of 2016 and rolling into 2017, we are seeing a change that is unprecedented in modern times in the US.

We're seeing would-be fascists, including white supremacists, including literal neo-Nazis, getting much closer to the levers of power in the government than they have been in any previous presidential administration for several decades- maybe ever, since the presidencies of the '30s and '40s and '50s were actually quite unkind to that kind of mindset.

They aren't being laughed at nearly as hard as people would have expected ten or fifteen years ago. People are right to view this with alarm. If things were still normal, they should be laughed at. If they're not, that sends certain signals. It signals to other people with similar attitudes that these views are normal or accepted, causing their support base to grow over time. And it signals to the targets of potential oppression that it is now "open season" on them.

Accepting that for the sake of argument, how does punching them help? Let's imagine that people don't get stupid, and only punch real live Nazis. How does that keep them out of power?

Historical Nazis were big on street-fighting. It gave their first goon squads a "valid" reason to exist. If they're dangerous at all, they're not going to turn tail and run. Right-wing nutters appear to be more heavily armed than left-wing nutters, at least in the US. That gives them force of arms, and (if they're a legitimate threat to democracy) force of numbers. Apparently, the police won't be of any help here, since they weren't of any help before fashy-bashy became necessary. Hell, given the rhetoric being tossed around, the left would almost have to assume the police will side with the Nazis.

So, we've got Real Live Organized Nazis running around. They have guns. They have the support of the police. Brawling with them helps... how?

Fighting them is lose-lose. Either they're the plucky underdogs being oppressed by the evil [insert political epithet here], or they're winning the fights and putting the hurt on [insert political epithet here]. If you can't solve this without violence in the streets, you've already lost.

[Simon_Jester]

The claim that punching Nazis helps is a red herring.

The claim that has been under discussion for pages boils down to:

1) If peaceful means of protest cease to be effective, all groups throughout history have tended to resort to more and more violence.
2) Due to the behavior of Republicans in office, peaceful means of protest are ceasing to be effective for the left (examples were given).

The people you're arguing with have basically been saying:

"Well, if your reaction to a nonviolent protest is to spray them with water cannons in freezing temperatures and then say 'fuck you' and build the pipeline anyway, and if the courts are rapidly being stacked against you under a new administration that has a zillion judicial vacancies to fill because of VERY CONVENIENT Republican obstructionism under Obama... And if the deck appears firmly stacked in one direction such that voices from the left are not even heard by the government... And if there are literal Nazis going around gloating about how a win for Trump is the first step in letting whites 'take back' an America that already in reality belongs to whites... Then the people those Nazis might target will start to feel physically threatened and not just insulted, and this kind of thing is likely to happen more often, even if it's counterproductive. That is a thing that will happen. It is pointless and naive to pretend that violence will NOT result, after the more civil means of achieving compromise and ensuring minority rights get taken out of the picture."

Given that you're the guy who keeps saying that terrible things will happen if social justice is not destroyed, because of course it's the Ess-Jay-Double-Yous' fault if others overreact to them...

Well, this is the opposite side of that coin. You were happy to call it sauce for the goose; it's sauce for the gander too.

If you create a situation people must dissent from, and then render peaceful means of dissent useless or actively harmful to the dissenters...

You are going to see non-peaceful means of dissent on the rise.

[Civil War Man]

The fact is that sometimes violence just gets shit done. The Attica riot led to prison reforms that made life less hellish for the inmates, for example.

Not just that, but as far as I can see, there has never been meaningful progress in civil rights that did not come with some amount of violence. If there is not even the threat of violence, then there's no challenge to the status quo, which means that the elite can safely ignore the protestors with absolutely no negative consequences.

At some point, some amount of violence becomes necessary, with the exact level depending on a number of different factors. The more sympathetic the public is to the cause, the less it's needed (and, indeed, too much can alienate potential supporters). If the enforcers (usually police, but also hired thugs like the Pinkertons) are more than willing to torture and murder protestors, oftentimes violence becomes the only effective method of resistance. The Jews in the Warsaw Ghettos were not going to win over the Nazis using civil disobedience.

Even those figures we hold up as exemplars of non-violent resistance like MLK and Gandhi understood that if non-violent resistance ceased to be an option, and the only choices available were violent revolution or passive acceptance of injustice, then the former is the only correct answer. The only reason they were able to attain any success with civil disobedience is because they were in an environment where public opinion could be swayed to their side. Often by provoking their oppressors to commit some atrocity. And if the American people had watched schoolchildren getting attacked by police dogs or John Lewis getting his head bashed in by an Alabama cop with indifference instead of horror, then all of the sit-ins in the universe would have accomplished nothing.

On the topic of punching Nazis, Mother Jones had a very interesting article about the history of violent anti-fascism.

By now many have seen the video of an unidentified man punching white nationalist Richard Spencer in the face during inauguration weekend. Much in the way that the new president's vicious campaign rhetoric gave voice to the deeper resentments of some of his supporters, the assault on Spencer seems to have offered a cathartic and even comedic outlet for those on the left who were angered by thoughts of Trumpians goose-stepping through the streets of DC as Trump entered the White House. Since the video emerged, social media users have set the footage to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and the Hamilton soundtrack, and comedian Tim Heidecker even wrote his own tune to celebrate the bashing. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau tweeted, "I don't care how many songs you set Richard Spencer being punched to, I'll laugh at every one." Journalists for the New York Times and other major outlets were soon mulling over the question at hand: "Is it OK to punch a Nazi?" A website, isitokaytopunchanazi.com, answered with a gleeful loop of the attack, with one neon-yellow word superimposed atop it: "Yes."

Yet, this was more than just a morbid social-media sideshow: The attack on Spencer is part of a perennial conflict that may again be escalating. For decades, far-right extremists have faced the militant wrath of "antifas" (short for anti-fascists). With Trump's campaign having summoned all sorts of white supremacists and other trolls from under their bridges, the old war—which I first got a front-row glimpse into a decade ago—appears ready to re-ignite.

This beef goes back to before World War II, when in Europe, a nascent authoritarian movement inspired by Hitler, Mussolini, and Francisco Franco squared off against a popular front coalition of liberals and radicals. At the Battle of Cable Street, in October 1936, Oswald Mosley brought 2,000 members of his British Union of Fascists to march through London's Jewish East End neighborhood and 100,000 anti-fascists showed up to oppose them. In the resulting melee, Jews, Irishmen, Communists, anarchists, and socialists beat Mosley's men with sticks, rocks, and sawed-off chair-legs. Local women dumped their chamber pots out of windows onto the heads of Mosley's men.

Similar conflicts played out several decades later in America. In 1979, in Greensboro, North Carolina, the American Communist Party organized a rally called "Kill the Klan Day." TV crews filmed as a nine-car caravan of Klansmen and neo-Nazis suddenly showed up and shot at marchers, murdering five participants, though no one was ever convicted of the crime. (In 2014, one self-proclaimed participant, Frazier Glenn Miller, went on a shooting spree at a Jewish cultural center in Kansas, murdering three people. The 74-year-old had just been diagnosed with lung cancer; he said that he "wanted to make damned sure I killed some Jews or attacked the Jews before I died.")

In 1982, a street gang in Minneapolis named the Baldies began committing what they described as "righteous violence"—a term apocryphally attributed to Henry David Thoreau to describe John Brown's attack at Harpers Ferry—against neo-Nazis who had started to appear in the city. The Baldies and their opponents both adopted the fashion of British punks—bomber jackets, bald heads, boots and braces—and kicked the Nazis, quite literally, out of town. On one occasion they even collaborated with now Congressman Keith Ellison, then a law student at the University of Minnesota, to lead a protest. "I remember he and the rest of the [Black Law Student Association] were friendly with us," a founder of the Baldies told the Minneapolis City Pages. "I think they were just intrigued because we were so young and because we were anti-racist skinheads, which was weird to them."

The battles in the Twin Cities were followed by a wider spread of neo-Nazi violence. In 1988, three members of a gang called White Aryan Resistance beat a 28-year-old Ethiopian student named Mulugata Serew to death in Portland, Oregon. In 1998, skinheads murdered Daniel Shearsty and Spit Newburn, a pair of anti-racists and best friends from Las Vegas—one black, one a white Marine—in the Nevada desert. The next year, a member of the racist cult World Church of the Creator went on a shooting spree in Indiana, gunning down nine Orthodox Jews, an African-American man, and a Korean graduate student before killing himself.

Anti-fascist groups like Anti-Racist Action, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, and the Love and Rage Anarchist Federation fought back. Their members advocated "direct action" against white supremacists, eschewing legislative efforts in favor of physically preventing Nazis from organizing, distributing literature, and speaking in public. To their supporters, these groups merged the moralism of America's abolitionist tradition with the nihilism of punk rock, and boiled the culture wars down to their most primal element: vicious brawls over racism, sexism, and homophobia. The logic of their direct action was that, if a white-supremacist leader inspired someone to commit a hate crime, police couldn't intervene until after a violent action had taken place. Anti-fascists wouldn't wait. "Racism is an idea," one anonymous ARA member said in the 2000 documentary Invisible Revolution, but "fascism is an idea mixed with action. It took fascism to establish Jim Crow and before that, slavery….Anti-Semitism has been around a long time but it took fascism to [make] the Holocaust….When you cross that threshold, you negate your rights to a calm, collective conversation."

My own introduction to what anti-fascism looked like took place in South Philadelphia in 2004, where I attended a house party arranged around a half-keg of High Life in the kitchen. At the center of the gathered crew of mohawked kids was a man named Joe, whose skinny crimson suspenders strained over a swell of jiggling belly. A leader of ARA's Philadelphia chapter, Joe regaled us with a story about a stranger in a pub who'd once called him a faggot. "So I grabbed this motherfucker by the collar," he said, "and I dragged him outside." In the parking lot, Joe explained, he beat the man unconscious. The tale was horrific. But it was also surprising—because Joe was gay, it turned out, as were many of his Philly ARA comrades. He wasn't insulted by being called a faggot; he was insulted that someone would think there was anything wrong with being one.

"How does it feel!" Joe thundered, when he'd gotten to the climax of his yarn, in which he knocked his antagonist down and kicked him in the head repeatedly. Everyone laughed as Joe pantomimed his victory over the man by stomping the floor of the kitchen with his steel-toe combat boots: "How does it feel to get your head kicked in by a faggot?"

With the dawn of the Trump era, the Joes of the country may be stirring, and Spencer and his fans seem to sense it. On Tuesday, Spencer's supporters offered a $3,000 bounty to anyone who could identify the alt-right leader's assailant, and Spencer called for the formation of alt-right vigilante squads to prevent future attacks. "The ANTIFA thug who violently assaulted Spencer hid his face behind a mask," an anonymous commenter said, "but some think they caught a glimpse of his face. There's not much to go on—but let's identify the ANTIFA criminal who punched Richard Spencer."

Meanwhile, the same day that Spencer was assaulted, a 25-year-old anti-fascist was shot in the stomach during an inauguration protest at the University of Washington, allegedly by an alt-right sympathizer. New groups adopting an anti-fascist outlook such as Redneck Revolt, John Brown Militia, and the Bastards Motorcycle Club appear poised to revive the direct-action tactics of the 1980s and '90s in order to confront white supremacists emboldened by Trump. Anti-Racist Action's 20 or so chapters around the country have also promised to join the fray. The day after the inauguration, ARA's branch in Louisville, Kentucky, posted on their website:

For decades, [white supremacists] were the face of the enemy and only a minute few dared show their true colors in public. This made them easy to dismiss, easy to ignore...However, recent events have proven that the fascist ideology has not only survived but thrived…Now, their labors of hatred have been rewarded with a sympathetic President-Elect and a federal Congress that is, at best, indifferent to their evil.

A warning to those who wish to destroy what we hold dear; We will resist you in the streets, in the poll booths and in the townhouses. Whether it's in the bars, the concert halls, the conference centers or even City Hall, we will not allow a platform for your dangerous and divisive ideas. We will not allow history to repeat itself. We will shut you down everywhere you go. We will block your marches. We will interrupt your speeches. We will protest your legislation. We will be the thorn in your side. The glass in your bread. The pain in your ass.

Trump's presidency is already promising to turn back the clock on American progress in multiple ways, with women’s rights, racial justice, and environmental protections under siege. The return of the war between fascists and anti-fascists is another expression of our current political atavism. This time, given a uniquely pugilistic president of the United States, the battle may rage hotter than ever.

[Flagg]

I think people are starting to feel that the time for measured violent resistance has come and I can't say I disagree.
I just hope it's aimed at hurting wallets and most importantly non-lethal and not targeted at injuring people (or worse). The "administration" crossed the Rubicon in my opinion. I'm not advocating violence but I am saying I won't condemn it if it's a direct self-defense response against hired goons (even if they have a tin badge that makes them "officials") engaging in violent suppression of peaceful protests or only hurts Trumpist pocketbooks.

Why?
Joseph Steve Goebbels Bannon, President Pussygrabber's mouthpiece told the media to effectively "Shut Up." That shit does not fly and illigitimizes those occupying the executive branch of the US government. We're in territory not seen in this fading Republic for decades and that shit needs to end, full fucking stop.

I'm not suggesting anything, but should meaningful and monetarily painful violent resistance occur, I will not condemn it.

That said, if people resisting the Trumpistas start taking lives or hurting people in any way that is not self-defense, then the moral high ground will be lost and if you lose that to them then you're hurting the righteous cause far more than helping it.

I never thought it would come to this point in less than a week.

[Iroscato]

If I may make a suggestion; how about renaming this "General Trump Presidency Thread", seeing as the madness is unlikely to slow down any time soon? Could make for an interesting time capsule if we kept it going for the whole four or (God forbid) eight years...

[Flagg]

Did you miss the part where we're talking about actual literal neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Not Trump. Not some random Fox News guy. Actual, avowed, card-carrying members of movements that themselves identify as aligning with Naziism.

So deal with them through the established channels and techniques. What magical Nazi powers do they have that prevent them from being dealt with in the same way as any other political extremists, but which disappear as soon as they're in pain? If they're committing crimes, arrest them and put them before a judge. Otherwise, treat them the same way you would any other street-preaching loony.

It sounds like you're telling me they're all so politically tone-deaf and stupid that they will let real Nazis creep into the government and start taking power? And that this is somehow right and good, because it's a fitting comeuppance for all those 'leftists' who used overblown rhetoric and whom you have an ill-defined visceral dislike for.

Did I get that right?

Um, no? I'm saying "normalizing punching people because they have unpleasant political views will rapidly erode social cohesion, to a much greater degree than having to shout down their nonsense would." That doesn't mean "let Nazis run the government", it means "let them rant on the street corner / InfoWars while 10x more people point and laugh at them", just like we did with Westboro Baptist and all the similar shitheads.

Shut the fuck up you goddamned historical ignoramus cunt. This post proves that you know jack and shit about how the German Nazis came into power. Hint: it was all done "legally". As in through voter suppression and intimidation (sound familiar fuckface?) they managed to become the most powerful party in parliament. It was all done legally. Then once they had that power they set about dismantling the democratic system that they used to gain power. People tried to stop them. You know what happened to them, you stupid cuntfaced shiteating ass-louse? They either got a bullet to the head or were worked to death as slaves in a concentration camp.

And if you have the outright fucking pigfucking gall to tell me "that can't happen here" then you will officially become the stupidest motherfucker I've talked to this week, and I've been on Facebook talking to stupid shits who are still whining about Bottom Bitch Bernie losing the Democratic primary.

[Ziggy Stardust]

What Zontargs doesn't seem to realize is that we have been "[letting] them rant on the street corner while people point and laugh at them" for years now, and the ultimate result of that strategy is that nobody took them seriously as a threat, and NOW THEY CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. It's wishful thinking at best to wave your hands and say that we should continue to keep ignoring them and treating them like they aren't important, because this election cycle has clearly proven that they ARE a threat, and not one that can be idly dismissed as street-corner ramblings anymore. Even besides the question of when and whether violence is acceptable, which is another debate entirely, we are past the point where "ignoring them" is a viable option. Saying "ignoring them" is just saying "I'm going to stick my head in the sand and pretend this isn't happening."

[Flagg]

What Zontargs doesn't seem to realize is that we have been "[letting] them rant on the street corner while people point and laugh at them" for years now, and the ultimate result of that strategy is that nobody took them seriously as a threat, and NOW THEY CONTROL THE GOVERNMENT. It's wishful thinking at best to wave your hands and say that we should continue to keep ignoring them and treating them like they aren't important, because this election cycle has clearly proven that they ARE a threat, and not one that can be idly dismissed as street-corner ramblings anymore. Even besides the question of when and whether violence is acceptable, which is another debate entirely, we are past the point where "ignoring them" is a viable option. Saying "ignoring them" is just saying "I'm going to stick my head in the sand and pretend this isn't happening."

Exactly. And I felt that having them out in the open so we knew who they were and could effectively mock them at every turn was the best solution.

But with Donnie Douchebag's campaign and his Putin assisted win bringing so many of the CHUDS crawling out of the septic tanks and with legions of apologists (even here) putting their Klan hoods on cheerleading for the rapist, I feel that it's incredibly apparent that my prior position was just plain wrong.

It's now obvious to me that they need a boot on the back of their neck until it gets through their maggot riddled brains that their bullshit is no longer going to be tolerated and it's best left back in the last millennium.

[jwl]

Did you miss the part where we're talking about actual literal neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Not Trump. Not some random Fox News guy. Actual, avowed, card-carrying members of movements that themselves identify as aligning with Naziism.

So deal with them through the established channels and techniques. What magical Nazi powers do they have that prevent them from being dealt with in the same way as any other political extremists, but which disappear as soon as they're in pain? If they're committing crimes, arrest them and put them before a judge. Otherwise, treat them the same way you would any other street-preaching loony.

It sounds like you're telling me they're all so politically tone-deaf and stupid that they will let real Nazis creep into the government and start taking power? And that this is somehow right and good, because it's a fitting comeuppance for all those 'leftists' who used overblown rhetoric and whom you have an ill-defined visceral dislike for.

Did I get that right?

Um, no? I'm saying "normalizing punching people because they have unpleasant political views will rapidly erode social cohesion, to a much greater degree than having to shout down their nonsense would." That doesn't mean "let Nazis run the government", it means "let them rant on the street corner / InfoWars while 10x more people point and laugh at them", just like we did with Westboro Baptist and all the similar shitheads.

Shut the fuck up you goddamned historical ignoramus cunt. This post proves that you know jack and shit about how the German Nazis came into power. Hint: it was all done "legally". As in through voter suppression and intimidation (sound familiar fuckface?) they managed to become the most powerful party in parliament. It was all done legally. Then once they had that power they set about dismantling the democratic system that they used to gain power. People tried to stop them. You know what happened to them, you stupid cuntfaced shiteating ass-louse? They either got a bullet to the head or were worked to death as slaves in a concentration camp.

And if you have the outright fucking pigfucking gall to tell me "that can't happen here" then you will officially become the stupidest motherfucker I've talked to this week, and I've been on Facebook talking to stupid shits who are still whining about Bottom Bitch Bernie losing the Democratic primary.

The "intimidation" wasn't exactly legal, they were using paramilitaries to smash up rival parties' offices and beat up members of rival parties.

[Simon_Jester]

The "intimidation" wasn't exactly legal, they were using paramilitaries to smash up rival parties' offices and beat up members of rival parties.

Only because they thought they needed to.

There's still a valid point here. Hitler took power in Germany under color of law, to use an old English phrase. He did not simply walk into the halls of the government on his first day in office and say "I am in charge now, all existing government organizations are disbanded and replaced by my organizations."

Dictatorships that arise in democratic societies tend to start by piggybacking on existing democratic institutions. Just like how democracies that emerge from a dictatorship tend to start by piggybacking on the dictatorship. For instance, European parliaments started out as advisory bodies to the king, then became more and more influential and broad-based, gradually evolving into the constitutional monarchies and republics of today.

The reverse process can also be seen, and it usually does begin with a lawless man whose followers are willing to ignore laws they don't like taking a high-ranking office within the state. And with much or all of the existing political hierarchy acknowledging his legitimacy rather than saying "not my president/chancellor/prime minister."

[The Vortex Empire]

Some interesting stats from Reuters Polling Explorer, Trump's approval ratings among various demographics:

Filtered to men overall, 47.3% approve, 41.8% disapprove, 10.8% mixed feelings
Women overall, 37.0% approve, 52.0% disapprove, 10.8% mixed feelings
18-29s, 30% approve, 62.0% disapprove, 8% mixed feelings
18-34s, 35% approve, 56.2% disapprove, 8.8% mixed.
35-49s, 45.8% approve, 44.2% disapprove, 10.0% mixed.
50-65s, 47% approve, 42.3% disapprove, 11.1% mixed.
65+, 46% approve, 38% disapprove, 16% mixed
Whites, 53.2% approve, 37.8% disapprove, 9.0% mixed
Blacks, 18% approve, 68% disapprove, 14% mixed
Not enough of any other race surveyed to have a decent sample size.
New England, 34% approve, 57% disapprove, 9% mixed
Great Lakes, 42% approve, 49% disapprove, 9.4% mixed
Southeast, 49.7% approve, 43.6% disapprove, 6.7% mixed
Southwest, 48% approve, 38% disapprove, 14% mixed
West Coast, 29% approve, 42% disapprove, 29% mixed'
Mid-Atlantic, 43% approve, 50% disapprove, 6.7% mixed(edited)
Plains, 44% approve, 40% disapprove, 16% mixed
Less than high school, 42.5% approve, 46.4% disapprove, 11% mixed
Highschool or some college, 45.1% approve, 42.4% disapprove, 12.5% mixed
College, 35.7% approve, 57.1% disapprove, 7.2% mixed
Post-grads, 46% approve, 48% disapprove, 6.3% mixed
Voted for clinton, 6% approve, 82% disapprove, 12% mixed
Voted for Trump, 92.3% approve, 3.4% disapprove, 4.3% mixed
Registered Dems, 22% approve, 69% disapprove, 9% mixed
Registered republicans, 79% approve, 14% disapprove, 7% mixed
Independents, 40% approve, 38% disapprove, 22% mixed
Other parties, 27% approve, 43% disapprove, 30% mixed
Registered to vote, 45.4% approve, 46.2% disapprove, mixed
<25k income, 38% approve, 46% disapprove, 15.9% mixed
$25-50k, 46% approve, 31% disapprove, 22% mixed
50-75k, 46% approve, 49% disapprove, 5% mixed
75-100k, 50% approve, 44% disapprove, 5.9% mixed
100-150k, 52% approve, 47% disapprove, 1.3% mixed
150k+, 46% approve, 44% disapprove, 9.7% mixed
Straights, 47% approve, 44% disapprove, 9.2% mixed
Not enough of other orientations to have a good sample size
Protestants, 61% approve, 26% disapprove, 13% mixed
Catholics, 43% approve, 51% disapprove, 6.3% mixed
Baptists, 52% approve, 42% disapprove, 6.4% mixed
No religion, 31% approve, 58% disapprove, 10.7% mixed
Born Again Christians, 58.5% approve, 33.5% disapprove, 8% mixed
Not enough of any other religious group surveyed for a good sample size.
Never go to church, 35% approve, 53% disapprove, 11.4% mixed
Go every week, 63% approve, 28% disapprove, 8.5% mixed