Donald J. Trump, take a look around. Take a long look at the people dressed in the khaki pants, the white golf shirts and the red ‘Make America Great Again’ made in China hats. It’s the Official Uniform™ of the American Neo-Nazi Movement©. No, wait – that’s you on one of your many golf properties. No, wait – that really is the Nazis. I’m confused, but we should all be confused, especially after the murder of a 32 year old woman who followed her conscience to counter-protest the march on Charlottesville, Virginia and the disgusting response by the President of the Electoral College. Folks, if you ever wondered how regular folks stood by and watched Germany descend into Naziism… you’re soaking in it.
The Amber Fuhrer attempted to blame “many sides” in his dispicable excuse for a press conference where he bragged about his ‘accomplishments’ and used some veterans for props. I’ve got news for him: when it comes to White Supremacists marching on cities who dare to try to remove monuments to traitors to this nation, there aren’t “many sides”. There are two sides and only two sides. There is Good and there is Evil and his utter inability to call out the Evil by name was nothing more than a wink and a nod to his base that he condones their behavior and thanks them for working for his agenda.
It’s not like we weren’t warned, people. The day The Donald descended the escalator to announce his candidacy, with his immigrant wife Melanoma in tow and called Mexicans drug runners and rapists, there was a good clue. His mention of how he has a very good relationship with ‘The Blacks” was a good clue. His sycophancy with the military was a good clue. When one side of his mouth claims that ‘no one respects women’ like he does when the TMZ tape proved he is a sexual predator who likes to ‘grab ‘em by the pussy’, it spoke volumes. His promise to ‘drain the swamp’ as he plugged the drain and appointed Wall Street moguls, science deniers, moral reprobates and avowed Neo-Nazis to key positions in his administration wasn’t just The Peter Principle on steroids – it was The American Fuhrer waving a familiar flag that bore no resemblance to the Stars and Stripes. It was a great big fat clue that Fascism isn’t just coming to America – it’s here. It’s wrapped in a flag and it’s not carrying the cross you thought it would – it’s carrying a burning cross.
The people with whom I’ve spoken have tried to silence me with regard to police behavior in Charlottesville over the past few days but I think enough people have been silent. A hate group, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was allowed to march on a community to exercise their First Amendment Rights. The Nazis carried tiki torches because the traditional rope and animal fats and flame dripping torches are either too difficult or expensive or time-consuming for economically anxious white men to make. They also came with sticks and brass knuckles and pepper spray which they were happy to use on counter-protesters. And then they whined that police didn’t protect their First Amendment Rights enough by allowing people of conscience to stand against them and say “This is not okay.”
Let me say right off the bat that a Black Lives Matter march of this magnitude would have been met with a far bigger police presence and when the first bottle was thrown, would have been crushed before they made it down the first block. I doubt they would have been given permission to march at all – much less with them carrying incendiary devices, since, you know, black folk like burning shit down. No one stops to remember that black folk don’t like burning shit down at all, but learned a long time ago that when America treats them like an infestation instead of citizens, it’s an attention-getter for the voiceless. That’s not an endorsement of the behavior, but an historical observation. The past decade has seen peaceful protests crushed by police violence. Charlottesville proved that if you’re white and claim to be oppressed, you can come dressed for war and it’s going to be permitted to culminate in the logical conclusion that someone who dares to object will end up dead – and that’s just what happened. Herr Trump called it #sad but I called it #predictable.
So folks can spare me the “everyone was violent” horse shit right along with the people who claim the police did the best they could. Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from consequences just because you’re white.
It’s been three years and a week since Michael Brown was killed by a cop in Ferguson who walked away a millionaire with no punishment. Within 48 hours I stood on the street where Michael Brown was killed and saw with my own eyes, his blood still staining the pavement after he’d been left out in 90 plus degree temperatures for hours before the police deemed it necessary to remove his body. The residents of the neighborhood described to me how it felt like they left him out there as a ‘trophy kill’ so they would understand that next time, it could be them. Police claimed it took so long to move Brown’s body to the morgue because they had to deal with the angry black ‘mob reaction’. That wasn’t a mob. It was a community.
Words matter. Little has changed in Ferguson in the three years since I went there to be an objective observer and walked away an activist. That’s the funny thing about these pivotal moments in American history – at some point, you’re forced to take sides. I chose to side with the people of Ferguson who were rightfully angry about cops gunning down their kids in the street with absolute impunity. I sided with the people who objected to an 18 year-old kid who was assassinated in the streets and had his character assassinated in a well-orchestrated symphony by now well-known members of the ‘alt-right’ who I just call Nazis. It was really then that I decided I would be on the side of Good and never compromise my morals.
I did that once. I lived in a small rural community that had been battling for water rights from the neighboring town for 30 years. Our Republican State Rep stepped in, forced their hand and got my town the water I’d been fighting for for ten years. I thought I owed him a vote in the next election – where he lied to me about his position on policy matters. He voted to cut food stamps for some of the most vulnerable in my state and he voted to slash education funding – two issues which I trusted him on. From that day forward, I refuse to vote for any Republican because their word is as good as any other snake oil salesman.
I know there are people out there who voted for The Pumpkin Fuhrer out of muscle memory. They’d been voting in the ‘R’ column for so long, they just couldn’t vote for a Democrat. I get that. I know there are people who believed the propaganda about Hillary Clinton and felt they just couldn’t vote for her because ‘oh my Gawd, her E-MAILS’! The entire time I was voting last November, I could see all the “I’M WITH HER” signs rolling through my head. I voted for her with my little voice saying, “I’m with…meh”, but I couldn’t vote for Evil. Hillary Clinton is many things, but I don’t believe I have ever found anything to put her in the Evil column. And they voted for a man who consistently sided with Neo-Nazis and is a serial sex offender – so they also own what happened in Charlottesville.
What I do know is that while The Fuhrer may not have been the architect of the White Nationalist movement, he finally gave them a face and a name and a position of power. The murder of that woman and the injuries to scores of others were built firmly on the White Nationalist policies of the Trump Administration. He can talk all he wants about condemning the violence ‘in the strongest terms’, but it’s meaningless until he calls out the Neo-Nazis by name and specifically condemns THEM – but he can’t do that without alienating his base. So while Trump may not have been the architect, he built that. Steve Bannon from Breitbart ‘News’, has proudly called it the ‘platform for the alt-right’ *see Nazi. That’s The Fuhrer’s top advisor. He’s got a recent addition to his staff of mouthpieces in Sebastian Gorka, a Brit with questionable educational credentials who demands to be referred to as “Dr. Gorka” while he goes on cable news and defends the White Nationalist Movement. He also has Stephen Miller who is a speech writer who forms policy for the Trump Reich. This guy sure does hate him some immigrants, legal or otherwise and was a big part of the Muslim Travel Ban that wasn’t a ban but was because the media called it a ban after the President called it a ban but it wasn’t a ban. Are we clear on that? It’s hard to call out White Nationalists when there are three of them serving in key positions in the White House.
And my all means, let’s do talk about the media. They have been demonized by this administration and throughout the candidacy of The Peach Pol Pot. White Nationalists labeled the media in Nazi terms as “Lügenpresse,” which means “lying press.” If I had a nickel for every time Herr Fuhrer used the phrase #FAKENEWS on his Twitter feed, I’d have more money than he does – but I digress. The role of the press is to tell the truth, warts and all. This crap of not labeling Fearful Leader a serial liar is reprehensible. It’s well documented and demonstrable. The New York Times has called Hillary Clinton a liar as far back as 1996 and didn’t think it indelicate to do so, which makes me wonder why they’re so terribly timid in calling out The Teflon Don for his blatant lies. The equivocation of such obvious language is the flaming bag of dog shit on their doorsteps and they get to own that. It’s time for the Fourth Estate to do their jobs without fear of what The Gasbag In Chief will put on his Twitter feed.
After the crying was done yesterday, I made another choice to stop being afraid. Trump can blame ‘many sides’ for what happened yesterday, but the people who stood up and said what was happening in Charlottesville was wrong, are absolutely correct. A woman died for standing up for Good and so far, a GoFundMe raised more than $178,000 in less than 17 hours – for Good. The answer to the White Nationalists is not to stay home and pretend they’re not there. That’s what they want. They believe if they make people scared enough, they’ll stay home and then they can crow on social media that their ideas are catching on because no one objected.
I object.
I am not afraid. When the Nazis march on my town (not if – when), I will meet them with resistance. I will not stay home. I will not be silent. I will be peaceful. I have accepted that I may die in doing so. If you want to raise enough money to have me cremated and my ashes tossed in Lake Hooterville, fine. If there is money left over, create a journalism scholarship in the hopes that some young person will get an education and learn to spread a little sunshine on the darkness in the search for the unvarnished truth. And if you’re truly a lover of this country, as I am… when they come to march on my town, you’ll take my hand and march with me. You’ll take my hand and march with me because I’m getting too fucking old to keep doing this alone – and you’ll do it because you stand on the side of everything that was once good here. You’ll drag my sorry tired ass along and we’ll endure whatever we have to endure to save The Good from The Evil. Good men and women will not stand silently by as Evil marches through our cities.
And to The Amber Fuhrer I have a parting message for you: We are coming for you. You can threaten North Korea and Venezuela with nuclear war. You can continue to fetishize the military and make your ridiculous speeches. We know how you rose to your position as the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin. We will not be silent. We will not stay home. We will not be afraid. Your idiot followers can threaten civil war because as in the 19th Century – they will be soundly crushed, defeated, and labeled the traitors to this country they are. And when it all crumbles around you, remember… you may have built this, but anything that’s been built, can be torn down. You built your empire on a smoldering landfill which explains why it smells like a dumpster fire. Let me speak to you in terms you understand: