Tag: Richard Spencer

Stephen Miller Is Even Worse Than You Thought

Stephen Miller is a bad person. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 3.0)

In case you were previously unaware, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller is soulless human garbage in a suit and shouldn’t have a role anywhere near the President of the United States. But Donald Trump is our president, Miller has been one of the longest-tenured members of his administration, and here we are.

You may not know much about Miller other than that he has a receding hairline and pretty much every photo of him makes him look like an insufferable dick. He also can claim the dubious honor of having his own uncle call out his hypocritical douchebaggery in an essay that made the rounds online. His own uncle. Let that sink in for a moment.

Of course, resting bitch face and do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do behavior do not a monster necessarily make. Promoting white nationalist propaganda and conspiracy theories, obsessing over conceptions of “racial identity,” and invoking Hitlerian attitudes on immigration, though, are more conclusive signs.

In a series of E-mails between Miller and Breitbart News editors first leaked to the Southern Law Poverty Center by Katie McHugh, a former editor at Breitbart, the depth of Miller’s affinity for white nationalism is laid bare. SLPC’s Hatewatch blog, in reviewing more than 900 E-mails which span from March 2015 to June 2016, characterizes the subject matter of these messages as “strikingly narrow,” unsympathetic, and biased. Regarding immigration, Miller focused only on limiting if not ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. That’s it.

To this effect, Miller’s correspondence included but was not limited to these delightful exchanges and messages:

  • Sending McHugh stories from white nationalist websites known for promulgating the “white genocide” theory as well as those emphasizing crimes committed by nonwhites and espousing anti-Muslim views
  • Recommending Camp of the Saints, a 1973 novel depicting the destruction of Western civilization through mass immigration of nonwhites, as a point of comparison to real-world immigration and refugeeism trends
  • Pushing stories lamenting the loss of cultural markers like the Confederate flag and Confederate monuments
  • Embracing restrictive American immigration policies of yesteryear, the likes of which were based on eugenics theory and were referenced favorably in Mein Kampf
  • Offering original conspiracy theories as to why the “ruinous” history of the Hart-Celler Act wasn’t covered in “elitist” publications

Hatewatch also revisited Miller’s history with prominent white nationalist figures to provide context for these E-mails. Specifically, Miller has connections to Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE, a white supremacist website, and Richard Spencer, like, the poster child for white nationalism and the alt-right, from his time at Duke. He and Spencer worked together to organize a debate between Brimelow and journalist/professor Peter Laufer on immigration across our southern border. Miller has sought to refute this relationship, but Spencer has acknowledged their familiarity with one another in passing. Miller’s denial is, as far as the SPLC is concerned, implausible.

As noted, these E-mails are several years old and his time at Duke yet further back. Still, not only are these messages not that far behind us, but Miller’s fingerprints are all over Trump’s immigration policy directives. As Hatewatch has also documented, Miller was one of the strongest advocates for the “zero tolerance” policy which saw a spike in family separations at the border with Mexico, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis there. In addition, alongside Steve Bannon, he was a chief architect of the so-called “travel ban,” which is a Muslim ban in everything but the name.

Again, as the leaked E-mails and SPLC’s additional context hint at, there is a path to these policies in Miller’s past associations. As recently as 2014, he attended an event for the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative foundation which traffics in Islamophobia, introducing his then-boss Jeff Sessions as a speaker.

There’s his involvement with the Center for Immigration Studies, too, a anti-immigrant think tank (if you can call it that; the inclusion of the word “think” seems like a stretch) whose very founders subscribed to white nationalist and eugenicist world views and of which misleading/false claims about immigrant crime are a mainstay. Miller was a keynote speaker at a CIS conference in 2015 and has repeatedly cited CIS reports in publicly defending Trump administration policy directives.

As always, one can’t know for sure how many of Miller’s professed beliefs are true to what he believes deep down. After all, he, like any number of modern conservative grifters, may simply be leveraging the prejudices of everyday Americans as a means of bolstering his own profile.

Ultimately, however, as with his current employer, it is immaterial what he truly believes. His words and (mis)deeds shared with the outside world are what matter, and the zeal with which he has pursued bigoted, racist, and xenophobic policies and rhetoric conveys the sense he really means it. Like the saying goes, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Stephen Miller walks like a racist and quacks like a racist. I don’t know about you, but that’s good enough for me.

At this writing, 107 Democratic members of the House of Representatives and Mike Coffman, a House Republican, have called for Stephen Miller’s resignation or firing. It’s not just members of Congress either. Over 50 civil rights groups, including Jewish organizations (Miller is Jewish), have likewise condemned Miller’s bigotry. Predictably, the White House has used these calls for the senior adviser’s head as fodder for charges of anti-Semitism, much as the man himself has tried to use his faith as a shield from criticism in the past.

The two concepts are not mutually exclusive, though. You can be a Jew and still suffer from prejudice. None of us are immune herein regardless of our religious or political beliefs. Besides, the nature of the White House’s defense obscures the intent of the growing resignation demand. This isn’t a bunch of totalitarian leftists trying to exploit the E-mail leak as political weaponry. Miller has given his critics across the political spectrum plenty of ammunition throughout his tenure in the Trump administration. The leak is just the racist, Islamophobic straw that broke the camel’s back.

Does all of this outrage matter, though? Will President Donald Trump turn a deaf ear to the controversy surrounding Miller, more concerned with his own concerns over his ongoing impeachment inquiry? Would he consider keeping Miller in his present role just to signify his stubborn will and/or to “own the libs?”

It’s hard to say. On one hand, some of the worst crooks and liars have seemed to do the best (that is, last the longest) in the Trump administration. Betsy DeVos is still carrying water for Trump as Secretary of Education despite a history of evidenced incompetence and notions she, like Trump, is using her position to enrich herself. Kellyanne Conway continues to be employed despite being a professional author of “alternative facts.” And don’t even get me started about Jared Kushner. If that guy has any personality or foreign policy know-how worth sharing, it is unknown to the rest of Planet Earth.

So, yeah, Stephen Miller is a natural fit for the Trump White House and this bit of public outrage may just be a blip on the radar of his career as a political influencer. Then again, it may not. While several Trump administration officials have resigned, Trump has let the ax fall on occasion. Among the figures identified by CNN as either “fired” or “pushed out” are high-profile names like Jeff Sessions (Attorney General and Miller’s one-time employer), John Bolton (National Security Adviser), John Kelly (White House Chief of Staff), Michael Flynn (also National Security Adviser), Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State), and Steve Bannon (White House Chief Strategist), not to mention holdovers from the Obama administration like Andrew McCabe (FBI Deputy Director), James Comey (FBI Director), and Sally Yates (Deputy Attorney General). Heck, Anthony Scaramucci only lasted 10 days as White House Communications Director.

When not striking a defiant tone, Trump and Co. have also exhibited a sensitivity to low public support. That zero-tolerance immigration policy championed by Miller which will forever serve as a black mark on an already-checkered American legacy? It has been formally ended, though it has been reported that children continue to be separated by their parents and logistical problems facing the reunification of families remain. Alas, nothing goes smoothly with this administration, especially not when cruelty is on the agenda.

The president has additionally and vocally wavered on Syria, not only with respect to withdrawal of troops but whether to support the Kurds fighting there or to roll out the proverbial red carpet for Erdogan and Turkey after widespread bipartisan condemnation of abandoning our allies there. Trump’s not a smart man, but he can tell when the prevailing sentiment is against him. (Hint: If the chowderheads at Fox & Friends and 2019’s version of Lindsey Graham are disagreeing with you, you know you screwed up.)

All this adds up to the idea Stephen Miller’s job may not be as safe as we might imagine. Whatever the outcome, the pressure for him to be fired or resign should continue as long as he is one of the worst examples of what the Trump White House has to offer and one of the ugliest Americans in recent memory given his personally- and professionally-stated beliefs. As his leaked correspondence with Katie McHugh shows, Miller is even worse than we thought. It’s time to get him out before he does any more damage to the country than he already has.

On Punching Nazis, Serving Sarah Sanders, and Matters of Civility

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Sarah Sanders getting kicked out of The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia has prompted conversations about whether people should be kicked out of establishments for their political beliefs and whether “civility” is warranted in these situations. While not all calls for civility have equal merit in light of their source, restraint, mediated by facts and precision of language, is still a worthy aspiration. (Photo Credit: Twitter)

You’ve probably seen T-shirts or memes devoted to instructing others to “PUNCH MORE NAZIS.” This sentiment, which invokes Richard Spencer—who doesn’t call himself a “Nazi” or a “white supremacist,” but an “identitarian,” though that basically means he’s a white nationalist and doesn’t want you to know he’s a white nationalist—getting punched in the face by a protestor on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, is one that many of us can probably get behind. After all, who really likes Nazis outside of actual Nazis?

As sympathetic as we may be to the idea of Spencer and his ilk getting decked, however—or, for some of us, wish we could’ve been the ones to do it—just because we can punch more Nazis, does it mean we should? Political theorist Danielle Allen, in an August 2017 column for The Washington Post, emphatically rules for the negative on this question. She writes:

White supremacy, anti-Semitism and racism are false gods, ideologies to be repudiated. They must be countered and fought. We must separate the violence that flows from those ideologies from the ideas that animate them. Different tools are at hand for fighting each.

We need to counter extremism’s violence not with punches but with the tools of law and justice. Where hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism are perpetrated, our judicial institutions must respond. We as citizens must make sure institutions do their jobs, not plan to take the law into our own hands.

When the legitimacy of legal and judicial institutions has come into question — as has occurred because of police shootings and mass incarceration — we must strenuously advance the project of reforming those institutions to achieve their full legitimacy. But to take the law into one’s own hands is only to further undermine legal and judicial institutions. It provides no foundation for reform.

As Allen sees it, we need to be thinking more Martin Luther King, Jr.’s brand of civil disobedience and nonviolence, and less, you know, Charles Bronson’s brand of vigilantism from Death Wish. In doing so, we must address the failings of major institutions—namely the courts, the criminal justice system, and the legislative branch—enduring the process of advocacy for reform. Punching Nazis, while perhaps providing more immediate satisfaction, doesn’t put us on the same long-term path of reform.

In fact, as Allen stresses, countering violence with more violence only takes us further away from the peaceful society many of us would envision—one devoid of white supremacists and their hate. It does not make our world any more just than it was before we started throwing haymakers, rocks, and the like. It certainly doesn’t make it any more stable.

In other words—Danielle Allen’s words—”Once political violence activates, shutting it off is exceptionally difficult.” Her closing remarks reinforce this theme, with special attention to the morality of nonviolence as well as the impracticality of its opposite:

Why should anyone believe that people who have been committed to political violence will change their minds and recommit to peaceful forms of litigating conflicts? That kind of distrust erodes the foundations of stable political institutions. The path to justice always lies through justice, including the basic moral idea that immediate self-defense is the only justification for the use of force. We need moral clarity on this point.

Along these lines, violence is not the cure or negotiating tool we might conceive it to be. As the saying goes, it just begets more violence, and makes people that much more predisposed to taking sides and fighting, rather than willing to change. When people are made to think of political and social matters in terms of a war, they treat it like one—casualties and all.

The topic of punching Nazis is an extreme example, but one that facilitates a conversation about how we as Americans try to interact with and otherwise react to people with whom we disagree on matters of culture, politics, and morality. Recently, Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant named The Red Hen in Virginia because of her connection to the Trump White House.

The owner of the restaurant, Stephanie Wilkinson, was home when she got a call from the chef that night, who expressed to Wilkinson the notion that the staff was concerned about Sanders’s presence there. For Wilkinson, Sanders’s defense of Donald Trump’s policies within her role as White House Press Secretary was a deal-breaker. As she (Wilkinson) feels, it’s a matter of moral standards. Compassion. Cooperation. Honesty. These are not the kinds of things that Sanders and her briefings are not known for, and as such, Wilkinson took a stand. What’s more, Wilkinson said she would do it again if given the same opportunity.

News of Sanders’s removal from the restaurant has prompted all sorts of reactions, many of them indicative of a political divide that events such as these only seem to help widen. If The Red Hen’s spike in popularity on Yelp is any indication, the actions taken by its owner have proven very polarizing indeed, with scores of 1-star and 5-star reviews being affixed to the restaurant’s online profile in light of the controversy. While I suppose the treatment of guests should be a factor in reviews of eateries, lest we call these new additions illegitimate, to say nothing of the other elements of the customer experience really seems like a waste of an entry. I mean, what if the trout Grenobloise is truly transcendent? You can say what you want about the owner—but leave her and her restaurant their fish dish, OK?

Beyond reputation assassination via social media from anonymous sources, there are other issues raised by Sarah Sanders getting the boot from The Red Hen and subsequently calling out the restaurant on Twitter. For one, Sanders did so in her official capacity as Press Secretary, and that’s an ethical no-no. According to Walter Shaub, former ethics chief under Barack Obama and Trump, Sanders’s condemnation of a business for personal reasons using her government account can be construed as coercive and a violation of a corollary to the ban on endorsements that someone like Kellyanne Conway has blatantly disregarded in the past. As Shaub reasons, Sanders can “lob attacks on her own time but not using her official position.”

Also, people have drawn a comparison between the way Sanders was refused service for her political positions and the way some businesses have sought to refuse service to homosexuals, claiming “religious freedom.” As far as detractors on the right are concerned, this is just bigotry on the part of the left, but this is a false equivalency; since it has come up frequently enough, it’s worth addressing. Sanders chose her line of work and accepted her current position, and continues to serve as Press Secretary of her own volition. Gays and lesbians, on the other hand, don’t choose to be gay. It’s who they are. The best argument one can try to make is that Sanders, were she to proverbially fall on her sword, would put her career and her livelihood at risk. Still, that’s a stretch when considering the ostracism members of the LGBTQ community have faced over time.

The issue that appears to loom largest here, however, is the matter of whether or not owners of establishments should refuse service to patrons based on their political beliefs or their association with a disinformation machine like the Trump White House. This is where I’m a little unsure that Stephanie Wilkinson’s choice is the right one. Now, it’s one thing if Sanders and her group were actively trying to cause distress to members of the staff or other patrons, or they were trying to espouse discriminatory views. If I were a restaurant owner, I wouldn’t want, say, Ku Klux Klan members waltzing into my place and ordering cheese and crackers. There are limits to freedom of expression, to be sure.

Assuming Wilkinson has the right to ask Sanders and Co. to leave, though, whether or not she should ask them to leave is a subject worthy of debate. It’s like refusing to serve or otherwise accommodate someone wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. In April, a New York City judge ruled a bar was legally allowed to refuse service to a man wearing a “MAGA” hat, as it wasn’t discriminating based on country of origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other demographic characteristic. It also didn’t help the man’s cause that he reportedly was verbally abusive to staff. In Sanders’s case, meanwhile, there is no indication that anything more than her presence was the source of unrest. Even in the court of public opinion, this seems like less of an open-and-shut case.

What especially gives me pause is that few people seem to be on Sarah Sanders’s side on this one, and I’m not sure if this is my failing in my refusal to join in, or just the left looking to stick their tongues out at a Donald Trump supporter like the White House Press Secretary in the midst of the administration’s flagging popularity, and as we plumb the depths of a crisis facing immigrant families which feels less like border security and more like ethnic cleansing.

Other Trump administration officials have met with similar treatment, with DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and senior policy advisor Stephen Miller both being met with protests as they ate at—irony fully noted—Mexican restaurants. It’s not just Cabinet members and racist advisors to the President, either. A video of New York-based attorney Aaron Schlossberg berating and threatening employees of a restaurant with deportation because they spoke Spanish went viral, and condemnation and ridicule were soon to follow. Heck, a GoFundMe page was even erected to pay for a mariachi band to play outside the man’s office. At a moment in time marked by visible tension between groups, especially whites who support the President vs. minority groups and their defenders, everyone seems to be fair game. The racist rants of yesteryear now run the risk of damaging people’s careers.

In all, there doesn’t seem to be much sympathy for Ms. Sanders—and I don’t know that there should be, quite frankly—but despite what someone like Rep. Maxine Waters would aver, maybe these officials shouldn’t be kicked out of restaurants, and definitely, I submit, they shouldn’t be harassed. That is, if one were to convey his or her opinions to them in a civil manner, it’s one thing, but it’s another to shout epithets at them while they try to eat enchiladas.

At the end of the day, we may find the positions of Nielsen and Miller reprehensible, but they’re human beings. Like you or I or the immigrants who live in fear of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, they still need to eat and spend time with family. While I suppose Sanders and her group could have just gone, say, to a Chili’s instead, to try to abnegate the humanity of one because of his or her own abnegation of another’s humanity is to make two wrongs without making a right. It might feel good for a spell, but as with punching Nazis, it doesn’t put us on a path to reform.

To boot, for those looking to discredit people on the political left as intolerant in their own right, the decision to ask Sanders to leave The Red Hen has the power to turn her into somewhat of a sympathetic figure, and given that she’s served as the mouthpiece of an administration which doesn’t seem to have the word “sympathy” in its vocabulary, such is a regrettable turn in these cultural conflicts because concern for her feels unearned.

It comes on the heels of criticisms levied on her by Michelle Wolf, for which members of the media were quick to come to her (Sanders’s) defense, a defense not only unearned, but undeserved given that Wolf was only pointing out Sanders’s role as an enabler and liar for President Trump. Thus, when Sanders tweets to say that The Red Hen’s owner’s actions say “more about [Wilkinson]” than they say about her and that she tries to deal respectfully with those with whom she disagrees, you tend to hate that she seems even somewhat credible—compromised ethics and all.

I know my position is liable to be upsetting to some people because it screams Democratic centrism to them (Chuck Schumer, among others, has criticized the desire to harass Trump administration officials). Believe me—I don’t wish to be lumped in with moderates when the Democrats’ refusal to move further left is one of my chief frustrations as someone trying to become more engaged with politics. And I certainly don’t wish to appear as if I agree with Donald Trump, who, though he has much more important things to do—facilitate peace on the Korean peninsula, help Puerto Rico, reunite kids with their families, etc.—felt compelled to rant about The Red Hen’s decision on social media. Say what you want about POTUS, but he’s consistent, you know, in that he never misses a chance to point a finger in a petty way.

Or some might just plain disagree. Ryan Cooper, writing for The Week, defends incivility toward Trump administration officials with points such as these:

  • In the situations recounted above, no one beat up these officials, broke any property, or threatened them in any way.
  • If anyone is “uncivil,” it’s the con artists, criminals, and/or racists of the Trump administration and people of a like mind such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa.
  • President Trump is, like, the most uncivil of us all, and he has a platform much bigger than any dissenter on the left.
  • This is a natural and perhaps unavoidable reaction to a lack of immediate electoral solutions or an absence of meaningful legislative representation.
  • Fretting about civility on the left internalizes the belief that it is pointless to try to appeal to people on the right, especially the far right, on moral and rational terms. Moreover, it sows division within “the Resistance.”

Cooper also dismisses concerns about incivility from the left being used as political capital for Trump and other officials, and while I agree to a certain extent that one shouldn’t necessarily worry about the feelings and potential votes of others in the course of public discourse, I also think that these definitions of “civility” and “incivility” are somewhat vague and get muddled with moral judgments. Being “civil” doesn’t necessarily relate to the moral rectitude of your behavior or your speech, but merely to formal courtesy and politeness in their expression. By the same token, however, “political civility” isn’t exactly the same thing as civility as per the dictionary definition, so maybe the problem is simply with our specificity of expression and how we delineate the terms, first and foremost. The line is an apparently fine one, and who is using this terminology is as important as what words are being used.

Plus, for those decrying this fussing over civility as just a ploy to stifle free speech, while addressing how to reach people in the face of carelessness or lack of composure is critically important, and while not all calls for civility are equal considering the source—this can’t be stressed enough—this doesn’t strike me as an occasion to participate in relativistic exercises. So Trump’s henchmen and henchwomen are uncouth. Does that mean we should all up and call them “feckless c**ts” in the style of Samantha Bee? Even if I feel Bee, like Michelle Wolf, shouldn’t feel duty-bound to apologize, her use of profane language didn’t make her argument more credible. At least we should be able to agree on this point.

I get it—so many of us are angry at Donald Trump and his enablers, and heartbroken about the plight of immigrant children, and feeling powerless with the midterms months away and 2020 still seeming remote, and tired of the onslaught of bullshit day after day. It’s not easy. Then again, it never was going to be easy, and for all the hemming and hawing about civility, if this is not to be the goal, at least we can aim for precision of language and factual correctness. Even in the face of haphazard tweets and “fake news,” rationality and truth yet have value.

To view this post as it appears on Citizen Truth, click here. Citizen Truth is an independent and alternative media organization dedicated to finding the truth, ending the left-right paradigm, and widening the scope of viewpoints represented in media and our daily conversations. For more on CT, please visit citizentruth.org.

Violence Is Not the Answer: Musings on Antifa and Violent Protests

antifa_tomahto
However you classify antifa groups, the essential point is that the use of violence as a political tool should not be considered acceptable no matter what side of the political aisle you’re on. (Photo retrieved from change.org.)

Following Donald Trump’s inauguration, Richard Spencer, a leading voice in America’s white nationalism movement, was physically attacked during an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the street in Washington, D.C. Reportedly, Spencer was being asked about whether or not he is a neo-Nazi—to which he replied that he is not—and then was prompted for a response about why he was wearing a Pepe the Frog pin, when he was punched in the face by a masked protestor. According to Spencer, he was punched twice and spat on in the aftermath of Trump’s swearing in, something about which he didn’t seem all that fazed. Evidently, when you are a white nationalist with a vaguely douche-y self-assured attitude, you are used to or at least mentally prepared to be physically beaten. Of course, this did not stop Richard Spencer from utilizing Twitter and Periscope to relay his account of the attacks to his followers, and to denounce the “antifas” who perpetrated this violence. For all the wry amusement of his notion that he can “take a punch,” it loses something in the conversion to a heart-to-heart via social media that potentially allows his fellow white supremacist friends to rally behind him.

Speaking of social media, the reaction of non-alt-righters was one of near-universal celebration. Richard Spencer, like any ultra-conservative provocateur, is bound to ruffle some feathers, not to mention—in my humble opinion—the man seems to look as if his face beckons a punching. In light of his nationalist ideologies, the memes and jokes were flowing like no one’s business. Confessedly, I enjoyed some of them, especially the idea that he did Nazi that first blow coming. (In case you missed it, read that last sentence out to yourself. Get it? Good.) However, the notion that we were celebrating a man getting punched in the face without remorse was a bit startling. For those of us more discerning types, the whole white supremacy and making “Heil Hitler” signs bit is indefensible, but just because his beliefs are reprehensible doesn’t mean he should be physically attacked. He’s still a human being, after all. If we can talk about respecting the civil rights of convicted felons in prisons, then certainly, Spencer deserves the same or better. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of not getting sucker punched on the street in broad daylight. I’m pretty sure that’s how it was written by our Founding Fathers, yes.

Danielle Allen, a political theorist at Harvard University, agrees, and expressed her views in the form of a piece which appeared in The Washington Post entitled, “No, don’t punch more Nazis.” Allen’s sentiments are a direct response to an observed instance of a Netroots Nation member wearing a custom-made T-shirt to a recent public event headlined by Elizabeth Warren, encouraging the viewer—however genuinely—to “PUNCH MORE NAZIS.” Even in gest, however, Allen argues this kind of thinking is patently destructive, if not self-defeating. The principle of nonviolence should be a nonpartisan issue, with the goal of a relatively peaceful and stable society ideal for members of all party affiliations and those otherwise unattached to a particular political designation. When the courts and the laws fail, Allen stresses, the answer is not taking the law into one’s hands, but rather reform of these institutions. With violence, the bridge to a better path forward is obstructed, if not burned outright. Consummate with this notion, it cannot be said here that “the ends justify the means.” That is, one cannot fight for justice with injustice. No fists, no kicks, no guns—only the kind of moral clarity that beckons true justice.

The rise of Donald Trump has emboldened white supremacists and others who reject trends toward increased cultural sensitivity and globalism for the United States of America. In pandering to their interests and playing to Americans’ sense of fear and hate, Trump has inspired a lot of anger and anxiety from people on the left and those otherwise outside the vanguard of the conservative right. With this, there seems to be a growing acceptance of violence as a fact of rallies, protests, and counter-protests, and it would appear that many on the left don’t recognize this is as a problem, whether they are convinced these shows of aggression are justified because of possession of moral high ground, they genuinely are unaware of what is going on, or they are unable to confront the situation. Richard Spencer referenced the term “antifa” in his social media tell-all following his attacks, but it’s only very recently that this term has begun to reach the national consciousness, much as alt-right—a term widely credited to Spencer in describing the movement—really came to prominence with its mention by Hillary Clinton. Pres. Trump has used antifa and “alt-left” to try to demonize liberals and to galvanize support from his base in his apparent never-ending campaign for President—even closing in on a year since his electoral victory. I guess after an overstated career as a businessman and entrepreneur, and given a glaring inability to lead the country effectively, he might as well as stick to the one thing he (miraculously) hasn’t been able to totally screw up lately.

What exactly do these terms mean, though? It’s doubtful Donald Trump fully comprehends them—or even knows how to pronounce them, for that matter. First of all, concerning “alt-left,” this is largely nonsensical. Self-respecting left-leaners do not refer to themselves by this moniker, as it is a creation of conservatives looking to demean liberals as morally bankrupt individuals, and if used by actual liberals, it is probably in the pejorative sense and meant to distinguish the more progressive elements of the left from its more moderate members, i.e. we want nothing to do with you progressives under normal circumstances, but please give us your vote on Election Day. As for “antifa,” this is short for “anti-fascist,” and is awfully broadly stated to assign an exact definition beyond that. What appears to distinguish this movement from the larger progressive liberal movement in America is the use of force and violence against people and property alike. Some antifa members are even denoted by their dress: all black and wearing masks; they are commonly known as “black bloc” activists and this style has origins in 1980s-era protests in Germany against neo-Nazism, with vague sentiments toward anti-capitalism and a rejection of police states and a theoretical New World Order. With these anti-government sentiments, though, it quickly becomes apparent we are not dealing with a purely liberal or even characteristically leftist association.

Going back to The Washington Post, its editorial board recently published an excellent primer on the subject of antifa, with due context as to who and what antifa groups represent—or don’t represent—how much of a threat antifa is to the very societal order—or isn’t—and what their actions stand to accomplish—or not accomplish. Some key observations from its synopsis:

1. Comparisons between antifa and white supremacist groups are false equivalencies.

There is a general consensus that white nationalism, apparently on the rise in the United States and elsewhere, is a threat which must be addressed and confronted as a rejection of hate; such is why President Trump’s comment talking about violence on both sides in Charlottesville was so abhorrent. Antifa groups, most notably at a recent protest in Berkeley, California against Marxism in America, have been responsible for their fair share of violence and/or unrest. But this does not mean these two movements are on the same level. As the WP editorial board is keen to state, it “would not for a minute equate it to the menace of violent, ultra-right white supremacist groups, which are enjoying an ugly renaissance bred, in part, by the succor President Trump has given to racial and religious intolerance.”

2. As of yet, there is no “clear and present danger” from antifa groups regarding the “broader political system.”

As the board frames this notion, antifa violence has “shown a disturbing capacity for intimidating and confusing various officials in locales” across the country. Incidents in Middlebury, Vermont and Portland, Oregon—perhaps unexpected settings for confrontations—are cited within the opinion piece. Returning to Berkeley for a moment, the violence encountered there prompted Mayor Jesse Arreguin—endorsed by Bernie Sanders, among others, in his mayoral bid—to even call for authorities to recognize antifa members as part of a “gang,” which could mean potential tougher sentences for any offenses committed, as per California law. Heretofore, however, these are largely isolated incidents.

3. This is not to say, though, that antifa groups should not be considered dangerous.

Per the Washington Post editorial board, this is a two-pronged danger. The first is more obvious: intimidation and violence do harm to people, property, and the very free speech the First Amendment is designed to protect. This is not to be undersold, and is why it appears in the very title of this piece. The second danger, meanwhile, and one which may or may not be appreciated by antifa members, is that such violence threatens the overall progress the country is making against hate and racism, and only risks fueling the forces that antifa seeks to eradicate. To give the board the final say on the subject, “In terms of objective political impact, the group is badly misnamed: ‘Profa’ would be more accurate.” Harsh, but not wholly undeserved.

Antifa groups who use threats of bodily harm or worse do not represent the whole of the Resistance, and realistically, as the Post explains, are “not liberals or democrats, much less liberal Democrats.” Nonetheless, whether as a kneejerk reaction from mainstream political analysts or specifically as a means of trying to demonize the left for political capital, their activism all too easily becomes conflated with that of peaceful groups on the liberal side of the spectrum. For moderate Democrats and progressives alike, this is problematic. For one, it allows right-wingers on FOX News and Breitbart to point and shout across the aisle at what many conservatives see as a flawed, immoral ideology inherent in liberalism. To give conservatives, ahem, more ammunition would appear to be in bad form. Not to mention it gives Donald Trump and his ilk a subject around which to rally and engender support (and, of course, accrue donations). In addition, without the requisite response from groups which stand to be lumped in with these bad actors among law-abiding protestors, more reputable organizations run the risk of appearing less legitimate and/or out of touch with what is going on their own house, so to speak. Assuming people will be able to see the difference is not sufficient, if Donald Trump’s electoral win has taught us anything. Especially when so many red voters are made to think that the liberal left is clueless, employing a laissez-faire approach to dealing with the growing presence of antifa is arguably self-defeating.

Accordingly, it is incumbent upon members of the Democratic Party and sympathetic politicians and activists on the left to strongly denounce the use of violence, the damage of property, and the disruption of free speech and assembly which antifa has represented and can represent in the future. By now, it is impossible to get ahead of the narrative being spun by Sean Hannity et al. that antifa is symptomatic of liberal politics in sum, but a certain amount of damage control is prudent, if not necessary to avoid ceding ground to a Republican Party which has itself ceded control to more conservative elements and which all but sat idly by as Donald Trump decimated its field of similarly unqualified political entrants and ineffectual insiders en route to the party nomination. At the same time, news media should be held accountable for their characterization of antifa, and should clearly delineate the difference between its destructive elements and groups which prioritize peaceful reform of faulty institutions, and should refrain from false comparisons between antifa and white supremacist groups. Antifa, unlike members of white nationalist and white supremacist groups, does not discriminate based on race or any other demographic characteristic, not to mention the movement lacks a real sense of cohesion. This is not to say, however, that antifa is highly moral or that its actions can’t be considered terroristic. Here is a situation that really craves a fair and balanced press to put antifa’s existence in its proper perspective.

Regardless of whether or not antifa is classified as a “gang” or “hate group,” people on both the left and right should decry the use of violence as a political tactic no matter who aims to implement it. As it must be stated and restated, violence as a political tool is not the answer. It is antithetical to its very aims and advancement through reform, and if we cannot agree to this end, we cannot have the kind of discussion we need as Americans to make real progress on this issue.

The Dangerously Racist and Xenophobic Rhetoric of Tucker Carlson

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Even Bill O’Reilly steered clear of defending “Western culture” in a way that encourages white supremacists. Tucker Carlson can’t even clear that low bar. (Image Source: FOX News)

I don’t watch the FOX News Channel. Not terribly surprising, and say what you will about me sticking to my “bubble,” but I don’t. Simply put, I don’t think I’m part of its intended audience. Granted, just because I do not fit neatly into FOX’s target demographic doesn’t mean I can’t tune in, if for no other reason than to understand how people on the other side of the political aisle think. Plus, I suppose there’s also an odd sense of entertainment in what I presume is the network’s various personalities’ contortions to avoid talking about or to downplay the endless scandal that is the Trump administration’s ties to Russia, financial or not. All this aside, I don’t watch FOX News, and I doubt I will be tuning in anytime soon. And I, with great specificity, will be avoiding Tucker Carlson’s program.

Before I get to Carlson, let’s take a step back first and consider FOX News as a brand and a “news service.” I say “news service” in quotes because—let’s be honest—FOX News is a propaganda factory masquerading as a legitimate journalistic organization. I suppose the same could be said for other outlets—The New York Times and Washington Post are not without their centrist, corporatist biases, and CNN, Daily Kos, and Huffington Post have been derided at times for being Hillary Clinton apologists, which is essentially the same thing. That said, FOX News has taken the art of political spin on cable news to a new level. If you’ll recall, once upon a time, FOX News’s slogan was “Fair and Balanced.” They’ve since replaced that motto with “Most Watched, Most Trusted,” but on the side of being trustworthy, as with being fair and balanced, this much is dubious.

In recent memory, FOX News has helped fuel the paranoia over WMDs that led, in large part, to our involvement in Iraq; has advanced conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory about Barack Obama in an effort to delegitimize his presidency; and in the era of Trump, has maintained its ways of race-baiting and giving credence to stories that are based on faulty intelligence or are otherwise quickly debunked. That the dishonorable Judge Andrew Napolitano yet has a prominent voice on the network is perhaps no better symbol of its questionable commitment to journalistic ethics. For that matter, when the likes of Shepard Smith are coming to the defense of CNN’s standards and this is seen as a surprise, it is telling where FOX News fits in with the rest of its cable news brethren. (It also, not for nothing, speaks volumes about Donald Trump and his ongoing assault on the American free press.)

FOX News, as I’m sure you’ve heard, has been the subject of some interest lately, and mostly for the wrong reasons. The late Roger Ailes, founder and one-time CEO of FOX News, resigned prior to his death after numerous accusations of sexual harassment by former female FOX News personalities. Bill O’Reilly, one of the network’s more recognizable figures and one of the leading conservatives because of his platform, was ousted from his primetime slot as host of The O’Reilly Factor because of his own alleged acts of sexual harassment. And Sean Hannity lost advertisers because of his pursuit of conspiracy theories regarding the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, who some have suspected as being murdered for leaking DNC E-mails to WikiLeaks (the official explanation is that Rich was killed in a botched robbery). In short, it’s been a tumultuous time at FOX News recently, and with the kind of turnover in staff and executive leadership that only MSNBC could seem to rival, it’s no wonder that divisions within its ranks have become apparent, especially with a figure as divisive as Donald Trump in the White House.

Perhaps it is a sign of where we are as a country that much like how Trump became President Trump despite the apparent constant upheaval within his campaign, FOX News, despite the improprieties of its personnel and the second-rate journalism it peddles as unvarnished truth, has enjoyed a sizable run at the apex of the cable news hierarchy. FOX News has spent 28 weeks at the top of the charts, and in fact, a majority of Americans get their news from the #1 cable news outlet in all the land. MSNBC, on the strength of its predominantly anti-Trump coverage, has been the recent runner-up. CNN, the bastion of “fake news” that it is made out to be, is a comparative also-ran. Ainsley Earhardt, Bret Baier, Brian Kilmeade, Chris Wallace, Dana Perino, Greg Gutfeld, Jeanine Pirro, Juan Williams, Jesse Watters, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Martha McCallum, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith, Steve Doocy—FOX News has no shortage of white people, Juan Williams, and occasionally Geraldo Rivera to deliver unsubstantiated reports to the eyes and minds of its viewers. Which includes Mr. Trump, who apparently trusts this network more than his actual intelligence community.

And then there’s Tucker Carlson. He wasn’t included in that run of vaguely douche-y talking heads, but though he’s no less douche-y, he’s a special case (and last alphabetically by first name). Tucker McNear Carlson began a career in journalism serving on the editorial staff of the conservative publication Policy Review, as well as sharpening his skills as a reporter and journalist for various prominent magazines and newspapers. It was in 2001, though, that Carlson began his rise to cable news prominence when he became co-host of CNN’s Crossfire; you may recall his rather testy back-and-forth with Jon Stewart. After a few years at CNN, his contract wasn’t renewed—or he resigned, if you believe Tucker—and Carlson spent a spell at MSNBC with his namesake show Tucker. It got cancelled due to low ratings—or because MSNBC is run by a bunch of liberals, per Tucker. Eventually, though, Tucker Carlson found a home at the FOX News Channel, first appearing as a contributor to various programs, and later moving on to co-host the weekend edition of Fox and Friends. Just last year, he was given another marquee primetime hosting gig, taking the reins in November at Tucker Carlson Tonight. With Bill O’Reilly getting the boot, Carlson also assumed his time slot. He now owns an enviable time slot on basic cable’s most-watched news source. To this end, I commend him.

On his politics, however, I cannot commend him, a notion buoyed by the current political climate in the United States and abroad in which unabashed racists and white supremacists suddenly feel emboldened enough to spray swastikas on the sides of buildings and run for political office. Along these lines, Carlos Maza, a correspondent for the site Vox who produces video content related to journalism and the media in the Trump era, recently authored a piece on why white supremacists love Tucker Carlson. Yes, love. Presumably with hearts adorned with nooses and burning crosses. Before even getting to the whole white supremacist base angle thing, Maza acknowledges that Carlson enjoys the highest ratings of any primetime cable news program, so clearly he is resonating with American viewers, and ever tongue-in-cheek, Maza indicates Fox News executives probably adore him because he isn’t embroiled in any sexual harassment scandals. You know, that we know of.

But, yeah, about the whole white supremacist thing. Richard Spencer, one of the leading voices in the American white supremacist movement, regards Tucker more highly than his time slot predecessor because not only does he view Carlson as more intelligent than Bill O’Reilly, but he also conceives of him as more open-minded to white supremacist ideals. David Duke—and if you don’t know who David Duke is, please stop reading, Google it, do a spit-take, and then come back—is also a Tucker-phile. Even the American neo-Nazi and white supremacist publication The Daily Stormer identifies Carlson as “its greatest ally.” White supremacist views—on basic cable? Yea, verily, my friends. And as king of cable news, Tucker Carlson is thus a dangerous voice in this regard.

So, now that I’ve whetted your appetite with my whole preamble, why do white supremacists love Tucker Carlson so much, other than that he has exhibited a proclivity over the years for being a fancy dresser? As Carlos Maza explains in detail, while typical FOX News viewers may merely approve of Carlson because he, like other on-air personalities from his network, rails against the “liberal media” and political correctness, white supremacists dig TC because he portrays all immigration as detrimental to the fabric of American society—illegal or not. According to Maza, Carlson made it a priority in the first few months of Tucker Carlson Tonight to question how complete or valid the statistics are on legal immigrants committing crimes, and made out Mexicans, Muslims, and refugees/migrants—many of whom tend to be Hispanic/Latino or Muslim—to be a potential threat. Carlson relies on the myth that minorities within these groups commit violent crimes at a disproportionate rate to white citizens, when really, it is the other way around. To this end, he cherry-picks his way through data to form the conclusion that “foreigners” are coming to this country just to murder, rape, and steal from honest, hard-working “Americans,” or simply invites anti-immigrant extremists like Ann Coulter to, as Maza puts it, “do his dirty work for him.”

Wait—it gets worse. As Carlos Maza would have it, the worst part of Tucker Carlson’s enabling of white supremacist views, other than his over-the-top raising of his eyebrows whenever he agrees with a guest of the show, is how he openly rejects the merits of multiculturalism in the United States today, suggesting “Western culture” is superior to that of any culture belonging to whence these immigrants/refugees came, and that embracing multiculturalism is tantamount to teaching Americans to hate their own cultural identity. In other words, we are not all equal under the same sun, snowflake. As Carlson—and yes, David Duke and Richard Spencer—would submit, all forms of immigration to this country will lead to an erosion of this nation’s values and its ultimate fragmentation. As with Donald Trump, the depiction is of a critical moment in U.S. history when the future of its very existence is at stake, a fear-inducing, apocalyptic viewpoint. This all comes to a head in the creation of a space in Tucker Carlson Tonight in which everything that is “different” is associated with being bad or wrong. Teaching Spanish in schools is seen as a destructive force rather than a practical means of readying children for a bilingual state and a cultural bridge. Refugees and other people fleeing the degradation of their land due to climate change, poverty, and/or war are labeled “invaders” instead of those merely seeking a better life, or simply not trying to lose their life.

This kind of racist, xenophobic rhetoric enabled by Tucker Carlson and elaborated by the Ann Coulters and Katie Hopkinses of the world is dog-whistle politics—make no mistake about it. Concern for the changing face of our country and of its values is coded language for “the purity and sanctity of white blood is being defiled.” “Western culture” or “European culture” is that of the white, imperialistic majority, and therefore not of indigenous peoples or non-Christians. Pointing to the crimes of immigrants is another way of saying “they” should get out and/or stay out. What makes Carlson’s prominence all the more unsettling are the implications behind his success. For one, Tucker is able to plant the seeds of prejudice even when he is demonstrably wrong. Maza points to Carlson’s belaboring of the Rockville, MD rape case against two immigrant teenagers, a story which came to national attention when then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer referenced it. The charges eventually were dropped, but not after repeated mentions of the case by Carlson and his on-air guests, and with no apparent desire by TC to recant on his amateur pre-judgment of its merits, i.e. no accountability for his character assassination of these children based on xenophobic leanings. In addition, because he is neat and well-dressed, he makes white supremacist views seem that much more mainstream and palatable. Or, as Carlos Maza puts forth in closing, he makes white supremacists’ jobs that much easier.

For years, Tucker Carlson seemed like a political commentator who was kind of a dick and wore a bowtie—the latter of which only made him seem like more of a dick. He has since dispensed with the bowtie, but he’s still pretty much a dick, and what’s more, he’s got much more influence than he possessed during his formative years on CNN and MSNBC. I’ve already invoked the name of Donald Trump herein, comparing his tumultuous-but-ultimately-successful presidential campaign to the scandal-plagued-but-dominant-ratings-wise FOX News Channel. In a way, though, Trump is kind of like Carlson and vice-versa. Donald Trump, like Tucker Carlson, was largely seen as a dick, but you didn’t really think much about him beyond that in terms of political influence. Now he’s President, and his Tweets are regular news, just by virtue of him being the leader of the country. In both cases, despite not exhibiting a great deal of talent in their chosen professions, they have taken advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Again, this is an acknowledgment of their success, and not an endorsement of any intelligence or savvy. Carlson owes a certain debt of gratitude to Bill O’Reilly and his allegedly grope-y ways. Trump benefited from a muddled, weak Republican field and a Democratic Party nominee in Hillary Clinton who is just about as unlikable as he is.

Regardless of how neatly the Trump-Carlson comparison fits, both men are key cogs in a larger movement that seeks to define who is and who isn’t a “true” American, a distinction fed by fear, hate, and irrationality. Often, concordant with the emotions the racism and xenophobia of the alt-right and its ilk engender, the leaders of this movement paint a picture of the situation as a culture “war” and one for the fate of the United States of America. From the vantage point of the left, this is largely hyperbole, but though we shouldn’t consider the other side of the political spectrum the enemy, we shouldn’t undersell the threat represented by normalizing their behavior and rhetoric. As it must be said umpteen times in resistance, Donald Trump is not normal. His antics aren’t becoming of a President of the United States, and by this token, he probably would’ve been fired by now if the would-be CEO-as-President were actually running a business. (Mind you, he is still benefiting from the Trump Corporation’s operations, and that isn’t normal either.)

In his apparent beliefs, however, Trump is not alone, and these feelings of entitlement felt by his supporters and people like Tucker Carlson to regularly spout their outmoded and bigoted remarks should likewise not be accepted. If the white supremacists of America and of the world conceive of their campaign against immigration and multiculturalism as a war for the soul of their respective nation, they, by all indications, are fighting a losing battle. This doesn’t mean that we should take these trends for granted, though. Financial pressure has been levied against Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity in terms of boycotting the Trump Family’s products and appealing to companies to withdraw their advertisements. The same should be effected with respect to Tucker Carlson, white supremacist darling, and anything less is a tacit approval of the hate he helps give a voice to and a blatant allegiance with revenue over morals.