Wow. So you’re dropping your schtick as the reasonable conservative and going full blue hair? Because the other side is evil? To wit: “because I was once one of them before I learned to respect women and people of color” That’s not just defamatory, it’s incorrect. There’s way way more people like me, lifelong Dem/progressives who got so sick of their shit we changed parties. If you want to build an audience, declaring that everyone who disagrees is racist or misogynist isn’t going to do it.
I don’t think your interpretation is correct. Hanania is not maligning Republicans/conservatives generally. In my understanding, he is talking about the online “own the libs” part of the conservative movement. I agree that his use of the term “rightists” is ambiguous, though.
Also I think his “I learned to love and respect women/minorities” thing should be taken as at least partially tongue in cheek.
I would actually love to hear an account from someone who used to have no respect for women OR people of color. I know Richard has had some controversy but I didn’t understand that he had NO respect for groups that make up most of our country! I wish he would dive into that. What’s it like to walk around feeling contempt toward most people? How and why did you change? Of course people learn and mature but learning basic respect for billions of humans is a pretty heavy lift.
Or maybe he always had basic respect for these people and he’s just claiming he didn’t as a cynical move to position himself among the reformed, the compassionate, the enlightened. That would be fairly pathetic though.
I have spent quite a bit of time on the internet over the years, but I can’t recall too many accusations that someone is stealing racist/sexist valor. So thanks
This is a projection. I don't understand the imperative to do (or believe) this at the hint of some particular stripe of Conservative being maligned, as though they do not exist.
Oh course racist and sexist people exist. It just disgusts me to see a whole group tarred with that brush. Whatever you call it. I’m just so sick of people who claim virtue over some other group of people. I confess I didn’t make it through the entire article after that phrase. I admit I’m not giving the author the benefit of the doubt. There are many writers on here and my time isn’t unlimited. Why should I put up with one more tiresome accusation of racism or misogyny? It’s his job to write something that’s worth my time to read.
Fair enough. Guilty as charged. But it’s his job to write something that’s worth reading. I fully admit it’s more difficult than making salty comments, but he’s trying to get paid, and I don’t give AF.
Maybe there’s something to this. But isn’t it also possible that not all of these gestures are self-conscious trolling? Politicians and other often awkward, uncharismatic public figures, make all kinds of lame or even bizarre gestures on stage. (My favorite is the combination point, pulled back into a thumbs-up.) And it’s not hard to find mini-compilations of Dem politicians making basically the exact same gesture, stiffly extending their right arm on stage. The “Elon is from South Africa and therefore loved Apartheid; Elon musk is definitely a neo-Nazi, his Nazi salute proves it” talking point got a lot of airtime and column inches in left of center and especially “Resistance” media. These are people who had a working class Latino utility worker, of all people, fired for innocently making an “OK” sign while in his vehicle. A (former) fact-checker at the once-enjoyable New Yorker went out of her way to clumsily misidentify a soldier’s tattoo as neo-Nazi. Maybe some more sophomoric people on the right do feel more emboldened and are acting out. But the desire on the Left to find or invent any expression of fascist sympathy among anyone who disagrees with them about anything hasn’t really abated. Democrats and leftwing activists have, I assume unwittingly, been making the same gestures and no one notices or cares. Much like, as Matt Orfalea illustrated in a short clip, Democrats have used some of the same dehumanizing language (“vermin”, umm “Magats”, for example) to describe Trump and other Republicans. And no one really noticed or cared.
I’m also curious if the use of “people of color” was tongue in cheek. It’s such an awful construction and should have been retired long ago. I believe a pro-Dem journalist even advocated for scrapping it, just recently. This is all bizarre to me, as a “lifelong Dem”, turned independent. What was ever wrong or difficult about aspiring to take people as they come and judge them as individuals, based on their own behavior?
@hanania do you think Musk originally did the salute on purpose as a troll? Or was it done unintentionally and then other people started doing it as a troll?
Bannon was just making a gesture expressing how full his heart was. That’s what that means now. Decent and loving people are working to reclaim the gestures and iconography of hate and we’re not going to let privileged malcontents like you stop us. You didn’t even capitalize People Of Color. Please do better.
In the case of the ADL; there might be some hedging going on. For example, internally they could hold the belief "Yes, that was kinda a nazi salute, Musk was more likely trolling rather than signalling the oncoming Forth Reich. In normal circumstances we would call him out, but now that he's Trump's Wormtongue it's more complicated" and so forgo publicly condemning to avoid the ire of the new administration. If they place themselves as the opposition to the current admin, they may struggle to further their other goals.
This is different from why a normal person might give it a pass. Wanted to draw that distinction.
"Steve Bannon was taking a page out of Al Sharpton’s book and denouncing Silicon Valley bosses for not hiring enough blacks and Hispanics..."
I'm not saying he's a Nazi, but this was clearly a bad-faith demand whose sole purpose was to provide a justification for ending skilled immigration. "No more skilled immigration until Silicon Valley is 20% black and 20% Hispanic" means no more skilled immigration ever, because the black and Hispanic engineers needed to meet that quota just aren't there.
A reasonably prominent section of the right is exhibiting a lot of the characteristics of progressives circa 2012-2022 imo.
Back then, ‘woke’ was dominant online and in culture, so ‘libs’ could get away with more or less openly lying, or at least prohibiting discussion of statistics/news stories etc that ran counter to their narrative. Truth was subordinate to dogma. The same thing is now happening in some conservative/‘heterodox’ circles. The replies to your FP piece on X are a case in point.
Point out obvious facts (eg, ‘here’s a video of Bannon doing a fascist salute’) and rightoids lose their shit with absolute predictability. They deny it, engage in whataboutery, spew conspiratorial crap, are ad hominem, blame the Jews.
Rarely do they actually acknowledge clear reality (eg - he clearly WAS doing the salute, sure it might have been a ‘troll’ but it’s still a Nazi salute; there clearly ARE quite a few open Nazis knocking about - we can all see their tweets, and so on).
The constrains of rational political discourse (a requirement to actually refute your opponents’ claims with evidence) don’t really apply. I am someone who is deeply opposed to liberals who’ve incorrectly labelled everything fascist for a decade but I draw the line at trying to explain away top rightists saluting all over the place.
In the long run, I think this will probably harm the right, just like woke resulted in a completely predicable backlash against libs.
Ps this is very similar to a comment I left on your Twitter, apologies for the spam. And cheers for your writing, I read it often.
Remember dog whistling? This is similar to dog whistling but the whistle is also audible to humans and when someone points out that you're blowing a whistle (hey isn't that a Nazi salute?), you can hide behind plausible deniability and gaslight them into believing that they heard wrong (nah man it's a roman salute / Elon was just awkward). Meanwhile all the dogs (neonazis) get the message loud and clear.
“It started with Elon Musk, on the day of Trump’s inauguration. Musk was onstage in Washington, D.C., winding up the end of his speech, and claimed the arm gesture was simply the physical expression of his subsequent statement that “my heart goes out to you.”
Musk’s most strident critics saw it as something more sinister. Most ordinary people, including the Anti-Defamation League, gave it a pass.”
Wow. So you’re dropping your schtick as the reasonable conservative and going full blue hair? Because the other side is evil? To wit: “because I was once one of them before I learned to respect women and people of color” That’s not just defamatory, it’s incorrect. There’s way way more people like me, lifelong Dem/progressives who got so sick of their shit we changed parties. If you want to build an audience, declaring that everyone who disagrees is racist or misogynist isn’t going to do it.
I don’t think your interpretation is correct. Hanania is not maligning Republicans/conservatives generally. In my understanding, he is talking about the online “own the libs” part of the conservative movement. I agree that his use of the term “rightists” is ambiguous, though.
Also I think his “I learned to love and respect women/minorities” thing should be taken as at least partially tongue in cheek.
I would actually love to hear an account from someone who used to have no respect for women OR people of color. I know Richard has had some controversy but I didn’t understand that he had NO respect for groups that make up most of our country! I wish he would dive into that. What’s it like to walk around feeling contempt toward most people? How and why did you change? Of course people learn and mature but learning basic respect for billions of humans is a pretty heavy lift.
Or maybe he always had basic respect for these people and he’s just claiming he didn’t as a cynical move to position himself among the reformed, the compassionate, the enlightened. That would be fairly pathetic though.
I have spent quite a bit of time on the internet over the years, but I can’t recall too many accusations that someone is stealing racist/sexist valor. So thanks
I don’t even understand this comment
Not surprising
This is a projection. I don't understand the imperative to do (or believe) this at the hint of some particular stripe of Conservative being maligned, as though they do not exist.
Oh course racist and sexist people exist. It just disgusts me to see a whole group tarred with that brush. Whatever you call it. I’m just so sick of people who claim virtue over some other group of people. I confess I didn’t make it through the entire article after that phrase. I admit I’m not giving the author the benefit of the doubt. There are many writers on here and my time isn’t unlimited. Why should I put up with one more tiresome accusation of racism or misogyny? It’s his job to write something that’s worth my time to read.
Judging by this salty, defensive, overly emotional response, you shouldn’t be scolding anyone for not being ‘reasonable’ enough.
Fair enough. Guilty as charged. But it’s his job to write something that’s worth reading. I fully admit it’s more difficult than making salty comments, but he’s trying to get paid, and I don’t give AF.
Maybe there’s something to this. But isn’t it also possible that not all of these gestures are self-conscious trolling? Politicians and other often awkward, uncharismatic public figures, make all kinds of lame or even bizarre gestures on stage. (My favorite is the combination point, pulled back into a thumbs-up.) And it’s not hard to find mini-compilations of Dem politicians making basically the exact same gesture, stiffly extending their right arm on stage. The “Elon is from South Africa and therefore loved Apartheid; Elon musk is definitely a neo-Nazi, his Nazi salute proves it” talking point got a lot of airtime and column inches in left of center and especially “Resistance” media. These are people who had a working class Latino utility worker, of all people, fired for innocently making an “OK” sign while in his vehicle. A (former) fact-checker at the once-enjoyable New Yorker went out of her way to clumsily misidentify a soldier’s tattoo as neo-Nazi. Maybe some more sophomoric people on the right do feel more emboldened and are acting out. But the desire on the Left to find or invent any expression of fascist sympathy among anyone who disagrees with them about anything hasn’t really abated. Democrats and leftwing activists have, I assume unwittingly, been making the same gestures and no one notices or cares. Much like, as Matt Orfalea illustrated in a short clip, Democrats have used some of the same dehumanizing language (“vermin”, umm “Magats”, for example) to describe Trump and other Republicans. And no one really noticed or cared.
I’m also curious if the use of “people of color” was tongue in cheek. It’s such an awful construction and should have been retired long ago. I believe a pro-Dem journalist even advocated for scrapping it, just recently. This is all bizarre to me, as a “lifelong Dem”, turned independent. What was ever wrong or difficult about aspiring to take people as they come and judge them as individuals, based on their own behavior?
@hanania do you think Musk originally did the salute on purpose as a troll? Or was it done unintentionally and then other people started doing it as a troll?
Bannon was just making a gesture expressing how full his heart was. That’s what that means now. Decent and loving people are working to reclaim the gestures and iconography of hate and we’re not going to let privileged malcontents like you stop us. You didn’t even capitalize People Of Color. Please do better.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/matters-of-importance
In the case of the ADL; there might be some hedging going on. For example, internally they could hold the belief "Yes, that was kinda a nazi salute, Musk was more likely trolling rather than signalling the oncoming Forth Reich. In normal circumstances we would call him out, but now that he's Trump's Wormtongue it's more complicated" and so forgo publicly condemning to avoid the ire of the new administration. If they place themselves as the opposition to the current admin, they may struggle to further their other goals.
This is different from why a normal person might give it a pass. Wanted to draw that distinction.
MAGA is fascism
---------------------
How many Nazis do you see in the image below?
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"Steve Bannon was taking a page out of Al Sharpton’s book and denouncing Silicon Valley bosses for not hiring enough blacks and Hispanics..."
I'm not saying he's a Nazi, but this was clearly a bad-faith demand whose sole purpose was to provide a justification for ending skilled immigration. "No more skilled immigration until Silicon Valley is 20% black and 20% Hispanic" means no more skilled immigration ever, because the black and Hispanic engineers needed to meet that quota just aren't there.
A reasonably prominent section of the right is exhibiting a lot of the characteristics of progressives circa 2012-2022 imo.
Back then, ‘woke’ was dominant online and in culture, so ‘libs’ could get away with more or less openly lying, or at least prohibiting discussion of statistics/news stories etc that ran counter to their narrative. Truth was subordinate to dogma. The same thing is now happening in some conservative/‘heterodox’ circles. The replies to your FP piece on X are a case in point.
Point out obvious facts (eg, ‘here’s a video of Bannon doing a fascist salute’) and rightoids lose their shit with absolute predictability. They deny it, engage in whataboutery, spew conspiratorial crap, are ad hominem, blame the Jews.
Rarely do they actually acknowledge clear reality (eg - he clearly WAS doing the salute, sure it might have been a ‘troll’ but it’s still a Nazi salute; there clearly ARE quite a few open Nazis knocking about - we can all see their tweets, and so on).
The constrains of rational political discourse (a requirement to actually refute your opponents’ claims with evidence) don’t really apply. I am someone who is deeply opposed to liberals who’ve incorrectly labelled everything fascist for a decade but I draw the line at trying to explain away top rightists saluting all over the place.
In the long run, I think this will probably harm the right, just like woke resulted in a completely predicable backlash against libs.
Ps this is very similar to a comment I left on your Twitter, apologies for the spam. And cheers for your writing, I read it often.
I wouldn’t want to ban them, but I would prefer if people avoided anything that could seem like support for potential pogroms or genocide
Remember dog whistling? This is similar to dog whistling but the whistle is also audible to humans and when someone points out that you're blowing a whistle (hey isn't that a Nazi salute?), you can hide behind plausible deniability and gaslight them into believing that they heard wrong (nah man it's a roman salute / Elon was just awkward). Meanwhile all the dogs (neonazis) get the message loud and clear.
Hmm, going back to the grand days of Usenet, I always thought that the purpose of trolling was to reduce one's target to incoherent rage.
“It started with Elon Musk, on the day of Trump’s inauguration. Musk was onstage in Washington, D.C., winding up the end of his speech, and claimed the arm gesture was simply the physical expression of his subsequent statement that “my heart goes out to you.”
Musk’s most strident critics saw it as something more sinister. Most ordinary people, including the Anti-Defamation League, gave it a pass.”
For the argument that Musk did do a Nazi salute (for the purpose of trolling), see https://open.substack.com/pub/wollenblog/p/elon-musk-did-a-hitler-salute-and?r=2248ub&utm_medium=ios