This election gets scarier by the day. It seems only a matter of time before someone gets shot. And if there are going to be shots fired, more than a few supporters of Donald Trump want to make sure they’re the ones doing the shooting.
On Twitter, and elsewhere online, Trump supporters are talking openly about bringing guns to political rallies and polling places. Some are actually taking steps to form some kind of Trump militia.
The living sack of human garbage that is Matt Forney recently Tweeted these suggestions for fellow Trump lovers:
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/708811928664195072
https://twitter.com/basedmattforney/status/708516727190065153
Unfortunately, Forney isn’t the only Trump supporter talking about guns.
https://twitter.com/RobinFoxNews/status/708974116653543425
https://twitter.com/LibrtyGuerrilla/status/709103137030668288
https://twitter.com/AmbikaPadmaloch/status/709142040232071168
@FoxNews Do us Trump supporters, have to start carrying our Guns For Protection at Rally's, WE WILL…..
— Radical Republican. (@todstertodd) March 12, 2016
@FoxNews I would encourage Trump supporters, To be armed when attending Rallies. This is for Your own protection. The Left Wants WAR.
— Radical Republican. (@todstertodd) March 12, 2016
You Liberals do not want to take it the streets, we will wipe the sreets up with your Blood.
— Radical Republican. (@todstertodd) March 12, 2016
Meanwhile, discredited right-wing hack “journalist” Chuck C. Johnson posted the alarming picture below on Facebook, promising to “use the Second [amendment]” against — that is, to shoot — anyone he think is threatening Trump’s right to free speech , even though he personally supports Ted Cruz.
Johnson took the post down, but not before it was screenshotted by Charles Johnson, a non-discredited journalist who unfortunately, and rather confusingly, shares the same first and last name as the dude with the red hair and beard pictured above.
Other Trump supporters think that their candidate needs to have a somewhat more organized army of Second Amendment fetishists to protect him from the “bad people” he talks about so much.
Like, say, a militia.
https://twitter.com/FoxLegChair/status/708520806716837888
Hire them? I’m fairly certain most “militia” members would be happy to do it for free. Earlier this month, in fact, the FBI arrested the co-chair of Veterans for Trump in New Hampshire on an assortment of charges related to his alleged participation in the armed standoff at Bundy Ranch in Nevada in 2014.
But hiring or otherwise working with Bundy’s militia may not be necessary, as Trump may soon have an unofficial militia of his own.
Yesterday, RT.com reports, a new Twitter account announced the formation of something called “The Lion’s Guard,” describing itself as
[a]n informal civilian organization dedicated to protecting the safety and security of innocent, peaceful Trump supporters from violent Far-Left agitators.
While the group would remain unarmed, the organizer pledged, it would be “willing to forcefully protect people if need be.”
Whoever was behind the Twitter account took it down within hours, citing threats.
But in that brief stretch of time, RT.com reports, the account was able to pick up 500 followers and a good deal of support from other Trump fans on Twitter, including many on the far right who presumably already own the requisite brown shirts and swastika armbands.
https://twitter.com/Third_Position/status/708760325353385984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/DonnyLateNight/status/708741461773295617
https://twitter.com/TrumpLiberals/status/708738364405649408
https://twitter.com/GeorgiaAlpha/status/708738477769289732
@wearelionsguard You are doing what needs to be done. God bless. Can I donate?
— Jordan (@realJordanIV) March 12, 2016
@Third_Position @wearelionsguard Where do I sign on
— Concierge Monthly (@ConciergeMthly) March 12, 2016
https://twitter.com/Jenixian/status/708760475354288128
https://twitter.com/lyz_estrada/status/708753037561438208
Meanwhile, over on clickhate tabloid The Daily Stormer (partially archived here), the regulars are if anything even more enthusiastic about The Lion’s Guard than their counterparts on Twitter — though some of them seem to have forgotten the bit about the group being unarmed.
On 4chan’s Trump-loving, fascist-friendly /pol/ board (archived here), some are talking about trying to resurrect The Lion’s Guard on their own.
Whether or not The Lion’s Guard is resurrected, by its founder or by sympathetic Trump fans on 4chan or somewhere else, it’s clear that the idea of a “Trump militia” has an appeal to many of the orange-faced demagogue’s fans — and not just Daily Stormer readers posting pictures of a well-armed Pepe.
Writer Sarah Kendzior, who spent many hours with Trump supporters while waiting in line to see The Donald on his recent visit to St. Louis, noted in a piece for the Guardian that
Several Trump fans vowed that the next time, they would come armed. Some warned that if Trump was not chosen by Republicans, a militia would rise up to take him to power.
On Twitter, other Trump fans are making similarly chilling “predictions” and threats.
https://twitter.com/BLang71/status/709123350233280512
https://twitter.com/DXint/status/709151004030341121
https://twitter.com/_America_First/status/708819001959276545
Normally, I would dismiss this sort of talk as empty blathering. But this time this talk is attached to a dangerous demagogue who’s managed to rile up a very noisy minority of disaffected white people, millions strong, many of them already heavily armed.
If even a fraction of those people “march on DC” or anywhere else, the results could be bloody. I really hope that things aren’t heading where they seem to be heading, because that’s a very dark place indeed.
Ohio is an open carry state. I am really worried there will be a lot of violence at the GOP convention this year and someone, or multiple people, will be shot and killed.
Watching from my own fairly peaceful little island where the biggest news story last week was two rural politicians holding a celebratory céilí (traditional Irish party) in a street in our main city, this is scary.
I don’t know if it’s just a very vocal and scary minority or if there actually is a massive Tinder box waiting to blow. It seems like this is just the beginning of some huge blow up. This is democracy at work, he’s a hateful piece of wealthy shit but the scariest thing is the people following him and voting for him. Also I find the protests strange. News here has reported that protesters got a rally shut down, I don’t understand that. Surely that just plays into his hands? He gets to claim democracy is being thwarted and all that shit.
From the outside looking in this looks like a massive clusterfuck. It has the hallmarks of the beginning of a civil war :/ also from my side of the Atlantic, seeing interviews and reading up on it, its sadly not just angry white dudes siding with him.
All empires collapse from within and unfortunately that appears to be what’s happening.
Lying Guard?
Hopefully they’ll show their usual bumbling competence and alienate the rest of the country that isn’t angry, white dudes.
Though President Trump is a scary prospect. Especially if he decides to throw his supporters to the trash.
All their swaggering blather makes me more determined to vote for somebody other than Trump this November.
@ Ddog
What I understand about the “protesters shut down a rally” is that this is Trump’s spin on it, and they didn’t.
What actually happened, I gather, is that Trump allowed the auditorium to fill up with his supporters and some people who were intending to protest (it must have been predictable that they would be there) and then announced he wasn’t going to go on, leaving a whole bunch of angry, disappointed people in a confined space with very little security.
He claims he was advised not to appear by the Chicago police: the Chicago police deny giving him such advice. In any case, it would be a funny old police force which advised him to bail after the hall was filled. The way to announce a cancellation is surely before the doors open – and instead of the doors opening.
I’m watching all this from an archipelago slightly to the east of your own fair island, mind you. The press here have pretty much repeated Trump’s claim that they were “shut down by protesters” but this news item gives the context and Trump’s escalating rhetoric in chronological order.
The second segment also has a startling phone interview with the Orange one in which he says he’s been told that violent protests at his rallies increase his vote, before doing a typical Trump at the end by adding “that’s not why we’re doing it.”
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Terrifying stuff.
Incidentally, did anyone else click on that picture? It leads to what I suppose is DJ PeePoBellyBumDrawers’ Twitter feed. A few comments below the picture someone has tweeted “This will end feminism forever.”
Just edited to add, for my American friends, that I live in a relatively peaceful city where we speak English, and I have a spare room.
In Gavin De Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” he discusses how to predict violence using the acronym JACA. Justification, alternatives, consequences and ability.
Justification – Trump supporters have convinced themselves that they are in the middle of a war and that violence would be self defense.
Alternatives – it seems like they don’t even want alternatives, like they are looking forward to being able to commit violence.
Consequences – Trump has said that he will pay their legal fees, effectively lowering their perception of consequences.
Ability – a lot of his supporters seem to be gun owners and give the impression that they are confident in their ability to commit violence.
So yeah I see this getting nasty and it worries me.
@Bluecat,
you ninja’d me over the ‘this will end feminism forever’ comment. I’d love to know how someone came to the conclusion that a photo of Milo pretending to be James Bond while holding a Trump flag will end anything forever.
‘DJ PeePoBellyBumDrawers’? I love it 🙂
I’m concerned Trump’s current MO is going to lead to someone getting hurt. And I’m really, really hoping there are a lot of privately dismayed Republicans who will not vote for this fascist if he does get the nomination.
@SCH
Please refer to the comments policy with regards to the use of terms like ‘ crazy’ on this blog.
@Number Sequence
The violence that the left does comes in the form of allowing non-white cis het people to exist and have rights, which is a form of white genocide, the worst kind of violence EVER. White people are apparently somehow both superior and so delicate and sensitive that the mere existence of people different from themselves who are not in servitude is a deeply wounding and violent act.
Of course, the literally physically violent actions of, say, shooting and killing another person are TOTALLY not ‘violence’, so long as it is done by a white ‘patriot’ and not a non-white ‘thug’ or ‘terrorist’. Instead, it’s “protecting America” and “exercising their second amendment rights”.
Also, I’m not American, but am I to understand that people can take guns to a polling station? One of the most important elements of a functional democracy is that people can vote freely without fear of repercussion. Having aggressive fuckheads with guns chanting for Trump does not seem conducive to this at all.
@ snork maiden
I figured that photo was going to “end feminism forever” one of two ways. (In their minds, anyway.) One, we’d get so weak-kneed over the sight of a “real man” brandishing a deadly phallic symbol that we’d fall onto the nearest bed begging for the nearest “real man” to do whatever he wants. Two, we’d be so frightened at the thought that someone is willing to kill us that we’d renounce feminism and beg for our lives.
They probably don’t want to believe that a lot of feminists see that photo and sigh something to the effect of “another one of THOSE photos.”
@Dr. NicolaLuna — Exactly. That book is an amazing thing and it’s right, we can look forward to violence or worse from here on out from Drumpfites.
On another note, when I see Trump on the campaign trail this is the song I’ve picked for him… The lyrics, yeah…
@Victorious Parasol,
I dare say. Though since it is widely known that Milo isn’t in the vagina business, presumably we’re all supposed to go weak-kneed over DJTittyBum?
darkstatistic:
I was going to suggest “blackshorts”, after Roderick Spode’s little fascist organisation. But I have to admit that I’m not laughing any more. Trump and his supporters are certainly ridiculous, but not even Wodehouse could make them funny at this point.
Would-be first-wave Stürmtrümpen may want to consider briefly the fate of the SA. #usefulidiots
Can anyone share a link of protestors or observers attacking first at a Drumpf rally? There must be some out there if it’s a frequent occurrence.
Or is disagreement enough of an “attack” to warrant bloodshed?
@bluecat ah thank you, I find it hard to find good news sources for stuff like this. Everything is so biased. Also here in Ireland a lot of people seem to regard it as a bit of a joke and there’s the old ah sure the yanks are nothing to do with us mentality. Unfortunately America does have a big impact on us,with their foreign policies and the whole Shannon thing.
I find it all kind of confusing as elections are done so differently over there to our own process (which I think is similar enough to the UK’s?) . Who Are the protesters holding the rally’s against him? It almost seems to just play into his hands as others have pointed out. I have yet to see any evidence they where violent at all though so I doubt there like a group paid to cause trouble. It just scares me because guns are so accessible there. Like a deeply divided electorate plus xenophobia, misogyny and fascism, AND lots of guns.
I worry a lot.
Also apologies for rambling and if this seems to make little sense. I wasn’t able to afford my medication last week and have only just restarted it so I’m still suffering a bit of withdrawal and my thoughts are spinning. So sorry if I have been offensive to people who are involved in the election (except Trump supporters, I hope you do find me offensive)
@moggie I love Wodehouse and at first Trump reminded me of Spode…now if only we could discover that Trump designs ladies underwear. Eulalie shouted during a rally might cause him to bumble to a stop.
Yeah, if they actually believed that, DJ Whip My Hate Back And Forth wouldn’t have pissed his proverbial pants over it being posted on a feminist blog.
These people strike me as utterly terrified. Violence and intimidation isn’t giving them domination any more, and they’re trying to solve this by using even more violence and intimidation, but even that isn’t working. Sooner or later they’re going to have to resort to listening, compromising and making concessions; and the fear of having to do that seems to be driving them to extremes.
Sadly, bad things sometimes happen when terrified people have access to deadly force.
I said before that I doubt there’ll actually be real violence. I thought at the time that this sort of Rambo posturing was just braggadocio from people who’re trying to convince themselves that waving a gun will make the scary things go away. I still believe this but I’m not as sure as I used to be.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/arrest-and-prosecute-donald-j-trump-incitement-violence-legal-precedent-brandenburg-v-ohio Oooh, people sign this. 😀
A civil war will definitely make the US “great again”! And there’s no freedom like the freedom to throw a coup to put Trump in the White House!
…
I can’t even.
@Victorious Parasol
Even though that man is gay?
One of Roosh’s right hands is very openly pushing, recommending and
inciting to very clearly and very scary
mass shootings against Bernie’s supporters 🙁
http://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-48360-post-1246510.html#pid1246510
Please warn also the authorities inside U.S. – I am not U.S. citizen
and I am not knowledgeable in this field.
Moggie, Donald of Orange makes me think of Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup and his Black Shorts too – and I agree it’s getting less funny by the day.
It’s chilling to think that when Trump’s nearest historical parallels were actually in power, the US was on the side fighting against them. And now all too many of that US’ children and grandchildren look like they can’t wait to put on their stylish black shorts.
Orange is the new Hitler.
Whining about free speech is pretty hypocritical, coming from someone who dominates the news cycles 24/7, has access to the biggest megaphones, and thinks his detractors should either shut up or risk being punched in the face. Nobody has had more free speech than Donald Trump in the past few months. Nobody. And nobody has abused it more.
It’s also richly hypocritical considering the utter contempt Trump has for the rest of the First Amendment (freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble). He’s explicitly running on a platform of religious intolerance. He wants to expand the libel laws so he can sue if the Washington Post runs a less-than-flattering article on him. As for peaceable assembly, well…his supporters’ behavior speaks for itself.
And here’s a further hypocrisy: despite his anti-Muslim schtick, Trump can’t even charitably be described as Christian. His platform of bigotry and hate runs directly counter to the teachings of Jesus. It’s obvious he’s never read the Bible; he can’t even cite it properly. When was the last time he set foot in a church? But he likes the self-righteous, arrogant, punitive rhetoric of the evangelical crowd, and he knows they’ll vote for anyone who promises to smite their enemies.
tl;dr: Trump shits all over the First Amendment every day of his campaign. So no, he doesn’t get to cower behind it when people call him out on his appalling hatred and bigotry.
@ Ddog
Yes, it is confusing, and pretty poorly reported. The UK media has been doing the same “Oh, what can you expect, it’s only America?” stuff for weeks. Possibly that’s beginning to change now.
On the downside, I’m beginning to see a few people over here parroting the Trump idea that he’s been shut down and how terrible the left is for causing all these problems, and all of that.
I’m not going to try and kid myself that there aren’t people here who would quite like to be Trump or to follow a Trump. Moseley’s BlackShirts (the inspiration for Spode’s Black Shorts) were moderately popular and might have been more so if it had been
@ Iseult – afaik the protesters have been peaceful. The reponses to them, not so much.
@ Catalpa – yeah, guns to polling stations. I can think of worse ideas, but only if I strain a bit.
Anyone from the US – could you tell me if that would be legal?
And if it isn’t legal, I’d hate to be the officers who’d have to enforce the law against a bunch of stoked up tooled up Trumpistes on polling day.