Trump’s Brownshirts? Trump supporters threaten to take up arms, form militias

If Trump’s Militia is called the Lions Guard, does that mean he’s a Lannister?

Also this shit is getting so way out of hand. Chap and I have seriously started having the “Should we buy a gun?” conversation, because the future is starting to look pretty fucking scary for people who aren’t ready to paint themselves orange in solidarity.

As an interracial couple (one of whom’s a filthy immigrant and one’s Mexican American) we already face a bit of crap, if Fuhrer Trump gets in, we’re probably screwed.

A brownshirt was a Nazi SS that was sent to Hitler’s opponent’s rallies to incite and intimidate the speakers and audience. The only people doing that today are Bernie Sanders supporters, so I would suggest staying away from the whole Nazi comparison thing.

Who Are the protesters holding the rally’s against him? It almost seems to just play into his hands as others have pointed out.

From what I have read + what I can infer from knowing how this works, the protesters did not shut down Trump’s rally in any respect. Trump is just saying that in order to cast them in a bad light. There were a lot of protesters there, and his usual MO of having them tossed out would have taken a lot of time and required a lot of interruptions to his speech. There may have also been more violence against them, which even Trump knows doesn’t look good for him. His decision to cancel the rally rather than put up with interruptions and perhaps more violence from his supporters makes perfect sense.

Who are the protesters? People who don’t want it to look like everyone loves Trump. It’s not only protected speech according to the US Bill of Rights, it’s a good idea in general. Let’s not blame them for Trump’s actions.

Also, I’m not American, but am I to understand that people can take guns to a polling station?

Gun laws vary by jurisdiction, which is generally on the state level for this type of thing. Most polling places are in schools or other municipal buildings, and states that allow open carry vary on whether or not people are allowed to carry into governmental structures. IOW, there is no one answer to that question.

@EJ

I think you’re right that the left needs to invest in self defence. However, in my opinion any attempt to approach this as single violent individuals would be a mistake: that sort of cult-of-the-lone-hero thinking is stupid when the right do it and would be stupid if we did it. What needs to happen is for collective action to be taken in this regard.

Definitely agree with you there. And one of the biggest problems is that people buy guns to gratify that fantasy. It’s at least one part of what motivates mass shooters, pretty much every time.

The problem, as you rightly identify it, is one of government timidity. Mass political action could well provide benefits here. I don’t know what America’s situation is like so I bow to my American friends here: what is the state of the anti-firearm movement and can it effectively be mobilised?

That’s the thing. The anti-firearm movement is extremely popular, but it has proven almost completely ineffective. Everyone is too scared to anger the NRA. And even when states or cities put in gun control measures, people will either defeat the laws in court, or just go buy their guns in a neighboring state.

If Obama can appoint someone reasonable to the supreme court, it might make a difference in the medium to long term, but right now, there are a lot of angry, unsophisticated and heavily armed thinkers on the other side, who are now regularly inciting violence with impunity. The Planned Parenthood shooting a few months ago was basically incited by the mainstream right.

@GenJones

Don’t forget trying to stop those with money from influencing politics to their advantage by making it rain on politicians and lawmakers, bribery is free speech too.

Ugh, I know! It’s raining free speech in Washington.

@GreySkye

it’s absolutely terrifying. Do you think there’s any way progressives could unite for self defense? I understand your impulse to buy a gun, but I don’t know how much difference that will make independent of collective action. The problem is, the American left is (for good reason, IMO) so invested in gun control, that it’s hard to figure out how to work it.

What do you think should be done? The far right is mobilizing a mob of racist armed goons, while most of the left is like, “take it easy. Let’s elect a moderate and hope cooler heads prevail.” We’ve seen this before, and it didn’t end well. It’s one of the reasons I’m so invested in Sanders. We really need a visionary leader who can appeal to the poor and working class, or I think we’re gonna lose.

@ Castaigne

In my better moments, I wish he could feel more comfortable with his identity as a gay man. So much of what he says seems to be rooted in self-loathing.

Unfortunately, my better moments seem to be few and far between this month.

@ moondog

O_o

Good on Aunt Rita, eh? And how fortunate that the gunslinger in question says he was brought up to respect his elders – rather than, say, shooting her (like the guy who shot a waitress dead when she asked him not to smoke in the restaurant..)

A scenario where a self-selected Trump militia shows up, guns on hip, on polling day, primed to look on members of certain demographics as, in the words of der Trumpfer, “the people who are destroying our country”…

It gets ever more alarming.

@Ashara Payne

I don’t think the word is strictly problematic, but to me it does signal some ableist connotations. For instance if you read up on it on Wikipedia, many of the sourced definitions and references use ableist language: “mentally deranged”, “lunatic fringe”, etc.

@opposablethumbs

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

Only by a quite thin margin, unfortunately. There was actually a not insignificant probability of things going the other way here.

@SFHC

Isn’t this victim blaming?

Yes. It would be more correct to say that the Democratic Party abandoned the left wing in favor of ‘triangulation’ and a ‘third way’ which, in practice, meant following the Overton window right instead of trying to pull it back leftwards. (Reasons I am not fond of Hillary Clinton, in a nutshell; she is a ‘3rd way’ democrat, which is to say a Reagan era Republican; just because the Republicans have moved on to naked fascism doesn’t make her way a good one).

@hedin

Everyone is too scared to anger the NRA.

It would be more accurate to say that almost all politicians appear unwilling to anger the NRA.

Do you think there’s any way progressives could unite for self defense? I understand your impulse to buy a gun, but I don’t know how much difference that will make independent of collective action.

There’s was a good deal of that against the brownshirts and blackshirts back in the day, but they mostly hadn’t got guns, which made things a bit easier to deal with.

As an Independent. I have yet to see Trump supporters try to shut down a Clinton or Sanders speech. The only group to shut Sanders down was BLM.

(Reasons I am not fond of Hillary Clinton, in a nutshell; she is a ‘3rd way’ democrat, which is to say a Reagan era Republican; just because the Republicans have moved on to naked fascism doesn’t make her way a good one).

Oh, for the love of god, this is so stupid as to be in “not even wrong” territory.

Especially since you support the notoriously pro-gun Bernie Sanders. What a total Republican, amirite?

Policy of Madness, there are federal laws prohibiting the intimidation of voters at polling places, which would clearly apply to the open carry of firearms, regardless of state law.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/lnwh.gif