Milo’s fans descend on my Twitter mentions with their #NotYourShields on full power

So yesterday, I wrote a post about Trump supporters who are talking about bringing guns to rallies and polling places — and some who are even talking about starting up what would amount to an unofficial Trump militia.

I illustrated the post with a striking photo (see it here) of right-wing “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos and a friend brandishing guns while holding a Trump banner. Given Milo’s unctuous and theatrical support of Trump — he calls the Orange One “daddy,” as in “Daddy is going to win and then he’s going to make America great again and there’s nothing any of you can do about it” — I thought the pic was apropos. But aside from the caption to the picture, there were zero other mentions of Milo in my post.

It didn’t take long for Milo — apparently quite attentive to all news involving him — to learn about my post, and after he mentioned it in a tweet, Milo’s unofficial Twitter militia descended upon my Twitter mentions.  (I also got a request to take the photo down from the apparent copyright holder, DJ Pop A Titty Out; I removed the picture, and popped a titty out for good measure.)

Here is some of what Milo’s fans had to say.

You may find yourself wondering — as I did, for a moment — what on earth Milo’s sexual orientation (or the color of his boyfriend’s skin) has to do with my post. The answer, of course, is nothing. The picture I (briefly) used to illustrate my post depicted Milo simultaneously holding a gun and a Trump banner, not marching in a pride parade or having sex with a man or any other stereotypically gay activities.

But Milo’s fans, or at least a chunk of them, apparently feel that by mentioning Milo’s gayness they have, as if by some magical incantation, rendered any criticism of him moot. They evidently think that — according to the official SJW rules, spelled out in the Official SJW Handbook — any and all criticism of particular gay people, at least by SJWs, is intrinsically homophobic, and strictly forbidden.

Indeed, one of Milo’s fans went right for the H-word:

It’s no coincidence that the person making this accusation is a #GamerGater — or at least a pretty fervent defender of #GamerGate — because this is one of that, er, consumer movement’s standard rhetorical ploys. #GamerGaters often attack so-called SJWs for using women, people of color, LGBT folks and others who suffer from some degree of discrimination as “shields” for their own allegedly evil beliefs.

Obviously, this does happen sometimes. But it’s #GamerGaters, not progressives, who are the all-time champions when it comes to using this tactic, which they do so opportunistically and cynically it can take your breath away. GamerGate’s #NotYouShield hashtag may well be the most inadvertently ironic thing ever conceived by a human being.

When they’re not trotting out female #GamerGaters to “prove” that #GamerGate can’t be misogynistic — thus using these women, yes, as shields — they’re trying to convince critics of Milo that they’re evil homophobes for criticizing his noxious beliefs.

In this case, Milo’s defenders are also trying to use Milo’s gayness to “prove” that he couldn’t possibly be the “gay nazi” they accuse me of calling him.

Apparently MatanJeda doesn’t know that Ernst Röhm, the literal boss of the literal Brownshirts in literal Hitler’s literal Germany — was in fact gay. Or that having interracial sex does not magically render someone not a racist. (White slaveowners used to routinely rape slave women, for gods sake; that didn’t somehow make them paragons of racial tolerance.)

And never mind that I never called Milo a “gay nazi” — though, in response to MatanJada’s pestering, I reminded him and anyone else who was listening that Milo, FWIW, used to call himself “Milo Wagner” and sometimes wore a German Iron Cross.

I’m not sure why I bothered, though. Trying to discuss anything with these people is utterly pointless, what with the endless straw-manning and their utter unwillingness to take in any new information. One of Milo’s militiamen — note to the literal-minded: I’m using this term figuratively — accused me of lying in my post yesterday. I asked him for examples of these lies. This is what ensued.

To paraphrase George Orwell: if you want a picture of the future, imagine a head banging on a desk — forever.