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.
David, you are a better man than I for dealing with these hateful dipshits day in and day out with such good humor and restraint.
I salute you (in a totally non-fascist way, of course)!
Hey, that’s my account being in @’ed in some of those tweets! Hi mom, I’m on TV!
I think my favorite part of that night was when the guy with the red panda avatar called me out for being a furry – like, even ignoring that red pandas are just a step below foxes in terms of furrybait, I’m a gay Hispanic guy who actively tweets in Japanese, and that’s the best ammunition you can come up with to insult me? These are clearly the same people that can’t criticize you for anything other than being fat.
Also for what it’s worth: panda dude was literally the first person in that chain to call Milo a Nazi, and it really tickles me how he also pulled the “he’s not racist he has a black boyfriend” card
Yes, Milo defenders: There is a difference between being in favor of things like marriage equality and non-discrimination laws protecting someone from being fired just because they’re QUILTBAG, and disliking an individual who fits under that acronym.
Or to put it another way, I won’t deny Milo Yiannopoulos his freedom of speech, but I’ll exercise mine to say I think he’s a bonkeyhead.
Milo calls Trump “Daddy”? Ewwwwwwwwwwww!
Also, what Judas Peckerwood said, David.
REPEAT AFTER ME, MILO FANS: “Being part of a historically oppressed group is not license to act like a shitlord, nor is it a ‘Get out of criticism’ free card.”
I don’t give a rat’s left testicle if Milo is gay and is dating a black man, he’s still supporting fascists and enabling them.
I would never say he’s a bad person because he’s gay, I’m saying he’s an awful person who happens to be gay. There is a difference.
Historically oppressed groups can still have awful people in them. There are shitty women, shitty trans people, and yes, even shitty LGBT people.
ew.
Well, I do see some father/son resemblance in the hair department. Oh, and there’s the smug, misogynistic douche-iness, of course.
Wait, you weren’t referring to “daddy” in that way, were you? Okay, I’ll just go with “ew”.
“Master” Milo is just terribly amusing to me. He couldn’t hack it in British journalism, so he starts his own rag. Fine, well, and good; one should always like an entrepreneur. And then, he manages his The Kernel so badly that he can’t pay his employees – and has to be forced to do so in court. After The Daily Dot took it off his hands, Milo then found himself to be persona non grata in the UK journalist sector and could only survive by slumming for Breitbart, which is the worst sleazoid tabloid you can find. I mean, hell, he couldn’t even get signed on by The Daily Mail. That’s epic, when you’re that low.
Ah well. What else can you expect? To this day, he still disavows any conversation at all with Jonah Goldberg, down to deleting his Tweets. The man simply doesn’t have an ethical bone in his body. So really, it’s silly to expect his fans to have ethics either.
He’s gay. He’s a Nazi. Therefore, he’s a gay Nazi. That’s how adjectives work!
GRAMMAR IS MILOSANDRY.
That ‘Daddy’ tweet is… pretty creepy.
Not to mention there’s a historical record of people following ideologies or groups that are so obviously bad for them.
Like black people being for slavery and supporting white slave owners, women being against suffrage or feminism, trans people following “gender critical” feminism, or men being MRAs.
@SFHC : ‘Milosandry’. Ahahahahahahahahahaha 😀
it’s like the… inverse(?) of #NotYourShield (#NotOurSword?)
“We can’t be homophobic because YOU ARE! see right here where you criticized a gay guy? Homophobia! Since we’re AGAINST YOU that means we’re innocent.”
Milo’s an insane dumbarse bigoted fool, and so are his fans who like him. Also, he supports Sp*rs, the impostor North London team.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen a right winger acknowledge that Nazis targeted gay people.
This has always been so confusing to me. There are some white, cishet, middle-upper class, abled men who would be considered “SJWs” but they seem to me to be in the minority. Most of the people who are attacked as an SJW are marginalized on one or more axis. So, are SJWs using ourselves as shields? Or are they so used to the idea of the divine right of the cishet white man to dominate that they imagine the rest of us are taking marching orders from allies and do not have any agency and are just being used as a shield by them? I’m guessing the latter since that’s what anti “cultural Marxism” memes seem to suggest.
@Ktoryx:
That’s an understatement!
It’s almost as bad (and grotesque) as GamerGaters referring to Christina Hoff Sommers as “Based Mom.”
@Magnesium:
I wouldn’t be surprised that, in a decade or so from now, he’ll be stuck writing editorials for Taki’s Mag and accepted only begrudgingly by his right-wing peers. He’ll be no different from that asshole John Derbyshire.
Also, “Milosandry” needs to become the hot new thing. 😀
*I’m determined to make this happen*
If the War on Straw gets any more intense our Tramp is going to need an army after all…
Just goes to show exactly how little understanding Gators and other various anti-feminist asshole types have of feminists and people for social justice in general. They actually think that because someone happens to be gay, black, etc. then we’ll let them off the hook for bad behavior simply because they are gay, black, etc. They seriously think this.
We don’t see these categories of people as somehow above being able to be asshats. A lot of us are black, LGBTQI+ ourselves, and we are just as human as anyone else and humans can be good, bad, or somewhere in between depending on the individual. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, gender, or race and no human being has the right to be an asshole. Fucking no one.
They act as if we treat marginalized people as being outside the realm of normal humanity or something who can do no wrong. Probably because they don’t really view oppressed groups as fully human themselves. Probably not even their precious Milo.
It’s always so telling when they go after a so called “SJW” for criticizing a member of a disadvantaged group. They honestly have no idea what they people they’re opposing actually stand for.
@Social Justice Atheist (and everyone else who commented on the same thing) – it’s hilarious, isn’t it, that they think this is such a ‘gotcha’?? As if they seriously think that (a) we didn’t already know that this guy was gay, and (b) it would make a difference to what we thought of his views.
You already made this point with considerable eloquence – I’m just adding my agreement 🙂
Enjoying little visions of hive-mind SJWs going “Oh, noes! He is GAY?? We must at once retract all criticism and profess our love and approval for the very fact of his being!!!!”
@Mish
It really is hilarious! The only “SJWs” it seems like they have met are the straw ones in their minds.
I bet they expected David to be all, “*gasp!* Wait, you mean Milo is gay? Well shit, he’s practically one of us! This changes everything! I should never have criticized him for all those horrible things he said, they aren’t horrible after all! Gay people can never, ever be bad people because of the simple fact that they are gay! Don’tcha know, equal rights for LGBT people includes being able to be a gigantic asshole and say whatever the hell you want! Those are the rights we ess jay double yous are fighting for, for gay people to be above criticism! Definitely not just to have equal rights to straight people and just be treated as normal human beings or anything! How silly!”
I’ve said it before, but I just want to thank you again for continuing to profile these bigots with humor and expose the illogic of their arguments, despite the threats and harassment you must face.
I think that many of them (the vast majority of them?) know full well that we’re not going to refrain from criticizing a jerk just because that jerk is gay. ‘Cause when have we ever used a person’s marginalized status as a reason not to criticize them?
They just don’t have any other rebuttal at this moment, thank you very much. And they can’t let an accusation go without a retort.
So someone pulls something out of his ass, the others breathe a sigh of relief (Finally! Bullshit to spread around!), and they all start tweeting.
Their tactic, I believe, is to annoy us. If quoting recipes for crepes suzette in French would do it, they’d do it. They want to annoy us so much that we give up.
Four words, manosphere:
1. Not 2. Going 3. to 4. Happen.
It really amuses me the lengths to which Trump supporters want to go to create something pretty analogous to a safe space considering their rhetoric.