Sleazy bigot Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart boss who Donald Trump wants as his chief White House strategist, isn’t terribly popular in Washington at the moment. But he’s getting a lot of support from the white supremacists he pandered to at Breitbart — from former Klan leader David Duke; from Richard Spencer, the guy who came up with the euphemism “alt right” in the first place; and (of course) from Andrew Anglin of the Daily Stormer.
“Bannon is the best person who could have been placed in this key role, besides perhaps Pat Buchanan and me,” Anglin wrote in a post on the Daily Stormer (archived here).”This is all going in the right direction, and I am very happy to see the Jews raging.”
Anglin cites one rather unique reason for supporting Bannon, above and beyond his ideological affinities with the neo-Nazi alt-right: Bannon was once arrested for allegedly beating his now-ex-wife.
Anglin quotes the following paragraph from a Washington Post piece on Bannon, putting the last sentence in bold text:
Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence against his former wife more than 20 years ago; the charges included trying to prevent a victim or witness of crime from reporting, inflicting injury and battery. Bannon was never convicted and the case was dismissed. His former wife also accused him of making anti-Semitic remarks, according to a court statement obtained by the New York Daily News.
Anglin’s response?
He declares that “the age of bitch-slapping Jew-haters has dawned,” by which he evidently means a new age for (alleged) “Jew-haters” like Bannon who (allegedly) demonstrate this hatred by (allegedly) slapping those who show sympathy with Jews.
Bannon once famously declared that activists on the right needed to “bitch slap the Republican party.” Anglin evidently likes that, for Bannon, “bitch-slapping” isn’t just a metaphor (allegedly).
Anti-Semitism and violent misogyny, all wrapped up in one nice neat little package.
As long as they’re proclaiming to the world what manly men they are (read: horrible bigots), they don’t need to take action. (Their supporters, not so much.)
When they get thwarted, though… that’s when the shit will attempt to hit the fan. But having burned so many bridges will make it much harder for them to actually legislate anything. They refuse to cooperate, and they don’t realize that actions have consequences. Plus it’s easier for a group, like Congress, to find common ground against them when they say reprehensible things, and Congress all votes at the same time. Social pressure can be useful sometimes. So… they keep espousing these disgusting ideas, and I can see them having trouble getting Congress to pass legislation.
I was only speaking to the political part, though, not to the boots-on-the-ground part. That we have to work together to mitigate as best we can, especially if the political part is thwarted.
Interesting article about the latter part: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2016/11/the-power-of-metaphors.html
Trump and his campaign/ surrogates / cabinet appointees are so full of corruption and scandal and fraud I don’t know how we will ever even begin to unravel it all.
And that is only going to get worse. His financial ties are far to numerous and tangled for him to not be constantly in a state of conflict of interest. Maybe the media should have given him more hell for his tax returns…
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-national-security-498081.html
I just wish more outlets had gotten serious about Trump once he secured the GOP nomination. It’s one thing to treat someone like a joke candidate when they’re new to the field and the party leadership is laughing them off, but once that person is going to be on the ballot the fun and games are over. Trump got so many passes and so much normalization from people who should have god damn known better. His connections to white supremacy, the Russian government, and financial corruption were known quantities far before the election – I mean, I’ve been reading about them in articles linked to by Hatewatch for months – and yet some news outlets are acting as if they’ve been taken by surprise by what they should have been reporting on all this time.
HawkAtreides, it is a bit bizarre to see all these people suddenly getting worked up about Bannon, because he’s the same awful person he was when Trump made him campaign CEO.
I wonder if maybe some in the media are feeling guilty about how much shit they let Trump get away with and are trying to make up for that now.
Addendum to my above post:
Hubby returned from the store this evening having been pursued by two men who shouted ‘You better run, f****t!’. This, in supposedly ultra progressive Portland, Oregon.
@Dalillama
Holy shit that’s awful. My condolences, any chance of the police making sure people aren’t going to heckle/harm him?
What the hell.
@Ooglyboggles
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/060/821/AL5H25SM65HM5ZEFA5UKGSJLSZWY7ZKO.jpg
Yeah, no. Last time we called them about something like this, the officer laughed at us and threatened to arrest us if we called again.
@Dali
No words <3 <3 <3
The fuck.
This isn’t like Portlandia at all!
@ Dalillama
What the fucking BLUE HELL?!?!
Dalillama, what the hell is going on there!?
THANKS TRUMP
I honestly thought better of Portland than that. I’d expect shit like that in Texas, but not Portland. Why do they think he’s a “f-t”? Why is that a problem? What is the world become?
Can the Age of the Cheeto just end already?
This is just the beginning @Dalilama I always thought Portland was a liberal city…I guess I was wrong. I’m in the Deep South and these people done lost their minds. They are spray painting swastikas along with God Voted on Hillarys photo calling her Satan.
Anyone who wasn’t aware of Bannon sure is now. I think the excuse that we are just overreacting due to Identity politics must not see the irony that the white vote for a racist is the ultimate in identity politics.
I keep wondering when an adult is going to step in for Trump. I just can’t understand how anyone can compare this fiasco to President Obamas election. It is like comparing an orange turd to a sparkling Diamond.
@Jack
Yeah, we’re not quite that white either, although Portland is a couple percentage points whiter than the U.S. as a whole. Blame Oregon’s history as a whites only state for that part.
@David Futrelle
It’s not just Trump time, although it’s definitely worse now. The last time was over a year ago when our downstairs neighbours tried to break down our door while shouting homophobic slurs. That was a fun time.
That is… ouch. Fucking ouch. And fucking unacceptable. Dalillama, please convey all my sympathy to your husband.
@Dali
I have no words. I’m so sorry. It’s unforgivable.
@everyone
What can we do? There has to be something we can do… We can’t expect Dali and their husband (and everyone else in a similar position) to just suffer through this for the next four years…
What makes accusations of antisemitism difficult to stick is that for many people an antisemite is a literal Nazi carrying out the Holocaust. Antisemitism of so often more insidious than that, and often divides Jews into “good” and “bad” categories, meaning an antisemite can have Jewish friends or admire select Jewish individuals. In this case, Bannon’s fans claim Bannon can’t be an antisemite because he’s published articles by David Horowitz in Breitbart, but Horowitz is a racist perfectly in line with the alt-right.
@Dalillama
Is there anything you would like us to do to help you?
Oh, this is fun. My husband is Jewish, I am part Native, my kids are half Jewish and part Native. Sadly, my foster father was in Dachau and Aufswitz (sp?) On the nights he awoke with horrid nightmares, he told me about his experiences. He was the sole survivor in his family, save for one brother who escaped to England with the family fortune and wouldn’t use any to get his family out of Austria.
We cannot allow this to happen here. We have a planet in trouble, people who are struggling with all manner of issues, and we just do not have the time or energy for what Trump and his cronies want. Evil is what I name them and what they are doing.
@Dalilama –
Hell, I am just down the road from you in Eugene. I am so sorry to hear that. When my husband and I first moved out here from Boston, we lived in Springfield. Our upstairs neighbor decided that since hubby is Jewish, he must be stealing his mail and doing other nefarious things. One night, he came down to our apartment, forced his way in and shoved hubby up against a wall, telling him that he would beat the holy you know what out of him if he ever went to the mailbox again.
Well, needless to say, we had to get our mail and the bastard upstairs took it out on my lovely cat, stepping on him and crushing his chest. Police did nothing about the threat or the cat. I wanted to run back to Boston so badly. But we stayed.
Be safe. Be alert. Times may get much worse before they get better.
OMG, Dalillama, I am so, so sorry and horrified that you and your husband are going through this…I can’t even… :'(
ETA: Samantha: :'( I’m sorry…
@Rabukurafuto
Bingo. I think this goes for homophobia, racism, sexism and many other negative “-isms.” That’s why racists can be fans of black athletes or celebrities and misogynistic assholes can like some women, as long as they don’t perceive them as stepping outside their little box and demanding rights the racists/misogynists don’t think they should have.
My mom and her two sisters grew up in South Carolina in the 1950s and they had a black housekeeper. Everyone loved the housekeeper and she was a long-time employee. She worked for the family long enough that I met her as a kid in the early ’80. Everyone in my mom’s family knew their family and they were very friendly. My mom’s two sisters are still racist as fuck toward blacks in general. My mom isn’t as bad, but I think that’s mainly because she moved away to Washington state where I was born, but she still has problematic opinions about black people that come out every now and then. And no, she did not vote for Trump, though I’m sure my aunts did if they voted.
@Dalillama
As someone who grew up in the PNW, I am totes not surprised. There isn’t as much of that shit as in other parts of the country, but it is still there. My condolences for your ordeal.
@PeeVee
Thank you for that link. Excellent article. I especially enjoyed the pie chart.
@Dali
What the fucking fuck.
Yeah, I seriously doubt Trump is going to be the anti-Semitic “saviour” they are looking for. His beloved daughter is an Orthodox Jew and her husband, who she converted for, is running things behind the scenes for Trump.
All these racists were hoodwinked into voting for Trump. I’m convinced he merely uses anger to seize on propaganda opportunities for more support. He values Bannon for his propaganda ability. I think his main focus as president will be making himself, his family, and his cronies in the 1 percent even richer, further diminishing the middle class.