Tila Tequila is a bisexual former reality TV star of Vietnamese descent whose stage name incorporates the name of an alcoholic beverage made in Mexico. She’s also a Hitler-loving Alt-Right Trump fan who likes to joke about the Holocaust.
And so it’s perhaps less weird than it might seem at first glance that Tila spent the weekend at the annual National Policy Institute conference in Washington DC, a gathering of Alt-Rightists and fellow travelers, where she treated the attendees (and her Twitter followers) to Nazi salutes, anti-Semitic jokes, and an assortment of baffling pronouncements — ranging from an assertion that she’s an “alpha male” to a claim that she “willed Trump into [the] Presidency.”
Let’s take a look at some of Tila’s more, er, colorful Tweets from the convention.
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/799809348755161088
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/799843940967051264
It was a busy weekend for Tila, clearly, but she managed to find time for some anti-Semitic antics that she, at least, seems to have considered utterly hilarious.
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800144509606580224
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800213130592788481
She also posed with an assortment of Alt-Right personalities and fellow travelers, including “journalist” and beard-haver Chuck C. Johnson.
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/799791671500308480
She lashed out at her critics:
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800213895654699008
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800214368461979648
And somehow managed to claim credit for Brexit and Trump’s electoral college win:
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800353825815023617
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800206868719300609
Apparently she’s taking lessons in reality-manipulation from Mike Cernovich and master persuader Scott Adams:
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800204046640574465
https://twitter.com/AngelTilaLove/status/800210289367089152
Given how this year has gone so far, I fully expect Donald Trump to name her to a cabinet position. Is there a Secretary of Delusional States?
@calmdown,
Ermergerd, that post! I shall leave detailed responses to the regulars here who do it so well – but just one thing first: how does this (from Trump)
get to be used as evidence that he is not racist?
http://38.media.tumblr.com/cbf56bd607c102d4b6d251ad83f93db7/tumblr_n9k5hrhQfB1tvqzjro1_250.gif
Apologies for the multiple posts here; I’ll keep this brief (it’s obvious I’m on semi-holidays – I have the luxury of reading all the comments and even replying!!)
@calmdown and anyone else who is interested – you may like to look at some of Joshua Foust’s recent posts on Trump. This one is a list of “not-normal” aspects of the new govt; this one challenges the normalisation of it; and this one focuses on racism.
Not much that’s new for mammoths, but useful resources.
@Mish
Thank to you and all who responded , I’m just a baby mammoth at the moment, so I need help from the elders:
http://i.imgur.com/Dx3lIjf.mp4
@calmdown
This may be an unpopular thing to say here, but I actually really admire a fair bit of what Scott Anderson says on SSC. I read the post you mention, and I get a lot of why it was immediately upsetting. I had some bad moments with it, too. But overall, before you get really, really angry, maybe think about stuff that he’s supported on SSC like this: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/20/ozys-anti-heartiste-faq/.
Maybe he doesn’t always toe the feminist party line and levels quite a bit of criticism at feminism, but he is definitely also not on board with the typical manosphere. He was begging people not to vote for Trump before the election. Anyway, I won’t tell you how to feel, but I’d ask you to consider that he may not be the enemy you think he is before you respond.
@Belladonna
I”m not really seeing that blogger as the enemy, it’s more that I see it shared by people on FB, people I know, who make no mention of the other posts, and I feel are definitely emphasizing this article alone. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I see that he does say Trump is terrible(I went ahead and read it all, yay). It’s more concern about people using articles like this, and the information in it, as fodder to tell us to “shut up” about racism. I don’t intend to respond to any of these people. Not until I can make an educated argument. Sorry if that’s to convoluted. Basically, I’m more concerned about the people I actually know(might have to talk to w/out screaming at them) than the author himself.
@calmdown, those elephants are ADORABLE
@Belladonna,
Scott of the many names is pretty great overall – I totally agree.
@calmdown <3
I'll give it a shot.
The sarcastic quotation marks speaks for themselves when they are noted racists, have been racists and continue to enact racist policies against minorities.
He conveniently leaves out Trump channeling populist narratives when the previous two were establishment GOP, or that how the popular vote and majority of minorities went to Hillary.
I call bull to the shit. By virtue of google, politifact, from his own mouth and countless other fact checkers, this is bullshit.
Before I continue Scott Alexander IS a racist. Not some malformed liberal, a straight up racist bigot.
Any other quote he can try to pull to make Trump seem less racist is straight up bullshit with how much doublespeak Trump does.
Him trying to refute Trump’s support from the KKK fails on account of the elader endorsing him, several neonazi forums and members endorsing him, Trump not immediately dismissing the Kkk, oh and let’s not forget the world bankers ie jews dogwhistling.
The graphs are decades old and ignore anti muslim sentiments, how Trump constantly uses racist and sexist rhetoric and doublespeak in his speeches, ignores other ways people enact racism such as “welfare reductions”, or how most of the graphs would make the racists who don’t want to be outed as racists to not openly support racist things.
This guy is bullshitting you and expects you to eat it up.
See what I mean? He’s using “see he didn’t explicitly call them b***** so he isn’t racist.”
Undocumented immagrant is code word for immigrants. Rich white racists voted fro Trump overwhelmingly, excuses racial profiling of muslims, excuses hate crimes incited by Trump, etc.
All in all, it’s a load of bullshit from a racist excusing a racist for enacting racist shit using the same racist rhetoric to make other racists look not as racist.
I love Hispanics! Why, exploiting then for their labour is one of my favourite things to do! Also, you’d think I couldn’t claim to love every single member of a highly diverse demographic, but they’re all essentially interchangeable to me. #notracist #pleaseignorethewhitesupremacistsimgivinggovernmentjobs
@calmdown
Holy shit, that’s the whitest thing I’ve ever read!
-Saying that minorities voted more for Trump than Romney is the equivalent of a ‘friend’ argument. It doesn’t prove he’s not racist, and it definitely doesn’t mean that calling him racist is outta bounds
-Racism is not a distraction, and the fact that 70yo white guys are generally racist doesn’t normalize it. Stop normalizing it!
-It doesn’t matter if he says vaguely nice thing about Latinxes when he wants to deport them. The deportations outweighs the ‘love’. And the taco bowl is textbook racism!
-Not as bad as David Duke is not a defense
-The membership size of the KKK doesn’t mean anything. They agree with him. He’s a fuckin racist
-You can’t count the altright by looking at 3 websites. There’s only 1 subreddit there FFS!
-Those polls prove nothing
-Tone argument
-I can’t even with the idea that being anti illegal immigrant is somehow not racist. This is the whitest shit…
-Fuck your economic anxiety
-Islamophobia is racism and no amount of caterwauling about terrorism is gonna change that
-And there he goes not understanding how hate crimes work
-Both sides!!!
-And trans suicides… I’m done!
Sorry, that’s probably not much help. I kinda devolved there. Imma go get some dinner… *grumble grumble*
Was gonna comment on the article now, but @Ooglyboggles and @Axecalibur already done did it! The author’s got their wish-fulfillment goggles on and is conveniently ignoring everything that confronts their conclusion. Can’t be simpler.
WE LOVE THE HINDUS
WE LOVE INDIA
Well, this was a part I found especially frustrating, his response to that is “dogwhistle aren’t real, ever, and if you say someone is using one you are a conspiracy theorist.”
@calmdown
I get that. If it’s people on Facebook who voted for Trump that you want to argue with who are citing this single article from SSC, you could maybe do worse than to quote back at them how little this very same blogger supported their candidate: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/
I also agree with Scildfreja that he cherry-picked his evidence in that article a bit. But I also think that, maybe, as a mental health professional, his major concern was trying to subdue internet paranoia for the sake of his patients and others. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but what can I say, I like him.
@Mish
Thank you!
@Scildfreja – Oh my giddy aunt, those cartoons are gloriously terrible. And strange. I kept waiting for the punchline.
@calmdown – As counter-evidence for your FB friends, you might point out Trump (and Trump Sr.’s) numerous lawsuits for discrimination, both in housing and employment. And the two full page NYT ads he took out playing directly on people’s racial fears. And the anti-Semitic imagery in his last campaign ad. And the fact that black casino employees had to be removed from the floor whenever he walked through. And the fact that his cabinet is going to be riddled with “white nationalists”, and that he is our very first KKK-endorsed president. Any candidate can flap their lips about “diversity” and pose awkwardly with rainbow flag props – it’s what they do when the cameras are off that reveals their true beliefs. That’s why Mitt Romney’s unguarded 47% moment did fatal damage to his campaign.
I haven’t read a lot of Alexander Scott’s columns, but I don’t think a blogger who uncritically presents Donald Trump’s taco bowl tweet as evidence of how much he Loves The Mexicans is really qualified to speak in depth about racism. We’re not just “crying wolf”, there actually IS an entire pack of fucking wolves descending rapidly on what’s left of our democracy, and articles like that don’t help.
OT…Now trending on Twitter: #nameamikepencemusical. Some hilarious entries, including Annie Get Your Gun Without A Background Check, Guys ‘n’ Walls, and You’re A Good Man, Charlie, But You’re Brown.
I apologize if this is too much of a de-rail or too upsetting, we can discuss another time. But I just keep seeing articles like this and not knowing how to respond, and my comments tend to get lost in larger threads(not complaining that’s just how the internet works.).
Some people are saying that the Hamilton fiasco is to cover up how Donald Dump off his Trump U settlement for $25 million, that it was planned.
Considering how the Clinton emails were used to cover up Dump’s rape charges and stuff…
That’s just the thing of it, it’s mostly people who identify as liberal, and didn’t seem to be pro-Trump (the person who posted this seems to be a “they’re both terrible/both sides do it” devil advocate type who is just keeps posting shit like this…) but I have seen multiple articles from others including people in groups that he’s targeted citing “it’s not racism/economic anxiety/stop lying about how Trump is racist” arguments.
Maybe on some level they are trying to understand why Trump happened and be less afraid, but I don’t understand why racism isn’t a perfectly good (and fact supported) explanation.
@Oogly
Woops, missed your excellent takedown… It’s excellent!
@calmdown
Nah, you’re good! That dude’s a shit, but you’re good. Thanks for bringing it up 🙂
News callbacking to elsewhere: I’m gonna 3D-print a Bill Cipher pendant. I may be able to use it to distract from Things Both Of Us [other party being a family member] Are Too Stubborn To Effectively Argue About come Turkey Day. Even without that, it’s a fucking Bill Cipher pendant. 83
http://38.media.tumblr.com/5e464e1fd08c91b079ae7c90fd16cfd4/tumblr_nc9uvsQIGy1tvkvzyo1_500.gif
High fashion.
@calmdown
The most common answer is some combination of a)that would mean admitting how incredibly racist the U.S. is, and b) Because they are themselves incredibly racist and don’t want to acknowledge/admit it.
People like believing in a just world, they like to believe that things aren’t that bad. Bad things only happen to bad people, and bad guys don’t win – good guys beat them. This isn’t just for the naive, either – from the hard-hearted fiscal conservative to the experienced liberal activist, we’re all affected by this sort of thinking.
So when the candidate who was retweeting nazis and called Mexicans rapists actually wins, our brain constructs reasons for why that happened – our brains start painting that horrible monster in good-guy colours, because he won.
Lots of names for this. My favourite’s the halo effect. If someone has a good attribute (e.g. won a presidential election), this reduces the cognitive presence of negative attributes (e.g. raging racist douchenozzle). The good attribute projects an aura which occludes the negative ones.
Defeating the halo effect is difficult. They’ve invested effort in covering or minimizing the negative attributes of that person, so they have to be able to admit that they made a bad evaluation. That’s going to take an individualized effort.
Unrelated kitties:
https://gifsound.com/?gifv=P71TpKJ&v=HEXWRTEbj1I&s=4
That’s what you have to get them to admit to defeat the halo effect. In this case. That they stood by while horrible racism happened. That takes a level of humility that few people are willing to extend.
@Handsome Jack
Admittedly he’ll come out white and not yellow (or green, as, trivia, Alex Hirsch initially planned for him to be; he thought people would make fun of him for looking like a leaf….hindsight, ladies, gents, and esteemed individuals preferring neither title), but that’s fine by me. Best-case scenario, a relative becomes interested!….A worse scenario is that they think I legitimately believe in the occult, but at least they might avoid be from then on? Maybe?