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
@Troubelle
“My cousin, secretly a member of the Illuminati this whole time?!” It’s more common than you think!
@Handsome Jack
There isn’t anyone else my age that’s going to be there. It’s either going to be very small children or aunts and great-aunts (and uncles and so forth). Hence my concern. IT’S ALL OLD WHITE PEOPLE!
@calmdown
I don’t know what to say to this, really. I’m sure as fuck not going to try to argue with Axe about what racism means. But my response, to be honest, to anyone whose main argument is that there is terrible shit on both sides, would probably be, duh, do you have an important point to make that isn’t totally fucking obvious?
I think that yes, racism is a perfectly (fact supported) explanation. But narrowing it down to racism as the single variable? Well, I don’t know. I remember voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and coming out of the booth feeling shaky and sick and thinking “god, I need a drink.”
Every election in my life has felt like bathing in shit. That said, I’ve always tried to choose people first. But it’s never easy. I think the “Obesity Epidemic” is a shit show that glorifies and justifies fat-shaming in our society, and I really, truly hate Michelle Obama’s school lunch program.
Still, at least the democrats try to show true concern for some people vs. utter contempt for everyone like Donald Trump. I could never, in a million years, justify voting for someone who was so blatantly contemptuous of so many people. At least the obesity epidemic fat-shaming shit is swathed in “concern.” Still, my heart bleeds for overweight people these days, and my head nearly bursts with impotent rage whenever I hear the “Overweight and Obese” mantra—as if there weren’t incredibly different statistical correlations with health risks in those categories, or even in the Obese I vs. Obese III categories.
So, even though I can’t forgive anyone for voting for Trump, I also can’t think it’s always a single-issue thing. I think they were incredibly dumb to actually believe he cared about their issues, but there’s also interesting stuff like this: https://mathbabe.org/2016/11/14/guest-post-the-foreclosure-vote/
So anyway, that’s my two cents. Probably doesn’t help.
He can take that up with the ghost of Lee Atwater who straight up admitted on tape that the Republican strategy was to use coded language to appeal to racists but still have plausible deniability. Does this fuckwaffle really think the southern strategy is nothing more than a silly conspiracy theory?
Then fuck him!
@Bella
Ha! 🙂
Of course not. There’s also sexism, geography, and the FBI. But I get what you mean. There’s plenty of non bigoted reasons someone might vote Trump. However, imma let her say it more elegantly than I know how:
https://medium.com/@amandadeibert/dear-trump-supporter-who-says-they-love-me-78c2aab188a9
“These reasons did not stop you.” So, you’re right. Bigotry wasn’t the only factor. But, maybe it shoulda been if ya catch my drift
@Axe,
That’s a damn good article!
My Indian-American students could not stop watching that ad. Over. And over. And over. And mocking his accent every single time.
I guess I just don’t get it. How can you be an “alpha male”, and prefer to be addressed as “she”? Isn’t… ouch, my head.
@Belladonna
They really don’t, they just start with the carrot instead of the stick. Although most of the time it’s only a picture of a carrot and you’re fucked anyway. The Democrats’ real problem is that they’ve hardly offered to actually materially* help anybody but the white middle class for the last 30 years. That doesn’t mean that they’re as bad as the Republicans, it just means that the party leadership are assholes. And most of them are also really fucking bigoted, if not so much as Republicans are. Basically, Clinton (that’s Bill) and the DNC surrendered to the Reagan Democrats and abandoned anything like efforts at systematic reform, and we’ve all been suffering for that decision ever since.
@Axe
Gotta disagree with you there. It really, really was. ‘Lower taxes’ is a dogwhistle. Nearly half of Trump’s supporters were born after the last time a Republican proposed a policy that would help anybody economically who hadn’t already got a few million dollars. Nobody votes Republican for economic reasons.
*They’ve thrown a few bones to oppressed groups here and there, but you don’t see very many brown faces in leadership positions at the DNC. You never hear mainstream Dem politicians talk about reparations. You never hear them come out for unions. You never hear them come out for a serious crackdown on redlining. They never, in short, suggest anything that will actually significantly change anything for the better. The difference being that Republicans suggestions always, always, make things worse. And ‘the other side didn’t offer me more treats’ is a lousy fucking excuse to vote fascist.
Could … could someone please send me a large bucket, or a bunch of kittens, or similar? A group of people who call themselves “Trump’s Aussie Mates” will have their own TV show from early December, called Outsiders. Anyone from Aust. will know of Mark Latham, Ross Cameron, and Rowan Dean. Here’s a delightful taster from Latham:
It is spreading fast 🙁
Thanks to all of you who responded to my questions about the article, I really appreciate it. I’m still processing it all but I really do appreciate all of your points and feedback!
Im still reading the thread i just wanted you to know Im grateful to all in advance
One thing that’s making me feel a wee bit more hopeful is that the most extreme of the alt-rightists are already starting to turn on Trump now that he’s won the election. (Look at the comment section on this article, for instance).
After all, using alt-right logic, since the Jews run everything, Donald Trump must actually have been their preferred candidate all along, else he wouldn’t have been elected.
They’re definitely going to have a wake-up moment sooner or later. Take Steve Bannon for instance. He deliberately pandered to anti-Semites and the alt-right in order to channel their support into getting Trump elected. But he’s also gone on the record as being pro-Israel. He’s been using the exact same playbook as Netanyahu, who like Putin has a similar strategy of trying to curry favor with European ultranationalist groups (including antisemitic ones), based on a shared opposition to Muslims.
There was also that Wayne Allyn Root editorial describing Trump as the “first Jewish president” in the same sense that Bill Clinton was the first black president. Trump seems to be shaping up to be more like an American version of a Likudnik, than a Nazi. (But that doesn’t mean he’s a good guy).
Once the Nazis realize they’ve been played like a fiddle, boy are they going to feel stupid. (They might even turn on Andrew Anglin and the other vocally pro-Trump Nazi “leaders” as well). Hopefully they’ll slink back into the shadows from whence they came, with their tails between their legs.
I think the best strategy for dealing with the alt-right is exactly that. Tweet the Root piece at them. Link to it on their websites. Highlight the awards (some of them as early as 1983) he’s received from pro-Israel activist groups. Tie him to Netanyahu. Basically, do anything to make them give up on Trump. Concern trolling can be used against them as easily as they used it on Hillary supporters.
Without him (or their belief that he’s really on their side), they will have nothing left. That won’t make Trump himself go away. But at least he won’t be the preferred candidate of the Nazis anymore.
@Axe
Oh. My. That is an awesome article. Thank you for sharing it!
@Axe
I totally catch your drift. I don’t back down from saying I think Scott Anderson is a reasonable person, on the side of justice, who would be open to reasonable discussion on points where he may be wrong or way too white. 🙂
That said, most of my previous post was probably more about what I think people’s reasoning could have been in a normal election. In this election, there were probably some people who were trying to still think along those same kinds of lines. Economics really do affect real people, and so on.
But this election was not a normal election. This election was about people clearly choosing to buy a really transparent used-car salesman’s pitch, all the while ignoring his blatant un-American and unconstitutional statements (aren’t those supposed to be their core values), and supposedly “ignoring” his racism and misogyny. In that kind of an election, I can only agree that there were two kinds of Trump voters:
1. People buying snake oil and willing to believe there was some kind of miracle underneath the scum on top (and all kinds of people fall for snake oil, and a lot of them deserve our sympathy)
2. Bigots
After an election where I, the liberal, am the one who is feeling most terrified for the traditional fabric of American values, I feel like there has been a weird reversal. Suddenly, I feel like the Murican.
@Dali
I think you are right. Maybe I’ve also been a fool buying snake oil for a long time. But at least the other snake oil was worse.
Shit, this is depressing.
Has anyone pointed out yet that she also believes the earth is flat? Yep…the alt-right is just full of reasonable people.
One of the groups I flick through had a real attention grabbing post from second generation Asian immigrants to America wondering why their parents had voted Trump. The kids were gobsmacked their parents would vote for someone so dangerous to them. So they were asking why. Skimming over some of the blatant racist commentary, the response was frequently: He’s a great businessman, helping us out by getting rid of ‘undesirables’.
That turned out to be code for POC. When the kids pointed out that _they are POC_, there was some serious shock from older members of the community – nope. We’re not POC. We’re Asian. POC cause problems in our community. The idea that their kids would be threatened due to the whole thing going down was considered a non-starter – ‘everyone knew’ that Asians are not POC. When the kids said it wasn’t how racists were gonna see it, they were told nope, don’t be silly.
This is one thread on a group dealing with difficulties in being second generation Asian in a western country specifically, so it self-selected for problematic encounters. But still had some anecdata about why people would vote for Trump even though it would seem massively self-destructive. To these people, they were never in the danger category.
Much as I hate this, so is the left I’m in. I know so many people who are convinced about hippy healing methods – or who get together to try to levitate and so forth. Probably some of them believe the earth is flat. Tonnes CERTAINLY believe that the government is controlling the weather.
I do cling stubbornly to the belief that as long as it’s ‘I’m gonna meditate to spread good vibrations’ it’s probably doing them SOME good even just by placebo.
My world may be full of people who believe the government is giving them cancer through their electricity measuring devices, but it seems reasonably harmless, I guess.
Apologies if an article about this alt-right little get-together has already been posted:
Alt-Right Exults in Donald Trump’s Election With a Salute: ‘Heil Victory’
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/alt-right-salutes-donald-trump.html?_r=0
It puts me in mind of a sign I used to see in windows in Berkeley:
No Room for Racism
No tolerance of intolerance.
@Mish + Jesalin
That article was kinda my oasis just after the election. AFAIK, nobody who loves me voted Trump, but some of y’all are in that situation. Sympathies and good luck <3
Oh, and here's that bucket:
http://dogsinbuckets.tumblr.com
Not cats, but it should do 🙂
@Dali
Tell me how I saw that coming ?
Like, if you voted for Trump cos he’s an Outsider(tm), fuck you. But that’s not necessarily a bigoted reason. Might be but not necessarily. If you voted for him cos you’re scared of ground troops in Syria, fuck you. Again, not necessarily bigoted. Still, “these reasons didn’t stop you”. They’re all still bigots*, but that doesn’t preclude them having non bigoted reasons. Distinction without a difference? Perhaps, but it’s a useful distinction for my purposes
I don’t see how bigoted economics isn’t economics. You could argue that they don’t end up better off, but that assumes 1)your ‘better off’ is the same as theirs and 2)that everyone’s ‘rational’ and whatnot. ‘Economic reasons’ ain’t the same as ‘a particular interpretation of economic betterment’
@Bella
I wouldn’t ask you to back down from that. Terrible 1st impression notwithstanding, I’ll take your word that he’s not a complete shit all the time. Just… you handle the “reasonable discussion”. Only so much white nonsense I can take in a day before it’s just an unintelligible string of expletives 🙂
*People really need to stop making active and passive bigotry out to be entirely separate things. There’s a difference, but it’s one of scale rather than kind. OK, you’re not as bad as Shirley Phelps Roeper, big whoop
@Belladonna
Well, one is selling vinegar infused with herbs; it won’t actually help what’s wrong, and you’ll still be in exactly the same state no matter how much you drink. The other is selling turpentine infused with arsenic and amanita mushrooms. It won’t cure anything, and has good odds of straight up killing you if you drink it; you’ll definitely feel a lot worse
@Axe
Because they’re not actually voting ‘lower my taxes’; they’re voting ‘fuck those ‘welfare queens”. They’re
Being as their version of ‘better off’ is when you and I are dead, I really don’t give a shit what they think ‘better off’ means. Cos they’re fucking fascists, and need to just fuck off.
Economic betterment’s something you can actually objectively measure, (via wages, price indices, and various quality if life metrics) and right wing policies don’t provide any of it. Ever. Now, they might be voting for PoCs to suffer in grinding poverty, which is, you’re right, technically an economic position, but it’s one that’s fundamentally grounded in being racist fuckers, so it kinda works out the same in the end.
@Axe
Why thank you for that Axe.
@Kat
That article just gave me chills down my spine.
In other non-awful news, I just got my copy of Pokemon Moon. For the first time ever I actually lost a match against a trainer, the captain for the first trial apparently remembered that owls are weak to fire and slowpoke is squishier than jello. I’m not even mad I’m actually happy to see an npc trainer beat me. Oh boy I can’t wait for the diehard fans to finish up their meticulously edited guides so I can figure out where all the pokes I want are. My future Decidueye, Mimikyu, Tsareena, Salazzle, Salamence and Golisopod team will be realized.
@Dali
And that’s all I’m saying. You’ll get no argument from me 🙂
@Oogly
Somebody knows what’s up! ?
Seconding that! Thanks for that link Axecalibur, she articulated a lot of my feelings as well.
@WWTH
I had no idea that ‘dogwistle’ as a strategy for republicans had such a clear origin. Wow.