When Donald Trump lauched 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase last night, it took a lot of observers by surprise, none more so than the Alt-rightists and fellow travelers who’ve long made up his most fervent fan base. To say they weren’t pleased would be a gross understatement.
“The memes have turned on us,” the person manning the Twitter account of White Supremacist website Virginia Dare Tweeted sadly. “Kek is fickle.”
Prominent Alt-Rightests and fellow travelers, from Richard Spencer and David Duke to RAMZPAUL announced that they were done with Trump, while anonymous Alt-Rightists with nicknames like Fashy American and WaffleSS cried “betrayal” on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/850305201068224513
Did Trump promise another war in the Middle East when he announced his candidacy? At the RNC? Inauguration address?
Total betrayal.
— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) April 7, 2017
There was no 4D chess strategy. Trump is just a liar. He betrayed his voters and supporters.
— RAMZPAUL (@ramzpaul) April 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/cubantoastmafia/status/850452061225398273
https://twitter.com/ENDSIEG95/status/850459298723495936
Even the Son of God, or at least someone claiming to be Him, had some choice words on the subject.
https://twitter.com/We_Love_You_IU/status/850436817039917056
Some pulled out the dreaded “c” word. No, not that one; the other one, the one that ends in “uck.”
https://twitter.com/JayMillerCA/status/850459246777053184
https://twitter.com/Jimmy_TheToucan/status/850423515996196865
https://twitter.com/Treuburg/status/850305248820441088
America has a boomer cuck problem. Yesterday, Donald Trump proved he is, in fact, a boomer cuck too. #boomerang
— European Americans™ (@EuropidWhites) April 7, 2017
Others went a step further, pulling out a certain three-letter-word starting with “J.”
https://twitter.com/whites_united/status/850390973557428224
https://twitter.com/DerFolgt/status/850363034526773249
https://twitter.com/bleachsommelier/status/850397581519843329
It seems clear that Trump’s Syrian attack has lost him a good chunk of his Alt-Right supporters, quite possibly the vast majority of them, a fact not lost on his angriest Alt-right critics.
MAGA Revolution dead today, 76 days old. https://t.co/bxPTIlGJLv
— European Americans™ (@EuropidWhites) April 6, 2017
https://twitter.com/KyleBristow/status/850311461163470849
Trump just lost his online army. But I'm sure his new neocon friends will stick by him, right?
— VDARE (@vdare) April 7, 2017
The #AltRight is now totally independent of Trump, and this anti-West, pro-terrorist foreign policy. Organize, organize, organize.
— VDARE (@vdare) April 7, 2017
https://twitter.com/FashyAmerican/status/850455329133518848
But a few of his longtime fans couldn’t quite stick the flounce. Lat night, Alex Jones employee Paul Joseph Watson announced dramatically that he was “OFF the Trump Train.”
I guess Trump wasn't "Putin's puppet" after all, he was just another deep state/Neo-Con puppet.
I'm officially OFF the Trump train.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 7, 2017
But today, after losing some of his Twitter followers over his Trump criticism, he insisted that when he said he was “OFF the Trump Train” he didn’t really mean “OFF the Trump Train” as in literally OFF of it. He had really just meant to imply that maybe he’d just moved to another car?
I am off the Trump train in terms of Syria, which I will criticize, but I have not "turned on Trump" as the media claims. Fake news.
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 7, 2017
There were others in and around the ALt-Right who had similarly, er, nuanced responses to the Syria strike. That will be the subject of at least one future post.
sorry I meant Pie, thanks for explaining. It’s witching hour here and the kids are screaming. (read: Going to bed)
@Weird Eddie
Trump isn’t a conman… he’s a blatant liar. He lied again and again and again during his campaign, clearly and provably, on camera. And then lied about lying.
Its the same old “leopards eating people’s faces party” thing. These idiots just thought that he’d carry on lying about hilary and the economy and poor people and so on, and wouldn’t lie to them because he’s such a nice trustworthy guy. That’s not a con; that’s wilful fucking stupidity.
@Mish
As they say here, may you always have a spare bottle. (no one but me actually says that)
And may you always manage to behave with the substances. (no one says that either but I feel like they really should)
May has the bestest skies. Or, well… at least in the northern hemisphere. The sky in May always seems frozen (if not for dat swirlin) between spring clear blue and summer storms, like it’s torn in half. It’s friggin awesome.
May also has a yearly punk rock festival which has been a pilgrimage for me since my tweens. And, yeah, that’s where all that shit started. Stuff generally always happens there, good or bad, and it defines the rest of my year. Usually it starts good but spins out of control as soon as May’s over. Sometimes the other way around. Sometimes both at once because life is weird.
And it happens under the bestest skies, which make for an awesome setting in which to get drunk and baked off one’s face. Even the air’s got that particular taste and I can’t get enough of it.
Sadly it’s also the mother of all the places I’m ostracized from, and pretty much everyone knows it, and pretty much no one’s neutral. A lot of people still do want me around and it’s for them I make the trip, but I’m sick to death of how others treat me. The big problem this year is that I strongly suspect that any semblance of peace I was able to enjoy before was entirely due to a guy called Raph. Raph’s my best friend, and also a friend of the people who want me gone. Raph is also one hell of a soothing influence for anyone and in any context. And right now, Raph’s in NZ for a year and I already missed the bastard for a variety of reasons not even related to the festival.
So I’m basically preparing to take a three-day stroll into a hostile land without my usual training wheels. And it’s gonna be awesome and the sky’s gonna be the bestest but there’s also a very real chance I’m gonna end up borked even beyond my current state. I could afford some safety if I still had friends to go with, but I’m paying the price of all that hermiting now. Gonna have to rely on my charm and supply of fun-things-to-have-in-your-bloodstream to find a group once I’m there. Read : I better grab a lot of beer and pot.
I don’t even have a funny metaphor for how fucked up everything is. It’s beyond ridiculous. Especially since I’m the element with the worst fucked-up factor and all of that shit could be avoided by just… not going. But I can’t do that either. Sad !
@Sinkable John,
The May skies are beautiful here, too, although differently so. The weather is slowly cooling, and from about 5-6pm there’s a gorgeous blue glow, and the air feels incredible – all fresh and crisp. It’s my favourite time of day. And then winter skies! Here they are the bluest of blue – sort of makes up for the Dreaded Awful Summer Heat of Hell.
Your music festival sounds incredibly intense – and I don’t mean the music. If it were me, I’d never go back again (due to a mix of terror, anxiety, and suspicion of anything habitual) but I get how important it is to you. You want to keep going because it’s part of you, part of your life, but I’m thinking too that it causes much upheaval and real pain and grief.
There are certain songs I can’t listen to – even though I love them – because they’re linked to horrible times. I can’t imagine immersing myself in music, smells, sounds, and people, that bring that all back.
I just realised I’m probably making it worse – oops. And hey, you’ll get out of the house, right? So that’s … good?
I haz no wisdom or help to offer. I wish I did, ’cause it’s obvious how messed up you’re feeling, especially as your friend Raph is away – that really sucks. Feel free to chat about it if it helps at all 🙂
P.S. I thought of you last week – in my Comms class we were talking about anxiety and phobias and methods of dealing with. One student told us she was arachnophobic, and she was the real deal, poor thing – just thinking about spiders made her ill. I pity her living here 😐
@Mish
I’ve been experiencing both health and economic challenges since we last talked. I’m working on getting on top of them. Fingers crossed.
This ball of not-what-I-wanted started with Donald Trump’s election, which is a tragedy for me, the USA, and the rest of the world. I’m having to step up my resistance game. Sometimes I can barely believe that this man is the president of my country.
On the plus side, California is officially no longer in a drought. And my nearly 17-year-old cat seems to be in fine health. She was my late mother’s cat, but we’ve had her for almost 10 years. She and her brother constantly bicker, but I think they also make life interesting for each other.
I hope your situation improves soon. I’m glad you’re back!
@Mish
Noes, don’t worry. It’s a pretty accurate assessment of it all and that can’t hurt. And yes, it is good that I get to go out. I’m growing more and more socially awkward and anxious with time, and things like that help reverse it.
I just wish there was some room for forgiveness. That awkward “limited mutual tolerance” shit is doing no one any good, especially when some of them actually seem to try and taunt me by waltzing into my camp and sitting by my fire under the pretense that it’s the only fire around and I shouldn’t make it if I don’t want people sitting by it.
No regard at all for the fact that I have to build and keep my own damn fire since there’s a pretty high chance I’ll be shoo’d away from any other camp. That’s the entire reason why I’m the guy who’s always got a fire : I’m the guy who can’t rely on anyone else for anything, which is pretty fucking rich considering it’s a festival. And I’m not trying to keep anyone away from it either, as far as I’m concerned all are welcome, ’cause it’s about making sure no one freezes their ass off in a cold rainy night. Even if their presence isn’t exactly making me comfortable. Still, there’s a hell of a line between that and just waltzing in and sitting next to me with all yer friends while pretending I ain’t there.
Ugh. Hello, teal deer rant. Talking about this invariably gets me worked up 😐
Eh, they were conned. Just because someone has shitty intentions doesn’t mean they werent conned. Ask any conman – they’ll say that you can’t con an honest person – they play to your greed, or in this case, bigotry and hatred. Each supporter of Donald Trump saw what they wanted to see despite ALL the evidence to the contrary.
@rugby
But conned them into what exactly? A con implies getting someone to do summat they didn’t wanna do or not delivering on promises made. They totally did want the person they voted for to ban Muslims. Then when he tried, people realized how shit that idea was. Ditto for ‘repeal and replace’ and bombing the Mideast. He said he would, and he’s going forward with what he said he would
Especially cos it’s not Trump. They’ve wanted to hurt brown people since forever. They hated Obamacare before anything was ever written. Trump didn’t make them believe that stuff. Like, I’d say he maybe conned them on the wall stuff. Getting Mexico to pay for it, the fuck even was that? But I’m not seeing the deception with this bombing…
@Axe
He did somehow con them into thinking he’s smart and competent.
Which seriously fucking boggles the mind. Other than that, I agree that they got precisely what they wanted. The fact that they only feel “betrayed” now shows that pretty clearly.
@axecalibur – they were conned because they believed that he would do the thing he said he would that they liked but they completely ignored the other things he said he’d do that they didn’t like. Some Mexicans or those married to Mexicans voted for Trump to get rid of the Muslims, but they didn’t believe that he’d really be so deportation-happy for them. And vice versa. My ex supported Trump (though no vote) and as an alt-right Bannon-loving dude, he can’t believe that he went back on his word on Syria. Some voted for him to ‘bring back jobs’ or coal but believed that he would sort out the cost of healthcare, because in non medicare expansion states the cost of premiums really did go through the roof and Obamacare ‘failed’ (by design, but it did fail), but obviously he has no intention of doing that. Trump said so much contradictory stuff to so many, that if you did selective listening then you could hear whatever you wanted. Being conned requires believing what you want and turning off the danger signals. Trump may be an illiterate, non-thinking, reactive, thin-skinned fool, but he’s really good at the con.
Do I think being conned excuses them? No, certainly not. They were conned because they finally found a candidate that promised to do deplorable things – they just didn’t reckon he’d do the deplorable things they didn’t like.
@Kat,
I hope the health and economic situations aren’t too serious! Good to hear that other things are going well. 17 is a good age for a kitteh to still be going strong. As for your* president person, um … you guys have a lot of support and sympathy all around the world, including where I am. Hang in there and take care of yourself.
*”your” president in the generic sense, not yours personally.
@faintingcouches
(I really like your nym). NZ wines are the bestest. My half-sister lived over there for a while and is firmly of the opinion that NZ is bestest in all the things. Particularly Peter Jackson 🙂
@John, you’re going to the thing, I get it. Just look after yourself, okay? And don’t throw anyone in the fire.
David Futrelle,
You should have included those. People need to see just how hate filled the alt right really is, and how much people like this would love to turn the US into Nazi Germany.