By David Futrelle
Yesterday, at an alt-right “Patriot Prayer” rally in Vancouver, Washington, the driver of a Confederate-flag-bedecked truck sped backwards into a group of AntiFa counterprotesters; luckily those in his path were able to jump out of the way.
Here’s how Willamette Week described the incident:
A black Chevy Silverado with Oregon plates and two large American flags and several small flags hanging from its windows (along with a Confederate flag decal displayed on the back window of the cab) drove up to the marchers. It was driving slowly down a street flanked by people dressed in black bloc clothing.
As the crowd parted to clear the way for the truck to move forward, protesters filled the street behind it and started throwing rocks and water bottles at the truck.
The driver suddenly put his vehicle in reverse and accelerated toward the protesters. As he sped up, people jumped out of the street.
The driver continued to drive in reverse for nearly a block, stopping at the next intersection and revving his engine.
The incident was captured on video by journalist Mike Bivins; unfortunately the camera angle makes it hard to see what was going on behind the truck as it backed up.
Whoa, dangerous stuff. People throwing stuff at this truck pic.twitter.com/9PJvK31euB
— Michael (@michaelbivins44) September 10, 2017
Shortly afterwards the truck was pulled over by police, the driver was briefly detained, then released without charges.
The driver was apparently quite pleased to remain a free man, posting a brief video of himself literally wrapped in the American flag and shouting out “no arrest for this proud [unintelligible] patriot!” His brother went on to praise his actions on Facebook, as Mother Jones journalist Shane Bauer noted in a tweet.
https://twitter.com/shane_bauer/status/907282637747716096
Despite the obvious similarity to the car attack in Charlottesville that left antifascist activist Heather Heyer dead, this incident has gotten almost no coverage in the media. Given that Wilson faced essentially no repercussions for what he did, I suspect it won’t be long before we see this terroristic tactic used again by someone else on the far right.
Proud Boys were spraying pepper spray out of their car windows at protesters, too. Nothing happened when police pulled them over, either.
May have gotten away with it with the cops …
I’m trying to figure out what it would take to get people to take right wing violence seriously and I’m coming up empty.
Even the Oklahoma City bombing wasn’t enough. So I’m not hopeful it’ll ever happen.
I feel terrible for thinking this, but I did kinda sigh in relief when it turned out to be in Vancouver, Washington rather than Vancouver, British Columbia. I mean, Vancouver BC already has that ugly 2011 Stanley Cup riot as a black mark against it, and the less said about Todd Bertuzzi, the better.
But here’s the inevitable sigh of disappointment… cuz we all know it’s just gonna get worse. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: knowing that they’re going up against people like this is why I give Antifa the benefit of the doubt. They put their lives on the line every time they march. This isn’t a game of weekend-warrior dressup for these folks; they know that they’re going to be the first ones at risk whenever an unstable jackass decides he wants to become “Based Carman” or whatever asinine nickname the alt-right put on him.
Note to media: you can prevent this stuff by pushing back on the Nazis. Do your damned job!
America in 2017: You can drive your truck through a crowd of protestors, but don’t you dare laugh at Jeff Sessions.
What makes Mr. Wilson think that the people who were mowed down weren’t proud Americans either? At this point it’s Americans killing other Americans.
Too bad none of this is ever framed in the media as what it really is: Terrorism.
Tell it to the cops as well. They should have arrested the driver for attempted murder.
Oh, wait, the cops are Nazis, all too often. Nevermind.
To people like this, American means “thinks like me” and “looks like me”. They do not believe these people are Americans. I know, because I grew up surrounded by this.
I keep expecting to see my brother’s face as the next “based Carman”.
Over at @theantifawatch on Facebook, they posted a piece. I saw his video crowing about getting off, and it nauseates me. I don’t know how I feel about writing his place of work, but I dunno if my reticence is properly warranted given what his did. All this craziness has me at sea, and terrified most of the time. I feel like I’m losing my mind, and also that I’m crazy to still be living here, and also that I’m being over-dramatic to be worried, and then I see people calling for the extermination of people like me, and….
I’m pretty sure we’re going to see this at every protest, now. And I’m pretty sure that the only time there will be arrests or police detainment at all is when there’s been a murder. No preventative actions will take place.
Keep safe, keep aware, my ducks. And if you’re out there, I suggest walking apart from the main body of the protest group with an airhorn, to warn people if someone starts accelerating towards them quickly. Or something like that. I dunno. It’s awful :C Stay safe and keep your heads up <3
Thank goodness no one was hurt by this undeniably evil person.
Driftglass of the Pro-Left podcast I think said it best when he noted that deep down, the right wing hates the idea of America. Sure, they’ll dress up in flags to the point of sheer tackiness and lionize old dead white guys to the point of caricature, but when it comes to the basic promises of America’s constitution as it stands now, they hate them with a fiery passion, because the promise is one of fundamental equality (and I would argue equity) under law. Theoretically, that is what the goal everyone is striving for. But that would mean the lowest white man could no longer use a black man as a yardstick for success (as prominent Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson noted about his own people). Hence this need to redefine patriotism as the biggest flag-waving, Bible-thumping, gun-toting manly-man around (ladies of course have different expectations).
So when a right-winger claims to love America, it’s a lie. They like the supremacy and social Darwinian mode of American capitalism, but the idea of America as a just society… nah, if 2017 has proven anything, it’s that they hate it more than anything.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t share citizenship with these people.
I think this is a tactic that’s going to be used more and more frequently at all protests now, since people like that seem to think this tactic has been somewhat successful. The one thing I’ve definitely noticed about Alt-righters and their ilk are their limited imaginations.
But I suppose, if they were very imaginative people, they wouldnt be doing what they’re doing, or believing what they’ve been espousing.
@Gussie Jives
When they say they love America, they’re not talking about any set of principles or the constitution (other than the Second Amendment). They’re talking about a tribe. Tribalism isn’t about ideals or aspirations, it’s about ‘me and mine vs. you and yours’. The former means they and those who think like them, and the latter means everyone else, especially the people they hate.
@Gussie Jives
I agree with giving Antifa the benefit of the doubt, I met two at a meeting of the green party in LA, and I think they’re trying their best and try to be non-violent. So, I was disappointed to read people were throwing rocks and water bottles at the truck. Which doesn’t excuse the drivers behavior, it just makes it easier for apologists like tRump to muddy the water.
However, I do think we need to add to our repertoire of combating neo-nazi’s. More like the way David does here, bringing their general horribleness to light, and mocking it.
We need to mock them, and if possible fund raise off them. Like the group in Germany that used neo-nazi marches to raise funds for an anti-extremist organization.
Fighting these guys with violence just gives them a hard-on, as one guy admitted above. Laughing at them is better.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tricked-into-raising-10000-for-charity
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/how-to-make-fun-of-nazis.html?mcubz=3
Last I heard he was arrested, and now you’re telling me he was released? This fucking country, I swear!
@Romi:
I agree that laughing at them is a worthy addition to our repertoire. (Hence this site. ;)) We however do not expect that merely laughing at them will result in no violence from the fascists. They will be violent no matter what we do, as has been shown time and time again.
(Unless they’re outnumbered.)
Over a hundred murders have been linked to Stormfront alone. White supremacy and fascism are inherently violent. Answering this with ‘let’s hurt their feelings’ is an insufficient response, and we need to ask ourselves what and who is served by liberal hand-wringing and calls for nonviolence. We need to defend our vulnerable communities, and I am grateful for everyone actively defending mine.
Idk, man. I keep thinking of that video of the Neo-Nazi who practically ripped off his little polo shirt and started screaming that he didn’t really believe in all that Neo-Nazi crap once he was actually confronted by angry people. I wonder how many others are like him, thinking gleefully about how to piss off the normies, never considering what the consequences are when you show up to threaten and intimidate people.
I don’t condone vigilante justice. It’s not worth it and it goes bad very very quickly. But I find it hard to muster sympathy for someone who dresses in Nazi or Klan regalia and chants nasty things about Jews and black people with all their friends, only to take a full water bottle to the head because the people they’re trying to intimidate are furious and frightened.
So the new conservative/alt-right thing to do when someone disagrees with you or says speech that makes you have sad or angry feels is to assault them from the safety of your vehicle. Sounds about right.
You can make sense of right wing Americans by asking yourself: “What was their little patch of the USA like 150 years ago?”
For the Southeast, the answer of course is plantation slavery. Their vision of “America” begins with “Confederate states of”.
For the rural West, that would be the Wild West, when there was no federal law west of the Mississippi and the local sheriff and deputies were basically sovereign. Hence the Bundies and their war against the BLM, and the focus on deregulating. They object to the national parks and the Malheur Wildlife Reserve and this being verboten and that having a grazing fee/tax and needing a permit for this other thing.
For the Northeast, that would be unbridled capitalism without any pesky labor laws and with a large, impoverished, easily exploited desperate workforce. Hence why the Northeast repugs like Walker and Christie seem to have as their main focus destruction of unions.
White supremacy and social Darwinism are at the heart of America, though. They’ve always been there. Capitalism wasn’t invented in America but we may have perfected it. It’s a long, slow slog toward a society of equality, and we haven’t reached it yet. We probably never will.
So it’s not that they hate America, but that they hate what America is slowly becoming (maybe). They want the old America, where white people could lynch black people with impunity, and women were shamed for entering the public sphere. Their ideas of what that was like are ahistorical and unworkable, but there was a time when those things were true, and that’s what they want to retrieve from the sands of time.
But remember: Antifa are all violent terrorist regressives, who have gone to far and made this all happen because they punched a Nazi in the face.
My burning hatred for people who identify as “centrists” (that means you side with the people who won’t rock YOUR boat) aside, yes, these people hate Western society.
They would instantly abolish “Innocent till proven guilty” and “in doubt for the defendant”. They would eagerly discriminate against anyone who isn’t exactly like them. They would throw women into the kitchen.
They claim they love “the west”, but they just like living bicuriously through the deeds of greater people, whose skin colour they share.