#white nationalist rally

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Trump and his sycophants have destroyed the Republican Party. They are no longer conservatives either fiscally or on foreign policy. They are a party of chaos beholden to the right-wing culture warrior oligarchs. They are the derogatory agents of those oligarchs and the corporations owned by them. They make decisions based on the whim of a deranged madman.

They have gone from being closet racists/bigots to being full blown Nazis that call for the extermination of their culture war scapegoats they call “vermin” (marginalized people/political rivals). They take this term directly from Hitler who they openly embrace in speech and writing. They no longer care about tax cuts for all but just for the 1% and corporations. They want endless wars to profit from and to distract and rally their deplorable base. They no longer want small, limited government but opt for a massive government that intrudes into its citizens private lives and tramples their freedoms.

The party of law and order is now a party of criminals, sex offenders, grifters, traitors, and murderous street thugs. They are proud of this and fund raise and merchandise from their lawlessness. They have bought control of what is now an illegitimate SCOTUS which never allows them to be held accountable.

They use the KKK, Neo-Nazi groups, armed right-wing militias, Neo-Confederates, and white supremacists to persecute their opponents and victims in the streets and inside the Capitol itself. They tell us to “get over it” when mindless gun violence decimates our families in every public venue from churches, to schools, to 4th of July celebrations, movie theaters, shopping malls, and even a Super Bowl parade.

The police, courts, and legislatures are infested with their white nationalist/supremacists and Christo-fascists. They openly take money from Russia and others to influence our foreign policy and economic policy. Money from Russia is funneled into the NRA and Congress to allow a massive proliferation of gun violence on our streets that destabilizes our society.

They claim to be the party of the military but they degrade and insult our troops and cast our veterans into the streets. They abandon our allies and our treaty obligations at the behest of foreign dictators that bribe them.

They bust our unions and pass laws to weaken or prevent organized labor. They are forcing society to become wage slaves with no security, insurance, or pensions. They force our workers into the “gig economy” where everyone works incredible hours 7 days a week at multiple jobs and still are left unable to afford rent or mortgages. Nearly the entire population is one or two paychecks away from being homeless.

Decades of trickle down economics has seen our tax dollars poured into the accounts of billionaires, millionaires, and corporations with not a penny trickling down to the working class. The middle class has been practically wiped out by cruel Republican legislation written by political think tanks established and funded by oligarchs. The only thing these pseudo-conservatives conserve is their own wealth.

This is late stage capitalism run amok. The economy has been drained and now the oligarchs and corporations are plundering the government. They have taken advantage of decades of right-wing propaganda proliferated by Fox News, conservatives talk radio, and internet podcasts that have brain washed the rural areas into blaming the Democrats that are trying help them while convincing them to vote for the Republicans who have impoverished them. The French Revolution in reverse.

They see the Orange Dictator as their last best chance to completely take over the government and create a kleptocracy that pulls the strings behind an autocracy that pretends to be a republic.

The chaos of the Republican puppets is to distract everyone from the takeover by the oligarchs, corporations, and deep pocketed foreign adversaries.

#vote Biden Harris 2024 #vote blue always #vote democratic down the ballot #republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #Republican corruption #Republican chaos

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump supporters echo pro-Palestinian ‘genocide Joe’ chant

It’s unclear what they meant by it, as Trump has pledged similarly strong support for Israel

SCHNECKSVILLE, Pa. — “Genocide Joe” is a phrase used by pro-Palestine protesters against President Biden because of his unconditional support of Israel amid its onslaught in Gaza. But supporters of former president Donald Trump adopted the chant at his campaign rally Saturday night — even as Trump similarly pledged unconditional support of Israel hours after Iran launched retaliatory drone and missile strikes into the country this weekend.

I feel like I have stepped into Bizarro world. If Trump had been president at the time of the Oct. 7th Hamas attack, Trump would have been just as (if not more) supportive of Israel's attempt to destroy Hamas by attacking Gaza as Biden has been. In fact, after Iran's attack, Trump is currently pledging unwavering support for Israel, and calling Biden's response "weak."

It seems to me that the MAGA folks shouting "Genocide Joe" are just echoing the insults thrown at Biden by some on the left--even though these same MAGA folks, if Trump becomes president, would undoubtedly cheer Trump on in supporting Israel's military.

In addition, Israel is not the only place where genocide is happening in the world. Genocide is happening by Putin against the people of Ukraine. (Curiously, some on the left who protest Israel's actions are strangely silent about the Ukrainian genocide.) With Trump in the Oval Office, there will be no one to stop Putin from committing more genocide against the people of Ukraine and of other Eastern European nations that Putin wants to invade.

This is an example of how the far right and some on the left can wittingly or unwittingly join together to set the stage for Trump to win the election and usher in a "Christian" nationalist/ neofascist state (especially through Project 2025)--a state that enables even further genocide by Israel AND by Putin (who actually is the closest person we currently have to Hitler on the planet).

I really wish that more Americans would study the history of the Weimar Republic. Infighting on the left enabled the fascists to rise. Infighting on the left can result in Trump being able to win the White House and impose his neofascist agenda on all of us. And if some on the left think that Biden is "evil," they ain't seen nothing yet.

#trump #maga #israel #genocide #far left and far right as strange bedfellows #iran #putin #ukraine #the washington post

[ainescribe]

the irony of being indian and supporting israel is completely omitting british colonialism from your history and walking over the sacrifices of people who were labeled terrorists, who died to free us. we're a free people because of them. and supporting israel is pure disrespect to that.

what would bose say? gandhi say? nehru say? all these men were not perfect human beings. they had flaws. but they wanted us to be free. they were arrested, assassinated, silenced, humiliated as they rallied for freedom. india once stood for palestine. a lot of us still do, those who refuse to let people suffer, those who still hold their humanity close.

you call yourselves nationalists yet you forget the scars the west brought upon us. you forgot jallianwala bagh. you forgot the bengal famine. you forgot the artisans who lost their businesses, their hands and pieces of our culture. you forgot the farmers who lost their revenues, razing their crops and their source of income and food down to plant indigo just to dye british clothes. you forgot the women raped, the children murdered, the traditions lost, the cultures appropriated, the razing of queer and sexual identity to the ground. all of them. you have forgotten all of them.

in the end, the extremists in this country are bootlickers to white supremacy and islamaphobic rethoric. we're already mimicking the actions of our oppressors. we're already silencing the voices of minorities. we're already letting states burn and hate crimes run rampant as we begin a regime of fascism of our own.

we're still the west's dogs in the end.

we were never free.

#from the river to the sea #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free gaza #free palestine #israel is an apartheid state #india #colonialism #britain #british #noah schnapp #i am ashamed.

[visenyaism]

so….the robert e lee statue, thoughts ?

i ask because i recall you mentioning being both southern and a historian — so if anyone is qualified to give a nuanced analysis on the matter i figured you’d be the best candidate. i am broadly against iconoclasm of all kinds but i (a European) am not well versed in the particular history of this period or the statue itself.

mayhaps you can help.

many thanks

sure. so for people who don’t know, today, the Robert E. Lee statue formerly installed in Charlottesville, Virginia, was melted down so that a local Black public history organization can use the material to create new community art.

Luckily for you, Confederate statue removal isn’t actually a nuanced issue at all. This is unequivocally a good thing!!! it’s what the community, a substantial portion of which is Black, wanted! This was the same Robert E Lee statue whose potential removal sparked the unite the right rally in 2017, where white nationalists and nazis holding tiki torches attempted to intimidate the community into keeping the statue up. Eventually, we finally got it removed in 2021, and there was like live music and extremely loud cheering as they took that thing down.

To describe confederate memorials in the south as just iconoclasm is to me a little reductive. They are unambiguously racist. Putting up a statue of someone who fought and sometimes died to continue the mass enslavement of african-americans is racist. The history of these statues is clear: they weren’t installed during or shortly after the Civil War, when the Confederacy was still in living memory. Most of them were put up in the 1890s, during the origin of the jim crow apartheid governments, the 1920s, which saw a huge national revival of white supremacy and KKK racist terrorism, and the 1960s, with the racist backlash to the civil rights movement.

Most statues, including the Charlottesville Lee statue, were put up specifically in front of courthouses and in town squares: the goal was not to celebrate any kind of southern history, but to intimidate Black defendants going to Jim Crow court or Black residents trying to live their lives in white spaces. The message that Confederate statues were intended to send is that the community is not for African-Americans, and to remind them of the legacy of white supremacist violence inflicted against them. They are hateful and all of them need to be taken down.

Today is a great day for Charlottesville and the realization of 7 years of community activism. There are thousands of statues still left across the country to work on next.

#anyways i’m done! this is personal obvi. the years i lived in beautiful cville were a gift and i miss that place so much. #the people working on swords into plowshares are amazing

[toddchavezwatchescartoons]

What's crazy is that the documents uncovered in the arrests of the white nationalists like the Boogaloo and Proud boys showed that the fires, shooting, damages, etc at the BLM rallies was often started by the white nationalists in a (mostly successful) attempt to besmirch  BLM protesters and start a race war.

It's one of the reasons MLK wrote that those who supported civil rights should stop protesting (which he called "methods of persuasion") and switch to boycotts, lawsuits, and voting marches (which he called "methods of coercion")

"What?" You say. "Wasn't I taught that MLK led mighty protests where people were beaten and that attention changed hearts and minds?"

Yes ... that's what you were taught however - for the past 50 or so years there's been a concerted movement from large industry to whitewash MLKs message and change his actual strategy to "protest and get noticed/beaten", the exact strategy he rejected repeatedly.

The MLK and Gandhi messages of how to do civil disobedience was defanged in modern textbooks to become "your suffering makes a change!" The "make noise and people will pay attention" is a story DESIGNED to get progressives to waste energy in the most inefficient manner.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/103hf3s/comment/j307jxb/

#politics #protesting #mlk #blm #black lives matter

[socialjusticeinamerica]

Nimaratta Randhawa “Nikki” Haley anglicized her name and her entire life to gain acceptance from a racist, white supremacist, white nationalist, far-right Republican Party of grifters. Haley chose to become a useful idiot for the Republicans and to share in their criminal grift.

Don’t fool yourself into believing all people of color or all marginalized people are hand in hand in some grand coalition. Haley and others do not support African-Americans, just the opposite, they want to distance themselves from them to gain acceptance from autocratic right-wing Republicans.

This is egregious. Haley denies her heritage and then becomes irate when Trump calls her by her legal name. Curiously the Trumps switched from Drumpf themselves to sound less ethnic.

I’m going to beat this dead horse again. Republicans will always refer to Barry Obama as Barack Hussein Obama to make him sound foreign and menacing and make a not so subtle reference to Saddam Hussein and radical Muslims which they villainize. Saddam wasn’t a radical religious fanatic nor was he involved in 9/11 but that’s another can of worms.

Let us not forget Rafael Eduardo Cruz who has labeled himself “Ted”. Republicans at Trump rallies literally chant “send those sp-cs back”. Rafael and his Dominionist father Rafael Sr know the Republican oligarchs and political establishment won’t accept a Hispanic named candidate so the decision was made to anglicize himself to “Ted”. This makes him more palatable to racist redneck Republican douche bag voters. Another useful idiot changing himself to be accepted by white supremacists autocrats. Racially Cruz is white and his claim to being Hispanic are dubious since he was born and raised in Canada and the US and his papi only lived in Cuba for about 17 years. Rafael Sr’s parents moved to Cuba from Spain just prior to his birth. Racially they’re white. The hypocrisy is stunning as Rafael claims to be Hispanic at election time to garner Hispanic votes in Texas. In point of fact the name Cruz is typically Portuguese but is sometimes found in Spain. Ted ALWAYS calls “Barry” by his given name of Barack Hussein Obama with emphasis on Hussein. The name Hussein is actually one of the most common names in the Middle East and does not imply connects to Saddam like the Republikkkans would have you believe.

While on the subject of name games. Devin Nunes is 100% white European Portuguese. The name is pronounced “noons” but Devin likes to go by “noon-yez” to imply he is Hispanic. Why? Same reason as “Ted”. Rafael’s claimed home state of Texas has a large number of Hispanic residents. California similarly has a large number of Hispanic residents and Devin needed some of their votes to get into office. Devin has even gone as far as to claim to be Hispanic which he is not. No connection to Spain or any of its former South/Central American territories.

These may seem like minor or subtle points but remember that Republicans can only win by cheating or by counting on Democrats staying home. Races are increasingly coming down to the wire and being won by a small number of votes. Nikki has fooled the entire Republican base into believing she’s white and doesn’t want to Trump to say her parents are immigrants from India. The Republikkkan party is built on racism and hatred of immigrants and the truth could potentially cost Nikki millions of votes. Likewise Ted needs to be anglicized for the same reason. Ted goes a step further with micro-advertising to Hispanic communities to gain some of their support without catching the attention of racist and anti-immigrant Republican deplorable assholes. Devin takes a different tack by openly claiming in the past to be Hispanic while privately claiming to be white European in private. Devin is not a national figure and had only to get votes in a small Congressional district where the Hispanic votes were crucial to his election. Like Ted he doesn’t even speak Spanish, however he does speak Portuguese poorly.

Three double dealing useful idiots in service to America First white nationalists. Three immigrant backgrounds covered up. One hoping nobody notices she’s South Asian even though she’s become unrecognizable from her own childhood photos. Three Trump trash traitors to America using a heinous political propaganda machine created by Karl Rove and now in the hands of racist, nativist, trash.

#republican assholes #traitor trump #republican hypocrisy #crooked donald #republican family values #republican values #traitor #resist #“Nikki’’ #Republican dirty tricks #republicans are a numerical minority

[dorka]

Most mar a garbage day is megirta (egybol ossze is omlott a site)

Over the weekend, the always-excellent John Burn-Murdoch, over at The Financial Times, posted an alarming bit of demographic analysis that has now gone very viral. It’s from a column Burn-Murdoch wrote titled, “A New Global Gender Divide Is Emerging,” which shows a tremendous political gap forming between young men and women around the world.

Burn-Murdoch followed up the column with a lengthy thread on X hypothesizing as to what may be causing this gap and thousands of other users have offered up their own diagnoses, as well: Smartphones, video games, economic inequality, lack of education, an over-correction post-#MeToo.

Interestingly enough, though, the bulk of Burn-Murdoch’s reporting focuses on South Korea, the US, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, China, and Tunisia. Which, aside from China and Tunisia, were all countries I worked in, covering elections and far-right radicalization, in and around the time period those countries’ respective political gender gaps began widening. I’m not saying I have a tremendously in-depth understanding of, say, Polish toxic masculinity, but I did spend several days there following around white nationalist rappers and Catholic fundamentalist football fans. And, in South Korea, I worked on a project about radical feminists and their activism against the country’s equivalent of 4chan, Ilbe Storehouse.

In fact, between 2015-2019, I visited over 20 countries, essentially asking the same question: Where do bad men here hangout online? Which has given me a near-encyclopedic directory in my head, unfortunately, of international 4chan knock-offs. In Spain, it’s a car forum that doxxes rape victims called ForoCoches. In France, it’s a gaming forum that organized rallies for Marine Le Pen called Jeux Video. In Japan, it’s 2channel. In Brazil, it’s Dogolachan. And most, if not all, of these spaces pre-date any sort of modern social movement like #MeToo — or even the invention of the smartphone.

But the mainstream acceptance of the culture from these sites is new. Though I don’t actually think the mystery of “why now?” is that much of a mystery. While working in Europe, I came to understand that these sites and their culture war campaigns like Gamergate were a sort of emerging form of digital hooliganism. Nothing they were doing was new, but their understanding how to network online was novel. And in places like the UK, it actually became more and more common in the late-2010s to see Pepe the Frog cosplayers marching alongside far-right football clubs. In the US, we don’t have the same sports culture, but the end result has been the same. The nerds and the jocks eventually aligned in the streets. The anime nazis were simply early adopters and the tough guys with guns and zip ties just needed time to adapt to new technology. And, unlike the pre-internet age, unmoderated large social platforms give them an infinitely-scalable recruitment radius. They don’t have to hide in backrooms anymore.

Much of the digital playbook fueling this recruitment for our new(ish) international masculinist movement was created by ISIS, the true early adopters for this sort of thing. Though it took about a decade for the West to really embrace it. But nowadays, it is not uncommon to see trad accounts sharing memes about “motherhood,” that are pretty much identical to the Disney Princess photoshops ISIS brides would post on Tumblr to advertise their new life in Syria. And, even more darkly, just this week, a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania beheaded his father and uploaded it to YouTube, in a video where he ranted about the woke left and President Biden. Online extremism is a flat circle.

The biggest similarity, though, is in what I can cultural encoding. For ISIS, this was about constantly labeling everything that threatened their influence as a symptom of the decadent, secular West.

(X.com/jeremykauffman)

Taylor Swift, an extremely affluent blonde, blue-eyed white woman who writes country-inflected pop music and is dating a football player headed for the Super Bowl. She should be a resounding victory for these guys. Doesn’t get more American than that. But due to an actually very funny glitch in how they see the world, she’s actually a huge threat.

Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen. But from the 2000s onward, thanks to an increasingly powerful digital public square, young women and people of color were able to have more influence in mainstream culture and also accumulate more financial power from it. And after Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was able to connect this new form of pop influence to both liberal progressive politics and, also, social media, well, conservatives realized they had to catch up and fast. And the fastest way to do that is to try and smash the whole thing by dismissing it as feminine.

Pop music? It’s for girls. Social media? It’s for girls. Democrats? Girls. Taylor Swift? Girls and also a government psyop. But this line of thinking has no limit. It poisons everything. If Swift manages to make it to the Super Bowl, well, that has to become feminine too. And at a certain point, the whole thing falls apart because, honestly, you just sound like an insane loser.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 12 August 2017, 32-year-old anti-racist Heather Heyer was killed and dozens injured in a white supremacist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heather was one of thousands of people protesting against a Unite the Right rally of neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan activists and other white nationalists and anti-Semites, when she was hit by a car driven at speed deliberately into the crowd by a 20-year-old Nazi, who was pictured previously on the Unite the Right protest holding a shield emblazoned with the logo of Vanguard America, a far right group. Elsewhere in the city, another group of fascists attacked and viciously beat DeAndre Harris, a young Black education worker, leaving him with spinal and other injuries. President Donald Trump described some of the neo-Nazis as "very fine people". https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2055783907940082/?type=3

[makapatag]

ruminating on the leftism that guides much of my thinking. i'm avoiding the very common pitfall of simply applying theory (written by people benefiting from colonialism a few hundred years ago) to living conditions here in the neocolony of america and looking for ways to actually apply historical dialectic into here--it takes a lot of self awareness because as with all things the majority left position in the philippines is based off of joma sison's MLM-ness and the struggle for a national democracy, which has now kind of devolved into a ultranationalist jerk off between colonial intelligentsia and constant protesting and rallying. whenever they are challenged by the state, the main response is that "everything they've been doing is completely legal" and that nothing they've done is wrong. of course, paradoxically, as Mark Fisher writes in capitalist realism, much of this ends up just reifying capitalist reals and borders, and neatly squares away activism into yet another portion of capitalist life. activism (now also commonly romanticized by so many of those in the middle class to the petty bourgeois) is now subsumed into capitalism.

of course, from my point of view, doing something is better than doing nothing. i've participated in the movements of the national democratic mass organizations of the PH (anakbayan, etc.) (and still do, though my capacity has become limited and i'm focusing on supporting the communities closest to me for the time being) but they're increasingly becoming a sort of ideological stepping stone and for the most part i believe they have been completely subsumed into capitalist ideology.

i think the philippines is largely mostly just capitalist now, even with some modes of tenancy in the countryside seeming feudal, it operates entirely within a capitalist mode of view and application.

i don't subscribe to the sort of unilinear evolution of societies espoused by some soviet theorists (the classless -> slave -> feudal -> capitalist -> communist thing)--a lot of classical leftist and marxist theories can be pretty easily seen as sort of eurocentric. that's no bash, that's just the work of limited perspective. future marxists like fanon expand the marxist perspective greatly, though they seem to be largely ignored by the white bourgeois in my experience

i think ph leftism should be a lot more aware of local ideas on society, and use that to sort of influence and shape their leftism. a lot of leftists sort of scoff at "precolonial studies" as sort of cute at best and absolutely ethnocentric backwardism at worst (many ph leftists know jack shit about precolonial ph and/or seasia in general due to the education system of the philippines and the america-centric culture of the metropoles)

if we apply historical materialist dialectic all the way back to pre-hispanic times we get a treasure trove of societies to contrast and synthesize upon. a shared culture and binding connections with the rest of asia. the ideal state is of course international consciousnesses and solidarity--one that doesn't fall into the trap of capitalist reification through nationalism and the enforcement of the cacophony of signifiers that only serves to reinforce capitalist structures (jingles, voting, art that just regurgitates old socialist aesthetic, revolutionary art that doesn't really say anything because these artists lack proper class consciousness and/or perspective [many ph left artists come from the metropoles after all and/or have been subsumed into nationalist agenda through education systems and the need to belong in communities, art ph being one particularly egregious example that reinforces nationalist signifiers while becoming ignorant of the signified).

all in all the philippine left is completely defeated, as a movement. many leftists adopt anarchist tendencies, joyful militancies, try to live outside of the confines of communism through communes or living in the mountains. if we are to have any chance of challenging capitalism the ph left must interrogate its own biases, interrogate nationalism, review its literature, and then look inward, look to fellow tribes and societies, avoid the interventionist failures of soviet societies, and actually fight for a world that won't just degrade into more wage-labor slavery

"that's idealistic!" if you're shooting for the moon you land on the stars. the direction of the movement is more important than the speed. i fully believe ideological recourse is needed in the ph left--some might even say if there is a ph left still. i wouldn't mind abolishing the idea altogether--the left is still a eurocentric categorization after all. perhaps its time for a new revolution that interrogates current structures, even within so-called progressive organizations, with violent indignation, and finds a way to upend capitalism through a firm grasp in pre-capitalist structures and international ties

#waksthoughts #might get redtagged kapag sa fb ko pinost so #or baka awayin ako ng mga kaibigan kong tibak wahaha #also i hate the socialist aesthetic #that all red thing they keep doing #but that's just me as a seasaner probably

[probablyasocialecologist]

At a rally near the White House, 40 white nationalist National Justice Party, or NJP, members demanded a ceasefire in Gaza on Oct. 28. “[In] a country as broke as ours … why the hell are they dragging us into another Zionist war?” yelled one member of the group, standing next to alt-right podcaster Mike “Enoch” Peinovich. After the speaker made an antisemitic reference to the U.S. as “Zionist occupied territory,” one of the attendees demanded “no more Jewish wars” to a passing cameraman.

[...]

White nationalist Richard Spencer was notable for professing his support of the Zionist project and arguing that Jews and Israelis should support the alt-right because they “want the same things,” which in his formulation is authoritarian ethnic nationalism. Yet his commitment to Israel was opportunistic and has been a frequent topic of discussion on his various livestreams and private Zoom calls for Substack subscribers.  For white nationalists, the show of support for Palestinians is entirely a disingenuous attempt to hijack the conflict to add political weight to their antisemitism. “[For] neo-Nazis and many other white nationalists, anti-Zionism is based on hatred of Jews, not solidarity with Palestinians,” writes researcher of the far right, Matthew N. Lyons, in his 2018 book “Insurgent Supremacists.”  This appropriation of Palestinian struggles has been a long-term strategy in some sectors of the far right, which points to Israeli settler colonialism as an extension of the supposedly malevolent Jewish mind. “They have been doing this for years,” says antifascist researcher Daryle Lamont Jenkins. “It has been ‘an enemy of my enemy is my friend’ kind of thing. But in this case it is hollow, because the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy, but one you are trying to exploit.”

#antisemitism #israel #gaza #zionism #fascism

[botaniqueer]

Heads up! Neo-nazis are trying to infiltrate rallies. Don't let them turn us against eachother. As a Jew, my solidarity with Palestinians must be unconditional.

"Those taking to the streets by the millions, many of them young anti-Zionist Jews, must reject and oppose attempts by the far-Right to enter into the movement to liberate Palestine. We must make clear our opposition to both anti-Semitism and settler-colonialism, two of the pillars of the modern white nationalist movement. Antifascists must also put in the work of educating the wider public about these groups, their symbols, and why no one who is fighting for the freedom of Palestinians should align with white supremacists, fascists, and neo-Nazis."

#palestine -

[mariacallous]

SONNEBERG, GERMANY—First, in true German fashion, the rules were outlined: no alcohol on site, flagpoles capped at three meters, no protesting past 8 p.m. The demonstration followed, with hundreds congregated in the town square shouting insults at the incumbent government; cracking jokes at the expense of refugees, the LGBTQ+ community, and the media; and waving a sea of German flags, with a few Russian ones dotted among them.

“Anyone who dares call us Nazis will be reported to the police,” one of the protesters shouted from a makeshift stage propped up outside Sonneberg’s City Hall, a white mansion built between the world wars. “Germany first,” the protester continued, beckoning the crowds to join in singing the national anthem under a rainy, dark sky.

At 8 p.m. sharp, the crowd quickly dispersed—but they’ll be back next Monday, as they are every week. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they rallied against lockdowns. Now, they call for the overthrow of the current government coalition, and in recent months, the numbers of agitators have started to swell. Many are affiliated with the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD), and although members say they strongly reject what Nazi Germany stood for, a regional chair of the party, Björn Höcke, is on trial for concluding a 2021 speech with the phrase “Everything for Germany”—a slogan widely used by the Nazis. (Under German law, the use of speech, propaganda, and symbolism associated with the Nazi Party and other terrorist groups is prohibited.)

Sonneberg district, home to 56,000 people, is where AfD has celebrated its biggest success to date: Last year, Robert Sesselmann, 51, was elected as the district administrator in a runoff with 52.8 percent of the vote, making Sonneberg the first county in Germany to elect a far-right candidate since the Nazi era. But Thuringia’s AfD branch—where Sonneberg is located—has already been questioning the legitimacy of state institutions and asserted that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a sovereign state, but rather controlled by external powers.

The Thuringia branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has legally classified the AfD’s Thuringia branch as “right-wing extremist,” and the federal office is now deciding whether the party may be classified as a suspected case of right-wing extremism on the national level.

The question is pertinent, since the AfD is gaining in popularity not just in Thuringia, but nationwide. This trend picked up around the time of Germany’s last federal elections in 2021. Nationally, the AfD’s support base has grown to 22 percent, compared to 10.4 percent in 2021. Three states in the east—Thuringia, as well as Brandenburg and Saxony—head to the polls this fall, and a win for the AfD looks likely, as it’s polling around 30 percent in all three states.

“This is a stress test for Germany, and 2024 is a defining year,” said Olaf Sundermeyer, an editor at the Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcast (RBB) and longtime expert on right-wing extremism in Germany. Sundermeyer said that since the AfD was founded in 2013, “the party has continuously radicalized.”

Initially starting out as a euroskeptic party that primarily criticized the European Union’s handling of the eurozone crisis, the party—and its leadership—have continuously shifted toward more nationalist and populist positions, especially since 2015, when former Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed around 1 million refugees into the country.

The legacy and shame of Nazi Germany continue to influence the nation’s politics, and until the AfD’s rise, German society strongly rejected far-right ideologies. But the economic impact of both the 2008 financial crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis have—at least partially—resulted in shifting public perceptions.

“The AfD has successfully managed to alter people’s perception of right-wing extremism, moving it away from its historically charged stigma of Nazism and thus effectively rendering it socially acceptable,” Sundermeyer told Foreign Policy. This, he said, is exactly what has happened in Sonneberg.

The AfD’s new heartland, a remote part of the countryside, was part of the communist German Democratic Republic until reunification in 1990. Surrounded by hills in the Thuringian Forest, Sonneberg’s cobblestone main street and stately houses date back to the Wilhelminian era before the First World War. The nearest major highway is about a half-hour’s drive.

Since reunification, scores of people have migrated westward, leaving many homes empty. Residents say that young people here struggle with drug abuse; that there are few places for them to hang out; and that public transport isn’t adequately connecting the district’s farther, remote villages, making it more difficult to access educational and job opportunities. Since reunification, the country’s east has been catching up to the former West Germany in terms of economic opportunities, but in Sonneberg—and throughout former East Germany—many people continue to feel acutely disadvantaged.

A group of young men lingering after the demonstration echoed these complaints as they chain-smoked Marlboros and packed up whistles and flags. They had opted to move into practical professions—such as construction work, plumbing, and roofing—one explained, to help “build Sonneberg, and Germany overall.”

Attending the demonstration wearing their company uniforms—grey overalls and work pants—the men were initially hesitant to speak to the Lügenpresse, or “lying, mainstream press,” as they described it. “No names please,” they asked politely after agreeing to talk. (“Lügenpresse,” a term used by the Nazis, has resurfaced in Germany’s right-wing circles, as well as among allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump.)

“People call us ‘rats,’ just because we support the AfD,” one of the men said. “There’s no freedom of speech here, no freedom of thoughts. Our country gets involved in wars we don’t want to be part of. The government manipulates the press, our German culture, and our traditions are vanishing due to mass immigration—food and energy prices have skyrocketed. It’s worse than during the German Democratic Republic, and we desperately need change—we need an alternative.” He paused to take a long drag on his cigarette, then added: “Germany is for Germans first—we can’t help others if we’re not helping ourselves.”

“It’s a possibility that the party drifts too far to the right,” he said, “and that’s certainly not what we want. We don’t want a return of Nazi times, but we need change.”

The party’s policy platform is unabashedly far right. For instance, AfD’s stance on immigration is that “the ideology of multiculturalism is a serious threat to peace and to the continued existence of the nation as a cultural unit.” The party advocates for a “German dominant culture” based on the values of Christianity instead of multiculturalism. Africa, the party’s website states, is a “house of poverty,” arguing that migration from the continent needs to be capped.

During a covert meeting last November, uncovered by independent German investigative outlet Correctiv, AfD politicians, together with neo-Nazis and several wealthy business owners, discussed the “remigration” of millions of people—including German citizen—on the basis of racial and religious criteria.

The group of young men in Sonneberg who spoke with Foreign Policy talked about the need for the “remigration” of immigrants, too, and some even had written it on signs. After the rally, though, they headed to dinner at the only restaurant still open: a kebab house owned by an Iraqi Kurd. Their waiter was a Syrian man who arrived in Germany three years ago.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, at least 28.7 percent of Germany’s population—more than 1 in 4 people—have a migration background, meaning that they immigrated to Germany themselves or were born into families with a history of migration. Migration is on the up, with 2.1 million people arriving in Germany in 2015, and 2.6 million in 2022. Germany’s coalition government has said it aims to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad annually to tackle labor shortages and demographic imbalances.

The desire for strong leadership is also on the rise in Germany as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues. Several of the AfD’s members have called for a separation from NATO and even the EU; many have turned to Russia, at least rhetorically, arguing that Germany needs to work with its neighbors. Sundermeyer told Foreign Policy that “the AfD is deeply anti-American but pro- Russian; anti-NATO and -EU, but in favor of turning toward alternative government structures such as authoritarianism.”

Meanwhile, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser continuously calls right-wing extremism the “greatest extremist threat to Germany’s democracy.”

Still, for all the Sonneberg residents who voted for the AfD’s candidate, Sesselmann—who did not respond to interview requests by Foreign Policy—there are almost as many people who did not. And unless it’s during the weekly Monday demonstrations, people don’t usually flaunt their political opinions. The day after the weekly protest, at a food stall selling bratwursts during the lunch hour, conversations revolved around work, the weather, increased food and energy prices, and even Germany’s reunification—“before it, everything was better,” several people agreed.

“In Sonneberg, many voted AfD out of spite, while others don’t take an interest in politics but cast their votes for the AfD regardless,” said Regina Müller, a 61-year-old Green Party voter who owns an organic store decorated with anti-war slogans.

But, she added, “what many here don’t see is that [the AfD] are wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

[reasoningdaily]

Mississippi has the third most hate groups in the country with five hate groups per million residents and 15 total hate groups operating within the state, reports 24/7 Wall St.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the number of hate groups in each state for every 1 million state residents according to data provided the Southern Poverty Law Center. To be considered for 24/7’s ranking, a state needed to have at least 10 active hate groups. Of all hate groups espousing a white supremacist ideology, neo-Nazi groups grew the fastest, from 99 groups in 2016 to 121 in 2017.  

Most Hate Groups Per Capita:

Idaho: 7.1 hate groups per million people, 12 total

Tennessee: 5.6 hate groups per million people, 37 total

Mississippi: 5.0 hate groups per million people, 15 total 

Alabama: 4.7 hate groups per million people, 24 total

Indiana: 4.5 hate groups per million people, 30 total

Virginia: 4.4 hate groups per million people, 37 total

Oregon: 4.4 hate groups per million people, 18 total

Arkansas: 4.0 hate groups per million people, 12 total

Georgia: 3.9 hate groups per million people, 40 total

Colorado: 3.8 hate groups per million people, 21 total

More than 950 hate groups operated in the country last year, with the majority focused on white supremacy, the center said. The report found about 223 black extremist groups, compared to more than 600 white extremist organizations.

Overall, the number of extremist groups, which also include armed militias and male supremacy organizations, rose 4 percent since 2016, according to the center, which monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the U.S. and exposes their activities.

"(This) was a year that saw the 'alt-right,' the latest incarnation of white supremacy, break through the firewall that for decades kept overt racists largely out of the political and media mainstream,” the report said. “The overall number of hate groups likely understates the real level of hate in America, because a growing number of extremists, particularly those who identify with the 'alt-right,' operate mainly online and may not be formally affiliated with a hate group.”

Kyle Bristow, a self-described "alt-right" activist and attorney for high-profile white nationalist Richard Spencer, dismissed the report, saying the center inflates numbers as a fundraising tactic. He also pointed to articles highlighting inconsistent findings by the center, including a recent Politico report about an Illinois town placed on the organization’s “Hate Map,” even though police found no evidence of hate groups there.

“The SPLC reports every year that ‘hate is on the rise' — and their new ploy is to blame President Trump for it — and then they yelp to their left-wing donors that they need more donations to oppose it,” Bristow said. “A lot of the groups they claim to exist don’t actually exist, and those that do many times have the same four or five members.”

The report mirrors similar findings across the country by other experts, who conclude the "alt-right" — a term that covers a loosely defined group whose far-right ideology includes racism, populism and white nationalism — has exploded into popularity.

The rise can partly be attributed to Trump's election, which became a rallying point for white nationalists, who watched as the Republican repeatedly amplified some of their views in campaign rallies and tweets. The movement has also downplayed the white hoods and robes of the KKK in exchange for a seemingly more moderate approach while still focusing on its goal of United States run by and for white people, with minorities either marginalized or removed. 

"The 'alt right' is quickly gaining influence and members, but most of the members are soft-spoken and educated citizens who are concerned about issues like immigration, affirmative action and economic and foreign policy," Bristow said.

Max Wachtel, a forensic psychologist and the author of the book "Sociopaths & Psychopaths," said the rise of hate groups follows a loss of empathy. In a polarized nation, it's no surprise the extremes are getting further apart, he said.

“It can be boiled down to the mantra that the ends justify the means. If you feel very strongly about something, and you absolutely believe that it’s right, anything you do to further that goal is going to be right or justified, even if it’s dangerous or tramples on the rights of others," Wachtel said.

"People think, 'it’s scary to think that someone might take over and do something to the country that I don’t believe in, so I need to react in the strongest terms from happening.' And both sides are doing that,” he added.

While white nationalists have grabbed the majority of headlines, black extremist groups are also active, according to federal law enforcement. The FBI warned last year of the rise of what it called "Black Identity Extremists," suggesting that the killing of unarmed black men by police could spur further violence. As an example, the FBI cited the July 2016 shooting of 11 police officers in Dallas by a black military veteran who said he was angry about police violence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center criticized portions of the FBI's report, but acknowledged black nationalist groups have been increasing in a backlash against "the rising white supremacist movement."

"Typified by their anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT, anti-white rhetoric and conspiracy theories, these black nationalist groups should not be confused with activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and others that work for civil rights and to eliminate systemic racism," the report concluded

#Mississippi has 3rd most hate groups per capita #hate crimes #mississippi #white supremacy #white hate

[ausetkmt]

Donald Trump's Hate Has No Place in Black America. Let's Remind Him in November.

We are seven months out from the most consequential election in our nation’s history, and Black voters know what’s up: A recent survey conducted by Black pollster Cornell Belcher’s firm asked 800 Black voters in battleground states to identify the single greatest threat to the Black community.

Their answer? A second Donald Trump presidency.

We should not be surprised by this finding. Trump is prepared to enact – and in many cases, reenact – policies that will do great harm to the Black community and to communities of color. He is expected to authorize mass deportations, wage war on the federal civil service (of which Black employees comprise 18 percent), cut taxes for the rich at the expense of the middle class, fight to make healthcare more expensive and less accessible and support an abortion ban that will only worsen the maternal mortality crisis.

While we have focused a lot on what Trump would do during a second term with the stroke of his pen, we cannot forget about the damage he inflicted on our community as president without even lifting a finger. Over his four years in office, Trump normalized a culture of racism and xenophobia that trickled down from the highest levels of our government to everyday interactions in-person and online. The former president’s social media posts and speeches were laced with a mix of dog whistles and outright hate speech.

How could we ever forget his claim that the attendees of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. were “very fine people?” Or when he ordered members of the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” after being asked to condemn the white nationalist militia group? Or when he suggested that four Democratic members of Congress – all women of color – should “go back…[to the] places from which they came” in a tweet that a Republican congressman even described as racist?

Coming from the mouth of the President of the United States, this kind of rhetoric signaled that hate did indeed have a place in his America and gave top cover to those who realized they no longer had to keep their racism under wraps.

Consequently, racial violence skyrocketed during Trump’s presidency. In fact, this trend started before he even took office. The Washington Post found that counties that hosted a Trump rally in 2016 experienced a 226 percent increase in hate crimes in the months that followed. From 2016 to 2017, hate crimes across the country increased by 17 percent. From 2018 to 2019, deadly hate crimes more than doubled. And in 2020, more hate crimes were reported than in any year since 2001. Perhaps unsurprisingly, alleged civil rights violations went under-investigated under Trump’s DOJ. During its first two years, the Trump DOJ opened 60 percent fewer civil rights cases than did the Obama DOJ and 50 percent fewer than the Bush DOJ.

For those who think that the extent of the harm inflicted by Trump’s racism can be fully captured in those statistics, think again. In a multitude of ways, the Black community continues to suffer from the flames of hatred that Trump fanned while he was president. For example, racism is exacerbating the Black mental health crisis: Black youth experienced a 144 percent increase in suicide rates from 2007 to 2020, with both institutional and interpersonal racism identified as strong risk factors driving this trend.

While Trump was president for only a portion of that period, he was active in spreading racism – including promoting the Barack Obama birtherism lie – for almost the entirety of it.

Speaking of Obama, the election of our nation’s first Black president helps us understand why the election of Trump – which once seemed unthinkable – was actually an inevitable reaction to Black progress. Study after study has pointed to racial resentment as a significant driver of the support Trump received from his voters. His base wanted trickle-down racism, and trickle-down racism is what they got.

Fast forward to today, and like any other proverbial old dog, Trump is clearly stuck on his old tricks. On the campaign trail this time around, he has already evoked Hitler, saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country, and suggesting that Black voters appreciate him because he is being “discriminated against” in the legal system. Naturally, Republicans have made him their nominee for the third time. But while he might speak for their party, we do not have to let him speak for our country. Not again.

In 2016, Trump promised his supporters the ability to hate openly with impunity, and he most certainly delivered. Now, he’s ready to do it all over again. And while it might be tempting to give into fear and cynicism, we should take hope in recognizing that thanks to our community showing up for Joe Biden in 2020, we helped elect a president who is committed to aggressively prosecuting hate crimes, who has appointed judges with a respect for civil rights, and who recognizes that “hate never goes away, it only hides.”

Donald Trump has never hidden his hate. This fall, let’s show him once again that it has no place in our America.

#Donald Trump's Hate Has No Place in Black America. Let's Remind Him in November. #trump #white supremacy #white hate #white lies #american hate #homegrown racism #race #race in america

[meandmybigmouth]

How about we unsimplify the GOP minsicule work schedule? make them work in office 250 days a year, restore accountability, Truth, have their dereliction of duty carry political consequences!. remove their ability to manipulate voting, Restore separation of church and state, remove from office anyone calling for division, secession and attends white supremist, Christian nationalist hate rally's!. Let her do it as a private citizen!. and lastly roll back citizens united and ban dark money campaign funds form foreign powers!

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Not photoshopped. Swastikas, along with Confederate, Klan, and white nationalist flags are sold at Trump rallies.