Couple walks around Rhode Island Holocaust memorial wearing Nazi armbands and MAGA hat

[Soph0571]

The Providence Journal reports that a man and woman were seen outside a downtown eatery on South Main Street in Providence, Rhode Island, wearing swastika armbands—the woman had on a swastika-emblazoned shirt, while the man also wore a red Make America Great Again Trump hat.

According to Sondra Pierson, who took photos of the two and spoke with the Journal, the two smoked cigarettes, crossed the street to the Rhode Island Holocaust Memorial, and took photos of one another posing around the memorial park. Pierson says she confronted the two, who responded sarcastically and then got into their car and drove away. Pierson called the police, but realized there really wasn’t much the police could do.

[link:https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/19/1851566/-Couple-walks-around-Rhode-Island-Holocaust-memorial-wearing-Nazi-armbands-and-MAGA-hat?utm_campaign=trending|

WTF? Literally. What. The. Fuck?!?!?! How is this ever OK? And, how are they allowed to get away with it?

[MFM008]

1. They dare you

To say something.

[Downtown Hound]

18. They're lucky I wasn't there.

They might think they want me to do something, but they really wouldn't like what I actually would do.

[samnsara]

2. i think totally ignoring these jerks would have been the best..

..they are out for attn and if they don't get it they are irrelevant. Lets make them all irrelevant.

[Tanuki]

11. I wish the person who took the photo had also captured their MA license plate

and publicly identified them by name and home town.

[Downtown Hound]

19. Ignoring them isn't always the answer

And sometimes, makes things worse. Sometimes, you got to take a stand.

[Ilsa]

3. They are rude, uncaring deplorables.

They are agitators, spoiling for a fight. I hope it catches up with them.

[2naSalit]

5. +1

Some are serial antagonists, unless somehow isolated, they repeat their offensive attacks on decency as the bar falls ever lower and they become normalized.

[Cartoonist]

6. It will catch up with them

They are smokers.

[Blues Heron]

4. tweet the pics see if their employer approves

[Tarc]

7. Here's a pic of the couple

Another article on this says that some teens skateboarding nearby came up and filmed the encounter. I'm searching for that now to see if it made its way online.

[Soph0571]

8. Well, aren't they special?

Thunks for posting - odious people

[VOX]

15. What a lovely, inspirational pair of nazi lovebirds.

Jesus, just how anti-social can these feral “people” get? It’s as if there’s a running contest to see who can be the most deplorable Deplorable.

So grateful to have lived to see this moment.

[DontBooVote]

35. Look at those idiots. They've got a combined education of about 11 grades. It's

no surprise to me that they smoke cigarettes. Because, you know, smoking being bad for your health is "fake news! So, we're doing that too to stick it to the libruls!"

[FreepFryer]

9. Point at them, and laugh. Mock their impotence and ignorance. (n/t)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

10. Well, I gotta give them something. At least they're

wearing that stupid ass hat with the correct attire.

[snowybirdie]

12. As deplorable as these folks may be

they didn't violate any laws. Classic 1st Amendment right. Hard to stomach, but we need to ignore the jerks. Confrontation is what they were looking for. Ignoring them is the best defense. Ugh!

[UniteFightBack]

14. Yes this. We can't go locking people up just because they are disgusting. That is what makes this

America. Not sure what the OP is suggesting here.

[Tarc]

16. No one is denying 1st amendment rights here, genius

What can and should be done is that these two are named and shamed. Let's see how their neighbors feel about living next to Nazis, how their employers feel, and so on.

Confront them and grind them into the dirt, make it impossible to live anywhere in peace til they flee to a paper shack in the woodlands.

[snowybirdie]

17. Well thank you

for seeing just how "genius" I am. Real insight!

[WillowTree]

20. Why so snarky? snowybirdie was just stating a fact.

Your unwarranted sarcasm reflects far more negatively on you than your target.

Have a great weekend.

[Tarc]

23. I don't take kindly to clods who do the "MUH FREE SPEECHEZ!" shtick

for Nazis. It's unhelpful and normalizes their behavior.

[dumbcat]

37. Free Speech for Me

.... but not for thee!

[hardluck]

27. Good luck shaming a guy who has swastikas tattooed on his eyebrows, genius

You don’t think his neighbors and work might have already noticed that tidbit?

[Tarc]

34. Seem pretty fervent in defending this guy

Common ground?

[rzemanfl]

40. Bookmarking. n/t

[dumbcat]

38. Someone upthread was advocating reaction

that sounded a lot like physical violence.

There are plenty of folks here that would deny first amendment rights for speech they don't like.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

13. Just out of curiosity

From the Providence Journal's account of this little incident:

Nevertheless, Pierson said she was horrified by the sight. The man, she said, had swastikas tattooed where his eyebrows should be.

Where do you suppose people like this work? Swastikas where his eyebrows used to be. What do this guys job interviews sound like? Well sir, tell me a little bit about yourself and why you think you'd be a good fit for this position-by the way, I love your eyebrows. Or does he have his own business? A. Hitler Sewer Cleaning- so it shows up near the top of the listings. Lot's of good decent people out there struggling to make a living and trying to get good jobs. Who hires these idiots? The fact that people like this are able to survive in our society says an awful lot of awful things about us.

[irisblue]

21. That couple explicitly saw Nazi and MAGA as the same idea

Explicitly.

[area51]

39. +1 n/t

[struggle4progress]

22. In America, it's not illegal to be an unbalanced half-wit

[Totally Tunsie]

24. MAGATs.

Duh...a couple of losers.

[Raine]

25. Trying to incite a riot is what they should be charged with

fucking assholes!

[Thekaspervote]

26. You can't fix stupid!!

[Salviati]

28. We should crowdfund them a trip to Germany, so they can try to pull that shit there...

[JI7]

29. economic anxiety

[Hortensis]

30. Nasty creeps, but what's not to understand about FREE SPEECH?

I'm dismayed at the responses here on DEMOCRATIC Underground.

"How are they allowed to get away with it?" Well, Soph, too many on the right agree "it" shouldn't be allowed in a properly regulated society.

Personally, I wouldn't have given them the attention they obviously sought, not even a glance. Fortunately, the person who did apparently backed off before they reported her to the police for harassing them.

[Soph0571]

31. As a Brit - we have a different definition of free speech

That is where I was coming from - here they would have been at the very least rejected - most likely arrested. I understand the first amendment.... BUT.....

[Hortensis]

32. Gotcha. We have laws for when exercise of free speech

develops into a threat, and those have been expanded so that it doesn't have to be an imminent threat to life or property. Though not enough. I favor control of broad dissemination of lies and other deceptions for the purpose of manipulating populations. But not individual expressions like this, such as flag burning also reliant on offending deeply held beliefs.

Hard-core conservatives here have spent decades trying to pass laws declaring flag burning not free speech. That was interrupted when McConnell et al told right wing media to stop running segments on flag burning because they wanted to pass Citizens United on the argument that buying politicians was free speech.

They did, flag burnings of course stopped when they failed to attract outraged attention, and to this day at least 100,000,000 right wingers have no idea why, with most probably not even noticing that they have. But we of course know the hard-cores will rush to righteous anger that it's allowed the first time Fox tells them to be mad.

[Mariana]

36. The only way to "do something" about people doing this kind of thing

is to make their identities and their behavior publicly known. Since they are in a public place, they can have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, it's perfectly acceptable to photograph them (as was done here), and to publish stories about them (as was done here). If possible, their names, place of residence, and employers, if any, should be found out and published as well. This is not in any way equivalent to doxxing someone online. These people were displaying their Nazi regalia in a public place. It was their intention to attract attention to themselves.

[NYMinute]

33. Trump is emboldening all racists

when the president is openly racist and xenophobic people so inclined think it is ok

sad