A tale of two stories: Seattle's brushes with hate

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist

In a certain world, one populated by a surprisingly large subset of the nation, Seattle now is a city of intolerant and violent leftists hellbent on stomping Trump supporters. Oh and we have green hair.

This is the view you got if you went down the rabbit hole of the right-wing Wurlitzer media machine this past week.

If you missed it — and that depends almost entirely on your Facebook algorithm — a 17-year-old from Illinois made national and international news here this past week when he walked around Capitol Hill wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

Snip

A few years ago, I would have chalked all this up to fringe silliness. But times have changed. The main conservative sites that featured the story — the Daily Mail, Breitbart, Western Journal, The Epoch Times, Daily Caller and Infowars — now have among them more than 35 million followers on Facebook alone (a hundredfold more than The Seattle Times).

The MAGA-hat-wearing teen then used the incident to indict entire belief systems: “I want to expose the left for what they do,” he said. By Monday he was on Fox News national radio, concluding: “If someone wears an Obama hat … I don’t think they have to be scared of people giving them bad looks or assaulting them.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/a-tale-of-two-stories-seattles-brushes-with-hate/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning+Brief+7-25-18_7_25_2018&utm_term=Registered%20User

A New Talking Point From the Pro-Trump Fringe

On Wednesday morning, in the midst of yet another contentious news cycle dominated by coverage of Russian election meddling, I tweeted a kind of thought experiment: “If Trump & co. just pivoted to ‘Aren’t you glad Russia helped us defeat Hillary Clinton?’ would there be any serious blowback from his base?”

The question was rhetorical. The answers that began trickling in were not.

“No,” said Cassandra Fairbanks, a writer at the right-wing news and conspiracy website Gateway Pundit (and a former Sputnik employee). “I mean, I would be cool with it. Im already there. If russia was involved we should thank them.”

“No,” responded another self-identified Trump voter. “Hillary is a greater threat to our Republic.”

Several people pointed me to Jacob Wohl, a Trump booster with a large Twitter following, who had mused just hours earlier, “If Russia assists MAGA Candidates on the internet in this year’s midterms, that’s not the end of the world.”

More:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/trump-voters-putin-russia/565592/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

TRUMP MOCKS THE #METOO MOVEMENT DURING MONTANA RALLY

Trumps's Stephen Miller and hitler's goebels are chilling similar

Trump’s hate-stoking policy guru may be Jewish — but he still bears a scary resemblance to the Nazi Propaganda Minister in both substance and style.
ANOTHER IN MY SERIES COMPARING HITLER’S GOONS TO TRUMP’S
Many people consider J.D. Vance’s brilliant book Hillbilly Elegy as the quintessential portrayal of the anger in white America which brought Donald Trump a victory in the Electoral College. Without mentioning Trump once by name, Vance captures this festering nativism,

While Vance explained the source of the latent anger, there still have to be those who manipulate that hatred in both rhetoric and policy. Enter Stephen Miller, whose (embarrassingly for me) Duke University education seems to be put to use developing both the strategies and messaging of the politics of white resentment that personify Donald Trump.

More forebodingly, Miller is Jewish, and should know the lessons history teaches about nativist politicians turning one group of citizens against another. Instead, he seems to channel the skills of Joesph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda. Miller is a truly chilling figure, He resembles Goebbels physically, as well as in his willingness to provoke the dark side of humanity.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/5/1687333/-Trump-s-Stephen-Miller-and-Hitler-s-Joseph-Goebbels-are-chillingly-similar

"STEPHEN ACTUALLY ENJOYS SEEING THOSE PICTURES AT THE BORDER":

The article heading was in caps.

Snip:
In the era of primal Trump, West Wing advisers have been bracing for the moment when Donald Trump instigates a moral and political crisis from which the White House can’t recover. The current situation, with its heartbreaking images of migrant families being separated on the southern border, and children interned in camps and kept in cages, might be that moment. There are echoes of Charlottesville, with the president digging himself deeper, even as the midterms loom. “This is brutal,” said one Republican close to the president. “Trump is riding high in the polls, and it’s playing into his mental state that he’s invincible.”

.......
Meanwhile, as the border crisis spirals, the absence of a coordinated policy process has allowed the most extreme administration voices to fill the vacuum. White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller has all but become the face of the issue, a development that even supporters of Trump’s “zero-tolerance” position say is damaging the White House. “Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border,” an outside White House adviser said. “He’s a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There’s always been a way he’s gone about this. He’s Waffen-SS.”

Link:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/stephen-miller-family-separation-white-house?mbid=nl_CH_5b2a8db8032f33621033faf9&CNDID=22164929&spMailingID=13727563&spUserID=MjU3NjkzMDk1NzE2S0&spJobID=1421838961&spReportId=MTQyMTgzODk2MQS2

how-democracy-dies

Snip:

Runciman begins with a story. Watching the inauguration of Donald Trump on 20 January 2017, in a draughty lecture hall in Cambridge, where he is head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, professor of politics and a fellow of Trinity Hall, he observed how the mood of the students who had gathered there changed when Trump started speaking. Initially almost festive, it turned suddenly to one of fear and foreboding:

The speech Trump gave was shocking… He bemoaned “the rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation… the crime and gangs and drugs”. In calling for a rebirth of national pride, he reminded his audience that “we all bleed the same red blood of patriots”. It sounded like a thinly veiled threat. Above all, he cast doubt on the basic idea of representative government, which is that the citizens entrust elected officials to take decisions on their behalf… Was he going to mobilise popular anger against any professionals who now stood in his way? Who would be able to stop him? When he had finished speaking, he was greeted in the lecture hall back in Cambridge by a stunned silence. We weren’t the only ones taken aback. Trump’s predecessor but one in the presidency, George W Bush, was heard to mutter as he left the stage: “That was some weird shit.”

None of this suggests Trump is about to install fascism in America. The US is not Weimar Germany, and it will take more than the digital revolution to destroy American democracy. Near the end of the book, Runciman makes a prediction: “On 20 January 2053 there will be a ceremony in Washington, DC to mark the inauguration of the duly elected president of the United States… American democracy will survive the presidency of Donald Trump.”

More at the link:




https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/05/how-democracy-dies

PEOPLE GET SUBPOENAS, SHIT GETS REAL": WHAT JOHN EDWARDS SHOULD TEACH THE MEDIA ABOUT COVERING TRUMP

PEOPLE GET SUBPOENAS, SHIT GETS REAL”: WHAT JOHN EDWARDS SHOULD TEACH THE MEDIA ABOUT COVERING TRUMP

SNIP:

When BuzzFeed News published the Steele dossier, in January of 2017, much of the media universe rushed to condemn the release of an unverified document that made a series of explosive accusations about Donald Trump and his campaign’s dealings with Russia. Never mind that the claims included in the dossier are a key piece of the special counsel’s investigation into Trump, or that the dossier was being circulated around the highest levels of American government on the cusp of a new presidency. There was a righteous journalism debate to be had! Brian Stelter of CNN compared BuzzFeed to WikiLeaks. NBC’s Chuck Todd told BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith: “You just published fake news.” Even Bob Woodward, the high priest of investigative journalism, lashed the dossier, calling it “a garbage document.”.....

It was a weird look for the news media: opting to give Trump—a man with a decades-long record of telling mistruths, double-dealing, obscuring facts, dodging responsibility, and trashing journalists—the benefit of the doubt over a news organization working in the public’s interest to keep powerful people accountable.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/what-john-edwards-should-teach-the-media-about-covering-trump

A Glossary of Extremist Language

There is no such thing as Alt Left

SNIP:

Alt-Light

The “alt-light” comprises members of the far right who once fell under the “alt-right” umbrella but have since split from the group because, by and large, racism and anti-Semitism are not central to its far-right nationalist views, according to Ryan Lenz, the editor of Hatewatch, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Members of the alt-right mocked these dissidents as “the alt-light.”

“The alt-light is the alt-right without the racist overtones, but it is hard to differentiate it sometimes because you’re looking at people who sometimes dance between both camps,” he said.

The two groups often feud online over “the Jewish Question,” or whether Jews profit by secretly manipulating the government and the news media.

Antifa

“Antifa” is a contraction of the word “anti-fascist.” It was coined in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s by a network of groups that spread across Europe to confront right-wing extremists, according to Mr. Pitcavage. A similar movement emerged in the 1980s in the United States and has grown as the “alt-right” has risen to prominence.

For some so-called antifa members, the goal is to physically confront white supremacists. “If they can get at them, to assault them and engage in street fighting,” Mr. Pitcavage said. Mr. Lenz, at the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the group “an old left-wing extremist movement.”

Members of the “alt-right” broadly portray protesters who oppose them as “antifa,” or the “alt-left,” and say they bear some responsibility for any violence that ensues — a claim made by Mr. Trump on Tuesday.

But analysts said comparing antifa with neo-Nazi or white supremacist protesters was a false equivalence.

Cuck

“Cuck” is an insult used by the “alt-right” to attack the masculinity of an opponent, originally other conservatives, whom the movement deemed insufficiently committed to racism and anti-Semitism.

Alt-Light

The “alt-light” comprises members of the far right who once fell under the “alt-right” umbrella but have since split from the group because, by and large, racism and anti-Semitism are not central to its far-right nationalist views, according to Ryan Lenz, the editor of Hatewatch, a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Members of the alt-right mocked these dissidents as “the alt-light.”

“The alt-light is the alt-right without the racist overtones, but it is hard to differentiate it sometimes because you’re looking at people who sometimes dance between both camps,” he said.

The two groups often feud online over “the Jewish Question,” or whether Jews profit by secretly manipulating the government and the news media.

Antifa

“Antifa” is a contraction of the word “anti-fascist.” It was coined in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s by a network of groups that spread across Europe to confront right-wing extremists, according to Mr. Pitcavage. A similar movement emerged in the 1980s in the United States and has grown as the “alt-right” has risen to prominence.

For some so-called antifa members, the goal is to physically confront white supremacists. “If they can get at them, to assault them and engage in street fighting,” Mr. Pitcavage said. Mr. Lenz, at the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the group “an old left-wing extremist movement.”

Members of the “alt-right” broadly portray protesters who oppose them as “antifa,” or the “alt-left,” and say they bear some responsibility for any violence that ensues — a claim made by Mr. Trump on Tuesday.

But analysts said comparing antifa with neo-Nazi or white supremacist protesters was a false equivalence.

Cuck Cuck” is an insult used by the “alt-right” to attack the masculinity of an opponent, originally other conservatives, whom the movement deemed insufficiently committed to racism and anti-Semitism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/alt-left-alt-right-glossary.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email&_r=0

What Trumps decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement means for your wallet

Our planet is warming, putting at risk not only our physical well-being, but our wallets.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. would pull out of the Paris Agreement, a landmark international deal signed in 2015 to limit global warming. The U.S. joins only two other countries, Syria and Nicaragua, in rejecting it. The decision comes after the hottest year on record in 2016, in which temperatures were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the mid-century mean. Scientists say global temperatures may rise by 7 degrees Fahrenheit before the end of the 21st century. As climate change escalates, cities are building sea walls, seeking new water sources for drought-stricken land, and storm-proofing their infrastructure in preparation. But while impending environmental impact of rising temperatures may be the most tangible, the often-overlooked effects on our pocketbooks may be just as worrisome, according to David Stookey, author of new book “Climate-Proof Your Personal Finances” published the Savvy Families Institute, an organization he heads that is based in Rhode Island.

More:http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/what-trump%E2%80%99s-decision-to-pull-out-of-the-paris-agreement-means-for-your-wallet/ar-BBxn5OR?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280

A primer on the long list of successors if a president is removed

1. Vice President of the United States-Mike Pence
2. Speaker of the House-Paul Ryan
3. President pro tempore of the Senate-Orrin Hatch
4. Secretary of State-Rex Tillerson
5. Secretary of the Treasury-Steven Mnuchin
6. Secretary of Defense-Jim Mattis
7. Attorney General-Jeff Sessions
8. Secretary of the Interior-Ryan Zinke
9. Secretary of Agriculture-Sonny Perdue
10. Secretary of Labor-Alexander Acosta
11. Secretary of Health and Human Services-Tom Price
12. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development-Ben Carson
13. Secretary of Transportation-Elaine Chao
14. Secretary of Energy-Rick Perry
15. Secretary of Education-Betsy DeVos
16. Secretary of Veterans Affairs-David Shulkin
17. Secretary of Homeland Security-John Kelly
https://www.facebook.com/newsandguts/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf