Donald Trump’s supporters are now yelling “Seig heil!,” and calling for a black man to be burned alive. Can we call them fascists now? Can we call them racists now?
Well, here we are. It finally happened. It was inevitable, really. It’s been coming almost from the moment Donald Trump took that ridiculous escalator ride to launch his presidential campaign by labeling Mexicans in general as rapists and criminals. For a while, he was just obnoxious, as he further offended Latinos, and helped further alienate women and African-American voters from the GOP.
Then the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino happened, and Americans’ fears about terrorism rose again. It didn’t matter that we have a better chance of being killed by our own right-wing extremists, or crushed by furniture than killed by Muslim terrorists. That’s what terrorism is supposed to do; make us afraid.
But it takes a special kind of leader to take that fear, distill it into hatred, and fill us up with it. Donald Trump proved himself just that kind of leader when he supported a registry of Muslim-Americans, special ID badges for Muslims, and finally promised to ban all Muslims from entering the US. If you think those ideas sound vaguely familiar, you’re right.
So it was no surprise that Trump supporters chanted “Sieg heil!”, as a Black Lives Matter protestor was ejected from a Trump rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, on the eve of the fifth GOP presidential debate. Just for good measure, another shouted, “light the motherfucker on fire!”, instantly invoking images of lynchings from America’s dark past.
[fve]http://youtu.be/Z4a0WyZfHAk[/fve]
Of course, it isn’t the first time things have gotten violent at Trump rallies. African-American and Latino protesters, as well as others, have been punched, shoved, choked, and dragged by Trump supporters, and all pretty much with Trump’s overt approval.
So can we call it racism yet? Can we call it fascism yet?
[fve]http://youtu.be/7txu6djqu30[/fve]
Here’s the rest of the best of the worst in wingnuttery this week:
- Republicans are so gung ho to go to war that they’re ready to start bombing Agrabah, the fictional country from the 1993 Disney film Aladin.
- Gun activists’ plans to hold a mock mass shooting at the University of Texas, in Austin, went awry when protesters showed up armed with dildos and fart noises.
- Right-wing activist and NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch blamed liberals for the San Bernardino attack, and labeled them “tragedy dry-humping whores.” What does she know about dry humping, anyway?
- Nope. Not even a room full of puppies can make Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina remotely likable. The Cruella Deville reference didn’t help.
- Actress Janine Turner, of “Northern Exposure” fame, told Fox Business News that Darth Vader’s costume was black because Star Wars movies were based on the Bible.
- Residents in Woodland, North Carolina, rejected a proposal to rezone land for a solar far, out of fear that it would “suck up the sun’s energy.”
- Pat Robertson blamed Haiti’s troubles on “satanic” voodoo, which “destroys them.” Right. Centuries of colonialism and exploitation had nothing to do with it.
- Just in time for the holidays, a Kentucky homeless shelter director decided to ban women and children from the town’s only shelter, because “the woman factor,” was leading too many homeless men to engage in carnal “sin.”
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV1nLI6ql05z8ot1ZZ3s_088U7UWdFgRu&w=640]
