My Bacon score is three, neener neener neener!
This is one problem with the “lose the moral highground” thing.
If “the left” isn’t violent, there will be stories about “the left” being violent. When one like this is debunked, people can just use the fact that “the right” would stage such a thing as evidence that “the left” would do it too. People are already saying Charlottesville Nazis were Democratic plants.
People need to worry about the truth that is in front of them not the headline for tomorrow. Worrying about long term strategy requires the ability to predict how different things will play out. I don’t think it’s reasonable right now for anyone to believe they have that ability.
Given my household… yea. At this point there is nothing the Democrats/Left can do that they will approve o. They could LITERALLY say verbatum something from the GOP’s playbook and it’ be met with ‘they cant’ even find their own message.’ I hate this because I hate the idea that ‘we’ have to give up on trying. I’m the one that’s been constantly saying how a hand must be left open but i’m… just… I’m just worn down by this ‘let’s find any excuse whatsoever to blame this on the people without the Right party.’
God i hate nationalistic rhetoric.
Moral (and strategic) high ground:
The fascists are going to paint the left as murderous terrorists no matter what they do.
They’ll take advantage of any real opportunity, sure. But they’re also perfectly happy to invent fake leftist atrocities and manufacture propaganda. They were promoting an imaginary knife attack two days ago.
And there’s the Ramazala Mosque in Peachton, Georgia that was taking money allocated for hurricane relief and giving to to Syrian refugees. Except that there’s no “Ramazala Mosque” in Georgia, and there is no Peachton, Georgia.
Interesting pinned comment from the poster of that video:
It’s also kinda notable that the spray does not look like typical pepper spray (wrong colour, wrong consistency), it’s aimed mostly beside rather than at the target’s face, you never see the supposed antifa attacker apart from an arm, and you never see the aftermath of the apparent attack.
Sure, it’s possible that it’s real. I wouldn’t bet on it, though.
But the right is still controlling the narrative, though. What used to be the hard right, which is now the moderate right has been employing dog whistles for decades now in their attempts to win alienated white working and middle class voters. And now they expect us to rally to their side that it’s all ended up with someone who talks to baldly to the white supremacist movement. They’re controlling the narrative by refusing to accept the connection between their actions since the late 1960s and what’s happening today.
As for antifa, they might be ammunition for the right, but they STILL spin things to suit their needs and try to paint self-defense tactics as the equivalent of calling for genocide.
Matt Yglesias was running yet another round of “nazi punching is wrong, debate them and call the cops if they’re bad nazis” bullshit on Twitter an hour ago.
But wait, don’t we need to hear the side of the southern land owners too? /s
On the bright side, he’s getting flayed in the comments.
What do you do when you can’t trust the police to not also be bad nazis?
We can conclude that this is essentially every republican in the country, because that’s what the democrats did do, and called it the Affordable Care Act, aka RomneyCare.
Not that the Nazis weren’t always waiting in the wings, but it’s been pointed out that we’re at about the point where most of the people who survived WWII and early 20th century fascism are no longer around. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Nazis have been written off as cartoon villains.
One of the frightening things in this whole situation is seeing how quickly it took for the horrors of the 1930s and 40s to be rendered “irrelevant” by much of the American and even the European public once they passed out of living memory. Even 10 years ago there were still enough grandpas and great grandpas left who’d give anyone who suggested that fascists are “fine people” who “deserve a hearing” a piece of their minds (if not the end of their canes).
You know you’re dealing with quality people when their strategy is to wait for grandparents to die so no one kicks their ass when they try to take over. /s
Sometimes the left is its own worst enemy
As I said before I agree with Chomsky, the moment that you decide that freedom of speech is only the things you agree with you don’t have it anymore. I don’t care for Nazis or racists, but who decides what can be said?
Does the right control all the narrative? Certainly not who gets to talk at colleges. Like shutting down a yoga class in a University because it’s cultural appropriation
I can’t say that I approve. Mind you, I’d probably mock and jeer him until he took a swing, then wipe the floor with him.
