The Difference Between the Right and the Alt-Right
You’ve heard Hillary talk about the alt-right but you might not have walked though the valley of weird to actually see it.
This morning I saw a great example of it.
Like many of the right-wingers, Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon sent to his kids to private school so they didn’t have to be around minority students. That’s pretty normal for the right wingers.
Which minority does Mr. Bannon not want his children around?
Jews.
An ex-wife ….
“He said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”
That’s alt-right.
Thanks to Bryan for the heads up.
That’s the problem with dog whistles to the bigots – once the bigots reach critical mass, they demand clearly-stated intolerance.
1I remember an old episode of some show where these kids were proud of their racism and Neo-Nazism and couldn’t understand why the real surviving Nazi (this was an older show) wanted to hide it. He just shook his head and said that these brash kids were ruining it for everyone. There’s a reason why they use dog whistles. Out and out saying it would be considered repugnant. The alt-right may cheer at the publicity but it will be their undoing. The mainstream Republicans now must choose sides. They can finally repudiate the alt right for good and save their souls or embrace them and become marginalized as a national party.
2Thanks, JJ! For years now every time I looked at some of our politicians and some “public” figures, especially when they ran their mouths off, I swear I actually saw them wearing a swastika armband. Now I know i’m not meshuganah.
3Sorry, but “mainstream” Repuglicans are just as intolerant towards women and minorities, including the Jews. It has long been apparent that they encouraged these bigoted attitudes and tried to couch their prejudices in euphemisms. The alt-right may have more insane conspiracies, but when it comes to freezing out minorities and women, nobody does it better than the RKlan.
4Actually, this is nothing new.
Santorum: “I don’t want to give my money to blah people.” Walk-back: “I started to say something then changed what I was about to say.”
Gee, ya think we couldn’t have figured that out all on our own?
Ryan: “Makers and Takers.” No walk-back offered.
Reagan: “Welfare queens.” No walk-back offered – at least none I’ve ever heard.
A Trump supporter: “I’m not against all immigrants. The ones from Western Europe are welcome.” No repudiation from Trump or any Republican.
The list goes on.
And now, all of a sudden, some Republicans are starting to say, “Uh, where did all this racism come from?”
Now that the dog whistle has morphed into a bullhorn, they’re starting to notice?
5Uh no. Now that the dog whistle has morphed into a bullhorn they can’t feign ignorance any longer.
daChipster? Primo? Someone ready to complete my history lesson? Recalling a statement by LBJ to the effect that ‘the Democratic Party would lose the south for decades’ after key Civil Rights legislation. Then the Democrats proceeded to shed themselves of the hard core Dixiecrats. Rumor has it that some Dixiecrats even evolved like Robert Byrd who eschewed racism rather than become a Republican. Then the are the dumber than dirt Dixiecrats like Kim Davis who missed the tide, while hanging on to the hate anchor.
Meanwhile, the snacilbupeR gave safe haven to the haters. Oops.
6Republicans, teabaggers, alt-right, etc; they can keep renaming themselves but in the end they will always be ignorant, racist, misogynist douchebags.
7“He said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”
Sounds like *he* was “raised by Jews.” Except that the Jews I’ve known are not whiny brats.
Aren’t the alt-rights the ones who say out loud what the rights are thinking?
8like glf says, same pig, new lipstick. Oh, and their mouths make their butts look bigger.
9gif– Just say GOP. The Alt. Right is just saying out loud what the rest of the GOP says when they think no one can hear them.
10Guy doesn’t want his kids hanging out with Jews and other minorities…
His loss.
11montag: Hahahaha…. Good ones.
12Trump, who says he hires the best people, is now on campaign manager no. 3.
13No. 1 was fired after assaulting a reporter, and is acting as a commentator for CNN while continuing to accept Trump’s money.
No. 2 was/is the agent of a foreign government.
No. 3 threw the reporter assaulted by no. 1 under the bus, was violent to one of his wives and one of his daughters, runs a hate site marketing itself as news, and was found to illegally claim as a residence and voting address (for tax reasons?) in which he has never lived.
No. 3 makes me a bit nostalgic for no. 1.
I’ve said in here before that all this vitriolic, vile, bigoted crap being finally brought into the light of day was ultimately gonna be healthy, and I still believe it. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be pleasant. I read somewhere recently that our country hasn’t been this divided since 1860. I think that’s probably true as well. Hopefully the memory of what happened then will keep us from going off that cliff. But just hearing what you folks are saying here raises hope. For too long now these idiots (including a lot of highly intelligent people-willful ignorance) have gotten the information that shapes their worldviews from right wing “journalism”. Now these “journalists” are having to admit that bigotry is BAD. Painful as that might be. But they’re the ones that the idiots have to hear it from. Too bad. As all they really had to do was listen to folks like the ones that hang out at this joint.
14So, this guy. Bannon. Apparently is registered to vote in Florida in spite of not being a resident of the state, and owning no habitable property there. Same for his ex-wife, who uses an address that is available for homeless people to use so that they can register to vote (usually the requirement is that you MUST live at the address under which you register).
And of course one of his big, evil, liberals-are-coming-to-get-us hot button issues is…. voter fraud.
15Maryelle, that’s precisely what I was saying. Mainstream Republicans could speak out of both ends of their mouth before, but now they are being forced to choose. If they back Trump they get saddled with all of this. There is no, “I didn’t know he was a racist” garbage. If they repudiate him they might live to fight another day.
Knowing quite a few conservatives, I believe most of them aren’t like this. They feel stuck because they can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. Quite frankly, I understand it on some level. How easy would it be for us to cast a vote for a Republican?
16Scott: “How easy would it be for us to cast a vote for a Republican?” Not too hard actually. I left FL in 2012. I voted for Jacobs for county mayor because the Dem was a complete jerk. The Dem mayor of Orlando (Dyer) put the press on her to pony up $30M for his ill-conceived and under-funded performing arts center. She told him her employees hadn’t had a pay raise in 3 years and it was HIS problem to fix. That impressed me. Some of the Dems down there are worse than the Rs.
17I get that JAK. I live in Texas, so there are very few good Republicans to vote for. I voted for a Republican for Railroad Commissioner back in 1992. I refuse to vote straight ticket, so I usually choose them when they are unopposed or running only against a Libertarian. However, other states have a different dynamic than we do here. I suppose my point was more aimed at the top of the ticket.
18MN Congressman Tom Emmer is a big Scumpf fan. He represents District 6, Michele Bachmann’s old district. I don’t know what it is about the voters in my state’s #6 that makes them so st00pid. Something in the water?
Wapo has a good article on the “American Redoubt.” That’s where the ultra-paranoid haters/survivalists/preppers/supremacists hang out waiting for the doomsday that’s coming any minute. They stockpile food, weapons, ammo and crazy to defend themselves from the colored hordes when WWIII/nuclear annihilation/climate disaster/worldwide financial collapse comes.
The American Redoubt is in the whitest and reddest part of America: All of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, eastern Washington and Oregon, and northern Colorado and Utah. But even the conservatives in those states think the preppers are nuts.
19JAK, I confess that I once voted for a Republican for county executive. The Dem who won the primary (usually a sliding board into the office here) struck me as an arrogant jerk who thought he was entitled to the office, and no doubt to governor afterwards. Some years later he was caught by the FBI after telling his wife on the phone to hide $60,000 cash in her bra and flush that $100,000 check because the feds were on their way. They both ended up in jail.
20One difference is that the Alt-Right are out-and-out bigots, racists and WingNuts.
The ordinary Right isn’t, but they are happy to support them if it brings in those precious votes. Also, they don’t want the Alt-Right to hurt them.
21Well, I’d say good for the Jewish kids, who didn’t have to be subjected to the demon spawn of this despicable creep. Also good for all their classmates, and the entire school.
Could it possibly be that Bannon tried to enroll his little darlings, and was rejected?
22Some woman actually married this guy????
23Whatever else Bannon might be, he is ultimately one of the most dangerous men in politics. I found this really sobering: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37402-don-t-underestimate-how-much-steve-bannon-can-damage-hillary-clinton
24JeffA –
25Worse yet, he reproduced.
Yeah, you gotta watch the quiet ones. I was at a meeting of library folks one day, supposedly to share our wishes and opinions to our Texas legislator, who sat there and listened for an hour or two. When we were finished talking, he talked a bit and pointed out that HE would be the one voting. In other words, we may as well have saved our breath.
26Any newbies here might take note that the only thing that interests TX legislators is HOW MUCH DOES IT COST or HOW MUCH MONEY CAN WE MAKE FROM IT. That explains a lot about Texas.