My deadline for this column preceded the election by a day, limiting the number of snarky things I can say about it. But the fact that it isn’t over yet at the time I’m writing this is scarcely enough to stop me from being bilious.
Fox News and the White House appear to be involved in a lively competition to determine who can be the most hysterical on the subject of the so-called “caravan” of refugees fleeing extreme poverty and crime in Central America hoping to ask for, and find, asylum in the United States. “Saturday Night Live”’s astoundingly funny Kate McKinnon did a spot-on impersonation of Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, while Cecily Strong took on the role of the ever-furious Jeanine Pirro.
“All of a sudden, the term nationalist is bad,” McKinnon’s Ingraham lamented. “The word white is bad. The phrase white nationalist is bad.”
“Just look at this footage of the caravan crossing into Mexico,” Strong’s Pirro said before cutting to a well-known scene of zombies climbing over each other from the Brad Pitt movie “World War Z.”
Strong’s mercilessly accurate Pirro then snarls to McKinnon, fire practically shooting out of her nostrils, “Everyone you’ve ever seen in your nightmares. It’s got Guatemalans, Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, Thanos and several Babadooks.”
Meeanwhile, I find it illuminating and appalling in equal measure that journalists of all stripes kept making the point that the Pittsburgh murders constituted the greatest anti-Semitic massacre in American history. That may well be true. I have no reason to argue with it. But why won’t anyone mention that 3,500 people of color were systematically lynched here in the Land of the Free, their bodies mutilated, often while they were still alive, the mutilations serving as gleeful entertainment for the white trash racists who committed these nauseating crimes.
Now before anyone gets all Jewier than thou about it, let me say that I am a Jew from the Pittsburgh area; I have attended services at Tree of Life; I have cousins who belong to Tree of Life; and at least one of those cousins spent the week attending funerals for victims she knew.
Eleven people died in Pittsburgh, and that’s eleven too many.
And yes, by the way, I’m aware of the Holocaust.
But get some perspective, people. Are you really taking African-American murders so for granted that they no longer even count? Consider the airtime devoted to the Tree of Life murders compared to the coverage of the two black grandparents in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, who were gunned down at a Kroger’s supermarket for the crime of shopping while black. I can’t blame you if you didn’t hear much about that white killer; the coverage was scant, at best. In a final wet hocker spat at the graves of the two black victims, well — as the New York Times reported, “The hate crime statute in Kentucky does not apply to murder.” Oh.
Seeing as it’s my job to wade into the muckiest mucous of contemporary journalism so you don’t have to, I thought I’d venture into the belly of the swamp creature. Yes, sports fans, I turned to the website of the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi answer to Town and Country. The very first story I looked at was a truly hilarious if totally unintentional parody of anti-Jewish hysteria. The subject of the story is a Florida State University student who threw chocolate milk at some poor slob. The story was shat by Andrew Anglin:
“That filthy kike wench who attacked Republicans in revenge for the synagogue shooting has been arrested for her chocolate milk assault. Of course, the mainstream media isn’t saying it was a revenge attack, or even saying she’s Jewish, but in the video she states clearly, “Nazis are killing my people” as her reason for throwing milk at a Republican. Also, she’s an intern for the communist n____ Gillum lol. What is it with Jews and communist n_____s?”
Here’s another choice “article” from the Daily Stormer; this one was spewed by Luis Castillo: “Internet racism is not always easy. Every day, we have to see first-hand the brutality our people suffer from these bestial forms of Nature — the rapes, the murders, the drugs — this whole Jewish culture of sluttery and AIDS. Waking up to the reality we face is the only way we’re going to survive, but it’s not without growing pains. I’ve seen things, man. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen them, too. That’s why I wanted to bring you this beautiful story of how a father and son grew closer by hating on spics, n_____s, arabs [sic] and Jews, and bullying queers through the Internet. Racism is about sharing your culture with the people you love.”
The story itself is nonsense — literally. It’s incoherent babble. So I’m not going to bother you with any more quotes from it.
But notice: What with the references to the chocolate milk’s target and Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, it’s clear that these petulant little fucks aka Nazis are Republican Rump supporters. Quelle surprise! Or as we say in the language of the fatherland, was für eine Überraschung!
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