Is it wrong that I hope this is just the tepid beginning of Spencer's misfortunes?
My next-to-last paragraph with "Mr. Muhlfeld" should also be a quote.
Uplifting stories like this really depress me. A wealthy, liberal enclave gains the support of national anti-hate organizations and fends off an assault from Nazis.
That nice former governor, Steve Bullock, did stick up for the anti-Nazis. No doubt he prospered politically. I wonder who replaced him as governor?
We are told we have left the bad old days behind us. "Things have changed," the NYT declares in the lede. This is the intended moral of the story, but I am not convinced.
Blaming/hating/fearing The Jews was always a heretical offshoot of Trumpism, never either the core nor a useful driver of the movement. Hating/blaming/fearing The Elites -- the people who want to police your language because they think they're better than you -- that's the ticket, and, aided by a Fifth Column within elite culture, is assured of continued success.
Interesting to think about how the same episode would have turned out with a non-Jewish real estate agent in that position, yes.
Is this the link? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/05/us/politics/nazi-whitefish-charlottesville.html
Oh, funny. I was teaching a class on propaganda back when Spencer was giving speeches at universities and being booed (and crying? I remember crying, or whimpering?) at great cost to the institutions, who had to pay for security. Students debated about free speech and its norms, and at one point I recall saying something like "would it be worth half a million dollars to humiliate a neo Nazi?" Right now I'm feeling like the answer is 'yes'. But... it's such an uplifting little story and as pf says, that governor wasn't re-elected.
4 is onto something but misses the mark somewhat, I think.
Trumpism and the modern right-wing movement broadly is not centrally driven by any of its specific bigotries, but it opportunistically takes advantage of any bigoted groups that want to sign on. The animating principle is cishet white male supremacy, ideally (but not permanently...?) manifest in the person of Donald J. Trump. The inclusion of groups with antithetical principles within the movement (e.g. anti-Semites and Jewish Zionists) is sort of a powerful demonstration of its Rorschach blob nature in all other respects. As long as each subgroup agrees on the core principle and has at least one despised outgroup, *even one that's included in the larger group*, they can be part of the party, consoling themselves if necessary that the despised group is only being tolerated out of temporary deference to the sheeple's delicate sensibilities.
In my neighborhood, I think most of the Republicans are Jewish and the rest are antisemitic. I don't think they have meetings.
11: Trumpism is a bigoted big tent.
Reading Adam Serwer's book and he points out that Trump endorses the anti-Semitic tropes that Jews are rich money-lovers and that their primary loyalty is to Israel not the US, but Trump views these as good qualities. Hating Jews that vote for someone that will raise their taxes, and condemn settlements in the West Bank, isn't anti-Semitic, because those are bad Jews.
A belated happy new year where applicable.
I guess it's universally applicable with different amounts of belatedness.
It's a two-day holiday most places, so not necessarily even belated.
I guess, but the wish has one less day of effectiveness.
I haven't been following this story particularly, but Whitefish is definitely not a liberal enclave.
If you mince it, you can make Gifilte Fish.
I don't know from Whitefish, but the NYT describes it thusly: "a mostly liberal, affluent community nestled in a county that voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020."
I think that just means the reporter didn't get punched.
How would you define liberal enclave? On a precinct election results map, it is a little patch of blue in a red area.
20 The Whitefish precincts voted blue in 2020. So did the North Fork, which I would not have expected. I'm not sure whether liberal/conservative is that useful in places like Flathead County -- maybe education status of people moving in is the better predictor . . . ?
Map: https://montanafreepress.org/2020/11/05/how-montanans-voted-precinct-by-precinct/
Actually, maybe that's the Middle Fork. Wish it was easy to zoom the map.
It's also interesting that even the densest, innermost precincts of Kalispell, a city of 23k to Whitefish's 8k, went for Trump by over 10%.
OK, that blue precinct in eastern Flathead is West Glacier and Essex. file:///C:/Users/14062/Downloads/Precinct_17.pdf
So, as with that blue chunk about half-way down to Yellowstone in Gallatin, and I guess the southern fringe of Park County, what's blue is some city cores, Indigenous communities, and places where rich people are buying overpriced vacation/retirement places. The last creates the same 'you will not replace us' vibe as the Charlottesville torch guys, but some of the rich people are actual Trumpers, so that's complicated too.
27 Conservatism plus Christianity.
And I think there is actually some sorting by rich migrants about whether they want blue or deep red.
28: That's not a URL. Good thing your PC username isn't your full name!
Oh, whoops. Flathead County precinct maps are here: https://flathead.mt.gov/gis/downloads_legislative_districts.php
Oh, whoops. Flathead County precinct maps are here: https://flathead.mt.gov/gis/downloads_legislative_districts.php
Oh, whoops. Flathead County precinct maps are here: https://flathead.mt.gov/gis/downloads_legislative_districts.php