Pierce: THIS IS THE BLEAKEST MOMENT FOR AMERICA IN MY LIFETIME

[mcar]

A long read but well worth it.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a56979/charlottesville-donald-trump-republican/

...So when anybody, especially the president*, talks about what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, from the Citronella Putsch on Friday night, to the violence on Saturday morning, to the graphic fulfillment of the philosophy behind these lunatic laws on Saturday afternoon, tells you that what happened in Virginia has anything to do with "polarization," or that it is a problem equally shared by Both Sides, that person is trying preemptively to pick history's pockets....

The modern conservative movement—born of the Goldwater campaign, nurtured by millions of dollars from corporations and rightwing sugar daddies, sold day after day on millions of radios and on its own TV network—shoved the Republican Party right where it was dying to go anyway. These were institutions whose job it was to isolate this encroaching dementia from afflicting our politics in general...

Anyone who followed the presidential campaign saw this coming. Frankly, I'm surprised there wasn't more of it. Every Trump rally came with an implied promise of some kind of violence. Sometimes, the promise was fulfilled. Sometimes it wasn't. But it was the dark energy behind that whole campaign. For all the relentless chin-stroking about the economically anxious and forgotten white working class, and for all the prayerful coverage of Donald Trump's "populist" appeal, there was no question what was driving events on the Republican side.

We now know what the reaction will be if the institutions of government, and the people in them, get so sickened by this administration that they act to rid the country of it. Is there any doubt that a president* who, after the events of this weekend, can't even see fit to rid himself of the fascists around him, including the ludicrous Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Ph.D., wouldn't balk at encouraging paranoid violence as a means of self-preservation? Is there any doubt that a president* who could not even muster the gumption or the outrage to criticize Nazis for what they are wouldn't blink at bringing the temple down on his own head either out of pure childish pique, or because he doesn't know any other way?

[Coventina]

1. "Citronella Putsch"

The man has a way with words!!

[forgotmylogin]

3. Yeah, I love that I can search "tiki torch rally" to get info.

The Hitler Jungvolk are going to rue the day they made their rally look like a Survivor elimination ceremony.

[90-percent]

7. good cleverness above

i like good wit.

-jim

[alterfurz]

23. #TikiTorchTaliban

[paleotn]

10. Ha!

...that's better than the March on Mosquitoes.

[forgotmylogin]

2. Then again, the grim silver lining...

To see the absolute backlash against this kind of hatred and bigotry is pretty astonishing. It's pulling off all the scabs.

It's sad that it took blood spattered across a windshield to wake this dragon up, but it's starting.

[Fritz Walter]

4. When I despair...

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall.
"Think of it--always."
Mahatma Gandhi

[broadcaster90210]

5. I marched in the 50s and 60s

They were bad. This is worse. Why? Back then we knew the Feds were on our side. Now? The Feds ARE the Klan.

[mcar]

6. It is terrifying

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. "Back then we knew the Feds were on our side."

Not if you were gay.

[broadcaster90210]

17. True of course. I didn't mean across the board.

That was my shorthanded way of saying it is now ... "abandon hope allmye who enter here".

We "knew" that, in time, society was moving "forward". We believed we would get there. Now, for the first time ever, I don't believe we will ... not as the United States.

[ananda]

8. I grok that.

All day I've been thinking: Did the Nazis really win the war
in the long run?

[paleotn]

14. My father said the same thing

back in the late 70's when the neo-nazis wanted to march in Skokie. He about burst a blood vessel. The only other thing that made him that mad were Holocaust deniers. As the children of that generation, we all knew nazis - bad, but when he opened up about his war time experiences later in life, a lot of things became clear and far more real than grainy black and white photos and films. A Buchenwald sub-camp, dealings with the waffen SS, and a lot of other experiences would cause anyone to suppress memories and hate anything and everything to do with nazism with such a fury. He once said the lives of captured SS weren't worth a nickle unless officers were about. He wasn't proud of that, but said to understand it, you had to have been there.

[ananda]

22. Thanks paleotn.

That was interesting.

My father fought in the South Pacific, flying a plane from an aircraft carrier
which was kamikaze'd while he was in the air (lucky sob!)

Anyway, he always seemed somewhat rational about the war and the Nazis,
and even observed that Hitler probably would have won if it weren't for
Stalin and the Russians.

Here we have huge irony considering the events of this week and the past year.

Also, after my mother died, my dad remarried a rightwing bible-thumper, and
all they watched was Fox news. So racist and willing to believe anything Fox
said.

That was such a sad time for me because he was always pretty racist but kept
it in line as long as my mom was living. Then with that second wife, he changed...
or else just let his true feelings take over...

I think that happens to a lot of people as they get older. Look at Wordsworth,
for example -- a great fiery revolutionary in his youth, a conservative fuddyduddy
in old age.

I guess Jung would call it an example of enantiodromia.

[Volaris]

9. Brilliant as usual.

Somebody please tell me though (because apparently I'm too dense to understand) how a State government slides on passing a law that says the PRIVILEGE of driving, supercedes the Constitutionally guranteed RIGHT of Free Assembly???

[mcar]

18. Can you believe this crap?

They manage to come up with something every damn time.

And people elect these morons.

[Le Gaucher]

11. Bleakest time was when Trump got elected.

[Dustlawyer]

13. Make lemonade! When the next election comes and

they start with their dog whistles let's make them pay. Call them who they are!

[paleotn]

15. It is bleak...

...and disgusts me to the depths of my soul, but I feel a historical inflection point has occured. We very likely will look back at this time and see it as the point when the tide turned.

[Enoki33]

16. Mentioned this elsewhere on DU: Richard Painter stated on AM Joy

today that he believes Unite the Right and other Nazi / white supremacist groups are being funded by Putin, who most certainly was watching the results of his scheme with glee. Seems a logical extension of his destabilization plan. Maybe the money trail being followed by CI will confirm it.

[dalton99a]

21. +1

[Initech]

19. Yesterday was the first day since I've been alive that I've felt unsafe to be American.

[mcar]

20. I don't know what that even means anymore.