Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday January 03 2019, @04:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't dept.

Wired Magazine has an article that some might find interesting.

I was at what should have been a farmers’ market in Berkeley, California, last year when a throng of black-clad antifascists tried to scrap it out with far-right ralliers in the middle of a park named after Martin Luther King Jr. I watched scrawny college students get pummeled by hulking, be-swastika-ed ex-soldiers and ex-law enforcement officers in motorcycle gear. The antifascists’ one reprisal was setting off a homemade smoke bomb, which promptly blew back into their own faces, drawing raucous jeering from the white supremacists. It was as close to a war zone as I ever hope to be, and it was unequivocally a win for the racists.

But then,

It was easy to imagine the Bay Area becoming an extremist battleground—each weekend an opportunity for the next rally turned riot.

That vision has not come to pass. In the long arc of American racism, 2017 saw a sudden spike in visibility, but it was not the beginning of a new era in which people routinely walk the streets advertising their white supremacy. This year has brought the opposite trend: 2018 has been a year of pushing the alt-right and other white nationalist groups back underground, and punishing them for misdeeds committed during their brief moment in the sun. That’s a testament to the strength of the backlash against 2017’s naked racism, and evidence of how costly being openly racist has become—especially on the internet, where it has doomed entire social media platforms to obscurity. This must be counted as a good thing.

Goebbels said, allegedly, "Even if we lose we will win, because our enemies have adopted our methods." Looks like the alt-right is losing.

Regardless of what scaremonger reporters might espouse, the alt-right, as we have come to know it over the last two years, has failed—as extremism researchers always knew it would. But in its place has come something shadowier and far older: an underground white supremacist movement operating on society’s fringes, and a culture that disavows the racists while quietly mainstreaming their ideas.

So here's the point:

The issue, though, is that while there’s satisfaction and schadenfreude in watching these public flounderings, the alt-right doesn’t have to be visible to succeed. In fact, going underground is a return to the status quo for American white supremacy.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @08:25PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @08:25PM (#781663)

    Their little billionaires club is no better than the republicans, an fact they are the very same people.

    No, they're not. The Murdochs, DeVosses, the Kochs, the Wynnes, and the rest of the current scum who have taken over our executive branch, and for whom Trump is currently playing bitch, are quite different from the Buffets, Gates, and Soroses.

    Yes, there are billionaires who play both sides (read: "bribe" both sides with campaign contributions), but they're a far cry from the likes of the Kochs et al. Equating the two is another in a plethora of examples of right-wing false equivalencies.

    ,you're only making it easier for the people and ideas you claim to oppose.

    You seem to be doing that job just fine.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Troll=2, Insightful=2, Informative=4, Overrated=1, Disagree=1, Total=10
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by bobmorning on Friday January 04 2019, @12:51AM (4 children)

    by bobmorning (6045) on Friday January 04 2019, @12:51AM (#781808)

    She lost, get over it.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @02:02AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @02:02AM (#781844)

      Alternatively: they are the good cop bad cop routine of the uniparty, get over it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:23AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:23AM (#781915)

        Exactly! This is what the dumbass liberals that support democrats don't want to understand. Tell them they're being taken for a ride, and they only dig in. Ol' Bernie Sanders fished 'em in real good.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:41PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @06:41PM (#782164)

          I'd take Sanders in a heartbeat over being suckered by Trump :P

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @09:14AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @09:14AM (#782448)

            Eh, whatever, everything changes once they get the power. They always find a way to disappoint or enrage. That's how you keep the pendulum swinging. Over and over we repeat the same old bullshit expecting different results.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @05:31AM (#781918)

    This is the expected boilerplate response from not so smart, so-called "liberals" that believe what's in front of the camera is real. They've never been on a set before. They don't know the directors and producers and their minions, only the actors, and only when they're acting.

    My billionaires will kick your billionaires' ass! Nyah!

    Dude, please...