In one of my last posts I told you how shocked most LGBT Americans were to hear themselves described as Donald Trump's newest supporters.
With that ghastly bigot now claiming that after the Orlando massacre, gay people hate Muslims as much as he does.
Even though that's nonsense.
So I'm glad to see that Hillary Clinton is trying to correct the record.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 17, 2016
But to get an even better idea of how wrong Trump's claim is, you have to attend one his rallies.
For as Jared Yates Sexton found out when he attended one, it's an American horror story.
“The gays had it coming!” a man shouted and gazed back at the guy who’d called Hillary a bitch. They met eyes, shared a smile, a look of recognition. As if it were some kind of joke. As if 49 of his fellow Americans—49 living, breathing human beings—hadn’t just been mowed down.
A homophobic, racist, and misogynistic nightmare.
In the parking lot of the Greensboro Coliseum there were vendors hawking everything from cheap pins of the GOP’s elephant mascot wearing Donald Trump’s hair-helmet to knock-off “Make America Great Again” hats in red, black, white, and came.
The coveted item for the day, however, were screen-printed anti-Hillary T-shirts. “Hillary For Prison ’16.” “Trump That Bitch.” And the real star, a shirt you could hear vendors peddling from a hundred yards away: “Hillary Sucks, But Not Like Monica.”
Sexton's tweets from that rally only drive that point home.
And this is his conclusion:
This campaign, whose success has long been attributed to the forgotten working and middle classes, the so-called Silent Majority, has been, and always will be, an unholy alliance between the Hateful and the Privileged, the former always on a never-ending search for new venues for their poison and the latter enjoying, for the first time since Reagan’s ’80s, an opportunity to get out and step on some necks in public.
Trump supporters may have legitimate grievances, but their anger is boiling over, and turning their crusade into a fascist movement.
With their own Orange Fuhrer...
Which tells me two things:
One, progressives in America need to heed Bernie Sanders' call for an American Revolution.
We must start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way. #OurRevolution pic.twitter.com/8ZxfQ2APRD— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 17, 2016
Because that is the only way real change will happen.
But two, even as they build that movement, any of his supporters who don't believe that they will eventually have to vote for Hillary Clinton, whether they like it or not, are frankly delusional.
For if Trump is not stopped, their revolution will be crushed, and they could end up living in a society like this one...
There can be no other conclusion.
Trump is a fascist.
And all progressives must unite to defeat him...
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10 comments:
If the murderer had been a Muslim fanatic, both parties would have a share of the guilt because of their terrorist-producing "War On Terror."
But he was only a nominal Muslim and more of a garden-variety homophobe. In which case, Trump's blatantly homophobic party shares 98% of the blame.
Thankfully the LGBT does not have hatred in their heart like the heartless, racist, bigot Trump and his equally ignorant, racist, bigot followers!!! Seems to be that most of the civil people with a moral compass for others belong to the LGBT community these days. The more the racist bigots try to condemn that community the more their love and respect for others rises above!!!!!!!! Wonderful to see this community rise above all the hatred pointed in their direction. Too bad many other so called human beings could not enjoy life and feel love like our LGBT community. FS
The Trump campaign has reached a crossroads. He has the disenfranchised lower middle class, the Southern bible thumpers , the NRA and the bigots in his pocket but it only gives him 30% support. If he were a Harper Con he would delegate the control of the pocket zombies to his minions and feed them with targeted propaganda leaving him free to put on a slightly kinder face and troll voters with promises of a bright economic future, tax relief and vastly improved public security.Its unlikely Trump will follow the Harper playbook.He has a habit of doubling down and then walking away ( bankruptcy ) when things don't pan out leaving others to pick up the tab for the disaster he created. This time the disaster runs to the core of America on both the domestic and international scene.Past policy has been all about the stick and carrot approach in the form of the American dream. Trump has no carrots for anyone but his zombie base.Selection of his running mate will reveal the strategy.Burger fetching Christie of vacant Palin will seal the doubling down strategy while a slightly kinder VP will support a variant of the Harper Con strategy.
Hair Furor is doing what he needs to do to close the deal with American crackers. His focus has always been trade and immigrants. He will bang on about the shooter being a Muslim, because that supports his message about being afraid of immigrants (even though Mateen was American born).
Other than a handful of Log Cabin Republicans nobody in the GOP cares about the LGBT issues. The GOP was suspicious of Trumpenstein because of his repeated statements of fondness for gay people, and this escalated after he came out against their ridiculous trans bathroom scare. Although he's spoken out against gay marriage, his position on gay rights is considerably to the left of his party.
Billary, OTOH, is to the right of her party and was against gay marriage for a decade before she noticed which way the wind was blowing. If Trump is a fascist, Billary and her neo-liberal ilk are his enabler. We've tried the neo-liberal way for 30-odd years, and the result is that ordinary people became poorer while a select few became billionaires many times over. The neo-liberals have created the conditions for fascism. I could not in good conscience vote for either Clinton or Trump, no matter how much "lesser evil" BS is spread. Lesser evil is still evil.
I am a proud socialist. But in the Hobsons choice between Hillary and Trump I vote Trump. First the TPP is the worst thing ever, think of it as the anti Magna Carta. Hillary practacly wrote it. Seconcd I agree with Trump on Sharia law. If you believe in Sharia law you do not belong in my country,my planet or my solar system.
Trumps bigotry and other fatal flaws do not move me past those two extensenial issues. Trump puts into words what Republican have been saying in dog whistles my whole life. Its a good thing in the long run. You have to know the enemy to defeat it. Trump is a clear messanger from the dark side.
hi thwap...yes it's disgusting to see how trump and his Republicans are trying to make political capital out of this tragedy, and using the dead to attack innocent Muslims. When as you point out, the Republican tea baggers have been stirring up anti-gay hate and they should shoulder most of the blame for creating a climate of violence...
hi FS....no, I have never encountered any hate in the gay community, even though they have so many good reasons to hate so many. They welcome all, and despite the prejudice and the violence aimed at them, keep clinging to the power of love, which is our only weapon...
hi anon...I think Trump reached his crossroad about two weeks ago, and after a day or so of pretending to go down a better path, reverted to his same old disgusting behaviour. In fact after watching him in the last two days he seems to be getting even worse and acting like he's becoming unhinged. I can't imagine that any decent person would want to be his running mate, so I expect him to keep digging himself an even bigger hole, and alienating even more Americans. All he has is his his base of bitter old men, and that won't be enough to make him President....
hi anon...yes, his position on gay rights probably is to the left of his party, so trying to court them probably won't do him any favours. But although Clinton is no model candidate, she would still be a better President than Trump, who would lead us into the third world war without even realizing what he is doing. Also remember that Bernie Sanders is about to join the anti-Trump campaign, and she will have to take into account that he has the future of the Democratic party behind him. And he will help keep Hillary honest...
hi Steve...look forget about he TPP, it's just not going to be ratified. Trump, Clinton, and Sanders are all against it, so it's not going anywhere. And when were are facing a bigot, a racist, and a fascist like Trump, voting for the lesser evil only makes sense. For trust me Trump is not prepared to be President and every day he's in the White House would be an absolute nightmare...
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