The right-wing Daily Wire (6/3/16) ran this AP photo of anti-Trump protesters above a story on “the lawless display of Leftist outrage.” (photo: Noah Berger/AP)
Like all movements in the fascism family, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is based on an ethnonationalist fear that impure elements within our borders (Muslims, Mexicans, “welfare thugs” and other powerless people) will fatally corrode this great nation if they’re not purged. A roundup by the Southern Poverty Law Center indicates that white nationalists are celebrating Trump as the savior for whom they’ve waited so long. Their hopes are captured in a popular neo-Nazi edit of the movie 300, which shows Trump rambling about globalism before kicking President Obama down a well shaft. The message: Emperor Trump will save white America (the one true America) from the hordes.
In the mind of the besieged far-right, these hordes are apolitical except in their commitment to destroying the country and the values it holds dear. This is the narrative their allies in conservative media ran with after protesters in San Jose made headlines for street fighting with Trump supporters. “These are not protesters–these are criminals. These are enemies of free speech. Thugs,” wrote Todd Starnes for Fox News (6/3/16), in an editorial headlined “San Jose Welcomes Illegal Immigrants but Not Trump Supporters.”
“They burned Old Glory—on American soil. But they did not burn the Mexican flag. Anti-American bastards,” Starnes declared, concluding: “We’ve been invaded, folks. And now we’re being colonized by the invaders.”
The conspiracist website InfoWars (6/3/16) described violent protesters as “mobs of unruly youths, indistinguishable from gang members, beating people, destroying property and attacking police,” and suggested that because they probably knew “nothing about socialism, fascism or democracy,” they were “gangsta thugs” acting without political conviction. Over at the more mainstream conservative Daily Caller (6/4/16), Matt Lewis writes that some of the protesters were “probably thugs looking for a fight” who may have corrupted others who showed up “solely to protest.” The Atlantic‘s David Frum, a voice of the respectable right, tweeted this racist description (6/3/16): “Violent mobs waving Mexican flags assaulting a white woman.”
But all of the actions that took place in San Jose that evening, violent or otherwise, were desperately political. Chicano protesters were acting in a context where Trump has staked his political fortune—in which his supporters are his currency—on a pledge to harm them and their loved ones. With his promises of ethnic cleansing, he has made it clear that he is an existential threat to many people, and when your existence is threatened, there is little that can inhibit your reaction except the loose boundaries of self-preservation. Regardless of what you think of the violence, these were defensive acts, and to interpret them as offensive attacks on the Constitution or “American values” is to misunderstand the balance of power in this election and feed the white supremacists’ narrative.
So it’s significant that much coverage of San Jose by liberal outlets also wound up depoliticizing the violence except as an attack on cherished American values, just like the right. “They assaulted the American inheritance of a politics that is decided peaceably at the ballot box by the people, not in the streets through force or intimidation,” writes Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic (6/3/16). Reporting on the protest, the New York Times (6/3/16) quoted a random source who suggested “a few local gang members” who “weren’t there to protest anything” escalated the violence. The San Jose Mercury News (6/3/16), while acknowledging that “violence is a human response to bullying,” said that Trump and the protesters were more or less equally to blame for creating “lawlessness.”
Liberal pundits also moralized over protesters’ insufficient display of respect for America and its principles. Vox‘s Matt Yglesias (6/4/16) placed street fighting on the same level of offense as chanting “Mexican nationalist slogans,” while Chris Hayes on Twitter urgently called for the prosecution of anybody who assaulted the “fundamental right to attend a political rally.” BuzzFeed‘s Adam Serwer (Twitter, 6/3/16) implied that anti-Trump protesters were themselves “fascists,” perhaps as dangerous to the nation as Trump’s movement. To their credit, many of these journalists also blamed Trump for encouraging violence, and have done so for months.
But they seem unaware that their moral handwringing over San Jose protesters’ motivations hinges on a narrative central to the ambitions of Trump’s most extreme supporters. This presentation further marginalizes people already on the defensive and obscures the power dynamic at work. At the very least, liberal journalists should avoid doing the far right’s propaganda work for them.
Aaron Cantú is an independent writer based in New York.
Play nice
While your lives are played with by a Machiavellian megalomaniac
You wouldn’t be singing the same tune if Trump protesters had shown up at a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders speech (which they did at a Sanders rally). There, the protesters were hauled off stage and arrested.
But by calling Trump “fascist”, you ignore the absolute brutality and evil committed by the Obama regime under the Clinton State Department, which has killed tens of thousands in the ME, conducted coups in Ukraine, Honduras (where Clinton admitted culpability in the right-wing overthrow of democratically elected Manuel Zelaya http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html), Libya (where Hillary Clinton cackled, “We came, we saw, he died!”), and an attempted overthrow of the Assad government in Syria (and which the US is backing the proxy terrorist army 100%).
Not to mention the Obama regime’s OWN deportations of undocumented immigrants back to their home countries, where many were murdered shortly after they arrived back (http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/obama-immigration-deportations-central-america). Not to mention the children and women being warehoused by ICE agents on behalf of the Federal government (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-judge-orders-release-of-immigrant-children-mothers-from-detention-centers-20150725-story.html).
So–why aren’t these protesters in front of the White House? Or disrupting Clinton rallies (because they have more cause to be angry with Clinton and the Democrats, than anything to do with Trump). If by your definition ‘fascist’ is stating an opinion, then the Obama/Clinton regime should be incarcerated for actually acting like fascists!
Your comments lead me to believe that you’re not very familiar with our work.
Indeed I am very familiar with FAIR’s reporting. You can see that in the fact that I documented all my claims with links to the relevant articles.
What I find disappointing is that instead of publishing a self-serving bloc post justifying violence against political protesters (isn’t that exactly what the Nazis did?), is that you failed to take to task a FOX affiliate out of California which evidently already had the headline written, calling out the Trump rally attendees as ‘violent’, yet the footage clearly showed a pro-Trump rally attendee getting egged. The station later apologized, but only after being blasted by Facebook posters.
“With his promises of ethnic cleansing, ”
Holy shit what absolute lies you spout. He has spoken about deporting illegal immigrants, not deporting people based on their ethnicity, you fucking simpleton.
You are no journalist. you are a propagandist.
So since that one statement was made, does that nullify the rest of the point the author is trying to make?
“But all of the actions that took place in San Jose that evening, violent or otherwise, were desperately political.” <– you base this on what exactly? Were you there? did you speak to the protesters? you know for a fact that a "few local gang members" were not there and did not escalate the situation? If you're going to justify violence, at least offer some specifics.
Are you trying to direct your comment towards the author of the article? It sounds like you want to ask the author those questions.
Yes, to author. Sorry about that.
Your mad cause even your liberal commie Buddies I calling out the real fascist
Trump 2016
“Build the wall”
Careful, if Trump decides to throw out people who can’t put a simple English sentence together, you’ll be on the first bus.
Couldn’t agree more with Mr. Cantu – I heard a newscaster on CNN comment on the protesters, but not on the reason for the protests – Mr. Trump’s & supporters’ willingness to ethically cleanse this country of illegal Latinos – Though It’s also notable that the CNN journalist on the spot also commented that the tactical police were behaving in a manner suggesting that the protesters were more peaceable than violent and were able to disperse them without much ado
As a corollary – when Mr. Trump said Judge Curiel, who will preside over the Trump University case should recuse himself because of his Mexican heritage, while Mr. Trump was roundly condemned by Republican leaders for making a patently racist remark, no one went so far as to note the similarity to Naziism: Substitute Jewish or Roma for Mexican and you have the beginning of a Hitlerian decree. Loathsome.
With the white European Western race being the most intelligent humans on earth, with Nazism on the one hand and greed driven capitalism on the other being their twin corruption, would you care to explain the difference between the two?
Alex Jones is heinous, but I don’t think “conspiracist” quite fits. Why not something a little more precise and true. “Right wing conspiracy monger” or “far-right demagogue” or something else (you’re the creative writer). I really hate “conspiracist” used just as a epithet because it doesn’t make any distinction between honest people genuinely interested in, say, what happened in 1963 (Michael Parenti is a good example) with raging, right-wing agenda pushing azzwipes like Alex Jones.
Jones is clearly a far-right lunatic with the political IQ of a newt – a man who supposedly can’t tell democratic socialism from Naziism. A man who yells and screams and peddles fear and irrationality for big money.
The term “conspiracist” tends to make him look too good, and tie a lot of honest people in with his mess who don’t deserve to be.
With Empire builders like Obama and Hillary, so sophisticated and well dressed, so articulated in the way they execute a genocide of the Palestine natives, are you sure that your priorities promote decency?
Conspiracies certainly exist–that’s why there’s a crime called “conspiracy” that people are sent to prison for. Conspiracists are people–like Alex Jones–who believe that world events are primarily driven by conspiracies.
So you believe that ‘world events are primarily driven by’ law abiding groups who publish their full agendas?
What about organisations like al Qaeda, the CIA and hedge funds – I suppose they have no effect on world events?
What about organisations that change the law in order to do criminal acts legally (crimes against humanity), like the neo-Cons and US DOJ and the Obama administration?
And what about the conspiracy theories spread by the state?
I think the criticism stands.
TRUMP and BERNIE — EMPIRE SLAYERS
Here we are, the most corrupt Empire democracy the world has ever known, Empire builder Hillary licking her chops at the thought of being the first lady president of a global war, yet we should worry that Trump will make satanic what is already most evil?
Shame on FAIR for effectively justifying unprovoked violence, albeit equivocally. Dangerous and despicable though Trump is, beating up on someone for attending a Trump rally and being a Trump supporter is not self-defense by any definition. This stuff only makes the fight against Trump harder.
“Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting”
Um… not in this piece. Way to push your agenda against Mr. Trump though.