Hello! And welcome to your Brave New World in which Republicans no longer even try to pretend they're not cool with Nazis anymore. Thanks, Trump!
Earlier this month, The Daily Caller -- the site founded and still co-owned by Fox News's chief scowly-man Tucker Carlson -- published an ever-so glowing account of a White Nationalist rally to preserve Confederate monuments written by a fella named Jason Kessler. In which it was taken for granted, clearly, that a White Nationalist was not an odd or unusual thing for one to be.
In the evening event over 200 men and women carried torches to the statue of Robert E. Lee in a visually striking demonstration. The statue has been targeted by left-wing groups who’ve tried to have it removed just as the city of New Orleans has recently begun to do to their confederate monuments.Spencer and Dickson talked about the need to commemorate the dead whom they describe as dying in “brother wars” (i.e. wars between people of European ancestry). In response the crowd chanted “no more brother wars.”
BROTHER WARS. I don't even... what? The thing that bothers them about the Civil war was that it was white people fighting against white people and, um, they only want to fight wars against people who aren't white?
But wait, it got even better.
Like [protester Nathan] Damigo, many of the demonstrators weren’t necessarily Southerners but sympathized with the fight to preserve a history which they say is increasingly under attack by Left-wing ideologues who want to tear down statues, change the names of buildings and rewrite history books to place white people in an unsympathetic and even hostile light.
Pretty much nothing puts "white people" in an "unsympathetic and even hostile" light like a large group of self-described white nationalists rallying to save Confederate monuments. I mean, as an evil leftist whose only goal in life is to make white people feel bad about stuff for absolutely no reason whatsoever even though they never did nothing wrong to nobody, I guess I should thank them for doing all this work for me?
The article even included a whole weird little section about a young black man who just really loves and respects White Nationalist Richard Spencer. Because they're racists, but also very popular with black people.
Interestingly, a young black man, Emerson Stern, took a selfie with Richard Spencer. [Showing Up for Racial Justice leader Joe] Starsia then followed Stern through the park until reporters got between the two men.“Spencer speaks what everyone is thinking but afraid to say out loud,” Stern said. “Showing Up for Racial Justice is a group of white, privileged losers,” he said of Starsia, “they don’t really do anything.”
You know, whenever anyone says that someone "says what everyone is thinking but is afraid to say out loud" -- it is usually only a thing that horrible people are thinking but are afraid to say out loud. I mean, I don't have statistics on this, but I would say that the vast majority of people in the world are not thinking what Richard Spencer is saying, because if everyone were thinking it, why would they be afraid to say it out loud? Additionally, people who do think like Richard Spencer tend to be pretty vocal about all the horrible things they think.
For instance, should you click "Show Comments" you will see about a hundred people shedding solemn tears for all the "white genocide" that is happening these days.
Oh man, they are just ever so demure, aren't they!
BUT ANYWAY. It turned out that this very objective article about white nationalist losers rallying to save their dumb treason monuments was written by one of those white nationalist losers. The author, Jason Kessler, actually spoke at a luncheon in support of preserving the monuments earlier that day, and failed to disclose this.
Via Pro-Publica:
The story, it turned out, also carried some critical omissions: It didn’t disclose that its author, Jason Kessler, is supportive of white supremacist groups, and on the day of the march had himself made a speech to the protesters in which he praised fascist and racist organizations, thanked a prominent Holocaust denier, and declared the beginnings of a cultural “civil war.”ProPublica contacted Kessler after the article’s publication. In the course of an extended interview, Kessler said he saw efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy as part of a broader attack on white people who, in his view, face an “existential crisis.”
After Pro-Publica contacted The Daily Caller about this conflict of interest, they put a note on the article stating that the author had disclosed to them that he had given a speech earlier that day. However, they did tell Pro-Publica that they had severed their relationship with him.
“The story is factually accurate and plainly states what happened at the event,” said Paul Conner, executive editor of The Daily Caller. “But in light of his activism on the issue, we have mutually agreed to suspend our freelance relationship with him.”Asked about the substance of Kessler’s speech in Charlottesville, Conner offered no comment on Kessler’s statements. In an email, he said only, “We pay writers for journalism, not their opinions.”
Oh boy, and that sure was some good journalism he did! Now Kessler, who has written for his own site, Real News With Jason Kessler, along with other right-wing sites like Chuck C. Johnson's Got News, and white nationalist site VDare.com, is accusing Pro-Publica of cruelly trying to sabotage his journalism career. Which surely was going places until they stepped in!
Please allow me to point out that the first post on Jason's Site For Real News is a video all about how it's unfair that you can't say mean stuff about Jewish people. Journalism!
Oh, also he writes poetry, because of course he writes poetry.
Excuse me,Today I want to say a few words about colors.
Thank you very much for cumming
Red is the most human color: the color of violence, the color of passion, love & blood. Red more than any other color connects us with the animal kingdom. Primal motivators are bathed in red.
Gray may not be the most pleasant color to look at but it is the most honest. It's the dreary, the mundane. It's the morally complex between here and there. When you can't pin something down it fades into gray.
He even makes MEMES of it.
I think it is pretty safe to say that his "writing career" was not going anywhere, Pro-Publica or no.
But the really scary thing here, the thing that we do have to think about, is that The Daily Caller published an article by a White Nationalist in which White Nationalists were portrayed as super reasonable people rallying for a just cause, and it was well-received by their audience. This crap isn't just proliferating in far-flung corners of the internet like 4Chan and what have you, it's in places that are generally considered within the mainstream of "conservative news." This is where people are being "radicalized" now. This is where radicalization is turning into normalization, and I honestly don't know what can be done about it.
