Triggered by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s visit to Europe, Battersea bedroom dweller Paul Watson, aka Prison Planet, has been indulging in more of his faux reportage, telling his followers how The Donald is defending The West, rather than a rambling idiot who has turned the US Presidency into a joke. What Watson is also admitting is that he is more than sympathetic to virulent white supremacism.
Trump gave a speech in Poland which has proved controversial - but not to Watson and his pals at batshit conspiracy site InfoWars. “How refreshing is it to see a president stridently defending the west rather than endlessly apologizing for it? #Poland” he Tweeted proudly. But the cat was already out of the bag, as Josh Lowe at Newsweek and Peter Beinart at The Atlantic were not slow to tell their readers.
Lowe quoted Trump claiming “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive”. That remark is loaded. He also noted “Europe and America, Trump said, are great because they celebrate ‘ancient heroes,’ ‘write symphonies,’ observe ‘timeless customs,’ ‘cherish inspiring works of art,’ defend ‘the rule of law’”. Trump’s view is of a white and Christian Europe, pitted against “the other”.
Beinart observed “Donald Trump referred 10 times to ‘the West’ and five times to ‘our civilization.’ His white nationalist supporters will understand exactly what he means … The West is not a geographic term … The West is not an ideological or economic term either … The West is a racial and religious term”. And Lisa Dunn at Elite Daily went further.
After noting “In the past, President Trump and his ilk have been accused of ‘dog whistle politics’ - using coded language to communicate specific (usually white supremacist) messages while addressing a general audience”, she revealed “Earlier today, Sarah Palin tweeted a link to a post by Young Conservatives, an alt-right blog, that mentioned a loaded phrase - ’14 words’ - which has people wondering if the dog whistles are transitioning into overt speech”. That might not be familiar to those in Britain. Ms Dunn explains it.
“The 14 words are, per the Anti-Defamation League, a reference to a popular white supremacist slogan: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’”. The inference is clear: Trump was alluding to that line in his references to “The West”, “the will to survive”, and “our civilisation”.
Paul Watson is either terminally stupid - entirely possible - or knowledgeable enough to deflect, which latter point would explain “Newsweek globalist got triggered by Trump saying we must defend western civilization”, and “The left actually views western civilization as something to be ashamed of, not defended. Let that sink in”.
This crude deflection also includes the basest of threats and smears, typified by “Lots of crazy stuff flying around about the personal lives of CNN hosts right now. I think they might regret opening this can of worms”. Like he’s occupying the moral high ground. And then he tells his audience what he and the other clowns will do when they get called out: “Every single time, they get called out and then play the victim”.
That’s Paul Watson for you. Defending white supremacism, smearing opponents, and then running away when the heat gets too much for him. The Alt-Right’s cowardice personified.
I'm not ashamed of Western Civilisation.
ReplyDeleteBut I AM ashamed of the West's historical dominance of the slave trade, imperialism, colonialism and continuing capitalism, invasions, wars, and destabilising of other nations who it can't control.
Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western Civilisation and he answered, "It would be a good idea". He didn't have to search his conscience for the reason.
In Britain 2017 a quarter of of our population live in poverty and we still have foodbank soup kitchens. Nothing "civilised" about that. But it IS shameful.
Beinart is over-egging it a bit (!) While it's true that "the west" isn't officially defined as an ideological/economic/whatever entity, it's also true that it isn't officially defined as a racial and religious entity either. The term "the west" is very vague, rather like "Brexit" - one gets a general impression of something but not of anything in particular.
ReplyDeleteBeinart's sleight-of-hand is pretty obvious here: ostentatiously removing one set of definitions from the game, while slipping his own marked cards into the deck.
(My own interpretation fwiw: Trump was using the term 'the west' with a Polish audience, because of course Poland was annexed by the Soviet Union ("the east") during the Cold War and this is the context that EU-US media commentators are missing).
As for that idiot Sarah Palin, the fact that she tweets a link to some ropy far-right idiots is pretty unremarkable. She's a nitwit who performs this sort of pratfall fairly regularly.
In any case, joining one big fuzzy dot (Trump's invocation of "The West") with one small and smudged dot (a typically ill-advised tweet by Sarah Palin) does not equal evidence, let alone proof, of some far-right conspiracy being played out in plain sight.
Cock-up is always more likely than conspiracy, and presuming that this pair of clowns could run a dictatorship, or even have a workable plan to establish one, is simply preposterous.