Right Wing Extremists

Ileana Johnson is not a Serious Person

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Writing at The Bull Elephant (and Freedom Outpost), Ileana Johnson complains that:

“What is good has become bad, evil has become good, and moral values have been replaced by moral relativism, decadence, and filth. America continues to be fundamentally transformed from the shadows.”

Johnson is a conservative, so she’s not talking about Donald Trump paying porn stars not to talk about his (lack of) skills as a lover. She’s talking about Barack Obama promising to “’fundamentally transform’ America into a socialist paradise of his anti-American and racist ideology.”  I must admit to having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around this, and Johnson does not elaborate in a way that clears up her meaning.  Continue reading →

Comment at Virginia Right

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ 2 Comments

Ellwood Sanders is a regular contributor to Virginia Right, a conservative blog edited by Tom White.  Yesterday he posted an article criticizing Leslie Cockburn and Chuck Schumer for having “perverted legal questions into political ones.”  It seems Cockburn tweeted that the Trump Administration demonstrated its “lack of respect for states’ rights and Virginians’ health.,” and Schumer pointed out that the Bret Kavanaugh nomination “would put a dagger through the heart” of Democrats’ belief that health care is America’s number one issue. Continue reading →

Mea Culpa

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ 1 Comment

I’ve never been very prolific with respect to posting on this blog, and certainly not consistent.  Even an election campaign featuring one of the most obviously unfit candidates for President in American history didn’t change this pattern much.  Still, I wrote two posts arguing that Donald Trump could not possibly win the election.

Well, I damn sure got that one wrong. I simply could not bring myself to believe that American voters would elect a incompetent buffoon* President simply because he promised things no one actually believed he would or could do and said the quiet racist and xenophobic parts out loud.

Like many liberals I checked out of politics for a while after the election.  I simply could not stomach watching Trump’s Keystone Cops transition.  And of course I went into yet another blogging hiatus.

Until, a week or so ago I took a look at Foggy Bottom Line to make sure everything still worked and noticed a rare comment – this one from a Trump supporter:

HaHa! Don’t you feel stupid.

He won and you haven’t had much to say since.

Liberalism is cancer. Hell, you guys can’t even determine how many genders there are. Yet, you’re so scientific and stuff.

It’s time we move on. Nationalism today. Nationalism tomorrow. Nationalism forever.

You’re losing progressives. Your powers are receding. Your spell casts upon humanity is vanishing. Your grip on Western Civilization is weakening and the forces of the Right are prying it from your pale bony hands. Your protest and lamentations are convulsions, the last final death throes of a rotten and corrosive ideology soon to be erased, replaced, and forgotten.

We president now.

Not much here but name-calling and unfounded assertions about where American voters are politically.  Yes, Donald Trump is President now, thanks to an anti-democratic election system designed to protect the political power of slave states.  But it’s important to remember that no liberal Presidential candidate has lost the popular vote since 1988.  And if winning the Presidency demonstrates primacy of a particular ideology, I would have been right about Trump – Barack Obama, after all, won the Presidency – twice – in the name of liberalism (albeit not the most progressive kind).  So it’s not clear how this very close election – won more or less on a technicality – demonstrates an ideological wave moving right.  And it begs the question: how long before Trump’s “spell casts (sic) on humanity” vanishes?  How long before (white?) “Nationalism” loses its new “grip on Western Civilization?”

Nevertheless, I do indeed feel stupid.  Stupid because I seriously never saw President Donald Trump coming.  Stupid because I never dreamed that “nationalism,” (white nationalism?) had gripped so many Americans as a governing philosophy.  But mostly stupid because I didn’t raise my voice loudly or often enough to help prevent it.

If progressive liberal ideology is in fact “soon to be erased, replaced, and forgotten,” I don’t intend to remain silent as it does.  No, I have not had much to say since Donald Trump won the Electoral College.  I aim to fix that.

*I mean…the man lost a billion dollars running a casino.  You have to work hard at stupid to make that happen.  The only case in known gambling history of the house losing – and bigly.

Bob Owens is no “cool and clear-thinking moderate.”

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Last week Rick Perlstein published a nice little rundown of the “far-right’s counter-resistance” in the Washington Spectator.  He opens:

Afriend writes, “For basically the past six months or so I’ve been trying to tell my lefty friends in so many words, ‘Hey, there are a bunch of people on the Internet who are waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay to start shooting at you.’”

Perlstein wrote Nixonland, a well-researched and argued case that Richard Nixon’s manipulation of fear and racism in his pursuit of the Presidency helped set the conditions for today’s partisan political climate.  His new book, The Invisible Bridge looks good as well.  “Guns, Extremism, and Threats of Escalation” is a great article and you should go and read the whole thing.  Perlstein by all accounts understands the right wing of American politics and writes well about it.

But I have to challenge him on this:

The march turned into a “small riot,” as gun-rights blogger Bob Owens, one of the most widely read on the web, and a cool and clear-thinking moderate, described it after reviewing the available documentation. (emphasis mine).

Bob Owens, an editor at Bearing Arms, aka “Confederate Yankee,” is no “cool and clear-thinking moderate.” I’ve read his work since I got into a bit of dialogue with him after the Virginia Tech tragedy. in 2007. He’s a racist gun nut who writes barely coherent screeds against Black Lives Matter and suggests that “propagandists for elitists” (Media Matters for America) need a “serious review of our capacity for violence.” He has advocated for the formation of private militias and advised them on proper armament.

In 2010 he argued that since “Our would-be ruling class has abandoned the principles that founded this nation” it’s time to “revolt and destroy the ruling class and reform our government based upon first principles.”

He more recently expressed concern that the “radical left” has become “much more insistent in their desire to use force to get their way and impose their ideas on the American people.”  After opening with a suggestion that the “survivors of the Democrat rebellion will meet their end” on a gallows, he uses a quote from one professor to suggest that Democrats want to “forcibly disarm” gun owners and then straight-up lies about Obama’s proposed gun control policies.  Not finished ranting, he then seems to advocate the resistance by police officers and soldiers to lawfully-passed gun control legislation – presumably because no regulation of his ability to arm himself can be legitimate.

This is a man who believes black people are solely responsible for the social problems afflicting their communities – slavery, Jim Crow, and housing and job discrimination have left no lasting legacy.  He thinks every liberal agrees with the most radical leftist he can find but believes right-wing extremists are just normal Americans worried about losing their liberty to an oppressive government.  And he advocates violent overthrow of the US Government whenever it embraces liberal principles that do not match his view of Constitutional legal legitimacy.

Don’t let his opinion that use of deadly force is more restricted in California than it is in Texas fool you. Bob Owens is an extremist, and he offered that advice not to discourage violence but to help his fellow travelers avoid crossing a line..  He is no “cool, clear-thinking moderate,,” and I bet he hides his old Confederate Yankee archives for a reason..