So... what the fuck is going on in America?

[The Curmudgeon]

There's American's waving swastikas and doing Nazi salutes on the right. There's historical statues being pulled down on the left. There's a fucking maniac talking about "fire and fury" and wanting to bomb Korea.

What is going on??

[trashcanman]

How to answer that.....weeeeelllll, either this is the kind of shit that always goes on in pockets of the country and now the media is seeking it out 24/7 or we are pretty fucked. Actually, possibly both since the first inevitably leads to the other. If all people see on the TV and internet is people acting like fucking idiots, they will always decide acting like an idiot is the thing to do. Nobody is like this in my neck of the woods, although it is Trump country, but I'm concerned they will be. I feel like a lot of this Nazi shit started on 4chan as complete irony, but after a while it became so habitual there that when the next generation popped in they didn't get the joke and actually took it to heart. That's why you see Pepe the frog all over the place in this "alt-right" bullshit.


I mean, I knew people were stupid, but this is some next level shit. Becoming a nation of fascists and reactionaries over misunderstanding the concept of irony on the internet? That's a new low for humanity.

[Ben]

It sounds silly, but I think Trashcanman is spot on. Blame the media and the internet. We glorify this stuff with attention. Take Based Stick Man, the overnight Twitter and YouTube sensation whose only contribution to society was chasing off his political enemies with a stick and a shield. We'd laugh ourselves silly at him in any other context, or maybe even decry the fact that he and others are attacking each other with makeshift weapons because they believe different things, but instead he's "YouTube famous."

The attention we give to people like those who marched in Virginia is negative, but the end result is even more sinister. They've gotten 6, going on 7 days of international fucking media face time. That's a political minority the size of a grain of salt, and we've given them the spotlight for an entire week. If we want these people to go away and do this shit in their basement, then we need to dismiss them and go back to talking about baseball and Miley Cyrus and all the other mundane shit the media likes to talk about.

The media attention is also why it seems to you, Curmudgeon, like everything is nuts over here. It really isn't. No more nutty than it's been at any other point in time since the 60s. I mean, we had a crazy man shoot a sitting U.S. politician a couple months ago, there were riots at Berkeley in California less than 4 months ago, and it was already 2 fucking years ago that angry Baltimore urbanites and opportunists burned down part of their own city, if you can believe it's been that long. And if you don't remember any of these things... Well, that's the point. Something else will happen soon and we'll forget about the neo-Nazis.

Also, interesting side note: An intellectual friend of mine infiltrated an online community of these white supremacists some months ago. He says most are actually very intelligent, which is frightening, but that they're totally naive to the idea that events like last Friday's march don't help their movement. Which seems like it should be obvious. He also told me that he's spoken to the aforementioned Based Stick Man, who he called "a blathering idiot." Raise your hand if you're surprised. Okay, no one? Great.

[trashcanman]

Don't mistake eloquent with intelligent. They may use big words they learned in colleges where they paid through the nose and put themselves in catastrophic debt to be told what books to read in order to receive a useless degree and end up working at a fast food restaurant or factory anyway, but that doesn't mean what they're saying makes any sense. They are however, brilliant self-promoters, as are most millennials due to being raised on social media.

I have to admit that the president of these motherfucking United States blaming the people who got deliberately run over by a neo-nazi for protesting nazis overrunning our streets has got to be an all-time low even below the possibility that all this was started by people not understanding satire when they see it. I'm almost tempted to start a Twitter account just so I can ask him if he really wants to be known as the president who encouraged nazis to take over our streets. Yeah, those idiots pulled down a statue of an icon whose primary accomplishment was being willing to kill, die, and send others to kill and die to protect the institution of slavery -and those people should be charged with vandalism or destruction of property or whatever because that's not the way- but that is in no way, shape, or form on the level of a nazi deliberately crashing a car into a crowd of people exercising their First Amendment rights. "SJWs" and the like are naive and obnoxious, but next to white supremacists marching in our streets they look like heaven.

[timaris2013]

I "WAS" wrong, U are not racist. Since our 2013 fight. I've felt real racism.
U r not in thst category at all.
It's...a messing America.
It's going to take good people to see us through. As 4 Trump, man I thought he was just going to play a dumb office holder, he much more than I can ever dream, I live in Texas, I've seen his speak, and response. He doesn't care about anything but himself and his agenda.

Do me a favor Curmudgeon.
Don't block me this time. I'm never overly rude.

[trashcanman]

Welcome back, Tim. I'm sorry that people are such assholes that even we look preferable. I'm pretty cynical, but damn I thought we were past most of this shit as a country with only some hicks, elderlies, and prisoners being actual real deal racists. Then this generation happened. Then again, maybe it's always been this way and now it's just getting blasted on news channels and the internet 24/7. And me, being stuck in a really diverse section of Cali, hasn't been seeing it. It's probably not worse than the insanity of the Reagan years all in all, what with people electing a fucking cowboy movie actor who pretty openly ran drugs and weapons to terrorists as president, convinced everyone that devil worshipers were sacrificing all of our babies to Satan, and Mexican killer bees were going to kill us all while punk rock is outlawed, but at least that generated some of the most hardcore music ever. We had Slayer and NWA and Ice T and Black Flag and all kinds of badass pissed-off shit to listen to. Who the fuck do Millennials get to express their rage? Beyonce? Taylor Swift? Kanye West may try every once in a while, but he just ain't genuinely angry enough to pull it off. This shit is fucked up.