Luke Ford

If it is publicly acceptable to wear communist regalia such as a Che t-shirt and to use marxist terminology and arguments, then why shouldn’t it be equally acceptable to snap a Roman salute? Communists slaughtered far more people than Nazis and yet communism remains cool with many of the West’s intellectuals, particularly Jews.

A young man, Hugh, with a Jewish father, non-Jewish mother posts:

[Author wears glasses on the left. ]

Personally I do not have any problems with this gesture, as I think it is an inspirational expression of loyalty to, and pride in, our heritage. I understand not all members of the movement would agree, and for that reason I would not willingly put out an image of myself doing it while associated with the movement.

That evening I saw that Tila Tequila had posted this image to her Twitter page. I was at first worried it would come back on both myself and the movement, but as a half-jew posing with an Asian I figured it would be viewed for what it was, a joke. But as the next day wore on, and I saw the image gaining traction, I became more and more fearful of the image’s attention overshadowing the real content and purpose of the conference.

After Richard Spencer’s rousing and excellent speech on Saturday night, several attendees threw up Roman salutes themselves. I personally did not, as I was already quite upset with myself for my part in the photo from the previous night. I do not condemn them, as I imagine they felt the same way I did raising the salute with Tila. Whether or not it was a poor choice is a very subjective matter as we have purposefully grown the Alt-Right as a very big tent, filled with a spectacular diversity of opinions, ranging from those of Andrew Anglin, to the now highly critical Mike Cernovich.

This nebulous and inclusive nature has made us both extremely effective, and extremely vulnerable to problems like infighting. The last thing I would ever want is to see us begin to splinter in the face of such a trivial disagreement, and to be at the center of it personally would drive me to utter despair.

Despite being the product of the selfish act of miscegenation myself, I identify as European. The preservation of our race, our culture, and our way of life is more dear to me than any other part of my life. I lived first-hand through the violence caused by diversity. I was brought to the Alt-Right before it had a singular name, beyond disparate publications like American Renaissance or Occidental Dissent. This is why I do not mind risking my personal future by having my face and identity out in the open. However seeing the movement damaged in such a way, and losing the ability to work toward it’s furtherance is a fate I simply cannot abide.

None of the personal fallout since NPI has bothered me on any deep level, even my own Jewish father seeing my face on MSNBC giving the Roman salute caused me little concern. It was not until Ramzpaul called me a false-flagger that I was truly vexed. I cannot begin to process someone I respect so deeply thinking this of me. I understand though, it is easier to write it off as such than to address the underlying issues that led to this course of events, especially considering my parentage.

Myself and the other attendee in this video Paul posted were trying to play identity politics back at the Antifa members by using their own victim hierarchy against them. As someone personally to the right of many others on the JQ, from personal experiences around Jews, I understand this reaction completely. Still, I openly defended our ideals and promoted our non-violent methods in another video, and have written extensively on behalf of the movement. The other attendee has done the same, and never threw up a Roman salute, neither with Tila Tequila, nor in the conference following Spencer’s speech.

A friend says: There are three things of particular note today.

The first is that Hawaii’s representative, Democrat Tulsi Gabbard (one of the prettiest members of Congress) met with Trump today at Trump’s invitation. She did not refuse the invitation. She wrote about it in what appears to be a press release, but may be her own words today.

She said she went for the purpose of urging Trump not to listen to the neo cons but to keep the U.S. out of Syria. This is tremendously important as she is a respected Democrat (who is also a major in the Hawaii National Guard who served in Iraq). Her being willingness to meet with Trump because she and he have common ground regarding U.S. foreign interventions, is, as they say, cause for cautious optimism. This will encourage other like minded Democrats to do the same and be a warning to neo cons that if they try to seize the initiative in the Trump administration, they can be marginalized, because Trump will have the backing of sufficient Democrats to offset the neo cons.

The second is floating (actually more than floating) Kris Kobach’s name as director of Homeland Security. He met with Trump today and brought with him plans to reintroduce the sort of screening for potential terrorists that was imposed in 2002. Kobach is very smart and is a hardliner on immigration issues. This has to be encouraging news (unless it turns out to not be the case) for those who think that the nations security require greater vigilance toward Muslims, especially Muslims who come here as immigrants or visitors, those who want our immigration laws enforced for reasons ranging from wanting to uphold the rule of law to those who don’t like the cultural changes made when large number of immigrants come here.

The third is Trump’s off the record meeting with members of the press. The anchors and heads of the Networks and other top executives were at the meeting. It was supposed to be off the record but word has leaked that Trump called the meeting to dress them down and call them liars. This is interesting for two reasons. Yesterday Trump met with Ari Emanual (Rahm’s brother ) who is Trump’s agent for the Apprentice and its spin offs. Since Emanual is quite the power broker in Hollywood which was mostly strongly and vocally opposed to Trump, some may have mistakenly thought this was an overture to get back into Hollywood’s better graces. It looks to me that Trump has taken the position that the main stream press is dying and that he can go over the heads of the press through social media and outlets like Breitbart. Perhaps Steve Bannon advised Trump on this approach. The press doesn’t like being made irrelevant, although in this case they deserve and one can hardly blame Trump as viewing the press collectively (a few sympathetic persons, notwithstanding) as the enemy.

The press may try to take a tough collective line against Trump, but he holds all the cards. If they don’t cooperate with him he can ignore, and that will cost them beaucoup bucks since television (both Cable and Network) news operations bring in much more revenue than they cost to produce. Frankly, without a mea culpa from the press, not that they missed the Trump phenomenon, but admitting they actually advocated unfairly against him and did not fairly cover his substantive policy proposals and in doing so abdicated their responsibilities, along with a commitment to more fairly report the news without favoring one political party or one political position over another, Trump may refuse to have anything to do with them, feeding them news releases and holding interviews only with his favorites. If anyone one on his staff leaks to the press, Trump should fire them immediately. Eventually the press will have to come around. However, if they knuckle under to Trump, even if this is by doing relatively objective reporting, they lose their reputation with Democrats and liberals.

The issue with the Press will be a fun one to watch shake out.

Jack* wrote this ten days ago:

Much of what Donald Trump proposed as a candidate should be embraced by the protesters. Trump is not a conventional republican. He campaigned on maintaining and strengthening the social safety net programs of social security and medicare. Although he did run against the Affordable Care Act, he promised to maintain the popular provisions of preventing Insurance Companies from denying coverage to persons with pre existing conditions an also to allow
parents to insure their children up through age 26. He ran on a program of reducing tensions with Russia and supporting them in their efforts on behalf of Assad to defeat Syrian rebels which include components of Sunni/Wahabi fundamentalists including Isis. He has proposed a one trillion dollar stimulus program. And at various times has said he would raise taxes on the Investment Bankers that are at the apex of a financialized economy, while promoting a manufacturing economy that employs workers and produces goods.

He has promised to renegotiate trade deals so they are more favorable to workers in the United States. He wants to enforce existing immigration laws and enact policies that will evaluate immigrants in terms of which ones provide the greatest benefit to the United States as a whole. When Bernie Sanders was interviewed by Ezra Klein, Sanders pointed out that refusal to enforce immigration laws is bad for workers and was supported by the Koch Brothers.

All of these proposals should appeal to the protesters as they are more progressive and liberal than policies espoused by Hillary Clinton (except that Hillary Clinton wanted to grant those who had entered the country illegally, an opportunity to remain.)

To enact constitutional amendments 3/4 of the state legislatures have to support it. Right now the Republicans control all but 17 and of those 17, in four of them the Republicans already control at least one house of the legislature. If they win control of those four and one more they will be in a position to approve new constitutional amendments, amendments that surely progressives dislike.

Protesters should realize they are playing with fire. It is fine to march and denounce Trump although by calling him an extremist, it reveals that they are partisans and not principled. Any acts that disrupt the everyday lives of people, such as blocking highways, breaking windows, harassing persons not supportive of the rallies, only turns off the very persons they are trying to reach and persuade, and even worse it risks pushing Trump into the arms of traditional Republicans. The last thing the protesters should want is for Trump to make common cause with Paul Ryan to impose Ryan’s budget, or with the Neo Conservative war mongers to continue America’s foreign interventions in support of our “Empire.” It also appears the protests are counterproductive as Trump’s approval ratings have risen from 37 to 46 percent since the election and his unfavorability ratings have dropped from 61 to 46 percent. 65% of Democrats and most of the protesters say they want the Democratic minority to act toward Trump as the Republican minority acted toward Obama, as a monolithic bloc aimed at thwarting anything Obama wanted to do. As it was Congress passed the affordable care act without any Republican votes and barely squeezed out approval of a stimulus package, that instead of creating jobs by repairing infrastructure, was doled out to states that used the funds to
close budget holes and to pay employees in the public sector; sort of disguised bribery to to keep them voting for the guy who allowed them to collect bonuses and not have to accept pay cuts. But in his first two years when he had a Democratic House and Senate, Obama didn’t offer programs that fit within the Republicans’ ideology or its politics.

Some of Trump’s proposals do. In fact, some of his proposals likely, will face Republican opposition and cannot be passed without Democratic support. If Democrats think this will help their chances in the 2018 midterms, then perhaps they should stick with a plan of obstruction, even if it would be more in keeping with their principles to support them. But Democrats are defending 25 Senate seats in 2018, many of them in states where Trump handily defeated Clinton. Do the protesters want to lose those as well?

Both Schumer and Sanders have indicated that they will work with Trump on proposals that they favor. This puts them as realists, but also at odds with the Democrats as a whole. It also undermines the Trump equals Hitler argument as neither of them would try to help a Hitler pass any legislation.

Further, the Republicans have not changed the senate rules to do away with the filibuster (which requires 60 votes for cloture) and which allows the minority party if it has at least 41 votes to exert some leverage on legislation. However, the senate under the Democrats did vote to bar the filibuster for lower court and other office appointment confirmations. If the Democrats take an obstructionist tack in the Senate, the Republicans may eliminate it entirely.

The unintended consequences for the protesters will almost surely make a President Trump govern more conservatively than he would otherwise. The protests may push the Republican majority in the Senate past 60 so that they wouldn’t even have to bar the filibuster to enact conservative legislation or confirm conservative appointees and it may result in tipping enough state legislatures Republican so that some conservative ideas become enshrined in the
Constitution.