Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Throwing Milkshakes At Fascists Is The New Punching Nazis In The Face (And Both Are The Right Thing To Do)

We live in an era where White Supremacists routinely walk into churches, synagogues, and mosques and commit mass murder, sometimes in the name of Trump.

But god forbid somebody throws a milkshake and ruins the jacket of a known fascist:
"What these critiques misunderstand is why milkshaking is so potent against Farage and his brethren: It humiliates them. Nothing animates the far right or shapes its worldview quite so much as the desire to humiliate others—and the fear of being humiliated themselves. It’s why alt-right trolls, projecting their own sexual insecurities, enjoy calling their opponents 'cucks.' It’s why they rally around blustery authoritarian figures like Donald Trump who cast themselves as beyond embarrassment, shame, or ridicule. They brandish humiliation like a weapon while craving release from it.
Getting doused in a milkshake robs far-right figures of the air of chauvinistic invulnerability that they spend so much time cultivating. They hunger to be taken seriously despite their racist views. They want to be described as dapper, to be interviewed on evening news broadcasts and weekend talk-show panels, and to be seen as a legitimate participant in the democratic process. Most politicians to the left of Enoch Powell would brush off milkshaking as a harmless stunt. For those seeking mainstream legitimacy, it’s another searing reminder that they don’t belong."
Why right-wing appeals for the left to be "polite" to them are ever taken seriously is beyond me.  Relatively speaking, a milkshake to the head is a perfectly measured counter-statement to the violence, implied and actual, of White Supremacism.

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