National Guard called into Minneapolis

[Silvanus]

Thing is most influence wasn't done via marches etc.
They do those for attention and recruitment and giving them attention is helping their cause.
Blowing them up as some huge threat and not a bunch of sad pathetic individuals is giving them more credit and helping them.

The solution isn't yelling at them and trying to fight them.

Daryl Davis has done a hell of a lot to steer people away from such groups just by trying to understand them and show them there are other ways and they are misguided.

Far-right marches are often done as a show-of-force, the intention being to recruit among other far-right individuals and to send a signal to opponents (or minorities) that they're unwelcome. Counter-protesters reason that if they have a bigger turnout, or if they drown out that message, they'll give a clear indication that far-right ideals don't have popular support.

You could argue that complete media silence would do a better job starving them of publicity and visibility. But as the far-right protests from 2 weeks back show, even if counter-protesters aren't there, a far-right march will still garner publicity from the press.

yet it does work people retreated.

I was personally there when the tactic was employed. It did not work.

Forcing a retreat wasn't the purpose of the tactic, because there was nowhere to retreat to (we were in an enclosed area and not allowed to leave), and we weren't doing anything violent; we were literally just standing around, waiting to be let out so we could go home. The charge accomplished nothing but endangering our lives.

No but there are leaders of groups that can be pointed to

...who don't speak for all protestants.

I don't understand why you're arguing this point, unless it's pure contrarianism. It's factually incorrect that Protestantism has a single structure. If a Protestant said something objectionable, and you pointed to some Protestant church leader to refute it, there's about a one-in-ten-thousand chance that those two people would belong to the same organisation.

Catholicism has at least nominal adherence to a single structure (the central Catholic church, centred around the papacy). Modern Protestantism was formed in part as a reaction against that very thing.

But when no-one is head to represent the organisation then anyone can be said to represent it's views unless the rest strongly reject said view.

"Can be said to"? Why should we pay any credence to that? Someone needs some form of actual credentials to speak on behalf of anyone else.

Depends where they set up most likely.

What, you're saying that you actually do believe that lots of people turned up, failed to notice the sea of swastikas & KKK flags, failed to hear the anti-Semitic chants, and marched along blissfully unaware of its nature?

Because the sum of a person may not be just certain highly problematic view they hold due to ignorance or being misguided and if that is how people view others then it says there is no chance for change. No option but war of some kind. Which when said individuals argue stuff like people wanting to wipe them out and you're saying there is no hope to change them and people are so against them then the only solution is to then make them believe they are right and you do want to wipe them out not just wipe out their misguided awful ideology of hate.

I'm having trouble understanding this paragraph. Are you saying that my stance is making other people more hardline?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Generally, when people talk about Trump dog whistling to white supremacists, they don't mean these kind of overt memes or references.

So apparently today is the day the Trump campaign team decided to prove me wrong on the internet.



If you're not sure what the reference is.



Inverted triangles were used as badges to mark prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Jews would have two triangles layered on top of each other to create a star of David. The colour of the triangle denotes the type of prisoner, with the red triangle signifying political prisoners. It is red because the first political prisoners confined in concentration camps were communists and the political left.

The "Trump Team" tweets were posted as part of a series with the same text but different clipart images of stop signs. I mean, just the laziest shittiest clipart which has nothing to do with the message. The intention was clearly to maintain deniability by claiming that the red triangle is a stop sign. Unfortunately, whichever Trump campaign spokesman responded when some people amazingly saw through this didn't get the memo, and instead claimed the red triangle is a symbol used by Antifa.

The red triangle is used by antifascist protesters, but it isn't commonly used and is a reference to its use in Nazi concentration camps (as in the memorial above) much like the pink triangle is sometimes used today by LGBT people as part of remembrance or celebration. The symbol does not make sense in the context of a post condemning "far left mobs" except as a reference to the fate of the political left under the Nazis. It also raises the obvious question of what the stop signs were for.

So yes, I guess we're a bit further along than I thought we were.

 

[tstorm823]

I someone thinks “Black Lives Matter” is an intimidating slogan it’s possibly because they don’t care about black lives.

It's not intimidating, it's accusatory. Good progressive slogans are an affirmation of hope for the future that draws the audience in and makes you want to be part of the movement. Something like "I have a dream" is great like that. "Votes for Women" does the same sort of thing, it tells people what you want, and puts it in a positive light. The subtext of these things is "the worldwill be better". "Black lives matter" doesn't have that subtext. Saying "black lives matter" is an affirmation that some people don't think black lives matter. It's an accusation. It is a declaration of resentment. That resentment may be entirely correctly placed, but that doesn't make the accusation a good strategy, unless you can find me some examples where hating someone until they show you love worked out well.

 

[Buyetyen]

So yes, I guess we're a bit further along than I thought we were.

And my Trump-voting grandparents wonder why I've been having more panic attacks this year.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Far-right marches are often done as a show-of-force, the intention being to recruit among other far-right individuals and to send a signal to opponents (or minorities) that they're unwelcome. Counter-protesters reason that if they have a bigger turnout, or if they drown out that message, they'll give a clear indication that far-right ideals don't have popular support.

You could argue that complete media silence would do a better job starving them of publicity and visibility. But as the far-right protests from 2 weeks back show, even if counter-protesters aren't there, a far-right march will still garner publicity from the press.

Well part of the open up protests (not entirely far right groups as far as I'm aware just quite a few) getting covered was the lack of news really at the time. I mean lockdown was being enforced. Though apparently that narrative has changed somewhat since then public sentiment wise when it's a different group doing it (arguably for better reason) but still it was a spark event as such not the fire itself.

Also not counter protesting would just be a show people don't think they're worth counter protesting that they're just idiots and they can't frame counter protesters are threatening them or any other such propaganda material

I was personally there when the tactic was employed. It did not work.

You said you scrambled to avoid being trampled so it worked

Forcing a retreat wasn't the purpose of the tactic, because there was nowhere to retreat to (we were in an enclosed area and not allowed to leave), and we weren't doing anything violent; we were literally just standing around, waiting to be let out so we could go home. The charge accomplished nothing but endangering our lives.

That's kettling for you.

...who don't speak for all protestants.

Nor does random no named person with no position in any local church or church council.

I don't understand why you're arguing this point, unless it's pure contrarianism. It's factually incorrect that Protestantism has a single structure. If a Protestant said something objectionable, and you pointed to some Protestant church leader to refute it, there's about a one-in-ten-thousand chance that those two people would belong to the same organisation.

Doesn't matter there is still structure there and the ability to refute.

"Can be said to"? Why should we pay any credence to that? Someone needs some form of actual credentials to speak on behalf of anyone else.

And when the group itself has no credentials in it's structure how is the person speaking judged on their credentials then?

What, you're saying that you actually do believe that lots of people turned up, failed to notice the sea of swastikas & KKK flags, failed to hear the anti-Semitic chants, and marched along blissfully unaware of its nature?

Never underestimate peoples idiocy

I'm having trouble understanding this paragraph. Are you saying that my stance is making other people more hardline?

Pretty much. If there is no out for them. If you can't see them as humans lead astray and aren't willing to change hearts and minds the only option to "Win" vs them is bullets through the hearts and minds, which is what they keep claiming people are trying to do and want so you'd be kind of playing into their hands.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

So apparently today is the day the Trump campaign team decided to prove me wrong on the internet.

View attachment 286

If you're not sure what the reference is.

View attachment 284 View attachment 287

Inverted triangles were used as badges to mark prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Jews would have two triangles layered on top of each other to create a star of David. The colour of the triangle denotes the type of prisoner, with the red triangle signifying political prisoners. It is red because the first political prisoners confined in concentration camps were communists and the political left.

The "Trump Team" tweets were posted as part of a series with the same text but different clipart images of stop signs. I mean, just the laziest shittiest clipart which has nothing to do with the message. The intention was clearly to maintain deniability by claiming that the red triangle is a stop sign. Unfortunately, whichever Trump campaign spokesman responded when some people amazingly saw through this didn't get the memo, and instead claimed the red triangle is a symbol used by Antifa.

The red triangle is used by antifascist protesters, but it isn't commonly used and is a reference to its use in Nazi concentration camps (as in the memorial above) much like the pink triangle is sometimes used today by LGBT people as part of remembrance or celebration. The symbol does not make sense in the context of a post condemning "far left mobs" except as a reference to the fate of the political left under the Nazis. It also raises the obvious question of what the stop signs were for.

So yes, I guess we're a bit further along than I thought we were.

I mean they might have got the idea from merchandise like this

https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Antifascist-Red-Triangles-antifa-left-symbol-by-reydefine/43631729.EJUG5

or

https://www.redbubble.com/i/tank-top/Antifascist-All-Red-by-Y2Juanlu/44812074.IXNXQ

Never attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to idiocy.

 

[Trunkage]

I mean they might have got the idea from merchandise like this

https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Antifascist-Red-Triangles-antifa-left-symbol-by-reydefine/43631729.EJUG5

or

https://www.redbubble.com/i/tank-top/Antifascist-All-Red-by-Y2Juanlu/44812074.IXNXQ

Never attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to idiocy.

To me, if was just triangles I could pass it off. But that the news article failed. It wasn’t 80 ads taken down. It was very specifically 88.

 

[Hawki]

If someone is going to decide they're pro-police brutality because their fee-fees hurt because black people didn't think of white people egos first, that person was already pro-police brutality.

No-one is pro-police brutality. It's like saying you're pro-murder. And if you think any criticism of Black Lives Matter (the movement) means that the person making the criticism doesn't believe that black lives matter, then that's insane. I could apply that logic to any concept or group of people. It's the same dishonest tactics used to insinuate that any criticism of Israel means you're an anti-semite.

Also, it belies an "all or nothing" approach. You can be pro BLM, and not pro New Black Panthers. You can be for the environment, but against Deep Green Resistance. You can believe in animal welfare, while being skeptical of PETA. You can be an atheist, without being an anti-theist. You can...well, I could do this ad infinitum.

That's the thing about polarizing, black-and-white, narratives. Disagreement is seen as opposition. You can't criticize groups like "black lives matter" and "antifa" without someone jumping to conclusions and saying "OH SO YOU DON'T THINK THAT BLACK LIVES MATTER? YOU LOOOVE POLICE BRUTALITY??!" "You'rE a NAZI!?" "RaCiSt!"

He didn't say anything about "pro police-brutality", yet you got there anyway. How did that happen?

And that's not a bug, it's a feature.
Seems like some people out there want to divide us, instead of uniting us.

Pretty much this.

To back to another point, March for Our Lives. MfOL sought to address gun violence. MFOL, to my knowledge, never racialized the issue, even though it could have (again, blacks commit more homicides per capita, whites commit more mass shootings per capita). MFOL, on the other hand, failed to change anything. And I said in the original post that whether BLM racializing the issue was the right move or not is something that I can't say is right or not, because it's too early to judge at this point.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I mean they might have got the idea from merchandise like this

No. They didn't.

If they had posted a series of antifascist symbols (of which there are hundreds, the red triangle doesn't even make most lists) and included this one, then maybe this could slide. Still dodgy, not obvious. However, they posted a series of stop and warning signs. They knew exactly what this symbol meant, which is why they tried to hide the reference before anyone picked up on it. It is only retrospectively, once they got caught, that they referred to antifascists using the symbol as well, conveniently ignoring that antifascists do so in reference to its usage in Nazi concentration camps.

They fucked up. They went too far, and we all saw them do it.

Never attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to idiocy.

This cannot be attributed to idiocy short of an idiocy so great that it may as well constitute malice. In order to become this idiotic a person would need to have maliciously set out to be an idiot, which is a form of malice, particularly for someone in a position of power over other people's lives.

There comes a point where refusing to call out malice ceases to be generosity and becomes cowardice. Personally, I feel that we hit that point around the time people were being put in concentration camps, and when the president of the United States defended putting people in concentration camps not only in the US but also abroad. But if that one slipped past you maybe this one shouldn't.

 

[SupahEwok]

They fucked up. They went too far, and we all saw them do it.

C'mon, man. What makes you think the president of the United States needs to play meme games with NeoNazis for pretty much any reason?

You know what I think is far more likely? Sabotage. There's somebody in the Whitehouse social media campaigns just trying to come up with shit to get Trump in trouble. The red triangle is simultaneously too obscure (nobody who hasn't made a detailed study of the Holocaust concentration camps is going to recognize it, it's not even on some lists for Nazi symbols) to be a call to action, yet not obscure enough to get away with it (those who have made a detailed study of Holocaust concentration camp iconography will still recognize it, and call it out, which I presume is how this controversy started in the first place, and it took less than 24 hours?).

Like, serious question: do you think Trump has actually sat down and read a book about the Holocaust? Ever? In his life? He's full of bad ideas, but how would he even come up with this one?

I'm not a fan of Trump. I'm not voting for him. I think he's a disgrace to the very honor of America. But this is stupid. The whole story is bait. It isn't possible for "them" to have thought they wouldn't get caught, or that whatever the fuck they'd gain from it wouldn't be cancelled out by the loss from being caught. It's just sabotage, at worst. Which fits the long running narrative of chaos in the Whitehouse, and rebellion and undercutting by Trump's staff.

 

[lil devils x]

You said you scrambled to avoid being trampled so it worked

And what if the person who get's trampled is unable to " scramble"? If they are elderly or disabled or due to the circumstances of the crowd, they are trampled anyways? These methods are atrocious and should be condemned. endangering lives of citizens exercising their first amendment rights is the OPPOSITE of protecting and serving.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

To me, if was just triangles I could pass it off. But that the news article failed. It wasn’t 80 ads taken down. It was very specifically 88.

What if this is one giant troll move?


Trump wants to portray his opposition and unhinged people so he or his team drops stuff like this in there deliberately to make it seem like people are jumping at shadows to others.

I mean the Pepe thing was madness as the claims PEPE was a white nationalist symbol came just after I think it was Trump Jr posted a meme called "The deplorables" a parody of the Expendables.

How weird must it be for people not that deep into web culture hearing that the green frog people have been sharing innocently is a white supremacist icon? In reality it was just a meme and some trolls and white supremacist were doing Nazi versions of it. They do Nazi versions of Micky Mouse too. But it was a PEPE meme (not a Nazi one) shared by Trump Jr.

 

[lil devils x]

C'mon, man. What makes you think the president of the United States needs to play meme games with NeoNazis for pretty much any reason?

You know what I think is far more likely? Sabotage. There's somebody in the Whitehouse social media campaigns just trying to come up with shit to get Trump in trouble. The red triangle is simultaneously too obscure (nobody who hasn't made a detailed study of the Holocaust concentration camps is going to recognize it, it's not even on some lists for Nazi symbols) to be a call to action, yet not obscure enough to get away with it (those who have made a detailed study of Holocaust concentration camp iconography will still recognize it, and call it out, which I presume is how this controversy started in the first place, and it took less than 24 hours?).

Like, serious question: do you think Trump has actually sat down and read a book about the Holocaust? Ever? In his life? He's full of bad ideas, but how would he even come up with this one?

I'm not a fan of Trump. I'm not voting for him. I think he's a disgrace to the very honor of America. But this is stupid. The whole story is bait. It isn't possible for "them" to have thought they wouldn't get caught, or that whatever the fuck they'd gain from it wouldn't be cancelled out by the loss from being caught. It's just sabotage, at worst. Which fits the long running narrative of chaos in the Whitehouse, and rebellion and undercutting by Trump's staff.

Although Trump reads very little, according to his former wife, he kept a book of Hitler's speeches next to his bed:

According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed.

Donald Trump's ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed

"If, I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."

www.businessinsider.com

Trump's administration is full of racists, it is not a flaw, it is a feature.

It’s Not Just Trump: The Trump Administration has Dozens of Staffers with Connections to White Nationalists - America's Voice

Donald Trump is connected to white nationalists and hate groups. So are dozens of staffers who work in the Trump Administration.

americasvoice.org

Trump has consistently thrown his racist supporters a bone repeatedly, and no I do not think it is unintentional. His whole " very fine people BS" when talking about literal Nazi's, his constant retweeting white nationalists, Who he has supported in elections in addition to who he hires. It is all there over and over and over again. This isn't just one instance, it is a repeated long existing pattern here.

Every time Trump has retweeted white nationalist Twitter accounts

Donald Trump has lashed out against the media for "blaming" him for the far-right terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 Muslim worshippers were gunned down at two mosques ahead of Friday prayers last week.

www.indy100.com

Trump Unleashes Tweetstorm Defending White Nationalists Booted From Facebook

The president retweeted alt-right personalities who push white supremacy

www.rollingstone.com

Donald Trump’s Social Media Ties to White Supremacists

It's more than just a couple of retweets.

fortune.com

Trump Promotes Posts From Racist and Sexist Twitter Feed (Published 2020)

On a somber Memorial Day weekend, the president did not mention the mounting coronavirus toll and instead retweeted personal attacks on his political rivals.

www.nytimes.com

In Trump’s Twitter Feed: Conspiracy-Mongers, Racists and Spies (Published 2019)

Inside the alternate reality of the president’s Twitter account, where he absorbs and amplifies a noxious stream of disinformation.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Terminal Blue]

C'mon, man. What makes you think the president of the United States needs to play meme games with NeoNazis for pretty much any reason?

Because most people will refuse to believe it, even when it is obvious. Those who do see it will either rejoice at the coming ethnostate, or they weren't people who would vote for Trump anyway. That is how dog whistling works. I'm not shocked the president or his staff is doing it because he's been doing it ever since he went into politics. I'm shocked at how little they feel they need to hide it, and maybe they're right.

You know what I think is far more likely? Sabotage. There's somebody in the Whitehouse social media campaigns just trying to come up with shit to get Trump in trouble.

I mean, this assumes that Trump is actually going to get in trouble.

Which do you think is more likely, that some super secret antifa infiltrator has implanted themselves in the Trump campaign to make Trump look like a Nazi, or that someone in that campaign actually is a Nazi and is doing this shit knowing that people aren't going to do anything about it.

The red triangle is simultaneously too obscure (nobody who hasn't made a detailed study of the Holocaust concentration camps is going to recognize it, it's not even on some lists for Nazi symbols) to be a call to action, yet not obscure enough to get away with it (those who have made a detailed study of Holocaust concentration camp iconography will still recognize it, and call it out, which I presume is how this controversy started in the first place, and it took less than 24 hours?).

Go on wikipedia and look up "concentration camp badge". You don't need a detailed study, you just need to be aware of basic details.

People on the far right and left will share this information with each other, the knowledge required to understand what it means will very quickly spread, with the right celebrating and the left outraged. It is only moderates, who are wilfully committed to inaction and compromise, who will dismiss it, who will refuse to believe it even when it is explained to them.

Like, serious question: do you think Trump has actually sat down and read a book about the Holocaust? Ever? In his life? He's full of bad ideas, but how would he even come up with this one?

I don't think he did, that's why I deliberately showed three accounts tweeting the same thing.

He still tweeted it though.

Also, 88 facebook adverts.. fucking yikes.

 

[lil devils x]

What if this is one giant troll move?


Trump wants to portray his opposition and unhinged people so he or his team drops stuff like this in there deliberately to make it seem like people are jumping at shadows to others.

I mean the Pepe thing was madness as the claims PEPE was a white nationalist symbol came just after I think it was Trump Jr posted a meme called "The deplorables" a parody of the Expendables.

How weird must it be for people not that deep into web culture hearing that the green frog people have been sharing innocently is a white supremacist icon? In reality it was just a meme and some trolls and white supremacist were doing Nazi versions of it. They do Nazi versions of Micky Mouse too. But it was a PEPE meme (not a Nazi one) shared by Trump Jr.

He is just throwing his racists supporters another bone, as he has done from the beginning.. over and over and over again. You don't just accidentally and repeatedly retweet white nationalists, call them very fine people and support their elections and hire them to work for you. No, that is not something non racists consider to be a normal thing to do. The man tweets Mussolini quotes and idolized Hitler enough to have his speeches in a drawer next to his bed even when Trump hates to read. Pretending it is for any reason other than to appeal to his racist backers is absurd at this point. Jr wasn't tweeting PEPE memes due to what the actual cartoon was about, he was appealing to those who most used by the alt-right being the same ones that were being sued by PEPE's creator to stop using PEPE as as Nazi. Trump was always giving a call out to Alex Jones and the rest of the nutjobs that were promoting this crap because they supported him from the beginning DUE to his already existing racist postions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/11/pepe-frogs-creator-just-won-copyright-settlement-against-infowars/

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

He is just throwing his racists supporters another bone, as he has done from the beginning.. over and over and over again. You don't just accidentally and repeatedly retweet white nationalists, call them very fine people and support their elections and hire them to work for you. No, that is not something non racists consider to be a normal thing to do. The man tweets Mussolini quotes and idolized Hitler enough to have his speeches in a drawer next to his bed even when Trump hates to read. Pretending it is for any reason other than to appeal to his racist backers is absurd at this point. Jr wasn't tweeting PEPE memes due to what the actual cartoon was about, he was appealing to those who most used by the alt-right being the same ones that were being sued by PEPE's creator to stop using PEPE as as Nazi. Trump was always giving a call out to Alex Jones and the rest of the nutjobs that were promoting this crap because they supported him from the beginning DUE to his already existing racist postions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/11/pepe-frogs-creator-just-won-copyright-settlement-against-infowars/

Except PEPE memes were used by a lot of people online it wasn't Alt-right. No-one even tried to link PEPE to the Alt-right until the Daily Beast article came out claiming that. The same article used the next day by Hillary's campaign to try and claim evidence of a connection between Trump and White Supremacists.

Hell PEPE is so widespread it's been used by the protesters in Hong Kong quite a lot

 

[Trunkage]

What if this is one giant troll move?


Trump wants to portray his opposition and unhinged people so he or his team drops stuff like this in there deliberately to make it seem like people are jumping at shadows to others.

I mean the Pepe thing was madness as the claims PEPE was a white nationalist symbol came just after I think it was Trump Jr posted a meme called "The deplorables" a parody of the Expendables.

How weird must it be for people not that deep into web culture hearing that the green frog people have been sharing innocently is a white supremacist icon? In reality it was just a meme and some trolls and white supremacist were doing Nazi versions of it. They do Nazi versions of Micky Mouse too. But it was a PEPE meme (not a Nazi one) shared by Trump Jr.

It’s like the okay symbol. It was meant to troll libs. But then racists could see they could get away with it because the trolls pretended to be racist so they can just pretend to be trolls. So the libs got trolled, the trolls got trolled. And the racists win. Absolute genius, trolls. You lost. Stop thinking you can outplay White Supremacists. You lose every time.

Also, maybe don’t pretend to be racist and then cry about being called racist. It’s EXACTLY what you wanted. How about pretending to be anything but racist? Pepe is now like All Lives Matter, tainted by white supremacist. All Lives Mattrer would have been a wonderful rallying cry but some people had to use it to hate on minorities so it can go in a hole with other hateful terms.

As to this incident specifically, Trump is either being racist or pretending to be racist. Does it matter? It’s still racist. (BTW, I don’t think the right word is racist here. He‘s certainly is aping Hitler. But it’s probably target against Communist and Antifa. So potentially not racist. I haven’t got the right word for it at this time. Forgive me.)

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

It’s like the okay symbol. It was meant to troll libs. But then racists could see they could get away with it because the trolls pretended to be racist so they can just pretend to be trolls. So the libs got trolled, the trolls got trolled. And the racists win. Absolute genius, trolls. You lost. Stop thinking you can outplay White Supremacists. You lose every time.

Also, maybe don’t pretend to be racist and then cry about being called racist. It’s EXACTLY what you wanted. How about pretending to be anything but racist? Pepe is now like All Lives Matter, tainted by white supremacist. All Lives Mattrer would have been a wonderful rallying cry but some people had to use it to hate on minorities so it can go in a hole with other hateful terms.

As to this incident specifically, Trump is either being racist or pretending to be racist. Does it matter? It’s still racist. (BTW, I don’t think the right word is racist here. He‘s certainly is aping Hitler. But it’s probably target against Communist and Antifa. So potentially not racist. I haven’t got the right word for it at this time. Forgive me.)

Except the point of picking the OK gesture was the trolls knew it was a widely acknowledged and used gesture so they spread the rumour it was racist to cause people to go after others accusing them of being racist just to cause drama and chaos online. The trolls didn't have to pretend to be racists at all they just pointed a finger yelled "Racist" and sat back with popcorn to watch the chaos.

This is how easy it was for Trolls to cause chaos

Abuse and threats aimed at wheelchair user over faked photo

The woman in a viral meme which mocks her wheelchair use appeals to people to think before posting.

www.bbc.co.uk

Emily Morison, 24, woke up last week to messages from friends about one of her photos which had been edited to include a pro-Trump message she didn't write.

The comments included telling her to "wheel herself off a cliff", and another encouraging murder, she said.

 

[Seanchaidh]

No-one is pro-police brutality.

Then why does it happen?

 

[Terminal Blue]

Except the point of picking the OK gesture was the trolls knew it was a widely acknowledged and used gesture so they spread the rumour it was racist to cause people to go after others accusing them of being racist just to cause drama and chaos online. The trolls didn't have to pretend to be racists at all they just pointed a finger yelled "Racist" and sat back with popcorn to watch the chaos.

Except that the "okay" gesture was widely used by white supremacists. We can find numerous examples of them using it.

It's worth noting that there are actual white supremacist hand signs. In fact, hand signs have quite an important place in neo-Nazi culture, particularly deriving from their use in prison gangs in the US. A lot of hand signs are references to letters or numbers which are significant to neo-Nazis, such as the number 88 or the letters SS. The use of the "okay" sign as a hand sign meaning white power may have initially been "made up" on 4chan, but it is actually indistinguishable from the kind of thing actual neo-Nazis do (there was, in fact, already a white power handsign based on forming the hands into the shape of a W and a P) and was subsequently widely used by neo-Nazis as an actual handsign.

Irony does not work if the supposedly ironic thing has become genuine. You cannot sit there basking in having owned the libs by convincing them white supremacists are using the okay sign as a hand sign while white supremacists are using the okay sign as a handsign. You can take credit for having invented a white supremacist handsign, but it's not exactly an achievement.

I mean, let's be real, it's not like the "trolls" who came up with that one weren't neo-Nazis anyway.