Radical Activists Hijacked Donald Trump Jr.'s Talk at UCLA. But They Weren't Leftists.
Campus conservatism must take the threat of the far right seriously.
Donald Trump Jr. spoke at the University of California, Los Angeles, yesterday to promote his new book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.
An ideological group of hateful silencers did indeed interrupt the proceedings, forcing Trump to cut short the Q&A period. But these were not intolerant, triggered leftists. They were far-right activists.
This is a reality that a more mainstream conservatism must take seriously. While criticism of the campus left is often justified—I've penned two articles on the subject just today—for too long the right has treated alt-right-adjacent trolling as trivial or insignificant when compared with progressive activism.
The irony of Trump Jr. promoting a book about leftist shutdown culture and instead finding himself interrupted by the right was not lost on the media outlets who covered the incident. Trump Jr. even challenged his audience to "name a time when conservatives have disrupted even the furthest leftist on a college campus.
"It doesn't happen that way," he insisted. "We're willing to listen."
Well, it depends who the "we" is. Indeed, a number of conservative campus events in recent days have been targeted by supporters of Nick Fuentes, a 21-year-old YouTuber and far-right gadfly. Fuentes describes his views as nationalist and "America First," though he has a long history of making racist and anti-Semitic statements. His movement has recently hijacked events featuring Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R–Tex.) and folks in the Daily Wire orbit over their support for Israel and their refusal to avow that the U.S. should remain a culturally "European"—i.e., white—nation. Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro recently inveighed against this movement in his remarks at Stanford University, and was right to do so.
Trump's talk was sponsored the young conservative group Turning Point USA, which has raised the Fuentes gang's ire for being too moderate on social issues. At a recent TUPUSA event at Ohio State University, a Fuentes activist asked Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Rob Smith, "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?" The only point of this bizarre non sequitir was to shame Kirk for featuring Smith—a gay, black conservative—in his campus tour. Kirk and Smith justly mocked the questioner.
It's great to see conservatives denouncing this racist, anti-gay, white identitarian nonsense. When the right inveighs against progressive censorship and intolerance, it really needs to stress that this is a serious problem on its radical flank as well. Far-Right Trolls Sabotage Event might not generate as many clicks in the conservative media environment as Triggered Left Wants to Silence You, but it is no less important to say.
For more on this subject, check out my book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
OK, I’m slow, but I’d like to see some examples of right-wing disruption.
You gave an example of a hostile questioner.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there are rightists disrupting campus events, I simply want to see reliable accounts, or footage if applicable.
I think just being a conservative on campus is enough of a disruption for many students. I’m sure there are plenty of accounts of this. Simply having a different belief or viewpoint is a safety issue after all. Right?
No, no, a safety issue–one that involves a severe threat to public order and security–is when someone uses illegal “parody” to disseminate confusion and damage reputations on our college campuses, particularly here at NYU where the student body and faculty are especially susceptible to confusion. See the documentation of our great nation’s leading criminal “satire” case at:
https://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/
These alt right degenerates are less than a handful. Why does Soave waste time on them? Wait a minute that’s right it is Trump’s fault. My God, Reason is working overtime to appeal to progressive idiots.
More or less of a handful than Antifa? Want to see who an Google it first?
I didn’t know it takes a handful of individuals to take over Portland.
You could fit all the alt-right who are actually serious about it in half of an Arby’s.
Meanwhile pretty much every ctrl-leftist advocates baby-killing, and they’ve made up their own intersectional religion which consists of harassing and oppressing other people about their imaginary sins which they get to define.
The tiki torches boys looked like much more than an Arby’s.
Of course, if you think abortion is equivalent to child murder, a rather novel idea in the scheme of things, especially in the scheme of Christianity, not that Christianity should have any influence over American secular law, then you must advocate life imprisonment or the death penalty for women who procure abortions. Sell that. Get a majority to endorse that. Then get back to me.
It quite literally is murdering a child. It’s simply a technological advance from the barbaric act of infanticide, a pretty common event in days of old. But rationalize all you want, sicko.
So advocate putting 25% of all American women in prison for first-degree child murder. Stop beating around the bush. Nobody gets to escape the implications of their political views, however much they’d prefer not to think them through.
It’s not 25% of all women, but yeah. Killing your children should have consequences, you fascist brute.
I’d say it’s fair to keep an eye out on anyone who wants to take over conservatism – especially since “mainstream conservatism” is vulnerable due to its suckiness.
Maybe at some point, conservatism will become what the progs always said it was, but who will believe the progs then, after all that crying wolf?
Because “Both Sides!”
Let the Zman help you out. He’s got plenty of examples posted. And most of them are pretty funny.
Ha! Linky didn’t come out so well….
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=19027
Does blowing up a federal building or killing an abortion doctor count?
Oh, piss off.
That response proves you have no justifiable counterpoint.
Well, they’re pretty well documented in “Days of Rage” by Bryan Burrough. I’m not sure there’s enough room in this comment section to quote a 600-page book, though.
But enough about Weatherman and the radical left…
Yeah McVeigh sounded like an alt-right radical:
“How about Hanoi? Tripoli? Baghdad? What about the big ones — Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (At these two locations, the U.S. killed at least 150,000 non-combatants — mostly women and children — in the blink of an eye. Thousands more took hours, days, weeks or months to die).
If Saddam is such a demon, and people are calling for war crimes charges and trials against him and his nation, why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of “mass destruction” — like those responsible and involved in dropping bombs on the cities mentioned above?”
Oh wait…
The whole inciting event for the article is the example. Donald Trump Jr. was heckled off stage.
It’s certainly much harder to find examples. There are some disinvitations that were clearly from conservative values, but not involving student’s disrupting (Mark Osler at Baylor). The worst I can find right now is Xavier Becerra at Whittier College in 2017 when they were shouted down during a Q&A by hecklers.
But it is odd how this Trump event is being (mis)reported. Seems like they didn’t get booed off the stage so much as they decided not to do a Q&A and people booed that announcement. There’s video but no one seems to put up the whole thing, which is a bit suspicious.
“I’d like to see some examples of right-wing disruption.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/3/17644180/political-correctness-free-speech-liberal-data-georgetown
Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions
Does “political correctness” really crush conservative speech on campus? The data suggests no. . . .
. . . the “campus free speech” crisis is somewhat manufactured. Conservative student groups invite speakers famous for offensive and racially charged speech — all of the above speakers fit that bill — in a deliberate attempt to provoke the campus left. In other words, they’re trolling. When students react by protesting or disrupting the event, the conservatives use it as proof that there’s real intolerance for conservative ideas.
The other key thing that emerges from the Georgetown data, according to Ungar, is that these protests and disruptions don’t just target the right. “Our data also include many incidents, generally less well-publicized, where lower-profile scholars, speakers, or students who could be considered to be on the left have been silenced or shut down,” he writes.
Examples include Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s commencement speech being canceled after receiving death threats for criticizing President Donald Trump and the president of Sonoma State University apologizing for allowing a black student to read a poem critical of police violence at commencement. . . .
Your Vox article presents gross statistics instead of per capita statistics. Given the author’s use of the word “frequency,” he should be fired! I’ve come to expect this gross-statistics fallacy in Vox articles, and I suggest that you watch for it over there if you continue taking their articles seriously. (“Terrorism” statistics are frequently presented under this fallacy to obfuscate worrisome rates among Muslim Americans–a quick web search produced https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/2/16396612/las-vegas-mass-shooting-terrorism-islam, for instance.)
I’ve seen analyses claiming that there’s 12 liberal faculty members for every 1 conservative faculty member. You can cherry pick from the surveys where liberals self-describe as “moderate” to get a more favorable ratio. Taking my 12 to 1, though, and accepting Vox’s gross numbers, conservative faculty are ((6+6) / 1) / ((14+19) / 12) = 4.4 times more likely to be fired for their opinions.
“I’d like to see some examples of right-wing disruption.”
Kent State.
Seeing as Crenshaw (read: McCain) tried to smear a perfectly respect questioner as an ethno-nationalist for asking perfectly reasonable questions about aid to Israel, this whole article is ridiculous.
One needn’t be a defender of Fuentes (he’s a smug idiot) to realize that The Daily Wire and TPUSA represent the interests of the warmongering right.
*respectful questioner
Reason went full neocon the day that Bad Orange Man got elected and made the same bullshit campaign promises that Obama did about ending the wars. To be fair, without constant war it would be difficult to maintain the permanent intelligence aristocracy that they also decided to go whole-hog on supporting on inauguration day.
Reason went after Ron Paul too. This isn’t new.
Daily wire has been anti interventionist since the start. I dont follow TPUSA enough to have an opinion there.
Daily wire has been anti interventionist since the start.
LOLWTF
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, Ben Shapiro is a long-time opponent of war with Iran. You got me.
and folks in the Daily Wire orbit over their support for Israel and their refusal to avow that the U.S. should remain a culturally “European”—i.e., white—nation.
Wait a second, I don’t know who these people are so I’m not going to throw my support behind them, let alone defend their views, but wanting your country to remain culturally European is not “ie, white”. If someone is easily identified as a racist, we shouldn’t need to take a somewhat neutral statement “Culturally European” and insert our own racist terminology into the statement as an ‘explainer’.
Turns out that literally everything about western society is actually a dog whistle for hardcore Nazism.
I’m willing to give Robby the benefit of the doubt here that these guys might be kind of right-ey, racist-ey types.
But when I see quotes, intermixed with Robby’s inserted phrasing, given what I’ve seen from Journalisming over the last few years, I wonder why we can’t just print the racist quote? And I keep seeing this, again and again.
Here is the linked “Vox” article that Robby linked:
Still no specific racist quotes. Just venn diagrams of who follows who online. I don’t trust Vox… at all. They’re a junk news website. They may be right here, Fuentes might be racist or a “white nationalist”. I don’t know, this article provides no evidence. Just various associations from the platform of hack Carlos Maza.
Daily Stormer has semi-ironically termed him the “leader blessed by Christ to save America,”
“semi-ironically”
The Daily Stormer’s pretty neo-pagan (just like Tony), so saying someone is blessed by a first century Jew is probably tongue-in-cheek.
I agree with the idea that “remaining culturally European” is not literally “remaining white.” After all, culture is not race or ethnicity.
That said, I think it’s poor branding. Liberty and capitalism are not “culturally European,” they are just good things that should be argued for in their own right.
Historically, they are both.
Who cares? The idea doesn’t belong to any ethnicity, and if we care to see it succeed, we should not market it as if it does.
Who cares?
He responded to you …
Alright, I guess he sees the value in making liberty look like a uniquely European idea, assisting left-wing propaganda all over the world.
“Who cares?” is an odd question from the person who cares most.
“Who cares?” is an expression commonly used in colloquial English to indicate something is not very important.
That’s my point.
I’d also rather remain culturally American, which is closely related to Europe, but has been distinct for some time.
The difficulty is in coming up with a short slogan to represent the Enlightenment. It’d be nice to simply say “Enlightenment”, but people hearing that these days tend to think of Eastern mystic gurus. “European” does seem to capture it pretty well — except that in recent times it seems to mean “democratic socialist”.
A lot of these younger guys are explicitly anti-Enlightenment though. Anton’s review of the BAP book touches on this IIRC.
“libertarian”
Here is my problem with the “Culturally European” advocates.
Either they are talking about ethnicities, in which case that is getting into skin color nonsense, or they are arguing that we should adopt the culture that gave us Marxism, Fascism, Communism, Imperialism, and a shit ton of other horrible “Isms” with a bright dot in Capitalism.
I would be happy if we shit canned any love of european culture and did what America does best- take the best from each culture and integrate it into our own culture. To that extent, I pretty much reject Fuentes and team.
Yep, this x 1000000
All of that is entirely fair. But it’s also fair to see European Culture (which I admit I’m not really wedded to as a term– I’d prefer maybe, Western Culture/values) as a meta whole– a culture that brought us all types of terrible isms, but also brought with it the capability and internalized right to fight and argue against them. For instance, Europe, like much of the Islamic world today was ruled by the Church which was the default state structure. Over time, though, somehow the West was able to challenge that theocracy, an enlightenment and reformations happened etc.
There are non-Western cultures today who do NOT see liberty as a higher ideal, but instead see piousness and service to God as dictated by religious scripture as the highest ideal (for example). “Liberty and Capitalism” aren’t even in the lobby waiting for an appointment.
What is the benefit of referring to it in a way that excludes most of the world? Note that I am not talking about revising history or something idiotic like that. I’m just saying that a common refrain among non-Western leftists is to insist that capitalism and freedom are “western concepts” and “our culture is different.” Why not try to rhetorically undercut this argument?
Freedom of thought and of conscience essentially arose in a Christian society, and it couldn’t have been otherwise. Maybe people who want to maintain Western values, or European values should just be honest and say they back Christian values.
I actually think it is much better to call them Christian values, +100.
More accurately, Protestant Christian values. “Freedom of thought and of conscience essentially arose in a Christian society” as a part of the revolution against the theocracy of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Scholastics at the University of Salamanca were Catholics and outlined the moral foundation for a free society, too, as well as a basis for what would become Austrian school economics.
Here is my problem with the “Culturally European” advocates
They say ‘culturally European’ because that’s what THEY want.
Culturally British is what we’re going for.
The rest of Europe is not really a part of it. Because without being forced through that British lens, they’ve stalled at various types of all powerful ‘king’
We tend to forget that while the English king was being declawed, the kings in the rest of Europe were cementing their hold.
And this colored things down the line.
England/the UK gives us the ideas behind liberty, Eastern Europe and Germany give us communism and Nazism, southern Europe gives us fascism, and France give us the foundations of SJWism
So, no. WE don’t see it as ‘culturally European’–but the folks protesting Trump probably do.
The giveaway is that, outside of this specific context, alt-right turds won’t shut up about how European culture is a statist libertine cesspool bent on its own destruction.
These same pricks who would never set foot in France because of the libtards or whatever are suddenly Europhiles when they can use it as a stand-in for whiteness. It’s lazy and transparent coded language.
JFC can’t even tell the flavor of this crazy.
Both sides, to be sure, Robby. Of course the “real danger” always lies on the “other” side, less you be accused of bias.
>>>This is a reality that a more mainstream conservatism must take seriously.
um, or what exactly?
Good point – they’ve already abandoned the pretense that they take anything else seriously, why should this be any different?
Nationalist, Racist, Anti-Semetic…is this really Far-Right? How long have I been away?
The media and liddle Don Trump should not get trapped in the stupid comparison of who cancels more than whom. This is the right’s framing. It’s like a brand for them. But it is laughable to suggest the right does not make efforts to censor people and bully them into silence. Plenty of liberal professors live in fear that some Milo wannabe is going to secretly tape them criticizing Trump and then out them as “extremists”. Look at how the GOP is yelling about how Schiff is biiiaaasssed. As if you’re going to find an unbiased person in America to do any investigation. If bias were really a problem more than half the prisoners in the US could say they were handled by biased police officers. And it should be added that trying to shut down investigations because of bias is a massive form of gaslighting when there actually is an underlying basis in fact that warrants an investigation. Unlike the biased investigators behind Benghazi.
So let’s be honest, the right uses plenty of techniques to cancel things in America. But because they don’t have smart people backing them – AKA college students – they have to turn to paid propagndists to whip up gullible rubes in social media, meme-stoked mobs.
Plenty of liberal professors live in fear that some Milo wannabe is going to secretly tape them criticizing Trump and then out them as “extremists”.
Criticism of Trump is rare as hens teeth, to be sure.
>>>Plenty of liberal professors live in fear that some Milo wannabe is going to secretly tape them criticizing Trump and then out them as “extremists”.
Waaaaahmbulance en fucking route.
This is the best parody the site has ever seen.
Bravo!
Sorry OBL, your crown has been snatched away
Plenty of liberal professors live in fear that some Milo wannabe is going to secretly tape them criticizing Trump and then out them as “extremists”.
Shitthatneverhappened.txt
“…It’s great to see conservatives denouncing this racist, anti-gay, white identitarian nonsense. ”
Would be nice to have seen the left do some too.
One example on the right and the finger pointing of ‘see, just as bad’ squeaks out. ave they even bothered to take left-wing extremism seriously?
For right-wing stuff, you need a magnifying glass.
Left-wing no need for one. It’s right there in the open in form of illiberal professors and Antifa.
It’s no secret the progressive left control academia and campuses. Not conservatives. Conservatives are always at the mercy of everyone.
Call me conservatives really bust shit up on a REGULAR basis.
It’s funny. Conservatives have to take the high road and never ever defend themselves lest they be called ‘snowflakes’.
OK, I had to look up the Guardian article to see what the right-wing disruptors did.
When Trump, Jr. and his girlfriend refused to take questions, the disruptors chanted “Q and A!” to rhyme with “USA!” and generally broke up the event.
This is the same excuse the lefties used to disrupt a speech by Robert McNamara at Harvard back in the 60s. “He wouldn’t engage in dialogue!”
Well, then, stage your own forum, you censorious twats.
No institution would allow these people to have a forum. Forums are reserved for conservative marionettes and the radical left. Assuming they want to make their presence known to the wider world this is one of the only options they have available.
If libertarians weren’t composed of mainly autists they would attempt similar stunts. Emotions are what drives people.
UCLA is a state school covered by the First Amendment. If any group of students think their viewpoint has been slighted, they’re entitled to speak with the same freedom as establishment-approved speakers. If the university disagrees, they can be sued, which is itself a good form of publicity.
Your laughable solution is to tell college students to try and hold a conference and when the university drags it’s feet, to sue.
That’s before the fact that no lawyer will take their case, and certainly not for free. The fact that the process will take years and it’s 4 year students.
And even after they perform your desired dog and pony show, they will hold their conference and be doxed, rendering them an untouchable. Only a fool would accept what you are asking.
It doesn’t even take a conference – we’ve seen that all it takes is inviting a “controversial” speaker and then let the woke students and college admin provide free publicity.
Again, you want to give me grief because I’m against disrupting speeches.
Who, whom.
I’m giving you grief because the solution you’re offering to the students isn’t as effective as the one they’ve chosen.
Being able to highlight the internal inconsistencies in mainstream conservative thought while also piggybacking on TPUSAs AstroTurf organization is simply the smart thing to do.
Do these evil astroturfers have the right to free speech, or not? If they do, then wouldn’t that include the right not to be disrupted so as to have to stop speaking?
Of course censorship is an effective tactic – at least in the short term – which is why the left keeps using it.
“Oh. well, let’s make this one little exception to free-expression principles because it’s the only way for us to beat the bad guys.” OK, then, at least you’re not alone in that view, it’s shared by most censors.
I don’t get this. They were asking questions.
That doesn’t shut down speech or debate, it invites and encourages it. They weren’t trying to prevent any discussion. They were upset when it became clear all discussion would be one-sided.
I thought free speech was about inviting challenge and open debate.
Remember, free speech is for the disempowered and out of favor. Currently, Groypers and the “far right”, whatever the hell that is, are the disempowered and out of favor.
Having a civil q&a is not the same as having your speakers and attendees attacked on the way in or being heckled off the stage with no room to speak.
If the q&a was originally part of the program, then they should have done it. But it looks like q&a is shutting down because of the TPUSA shenanigans.
I’m convinced now that the speakers were bad people – at least their actions in this context were bad.
Maybe ticket-holders would have the right to demand a refund (with interest perhaps) if they had an agreement to have a Q&A and the agreement was violated.
“Remember, free speech is for the disempowered and out of favor.”
Wait a second, I have some caveats here.
Robert McNamara wasn’t disempowered, but it was still wrong for SDS to interrupt his speech at Harvard during the Vietnam War.
The various disruptors who take it upon themselves to interrupt speeches generally put themselves in the role of spokespersons for the powerless and dismiss the rights of the speakers because they’re allegedly privileged.
I had to look up the Guardian article
smrt move
Disrupting the event over the Q&A makes a lot more sense once you realize that the event was literally supposed to be a 2.5 hour event about how Conservatives don’t get triggered and stifle debate like liberals do. They literally ran with the slogan “People who disagree with us can come to the front of the line in our Q&As.”
Then some conservatives who wanted to know why we are putting Israel’s interests above our own, or how promoting sexual degeneracy advances the conservative cause showed up and they had to shut it down fast. Can’t have that kind of talk.
“Disrupting the event over the Q&A makes a lot more sense”
…which seems to imply the event *was* disrupted.
Once it’s established that there was disruption, that’s it for me…I don’t accept any exception to the principle of non-disruption, not even “but they’re hypocrites who are Bad People and refused to answer questions and so on and so on!”
how promoting sexual degeneracy advances the conservative cause
They ought to be able to explain that. Minding your own business about what other people do in their bedrooms is clearly a conservative position.
This isn’t necessarily true. And the problem is it has extended far beyond what people do in their bedrooms, and into open society at large.
So, is there anything particularly conservative about supporting transgender’s right to proselytize to kindergartners at public schools and libraries? Homosexuals teaching first graders about homosexual sex? Does this advance conservative values?
Nick Fuentes comparing the Holocaust to baking cookies – “the math doesn’t seem to add up there”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9aco6o5WBE
Is it just me or does Nick Fuentes (white hispanic?) look a lot like a young Ewan McGregor?
Fuentes
Ah, so that’s how you pronounce it.
“Matt says”
I don’t understand your point.
He’s reading a comment (“superchat”) from some guy named Matt.
Reading it to rebut it, or just to broaden the conversation? Reading it why?
That’s his job. People pay to have their comments read on his show. These are called “superchats.”
Then I suppose I’m wrong, then. I really should be more careful relying on these clips.
That’s part of the internet culture of the day. Superchats are a system where people pay you money during a live event so that their comment/question is very visible. This matters a lot when thousands of people may be watching and commenting.
Standard etiquette online is to read the superchats, since you have been paid.
Well, color me more educated than I used to be.
You see that I’m one of those people on the Internet who admits when he’s mistaken or acting on inadequate information.
Aka a “cuck” I suppose 🙂
Yeah, me and the Catholic Church are taking some time apart to assess our relationship.
I absorbed the blow of the abuse scandal and the doctrine of Hell, consoling myself that the latter might apply to unrepentant perpetrators of the former.
But when the Vatican starts acting like the US Communist Party circa 1939-41, saying that the things which were essential to salvation one time have become outdated and icky today, then I decided to step aside and wait for some sanity to return…if it doesn’t I’ll consider seeing other philosophies.
If their claims are correct, the Church guards the constant, unchanging truth, however they may have to go back to first principles to adapt unchanging things to new situations.
But a Leninist political party simply *creates* the truth – it’s whatever the Central Committee decrees – and the cadres must accept each change of line with an “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia” attitude.
Currently the Vatican is acting more on the Leninist democratic centralism model than the guardians-of-the-deposit-of-faith model.
So let’s see if this is a permanent condition, or whether they’ll go back to the day when the question “is the Pope Catholic” didn’t provoke nervous laughter.
Don’t give up on the Faith Eddy. We’ve had bad popes, and even heretic popes in the past. Pope Honorious I was declared a heretic by multiple Eccumenical Councils. We need more good Catholics pushing back against this nonsense, and demanding an end to it. That can only be done from within.
You were one of the people who helped bring me back into the Church by introducing me to Chesterton, Belloc and others here years ago btw.
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.
Libertarianism is in a tough spot, squeezed by the new big government voters it helped import and the decline of libertarianism thinking among the only demographic amenable to it (white men), likely caused by a reaction to those new voters the libertarians imported.
You can hate these men as much as you want but I guarantee you that they have a future that will make more impact than the reason foundation will. That they can blow down the house of cards that is conservative Inc is simply hilarious.
Libertarians, simultaneously laughable and powerless, and orchestrating massive changes in society.
You appear to have the same problem as the mitt Romney Republicans, only on the tiny libertarian scale. A worldview nobody wants; and that, if implemented, would lead to the destruction of the worldview you claim to desire.
It’s why Dan Crenshaw won’t last more than a couple of terms in his district. Houston’s demographics simply don’t support a politician like him in the long run. He’ll be replaced by a socialist latinx, all the while prattling on about supporting our allies and immigration. As long as the immigrants do their paperwork.
And of course, the distaste of some groups for free markets has nothing to do with the fact that the supposed defender of free markets is a prominent home to anti-immigrant activists who think that ethnicity somehow relates to political views…
Are you saying that ethnicity has no relationship to political views?
Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us
What a basic bitch that oily-haired rightwing apechild is.
You thriving on some hate there tony?
He just a little triggered
How fragile our these people they’re the stay up sleepless at night worrying about who is buggering who?
I’d say that as long as someone’s dedicated to the freedom philosophy, they can be as gay as Liberace’s hairdresser’s interior decorator and I wouldn’t make too much of a fuss.
It depends on whether they’re of the “you will be made to care and to approve my bedroom antics” school of thought.
To echo Heraclitus above: The threat of being destroyed by conservative media has been hanging over American politics for my entire life. It’s how non-rightwing news sources got bullied into doing “both sides” crap for two decades. It is, by far, the largest and most successful attempt at political censorship of the past half century. It turned American politics from the New Deal consensus to this post-Reagan rightwing horseshit we’re wading through now.
Deflection and gaslighting is all part of the strategy. And by strategy I mean a deliberately executed plan paid for by humans with an intent to do this.
And bully for them. Liberals failed utterly at countering this, even if you take out the money aspects. Liberals are still defending their right to have liberal opinions on college campuses and in media, and politics for that matter. Look at what is happening now, for example: they want to out the whistleblower for no reason other than that they want to say he’s a registered Democrat and therefore not entitled to legitimate thoughts or opinions.
You know who else isn’t entitled to thoughts or opinions?
Tony spends one long paragraph outlying the lies he tells himself to rationalize all of the horrible things he dreams of doing to anyone who disagrees with him.
You don’t know my fantasy life. I may want to do wonderful things to people who disagree with me.
You are a vicious broken leftist.
You’re a propaganda victim. It’s always sad, but it’s extra pathetic when you live in a free country with access to the largest collection of information history has ever known.
Donald Trump Jr.
Yeah, Trump has no idea who this mysterious whistleblower is – only by telling the general public will Trump know, and be in a position to retaliate.
PR requires P.
You gotta move on from those tapes, tony – they were never real
Is “didn’t pee on hookers” the standard you had for presidents in the Obama years?
“Doesn’t assassinate US citizens without due process” is one I had.
No it wasn’t. Not until some tits on cable news told you you did.
The fuck I didn’t you angry, bitter old man. You do know there are actual libertarians here, right?
Call me old again, cunt.
You’re old.
“New Deal consensus”? Are you insane? FDR was reviled by much of the country, and for good reason: he was basically a fascist.
So some people asked some questions. Totally the same as the left bashing people over the head and starting riots. Soave is always and forever good for the false equivalence. It is his only move.
It seems they demanded a question and answer format when that wasn’t part of the program, so I’d call it disruption, though of course these right-wingers would really have to work overtime to become the moral equivalent of the left-wing censors.
Have you ever been to a book promotion event without a Q and A? What a weird assertion.
I don’t even follow your point. They don’t include a question and answer session as part of their program. So it’s OK to shout them down and stop the proceedings?
That was the excuse for the SDS shutting down McNamera – he wouldn’t submit to a “dialogue” or whatever the term was at the time.
They obviously cancelled the Q and A because of the events of the preceding week. It’s fucking weird that you keep baselessly asserting otherwise.
Here’s a contemporaneous tweet.
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1193639153713336320
video source https://t.me/RealVincentJames/587
The announced they cancelled the Q and A and almost everyone booed
@MisterAntiBully
23h23 hours ago
Audience: We want to ask questions
TPUSA: Have sex incel
This will end well.
Reply 260 Retweet 836 Like 3.6K
@MisterAntiBully
24h24 hours ago
More
Audience: We want a Q&A
TPUSA: Shut up virgins
This is a terrible approach. What are they doing?
45 replies199 retweets1,418 likes
Reply 45 Retweet 199 Like 1.4K
@MisterAntiBully
24h24 hours ago
More
This is turning into a trainwreck.
14 replies45 retweets531 likes
Reply 14 Retweet 45 Like 531
@MisterAntiBully
24h24 hours ago
More
Woman on stage is now chastising the audience for asking for a Q&A and calling them virgins.
14 replies88 retweets720 likes
Reply 14 Retweet 88 Like 720
@MisterAntiBully
24h24 hours ago
More
Crowd is shouting Q&A. It’s a fucking audience revolt god damn.
15 replies184 retweets1,652 likes
Reply 15 Retweet 184 Like 1.7K
@MisterAntiBully
24h24 hours ago
More
Man tpusa are going to get lambasted for that soundbite. Jr talking about how you can’t ask questions anymore at an event where they cancelled the question and answer session.
12 replies121 retweets786 likes
Reply 12 Retweet 121 Like 786
“They obviously cancelled the Q and A because of the events of the preceding week. It’s fucking weird that you keep baselessly asserting otherwise.”
Asserting what? Did they disrupt the speech or not?
Who cares how wrong and hypocritical the speaker is – that would justify anyone in disrupting any speech, because what disruptor *doesn’t* think the speaker is bad and hypocritical?
It’s totally normal to boo at an event when they cancel the thing most people came for. This is a retarded standard for “disrupting any speech.”
OK, then, how long did they boo? Did they allow the speech to continue, after getting the booing out of their system?
You’re the expert here, big guy.
You’ll see where I corrected myself about Fuentes when you so nicely presented contrary information – and you won’t answer a simple question – but sure, let’s pretend I’m the one being disingenous.
Yet you keep asserting with zero evidence whatsoever that a “question and answer format … wasn’t part of the program.” Apologize for that and I’ll consider spoon-feeding you more info.
“Yet you keep asserting with zero evidence whatsoever that a “question and answer format … wasn’t part of the program.””
Can you give a link to where I said that? Thank you in advance.
“apologize”
Aren’t you the guys who say “never apologize”?
“I’ll consider spoon-feeding you more info.”
Don’t bother, your failure to rebut Robbie’s accusation already provided me with a lot of information, so thank you for that.
Wait, I said “it seems” it wasn’t part of the program.
So be it – they can change their mind about whether to take questions without being disrupted.
Perhaps you could consider apologizing for your mother smelling so bad.
Asserting what?
This is disingenuous. We’re done here.
Yeah, well, yo momma is ugly.
Eddy, it was part of the scheduled program. They canceled it in fear of these people asking their questions, as there is an ongoing multi-week long feud between TPUSA and the “Groypers” where they have been asking questions and causing the TPUSA crowd to look like buffoons.
OK, assuming the speakers were Bad People, was Robby right or wrong is asserting the “Groypers” disrupted the speakers, or did the speakers simply choose to stop speaking when they were free to do so?
I corrected myself about Fuentes (above), so I can always correct myself about the disruption issue – if I actually need correcting.
Rather than assuming either group is “bad people” it seems like this is the natural response to a dumb decision. It’s a little column a, little column b. The speakers stood there insulting the crowd for a while, which only agitated the situation further. The “Groypers” did “disrupt” the speakers by saying “we want the Q&A you advertised and that we paid for.” The speakers, realizing they had continued to make a bad situation worse, chose to leave the stage and proceed to book signing.
“The “Groypers” did “disrupt” the speakers by saying “we want the Q&A you advertised and that we paid for.” The speakers, realizing they had continued to make a bad situation worse, chose to leave the stage and proceed to book signing.”
Ah, contract law issues!
So let’s say that by purchasing a ticket, an audience member gets the right to get in line for Q and A, and that the speakers violated the terms of the contract by cancelling the Q and A.
But it still remains to be shown that the remedy is to disrupt the speakers. The courts are open for anyone cheated out of ticket money.
And this assumes that the legal breach of contract case would be a slam dunk. The point of adjudicating cases by courts rather than mobs is to let the sponsors of the event defend themselves – eg, by claiming that a Q and A session wasn’t part of the deal. Then a judge and jury can sort it out. (if it gets to a full trial)
As long as we’re considering the contract-law issues, what about the rights of ticket-holders who simply wanted to listen to the speeches without asking questions? Are their interests protected by allowing a group in the audience to disrupt the speakers?
Will you, as some random person get another opportunity for these speakers to hear you voice your complaint than now? They’re not likely coming back next week to have another speech. If you sit silently and let it happen, you in effect give assent to what they are doing.
In the Hyde Park tradition, heckling is an established right with established rules.
As long as the heckling doesn’t *replace* the speech or stop the speaker altogether, then there’s a role for it…if the speaker has the option of ignoring or engaging the hecklers, I say heckle away, and nobody would accuse the hecklers of agreement with the speaker.
But if this goes to the length of stopping the speaker entirely, then it’s mob rule *and* a precedent for other disruptors – which in the campus context means encouraging leftist disruptors and giving them more wriggle room to excuse their activities.
With the caveat that even Hyde Park style heckling can be restrained if there are rules against it announced clearly an unambiguously beforehand.
To be sure…
While it is true that Soave has criticized the far left, he has never once said it was somehow the center left’s fault or responsibility to do something about it. Yet, somehow the right is supposed to do something about these people. What this of course, Soave doesn’t say.
The far left are a bunch of pussy-hat wearing daydreamers from Portland.
The far right are literally Nazis.
The far left is literally Nazis.
At least pretend to use a fucking search engine.
https://reason.com/2019/10/30/barack-obama-woke-scolds-campus-activism/
“One of the best ways to combat cancel culture is for more liberals in good standing to condemn it.”
The cancel culture is not the far left. At least pretend you can’t read or stop pretending you think the rest of us can’t.
Sorry effort son.
I’m not your son. In the context of Soave’s body of work – mostly stories about the “far left” silencing discourse on campus and in other arenas – “cancel culture” is a perfectly apt synonym.
You claimed Soave has “never once” implied that the more moderate left has any responsibility to influence these dynamics, which is very obviously incorrect.
If righty’s right, then he’s right. But if he’s right…
“How does anal sex help us win the culture war?”
Sounds like he went to the Stuttering John Melendez School of Journalism.
What this shows is that christianofascism is dying out so fast it can no longer use Prohibition Party, Dixiecrat and Tea-totalitarian party candidates and platforms to draw spoiler votes away from the crumbling republican asset-forfeiture kleptocracy. Libertarian spoiler votes have for 47 years wiped out ku-klux Comstockism, and are now growing steeply toward the 50% mark to replace mummified mummery. The GOP has to choose between shedding those lice or losing political jobs.
Lets see, some people on the right demand answers to questions, just terrible, while the left does not want questions or answers they just want the right to shut up and obey or else. Thats a big difference to me
Wrong interpretation. The right are a bunch of a) giant pussies who can’t handle open-mic questions or b) ranting racist psychopaths, partially justifying a).
The left just wants you to acknowledge the supremacy of empirical reality over Sean Hannity’s face noises before you demand to be taken seriously.
I’ll compromise neither the left or right want to answer questions but when it comes to silencing opposing views the left has won that hands down with their agent brown shirts called Antifa using the hecklers veto and violence
Antifa, a tiny group of weirdos with absolutely no political support whatsoever vs. the entire PR apparatus of the Republican party (as I described above). Yeah, the left hasn’t been winning the censorship wars. And the right never claimed to care about suppression of ideas anyway until they decided that incessant whining was good PR strategy.
You are living on a different planet or a lousy Troll. a good troll has good arguments you have nothing but lies
Honestly, almost nothing the left propagates and demands conforms to empirical reality.
“a gay, black conservative”
“white identitarian nonsense”
Fuentes>Kirk
Fuentes is a racist, holocaust denying, highly disturbed idiot. There seem to be enough hate filled, well funded?, people to go around. Outrage fatigue, wake me up when the election is over.
What does “take them seriously” mean? It does not seem any of the conservatives who have been confronted by these people have accepted their promises so I am not sure what they should be doing th hat Soave thinks they are not.
Fuentes is a nobody. All of these alt-righters are nobodies. That’s why it’s stupid that we’re expected to denounce them as if they run our party.
Remember, nobody is primarying Trump except for milquetoast cuckservatives. Dems have 20+ hungry Marxists. You tell me who needs to disavow.
What is Reason’s political party?
Is it the one led by a senile orange buffoon?
The LP has been a joke for decades, so if you aren’t registered in the GOP influencing primaries as much as possible and breaking with them when needed (ex. I voted GJ in 2012) then I’m not sure what you’re doing.
I’m picturing Ralph Wiggum voting for Republicans while saying, “I’m helping!”
If Robbie says
“An ideological group of hateful silencers did indeed interrupt the proceedings, forcing Trump to cut short the Q&A period.”
…and if the “rebuttal consists of saying “the speakers are astroturfers! They’re bad people! They cancelled the Q and A!”….then that doesn’t rebut the accusation, it buttresses it.
Ah, Robbie may not be reliable on “cancelling the Q and A.”
If they cancelled just because the questions were too pointed, that’s not forcing them to cancel.
So after cancelling, were they allowed to go on speaking?
Or if they were violating the agreed-on terms of the speech, were these terms enforced by the administrators, or by the mob?
If I’ve been snookered again by Robby’s narrative, I have only myself to blame, but let’s stop talking past each other – granted the speakers were Bad, Bad People and shouldn’t have cut short the Q and A, were they prevented from continuing to speak?
This can easily be turned around the other way, depending on your view of things.
Robby: “bad people wanted to ask naughty questions at a Q&A”
Said bad people: “We only wanted to ask about social conservative issues, and why you self-appointed leaders of our movement cut and run at every turn”
You might just Google Fuentes’ twitter and read it rather than presuming the accusations against him are true. Hes a good Catholic kid imo.
I was hung up on the idea that the post provides the facts and the comments riff on the facts, but this assumption on my part is silly because the posts have varying qualities of reliability in what they say and what they omit. The idea of researching the events independently before commenting is too much like work, but I suppose it’s better than just taking the post as the strict unadulterated truth.
I have a standing rule that if certain buzzwords are used to tarnish someone as untouchable, that I presume I am being lied to until proven otherwise. Racist, sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, anti-semite, etc. They’re just words used to label someone as evil so they can be dismissed without addressing them.
But I’m a strange guy like that. Always good talking to ya Eddy. Hope you’ve been doing well.
When the villagers keep being duped by phony cries of “wolf,” then the chances are that an actual (metaphorical) wolf will take advantage of the situation.
Anyway, I can’t complain, thanks for asking, hope you and yours are doing well.
Doing well thanks. You used to run under the name Notorious GKC years ago right?
“An ideological group of hateful silencers did indeed interrupt the proceedings, forcing Trump to cut short the Q&A period.”
1) How exactly did they “interrupt”? By standing in line to ask questions, and asking ones the Establishment didn’t want to answer?
2) Where’s the link to video of this horrendous terrorism? Weren’t they taping when the terrorists struck?
3) How *exactly* did they “force” Trump to cut short the Q&A? With bazookas? Flamethrowers? Or again, by asking inconvenient questions?
The Narrative of “Muh White Supremacist Terrorist Hordes!” is not really convincing. Seems rather vague on actual eventsd. Almost like what happened was a big nothingburger.
Do better, Robby.
Give us actual evidence. Or be called out for your bullshit.
I like how he wears the same jacket and shirt as the one on the book cover. Clever.
Of the Trump clan I think Melania is probably the smartest.
As trump bested all other political opponents in 2016 and soon to apply to 2020 also.
How does anal sex help us win the culture war?
Depends on who is on top, maybe?
Why would anyone believe anything Soave says without carefully checking it?
Robby still wont admit that Nazis are Socialists.
Robby’s lack of specificity for the actual events screams “Bullshit Narrative Being Spun”.
I have yet to watch, but Tim Pool claims that this narrative is completely wrong.
https://youtu.be/3y0CklkTGnw
While Pool is left-aligned he has also been one of the best at reporting facts and calling out dishonest narratives. Robby has been decent but his both sides-ism ruins credibility. If he could stop rewriting VOX articles then he might get a better understanding of what he is actually reporting on
So, back before the Great Meme War an interesting thing happened–one could say it actually STARTED the Great Meme War.
Some people on the right side of the political spectrum, low uncouth people willing to say anything to get the reaction they wanted finally got sick of the left endlessly labeling them as racists and Nazis and began inundating the internet with all kinds of satirical Nazi and racist imagery to piss off the left.
And it worked! They had the left chasing their own tails–so they doubled down and stepped it up.
And the left went mental. They’ve just ‘banned’ bowl haircuts as ‘white supremacy’. They demonized milk. They have had the mask torn from their collectivist faces as they respond to this stuff with ACTUAL fascist tactics.
But there is a dark side to all this.
At the fringes of the political spectrum, lurking, biding their time are the actual revolutionaries communists, and the actual Nazis and fascists.
And when they saw all the Nazi and racist imagery, and the reaction it was getting, they thought ‘Our Time Has Come.’ And they mobilized. Suddenly, they could say the things that they’d been whispering in secret. They could slip out from under the rock.
But they stuck out. Because satire isn’t admiration. Because the people saying Hitler did nothing wrong didn’t actually MEAN it–and they did. And it showed.
To the left, and to the right.
The left was ebullient–now they had proof!
But the right, who had been disavowing them ever since the left attached that particular brand of socialism to them just kept disavowing. They were used to it.
The fringe groups however, were pissed.
First–they discovered that they were STILL fringe groups. People avoided their events. They didn’t join their groups. And no one invited them anywhere.
Second–they were being dismissed by the very people they’d thought were calling to them–the actual right. This had to be a jewish plot.
So, being, at their core, leftists, they adopted leftist tactics and began disrupting the events that people who were actually on the right were holding.
They’d go in and ask ‘legitimate questions’ about jew-hate and faggots. They’d demand to be heard on stricter border controls. And they did this loudly and insistently enough that, as with the other leftists, speakers were drowned out. People on the right were censored.
And the left/MSM/Dems ate this up. They used it to show the right in disarray. They used it to further their lie that Nazis are right wing. And they used it to tar everyone on the right as Nazis.
We appear to have come full circle.
Except that this round, the masks are gone.
Everybody knows “culturally European” can also include Asians! Because they adapt to Western norms pretty well. Not entirely sure about most other groups yet… There’s never been any good examples of that working out too well thus far…
It more or less advances the aims conservatism has always had: conserving the most boring, insipid lifestyle on planet earth from any encroachment of color, spice, or flair.
So, avoiding anal sex.
Trump is not a college student. He just dates them.
I believe that windshield wipers were invented by a woman.
Which raises the obvious question: why are white supremacists, to a person, fat, retarded, and/or useless?
That is the implication that leftists draw on to propagandize against capitalism. Sure, it’s stupid, but evidently it works. Rhetoric isn’t always about logic.
No, I’m suggesting that there’s no need to insert the origin of it before its name. Doing so only helps feed left-wing propaganda. Besides, we don’t insert the geographic origins into random other things; do people say “Persian algebra,” even though it is correct? No, of course not, it is unnecessary. Likewise with capitalism and freedom.
Yeah, it says I have a low opinion of people when they engage in politics. The Myth of the Rational Voter and all…
So do you think it’s better to say sweet nothings to make ourselves feel better, or to cut off avenues for leftists to advance?
No, but it plays into it. Outside the “west,” leftists often try to argue that, sure, capitalism works in the US, but our culture is different. We don’t work the same way as the west, and capitalism is western. My point is that it costs nothing to just refer to freedom by what it is, rather than playing into the leftist narrative that it somehow belongs to the west. Of course, we won’t convince leftists that way–they are lost. But it’s best not to make otherwise undecided people think that the left was right.
And yes, I’m aware that would be a stupid reason to decide. Politics is not the art of the rational.
+1000
“communist/socialist/democRAT”
One should point out that the above BS is also disruptive/shutting down debate.
The system of Socialism is NO private property. (Communism is just Conservative Socialism where instead of the fruits of everyone’s labors being pooled and equally shared, most of the fruits of people’s labors are redistributed upwards to a small ruling Oligarchy – Communism should be called Reaganomics on steroids.)
Also, every country at the top of the Heritage Foundation’s “Index of Economic Freedom” list has universal healthcare coverage with Switzerland and Australia both having the ‘Big Government Radical Extremist Far Left Socialism/Marxism’ “mandate”, aka ObamaCare.
I guess it’s only ‘Big Government Radical Extremist Far Left Socialism/Marxism’ if a “Those People” (cough N-Word) implements it.