In my previous piece, I wrote about Milo Yiannopoulos’s ties to Nazis and, by extension, Steve Bannon and the Mercer family’s ties to Nazis. One of the things I referenced was Yiannopoulos’s night out at a Dallas bar where he sang karaoke while a group of notorious white supremacists honored him with the Nazi salute. The Dallas Observer tracked down the bartender who served them on April 3rd and then ultimately kicked them out.
“It was around 1 a.m. when [Yiannopoulos, Spencer and friends] came into the bar. It was very odd because they all had the same haircut,” Amiti Perry says. “I had no idea who Richard Spencer was. I had no idea that was Milo. In fact, I had no idea that was Milo until today.”
Yiannopoulos and his group were all dressed alike, Perry says, outfitted in the pastels and crew-cuts that can often be seen at alt-right gatherings. “They were very loud and abrasive in ordering their drinks — waving their money and pounding on the bar. I said ‘Oh, it looks like you boys are celebrating something,’ and they said, ‘Oh we just came from rally,’ Perry says. “I asked them if it was fraternity thing [because they were all dressed alike] and they said ‘You could call it that.’”
…
“They got their drinks and didn’t tip,” Perry says. “Karaoke had ended, but they asked our karaoke hostess if they could sing a cappella because she was already shutting down her equipment. Then they asked our owner and he was like, ‘It’s not a big deal, sing something a cappella.’”
Usually when someone sings at the bar without the help of the karaoke machine, they sing something familiar, like a show-tune, Perry says. “We had no idea what was about to happen. They started ‘America the Beautiful,’ and I looked at my co-workers and said ‘This is odd,’” Perry says. “Then all of the sudden, halfway through the song, I see, from behind the stage, about 15 arms go up in the salute.”
Perry says she lost it and rushed the stage, grabbing the microphone from Yiannopoulos just as the song, and video clip, ended. “I said ‘Get the fuck out. You are not welcome here, at all,’” Perry says. “I was yelling at them, and, I remember this distinctly, they all came around me on the stage and were yelling things. Some were shouting ‘Trump, Trump, Trump,’ at that point it started to hit me who these people were, and then they started saying ‘Make America Great Again.’ Then I had people get in my face, it might have been Milo because he didn’t immediately go outside, he was kind of getting them aroused, and they were saying ‘Make America White Again.’”
It’s kind of overkill that these people were rude and didn’t tip. The important part, again, is that Steve Bannon and the Mercers cultivated Milo Yiannopoulos and turned him into a celebrity. They knew he was mixing with white supremacists and using them as editors for his Breitbart pieces. On April 3rd, Bannon was working in the White House as the president’s top strategist. His protégé was singing karaoke with Nazis and chanting about Trump and making America white again.
As a former bartender of many years, I can tell you there are two types of people in the world: Those who tip, and those who don’t. And those who don’t are universally horrible people.
In fact, that’s pretty much all you need to know about a person – does he tip or doesn’t he? The answer to that question tells you everything.
And this story doesn’t surprise me one whit.
Jesus — Karaoke, Pastel shirts, and Nazi salutes in a Dallas bar?? No one could up make something like that. What the hell is going on in this country?
The only thing in this story that makes sense to me is that Nazis are bad tippers.
More and more often, I am reminded of a George Carlin quote:
“Where are we going? “And what’s with this handbasket?”
Seems par for the course.
I fear the United States is irrevocably headed to a very dark place.
I’ve been worried for a while – well before Combover Cheeto became the White House occupant. A disturbingly awful undercurrent was already being awakened in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The relatively novel talk radio programs and their ability to stir up what had been a lunatic fringe was a bit freaky, to say the least. The militia movement of the time and talk radio were merely a warning shot that all was not well. The media outlets are more varied and sophisticated in their targeting, an international right-wing is far better organized, and folks seem more comfy openly displaying their antisemitism and racial hatred for all to see. In hindsight, when the Birther crap started during Obama’s first Presidential campaign – that was when our country probably died. Didn’t want to believe that at the time. And yet here we are. Hate to seem like a downer. Hard to stay particularly optimistic within the belly of the beast these days.
From the time McCain had to explain Obama wasn’t a ‘terrorist’, granted. But as you say the GOP has exploited money, power and the media for long, soulless and wasted decades.
Thing is I’m not seeing a way back. We left a trail of breadcrumbs and the birds, it seems, have eaten them. I am watching with horrified amusement the Right’s frantic spin of the Las Vegas shooting incident; antifa, ISIS, deep state. Anything but the truth.
There is no way to bring these people back in to the fold; it is a national Jonestown tragedy. No matter how badly the Right fails it will explain it away by demonising people of colour and liberals. There are no more teachable moments; we are headed to a dark place and it doesn’t help knowing the likely ending.
Recall that our old commenter Deathtongue referred to them as “Irreconcilables”. That’s as good a description as any.
It implies, of course, that “they” refuse to “go along” with the consensus path their society in on, and are in the political minority. This would generally place Milo and his pastelshirts at somewhat of a disadvantage in a functioning democracy. But (like Weimar Germany) that is something we do not possess. Both entities labored under a failed constitution that allowed for minority rule. Our Repubs (in all branches) now celebrate and fortify these structural failures.
Given the herd instincts of humanity, and given that Trumpism now has undeniable critical mass, the question is when do WE become the Irreconcilables….?
From the time Nixon and the Republicans exploited the civil rights gains of the 60’s.
Since we’re evoking Mr. Carlin – here’s my personal favorite which I think it is appropriate.
“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: `The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'”
Recording the antics of these proto-Nazi fantasists and posting it on Youtube would be persuasive to those that need to be reached. Describing their antics and appropriately criticizing them, doesn’t get the job done.
Sheesh — wasn’t that a component of Charlottesville that disgusted old white folks and put Trump on the ropes?
What is never seen on the left is praise for or symbolic emulation of Nazis. So, on this one matter, there is not only a difference between the left and right but also between Democrats and Republicans as it puts the Republicans in a lose-lose box.
Geez I missed it. When was he on the ropes?
How could you have missed that?
Mere weeks ago as Taibbi helpfully recorded
If Trump hadn’t been on the ropes, he wouldn’t have been in Phoenix holding a rally. It’s been his MO since election day — his team coughs up a rally whenever opposition punches begin to sting him. Seems to stop or prevent slides in his approval rating and boosts his ego.
This is one unique element of the 2016 election. Both candidates remain on the stump to rally the faithful. Most would prefer that the two of them STFU and go away.
Should have included this from Taibbi’s piece:
However, those that hang here should have observed this in real time (including Trump’s use of rallies to boost his ego) and don’t need Taibbi to point it out to them. Still a delight to read Taibbi’s reports because he can write while we here are doodlers.
Interesting what money can do.
What do you call it when people have no visible means of support?
Oh bollocks. These were upper-middle-class spawn, with their khakis and nice shirts.
Oh, and if all it takes is “no money”, where’s all the angry fascist Black movements? If anybody had a reason to be angry, feel disenfranchised, and wanna burn it down, it’d be American black people. And yet, they’re more-or-less the strongest supporters of our civilization we’ve got.
Stop making excuses for these snowflakes.
Actually, you used to call it corruption. Or prostitution.
No visible means of support is not the same as no money. Mercer has some function in this whole story.
Mercer is a mover in all this sewerage. He holds some fucked up views of us all.
Mercer bought Trump and now owns the Republican party. Most people have never even heard of him.
https:/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presi
dency
https:
/vimeo.com/230220458
Close up the space in presi dency and the URL will work.
One of the beauties of having grown up in upper-middle-class suburbs in various parts of the country is that I get to know some of the goings on of some of my ex-acquaintances from way back in the day. Funny thing is that so many who fit my upbringing and who have more or less landed into middle-class careers have bought into the whole Breitbart bullshit hook line and sinker. They were probably already fucked up long before now, just I would have been too young to really understand that. College experience amounted to the worst of the far right – the YAFers, the anarcho-capitalists (yeah, that’s actually been a thing for a while) and the Ayn Rand cult – lived in gated communities. Yep. All preppie as hell too. The whole fucking lot of them. Yeah, they have it so tough, and they’ve wanted to burn this society to the ground for decades now. Doesn’t surprise me that a bunch of younger degenerates resembling the folks I dealt with would descend upon Charlottesville doing their whole “blood and soil” song and dance routine. So I think we can pretty well dispense with the economic insecurity nonsense once and for all and boil it all down to its essence: call it bigotry, call it white nationalism, neo-Nazism, or some equivalent.
Right now I’d say or African-Americans and our DREAMers are the ones most invested in what remains of our civilization. Will add our LGBT folks (who often face discrimination and harassment) and a large subset of women as well. Let’s just say I have an inkling of who shows up to Democratic party meetings in my little red county. And when I vote and when I donate money, I know damn well who to listen to, and I do listen. We all should.
Could any of your ex-acquaintances launched and made sucessful an enterprise like Breitbart without more affluent help?
And just what is it that Bannon, Miller, Spencer, and like folk bring to the table in the way of actual skills? Might they do with precision what the money guy says? Shills for corporate feudalism posing as satisfied customers and flogging white supremacist nationalism.
What exactly has been their value added?
An electoral minority (but bare Electoral College majority) of the American people stuck us all with their big fucking mistake.
Here’s to those who ignore all the unprecedented elements of the 2016 election in order to blame the Clinton campaign and Hillary personally:
There were plenty of Americans who found her very likable.
Sure, likable, but now what? we can’t go back, and if you think the cretins forgot about her think again. They still think she is a criminal guilty of murder and mayhem.
I don’t care much about the cretins’ view of Clinton and the Democrats.
I do care about liberals and progressives and their views of Clinton and the Democrats.
Hillary’s not going to run for office again. But she wasn’t the devil, and the propagandizing against her, from foreign interests to national and international oligarchs to the Justice Department, was quite extraordinary.
We should prepare for the likelihood that any Democrat running in 2020, including Senator Warren if she decides to run, will be treated the same way and made to be viewed with hostility and suspicion by liberals who are unwilling to see thru the smokescreen.
I agree enough is enough. The hypocrites abound. Take just the e mails. Trump’s staff uses private e mail but when Clinton did so it was time to lock her up. The Clinton’s have been whipping kids for the right wing for as long as I care to remember.
When Nazis praise Trump and sing karaoke you know we’ve hit bottom. Or we’re close to it.
There is no bottom. It is going to take immense effort to slow this collapse.
Too bad so many people are still operating as if it’s just business as usual.
This collapses when they, the economic power that supports them, and the cultural ideas they play upon all collapse. Or they provoke a catastrophic war in which the rest of the world collapses them.
Joe Biden’s absolutely delusional speeches this week tell me that there is only a skirmish going on in Congress and not a full grasp of the political war. Democratic politicians cannot continue to take money from the economic interests that are out to destroy what the Democratic Party has stood for until now. Biden’s pitch was so much kissing up to that kind of money it wasn’t sickening; it was disheartening.
And that’s what stands between us and full-fledged American Nazism. Unless the corporate interests that drive the Republican Party stop focusing on their wallets and get a grip.
I’m not sure what you are referencing about Biden but the democratic Party is still split. It is not clear the left and pragmatic wings can ever get together. Both halfs have some decent donors I understand.
I guess you’re referring to this.
https:/www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/us/politics/democrats-resistance-fundraising.html
Unless you’re referring to this.
https:
/www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/magazine/the-rise-of-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-death-throes-of-neolib
eralism.html
But really, they’re the same thing.
Close the space in neolib eralism and the URL will work.