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PandoraAwakened

(905 posts)
Sun Oct 28, 2018, 12:17 PM Oct 2018

It Literally Made Me Sick that I Predicted This

While in the process of compiling a story that looks at certain ultra-nationalist groups who violently support tRump, news broke of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I quickly scrolled through alleged shooter Robert Bowers' social media grab from "Gab" (http://archive.li/k63LE), a Twitter-like platform where white supremacists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and members of other alt-right groups congregate. It revealed some posts that support a conclusion I had arrived at a few days ago after having waded through the muck of some truly despicable sites of the far-far right while conducting research for my report:

Keeping in mind that the vast majority of these guys are tRump supporters, there is a fair amount of "hair on fire" tumult and discord going on right now amongst the white supremacy extremists. This is due to a mixture of shock, uncertainty, and anger over some recent high-profile arrests of some of their own (the focus of my article), capped off by the MAGAbomber event, over which half of them are in denial with the usual wild conspiracy theories and the other half are depressed and despondent about "how it makes the president look."

Meanwhile, there's another smaller group amongst the white supremacists who appear from their comments to be getting more frustrated by the minute. These are the truly hardcore anti-Semites, many of them "old-guard" neo-Nazis who never crossed over the line to embrace tRump like most of their peers did, largely because his daughter married a Jewish man, she converted to Judaism, and her children are being raised Jewish.

This smaller group is appalled that tRump's "cult of personality" has overtaken their "politics," which was previously laser focused on hating Jewish people. The following sarcastic post written a few days ago by alleged shooter Robert Bowers encapsulates the frustration of this far-right minority:

"amazing amount of division on gab today…glad the overwhelming jew problem has been solved so we can now fight with each other."

In talking with fellow writers Friday night about the ultra-nationalists research I had done, there was speculation about potential retaliatory violence that might result from the recent arrests of some of tRump's most ardent and most dangerous supporters.

I said that, while this was certainly a possibility, I felt the next round of violence was instead going to come from one of these frustrated anti-Semites who, having failed to wrap themselves in the tRump flag, are becoming increasingly more isolated and disconnected from their own community of haters.

These guys have found it impossible to re-take a strictly Jew-bashing narrative amidst the far-right's alternating online cacophony of tRump worship and angst, which overwhelms their own messages. With no other echo chamber to go to for validation of their particular hate without including tRump in the conversation, I thought it was inevitable that one of them would eventually blow his stack.

The next day I awoke to the news of the synagogue shooting and identification of the suspect. I scanned through Robert Bowers' social media posts and instantly recognized the telltale signs placing him in the hardcore anti-Semitic group I had described to my friends the night before.

The next thing I knew, I found myself vomiting in the toilet. It literally made me sick that I predicted this.

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