For some it really is just a grift. The pics on the right are people who make a meager pittance asking for donations on Patreon and so on for livestreaming. Both live in California. The one on the right is a pro-Trump trans person who ended up beating up a Proud Boy in a melee because she got confused. The guy dressed up as a Spartan is some ex-con who was the subject of a Vice film. He doesn't seem to have any actual politics which is why his symbols are this weird mismash. It's like if you combined California hippie stuff with right-wing internet memes in a blender and put it into a single person. I think that's his daughter next to him.
I think the daughter was also kicked out of college because they accosted some Palestinian children and called them "stupid raghead cunts" or something like that. Just nasty and bigoted, but also broken people who have latched onto this internet pro-Trump thing. If there's anything to say it's that they've only been able to keep doing it because the society is sicker than they are.
I think the issue with the white nationalist movement is that it's extremely disenfranchised, weak people being manipulated by the leaders, who suffer from their own issues and are profiting from the movement. So you get people who suffer from mental disorders like autism and bipolar disorder (not to attack people with those - I know great people with them), who are also disenfranchised in different ways, whether it's poverty, lack of education, a criminal history, or whatever, and then they're easy prey for these leaders who are egomaniacs, con men, sociopaths, or have any number of other issues, who offer them explanations for why their lives suck that are easy to understand, and put the blame on an easy scapegoat. tbh, the whole thing is just sad.
Lincoln King
I can't fucking tell if he's ironic or not, and that makes me incredibly uncomfortable
Liam Phillips
He's right, to a degree. Climate change will present a challenge, one likely to destroy "systems of oppression" and capitalism – or at worst lead us to barbarism and/or extinction. His refusal to acknowledge its existence and blaming "neo-marxists" is irrelevant and inconsequential, however.
Carson Hill
why icecube trays?
Bentley Hall
I will tell you I spend a fair amount of time keeping tabs on active white nationalists, and by that I mean the more serious white-power neo-Nazi types, and the hardened core of the movement is more akin to a a lot of small, loosely-organized network of criminal gangs than a political movement. And I'm referring to the "political" groups here too and not even the white-power prison gangs in the U.S. which is a whole separate thing.
You'll sometimes see these pics of Discord teens turn out for a rally here and there dressed up in meme costumes, but if you look closer in the pics you'll see these smatterings of genuinely dangerous, older men with criminal records and such. Drug and firearms trafficking, terrorist plots – all kinds of stuff. And sometimes these kids have wound up getting involved in these people and it's just a disaster. It never ends well. Same also goes for some of these minor internet celebrities who go to rallies to livestream. I believe that Spartan guy attended rallies with members of the Rise Above Movement which is a neo-Nazi fight club (i.e. gangsters) based in southern California. That's the guys in skull masks in the picture. I think the blonde masked guy in that photo was recently scooped up by the feds on conspiracy charges. Anyways, according to that Vice film, the feds had visited the Spartan guy to try and get information and I bet that's why.
So take this ^ guy. He's a joke but this guy has a record of kidnapping and aggravated assault (stabbed an ex-girlfriend). He's currently facing other charges for beating up another ex (who was also in the white-power movement) and choking her until she vomited, and for being a felon in a possession of a firearm… which a friend of his used to try and murder somebody. He was also charged a few years ago for firearms trafficking but that charge was dropped.
Didn't he find out later who he was really rallying with and was horrified?
David Watson
I think so but I think he's still doing it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Julian Myers
(me) There was also some buffoonish rally his crowd pulled in San Diego in the barrio where they were outnumbered 10-1, and I think Spartan guy got into a fight with some other pro-Trump guy who didn't realize he was walking into a clown shot full of tweakers.
Oliver King
It's always funny how groups founded on things like "anti-degeneracy", turn out to be massive scum fucks. I wonder if these are the true lumpen of today.
