While Donald Trump temporarily played nice with the LGBT community during a 60 Minutes interview by saying that he is "fine" with marriage equality because "it was already settled," he said nothing about his promise to sign a "First Amendment Defense Act" already pending in Congress that would exempt Christofascists from obeying non-discrimination laws if motivated by their religious beliefs. He also admonished protesters in various cities to "stop it" but said nothing to condemn the threats and intimidating acts being done by his supporters against minority groups and Clinton supporters. (I blocked four nasty comments to posts on this blog from a aggressive Trumpkin.) And for further proof that we are headed down an ugly road, today it was confirmed that Trump has name alt-right provocateur Steve Bannon as his senior White House counselor. For those not aware of it, Bannon supports an alt-right, white nationalist agenda and is an anti-Semite based on various published reports. Media Matters looks at the development. Here are highlights:
President-elect Donald Trump’s first White House hire tells you everything you need to know about his commitment to his campaign’s bigoted message. Stephen Bannon, an anti-Semite who ran the white nationalist “alt-right” website Breitbart News before taking a leave of absence to become the Trump campaign CEO, will be Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor.
On November 13, Trump released a statement announcing Bannon’s hiring. The same statement noted that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus would become Trump’s chief of staff. While White House chief of staff is typically the most senior position in the White House, the press release named Bannon first and described the two as “equal partners” in the Trump administration.
Bannon has been a key figure in leveraging this bigotry to aid Trump’s rise to power. Bannon bragged during the Republican Convention to nominate Trump that Breitbart News had become home to the “alt-right” -- which is just a racist code word for white nationalists. Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart News has featured racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and anti-LGBT rhetoric. The site recently made a “noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas -- all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right’” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Before he died, Andrew Breitbart himself reportedly called Bannon “the Leni Riefenstahl of the tea party movement.”
Bannon’s Breitbart News especially has come under fire for its rampant anti-Semitism. . . . As CNN’s Jake Tapper noted on Twitter after today’s announcement, Bannon’s ex-wife swore in court that “he said he doesn’t like Jews” and didn’t want his children to go to school with Jews. Indeed, Esquire politics contributor Charles Pierce even compared Bannon with David Duke.
As note before, it may not be easy for them, but many of those who voted for Trump need to take a good look at what they have helped set in motion. Like it or not, they own what is happening because of their vote. They cannot duck responsibility. They are just as responsible as Trump because them put him in the position to mainstream hate and extremism.
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