Pro-Trump Nazi Site Launches Campaign To Harass Gays, Women, And Minorities

It's another morning where I find myself waking up and realizing that the last three days have not been a bad dream or nightmare, but are in fact a frightening reality.  American democracy seemingly has committed suicide although death will be a while in coming as the poison unleashed by Donald Trump and his more extreme supporters slowly spreads through society and our political structure.  The KKK is having celebratory marches and Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups are jubilant and announcing plans to target and harass gays and minorities and one hears not one word from their anointed fuhrer in condemnation.  It's as if we are reliving the early minutes of the 1971 movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis or the 1978 mini series, Holocaust. As in those works, where initially normalcy seemed to continue until creeping changes began to unleash a nightmare, the media and even Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to convince themselves that something horrible and dangerous is not really happening.  But it is happening.  Denial does not make it untrue.   A piece in Newsweek looks at the plans of a Trump supporting Nazi organization to embark on a campaign of harassing gays, women, minorities - and, I'm sure, Jews - to the point where they will commit suicide. This is the new America.    It MUST be stopped.  Here are article highlights:

The Daily Stormer, a Neo-Nazi website, published a list of dozens of Twitter users who expressed sadness over the election outcome on Wednesday, urging its readers to target and harass them to the point of suicide.

The frontpage of the white supremacist website shows a large photo of President-elect Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. “You should probably go ahead and be afraid now,” writes Andrew Anglin, the website’s publisher. The post suggests it’s readers “can troll these people and definitely get some of them to kill themselves.”

Several of the tweets embedded in the Daily Stormer post show fear over the fate of women, people of color and LGBT individuals in the U.S. under a Trump presidency. One person says they're worried about possible nuclear war.

Reports of hate-based violence against Hispanic people, Muslims and women continue to be documented around the country in the wake of  Trump’s victory in the polls on Tuesday.

Shaun King, writer for the New York Daily News, has been collecting and publishing on Twitter alleged incidents of intimidation and violence since Trump’s win. They include a group of middle school students in Royal Oak, Michigan chanting “Build that wall,” a reference to a wall Trump said he hopes will be built along the U.S.-Mexico border. King has also tweeted photos of pickup trucks in Brooksville, Florida covered in the words: "All Muslims are Terrorists," "Deport them All" and "I Hate Muslims."

A website, Why We Are Afraid, is similarly chronicling such incidents. One of the first images shows two water fountains at a high school in Jacksonville, Florida, with “Colored” and “Whites only” signs over each one.

People have good reason to be fearful.  As regular readers know, I am a strong advocate of gun control and have heretofore been very anti gun.  Now, I and others are looking to form a Pink Pistols chapter in Hampton Roads (chapters exist in Richmond and Northern Virginia) which assist members of the LGBT community to learn how to own and use handguns for self protection.  I have received death threats before in comments left on this blog - one reason I moderate comments - and heretofore never took them too seriously.  Now, things may be different and a new vigilance needed.  I have always been proud to be "out" and visible.  Now, one has to wonder if that makes you a potential target.  81% of evangelical Christians supported Trump.  Every death threat I have received in the past has come from someone professing to be a conservative, Bible believing Christian.  All of it, too me, underscores the toxicity of religion.

I am not alone in my fears.  Mother Jones reports that calls to LGBT suicide prevention hotlines have soared in number since Trumps victory.  Here are excerpts:

Two LGBT suicide prevention hotlines told Mother Jones that calls to their services have spiked since Donald Trump was elected president.

Trans Hotline, a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention for transgender people, has received at least five times the call volume it normally gets. And the Trevor Project, the nation's only LGBT youth-focused suicide prevention hotline, received more calls, texts, and online chats on Wednesday than it's gotten on a single day in four years, more than double its normal daily volume.

"We started getting increased call volume at about 10 p.m. on election night, and it hasn't slowed down at all," said Gretta Martela, director of Trans Hotline, on Thursday afternoon. "In fact, it's on the rise still." The hotline receives about 100 calls a day normally. In the 24 hours prior to speaking with Mother Jones, Martela said it had received 523 calls.

Callers expressed fear that many of the gains in LGBT rights made under the Obama administration—like access to trans-related health care—will be lost under Trump, Martela said. Medical experts have said that access to appropriate hormones and other treatments for gender dysphoria can be essential to a transgender person's physical and mental health. "The Republicans are looking to repeal Obamacare," Martela said. "So a lot of people are looking at losing their health care coverage."

Callers were also concerned about a potential Supreme Court ruling that could deny them access to bathrooms that match their gender identity, and a rise in anti-trans hate crimes. This year was the most violent on record for trans women of color, Martela noted.

 Welcome to Donald Trump's Amerika.