The Banter Long Read: After Bill Maher leapt to Laura Ingraham's defense against the dreaded power of the Parkland teens and their oppressive boycott, it kicked off the debate on the left again about freedom of speech versus progressive censorship, particularly on college ...read more
When Antifa (the ANTI FAscist movement) first appeared in the American lexicon, the media rushed to pass judgement on them as the flip side of the alt-right: extremist leftists bent on violence, oh woe is America! The problem with this narrative is that Antifa, as I've explained ...read more
Here's how the mainstream media normalizes right wing extremism: Instead of talking about how insane, violent, or dangerous the right is becoming, they talk about how just downright normal the right wing lunatics are and how they're just trying to be heard in a country they just ...read more
If you're looking for a case study in what happens to old white men's brains after decades of watching Fox News and listening to right wing talk radio, look no further than vocal Trump supporter and actor James Woods. A celebrity favorite of the hard right, Woods rantings about ...read more
On Saturday, 200-300 Trump supporters marched in Shelbyville, Tennessee in their neo-Nazi regalia, chanting Nazi slogans:Billed as a "White Lives Matter" rally, there's no pretense of "free speech" being made here. This is a purely white nationalist rally and they were not shy ...read more
Richard Spencer, the white nationalist/neo-Nazi/alt-right activist who was previously seen holding a tiki torch in Charlottesville, held a gathering yesterday at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The University had no responsibility for the event, as Spencer rented the ...read more
Two months ago, an ostensibly liberal man from Ohio with a history of violence opened fire on a group of Republicans practicing for an upcoming baseball game. Several were injured, one of them, Congressman Steve Scalise, seriously. The reaction from the media was swift and ...read more
It's easy to read Andrew Sullivan's column today, "The Boston Rally and the Left's Intolerance of Free Speech," and ask "what happened?" Once he was the average white liberal's favorite conservative - someone who came of age under Reagan and Thatcher but turned against his party ...read more
On Sunday 4th, October 1936, my Jewish grandfather took to the streets of the East End in London and went to fight fascists marching through his neighborhood. The Battle of Cable Street was a defining moment in British history when domestic fascism was beaten back and London ...read more
Apparently Richard Spencer, leader of the white nationalist alt-right, just doesn't pull the crowds he used to. Headlining a laughably misnamed "freedom of speech" rally where white nationalists wore their victimhood on their sleeve, Spencer preened for several news crews before ...read more