Working the refs doesn’t work unless the refs want to be worked
By 
The Washington Post front paged yet another There’s no way to be sure if the leader of the U.S. is a fascist creep article April 28.
Headlined “Presidents words push race to the fore of campaign” in print and “As Trump stands by Charlottesville remarks, rise of white-nationalist violence becomes an issue in 2020 presidential race” online, the article can be summarized as follows:
Some say the DOPUS is an anti-Semite and islamphobe and generally a rabid bigot who encourages neo-nazis. Some say he isn’t. In conclusion, what does anything mean, basically?
In a series of tweets Friday night, President Trump lamented the plight of high-profile conservatives and right-wing conspiracy theorists who he claimed were being “censored” by social media platforms.
“I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America—and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH!” Trump wrote in a tweet. “We are monitoring and watching, closely!!”
He’s monitoring and watching closely, even if the person banned hasn’t really been banned, as is the case for Woods.
Or isn’t American, as is the case for P.J. Watson.
In response, and obviously as the product of a deviously calculated political strategy rather than a mind so unmoored from reality it couldn’t be towed back in with a harpoon cannon, the president has spent much of the last 24 hours growing increasingly furious over it.
Selectively furious.
Trump came to the defense of Watson and actor James Woods in particular, writing in another tweet that he was “so surprised” to see “conservative thinkers” like them banished from social media sites. Watson has spread a myriad of misinformation across YouTube and InfoWars, including conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, chemtrails, the Virginia Tech mass shooting, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
One of Watson’s recent stunts, perhaps the one that got him banned, was to claim that Muslims were celebrating the fire that destroyed Notre Dame. I’m sure that struck a chord with the man who claims he saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Watson also peddles anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been offered a job in the White House.
Trump then took a break to retweet a QAnon-promoting “Deep State Exposed” Twitter account that posted a bizarrely edited video purporting to prove the end goal of Islam is subjugating or murdering all non-believers, before retweeting Watson and a string of others griping about the bans.
But Emperor Scalpantine hasn’t specifically ordered soldiers to attack Jews and Muslims, in German, while wearing a uniform designed by Herr Hugo Boss. So questions about whether he’s a fascist or just accidentally acts like one all of the time will continue to linger.
Trump also retweeted Lauren Southern, a far-right YouTube personality with ties to U.S. and European “alt-right” (i.e., white supremacist) movements.
Southern is a Canadian white supremacist who had a short-lived career as a fascist pirate.
But there’s no way to be 100% certain that he’s intentionally giving supremacists an audience that’s bigger than their wildest dreams because he approves of them. And he didn’t protest the banning of rabid anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan or rabid Islamophobe Laura Loomer, so it’s best to continue to speculate about his motives.
Southern and the Identitarians took their small boat out into the Mediterranean Sea and proceeded to shoot flares at a ship called the Aquarius, a 250-foot-long vessel operated by a charity called SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors Without Borders).
[…]
According to Southern in June, once the group had secured a ship, they would return to sea and stop NGOs from bringing refugees to Europe.
“We’re buying bigger boats, more boats, nets to potentially stop the motors if there are smaller boats going out to Libya and over the next few months we’re just going to be sending out more and more crews that I think will legitimately be able to stop these boats from going out, these NGOs,” she said.
Potential story pitch: Does Trumps concern for foreign white supremacists display an understanding of international affairs?
