It was, and well-done, and even Trump realized he couldn't turn this into an "OMG Leftist anti-cops and stuff!" thing. (Not that some digital a-holes aren't going to try it on. There's a lot of photo-shops out there trying to hang up antifa as worse than they are--I recommend taking any picture of so-called anti-racism or leftist violence with a grain--some of the photos are from Occupy anarchist crashers years back. In general, leftist skull crackers isn't the problem with these rallies.)
Nah. I want to go back in the Wayback machine to reminisce about a wedding I went to circa 1996 or 1997. I was on my first marriage, and the bride was a cousin of my ex's. I was in my maxi-length empire waist navy blue Wanamaker's favorite all-purpose looking awesome dress--I loved this article of clothing. I kid you not, it was the perfect cut and fabric (stretchy) for a curvy person who wanted to look modest and sophisticated and I wore that thing to weddings, and job interviews and work and damn! I really wish I still had a dress like that in my wardrobe. Navy is the greatest of stealth neutrals! I was chilling around the pool at the hotel in Wildwood at the wedding after-party where drinks and a Viennese table with pinenut cookies and cake and finger foods and whatnot were available, and I found myself in political conversation with someone who marked me out as a liberal.
"Well, I know you are a Clinton-fan" I think, was his actual words. The wedding-guest who stopped me was a short, stout, 1990's era Van Dyke (people who call it a goatee are wrong, because that refers to a beard only--the circle-beard is actually a Van Dyke) early-adopter. "Say what?" I improvised, caught flat at the idea that I literally wore my bleeding-heart liberalism in my sleeve. Was it my wire-rim specs? Something about the insouciance of my long-banged Rachel cut?
"Have you heard about the Clinton death count?"
"Vince Foster and who else?" I snapped back, as if to show I was aware of all internet memes, in an era when internet memes were not yet really a thing.
"So you heard--but" and then took me through a thing I to this day don't understand about little boys in Louisiana walking along a railroad track. But as I got Bartles and Jaymes and Zima-assed drunker, I also learned from this fascinating creature that his favorite people were Andrew Golota (because he was a proud Polish-American) and Pat Buchanan, because he really told it like it was regarding... "mud-people". This fellow's I shit-you-not actual words. Because immigrants are the worst.
At which point my liberal education sort of kicked in. Immigrants are the worst (said a guy whose family came from Poland) and then he used racial language that had been directed at slavs and originated from the fucks who invaded Poland during WWII.
At which point my liberally-educated self got stroppy. "Who do you think are the tribes of mud people?" At which my opinionated new acquaintance determined he would leave off his discussion with my drunk self, and would return to his actual friends. And so I continued to get super drunk and ate a mess of pinenut cookies. Which is just to point out these folks marching in alt-right rallies? Are not new. And also that drinking and even eating cake might not be forms of protest, but sometimes are self-care when faced with the blank-stupid face of what is now supposedly "alt-something". It's all just still ignorant fringe conspiracy-theory-believing bullshit on their side, just like my wedding-guest twenty years ago.
UPDATE: Boston thread on BLM.
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