{"id":8178,"date":"2022-11-13T16:00:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-13T21:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=8178"},"modified":"2022-11-16T10:37:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T15:37:52","slug":"shitstorming-the-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2022\/11\/shitstorming-the-opposition\/","title":{"rendered":"Shitstorming the opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>In the late morning hours of Sunday, October 23, Old Nick\u2019s Pub in Eugene, Oregon\u2014a neighborhood Pagan-themed goth-punk venue with an antifascist vibe\u2014became the scene of an intense armed standoff when pub owners decided to host a \u201cDrag Story Time\u201d event, in which a child actor would read a children\u2019s story to other adults and their children. The event was intentionally designed as an all-inclusive, family-friendly event that could, at most, be described as a gender-neutral space for children to perform.<\/p>\n

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he far right targets a Drag Story Time event in Eugene, Oregon. Photo by Dean O\u2019Possum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A group of about 50-75 people including Proud Boys, Christian nationalists, \u201cGays Against Groomers,\u201d QAnon supporters, Three Percenters, and MAGA Republicans came out to protest the event, forming a motley array of blue jean clad warriors that could have been mistaken for a local Jerry\u2019s Home Improvement crowd. But some came from as far as Idaho\u2014at least a six hour drive to Eugene. Some waved the Stars and Stripes while others wore camo fatigues and brandished visible firearms. \u201cSave Our Children\u201d signs were noticeable among some who smiled for photo ops and even brought their own children. One sign read \u201cANTIFA supports child abuse.\u201d A gigantic sign read \u201cTHE WICKED SHALL BE CAST INTO HELL AND ALL THE NATIONS THAT FORGET GOD.\u201d A few people screamed into bullhorns, insisting that Old Nick\u2019s staff were \u201cenabling pedophiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo by Dean O\u2019Possum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

About 200-300 supporters showed up in defense of Old Nick\u2019s Pub, many wearing rainbow Pride flags, some wearing all black. Flamboyant makeup and fishnet stockings were on full display. A wizard with a staff floated among the crowd. Some pub supporters tried to talk to the protesters; others tried to sound-blast their hate speech. Around 11:30 a.m., a line of supporters surrounded the pub. Moments of chaos erupted and scuffles broke out in the street. Around noon, protesters tried to push across the street towards the pub but were driven back by a large crowd of patrons and supporters, who endured a hail of rocks, smoke bombs, paintballs, and bear mace. Police intervened and one injury was reported. No arrests have been made at the time of this writing.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Drag Story Time proceeded as planned, and the unholy alliance of fascist and right-wing protesters was driven away, only to return later in the day and be driven off again. During the second encounter, a Jeep full of armed protesters pulled up in front of the pub, a man emerged from the vehicle with a handgun, and the group began threatening a small crowd of Old Nick\u2019s staff and supporters; but eventually, the vehicle sped away with the gun-wielding protester hanging out of the passenger-side door. This particular group continued to circle the block into the late hours of the night, waving handguns and threatening Old Nick\u2019s staff, who kept armed watch in shifts.<\/p>\n

It all started with an online trolling and intimidation campaign led by right-wing Twitter \u201cjournalists\u201d Andy Ngo and @HunnyBadgerMom, who is married to a well-known Proud Boy. From there it was picked up by the British media outlet Daily Mail and disseminated to a wider right-wing audience. In the week leading up to the event, phone calls rang in to Old Nick\u2019s Pub from local and distant area codes, rumors of a \u201csex dungeon\u201d circulated, death threats were made, a bomb threat was called in, negative 1-star reviews featuring puritanical hate speech and apocalyptic messages flooded the pub\u2019s website, its Facebook page exploded into transphobic moral crusades parading under the aegis of \u201cchild protection,\u201d and specific staff members were targeted for harassment.<\/p>\n

Phrases like \u201cDrag Story Time\u201d and \u201cfeaturing children\u201d would become hypersexualized tropes for the trolls on the far right, who proceeded to drag semantics through the sludge of the online fascist echo chambers and dissect it in medieval ways until, finally, \u201cDrag Story Time\u201d became synonymous with \u201cpedophilia,\u201d \u201cchild indoctrination,\u201d and \u201cgrooming.\u201d Underlying this accusation, of course, is the bigoted assumption that \u201clefty\u201d venues catering to the LGBTQ+ community must have some indoctrinating effect on children, if indeed they are hosting children in makeup in a \u201cbar named after the devil\u201d; ergo, they must exist for the sole purpose of \u201cgrooming children\u201d and turning parents into \u201cchild groomers.\u201d As if pedophilia were a contagious disease.<\/p>\n

Trolling, harassment, and intimidation<\/h4>\n

The intimidation campaign against Old Nick\u2019s Pub is not unique. It has been replicated around the country and around the globe, using the same tactics of trolling, harassment, and intimidation. With the rise of so-called \u201cdigital soldiers\u201d on the far right, local feuds escalate into online hate campaigns with international audiences. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw much of the same ideological elements show up at hospitals and healthcare clinics to protest mask and vaccine mandates, the rhetoric of the anti-vaxxers overlapping seamlessly with anti-communism\/ anti-socialism, xenophobic fears of a \u201cChinese virus\u201d made in a lab, fascistic fear-mongering about a \u201cDeep State\u201d controlled by pedophiles, and personal attacks on Democratic state officials.<\/p>\n

Since April of this year, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law into effect (forbidding classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for grades K-3), a startling uptick in harassment campaigns led by members of the far right both online and in the mainstream press have begun targeting queer and trans people in particular, especially trans youth. All of this is well-timed for the midterm elections and suggests dark money is pouring into trolling, harassment, and intimidation operations where political gains can be made\u2014for these campaigns are proving to be more effective at shaping legislation than old-school conservative think tanks, which primarily focused on anti-communism and free-market supremacy. There are political gains to be made for the far right at every level of government, such as removing LGBTQ+ literature from local libraries, gagging teachers who dare to speak out about gender fluidity, potentially overturning gay marriage in the Supreme Court, and abolishing the right of trans youth to gender-affirming care.<\/p>\n

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and harassment campaigns are nothing new, but a choice tactic the far right has adopted in recent years to score points in the culture wars is to brand its political enemies as \u201cpedophiles,\u201d \u201cenablers of pedophilia,\u201d or (a favorite epithet among right wing pundits) \u201cgroomers.\u201d It\u2019s a tactic that, by now, has a sordid history behind it\u2014not so much because it works, but because accusations alone are enough to create a \u201cperfect shitstorm.\u201d And that\u2019s kind of the whole point. Such accusations of pedophilia might start in online chat rooms (or anywhere, really) where instigators of violence can remain totally anonymous. Thus a conspiracy gets hatched; then it trickles out onto social media platforms including video-sharing sites like YouTube, where the trolls can still remain fairly anonymous, though they know very well their targets cannot. A right-wing intimidation campaign can now ensue, led by some high-profile troll like Alex Jones, or some mainstream pundit like Tucker Carlson, and the conspiracy theory goes viral.<\/p>\n

If the \u201cdigital soldiers\u201d on the far right can create a perfect shitstorm on some random Facebook page or Twitter feed\u2014and perhaps get a teacher fired for being too \u201copen\u201d about gender identity\u2014they will try to go a step further: Why not bring the fight out to the street\u2014or directly to the school board, the local library, the city council, etc.\u2014where the trolls and their armed streetfighters can unleash a shitstorm of real-time hate? Why not go for a bloody spectacle that can be live-streamed? The trolls on the far right know all that\u2019s necessary for a perfect shitstorm is for someone like Kyle Rittenhouse to show up, start playing vigilante, and begin shooting people\u2014and later perhaps even claim self-defense in hopes of an acquittal. The trolls know that no matter who suffers real-life consequences, they and their fascist coalition of streetfighters can claim they\u2019re just \u201cexercising free speech\u201d\u2014that is the depth of their vitriolic cynicism, which simultaneously organizes hate crusades and refuses to accept accountability for what is bound to occur as a result.<\/p>\n

By now it should be clear that things have moved far beyond \u201cfree speech\u201d and the \u201cright to assemble.\u201d Where political violence becomes inevitable, community self-defense becomes necessary and resistance will certainly be organized. This is already happening at Drag Story Hour events around the country, where \u201cParasol Patrols\u201d have become a necessary means of shutting down fascist intimidation tactics and \u201cdiffusing the shitstorm\u201d before it occurs, so to speak. The takeaway here is that, although perhaps nothing can prevent shitstorming in the digital age, some basic preparedness can help to render its effects null and void.<\/p>\n

Pizzagate and other conspiracy theories<\/h4>\n

For historical context, it\u2019s helpful to revisit that absurd spectacle known as \u201cPizzagate,\u201d whose legacy still haunts the nether-regions of the dark web. The \u201cPizzagate-effect\u201d offers a textbook case on how far-right trolling operations can create something like a \u201cperfect shitstorm\u201d with potential for real-time violence. During the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, right-wing troll Alex Jones caught wind of a wildly imaginative conspiracy theory, hatched on 4Chan and Reddit, accusing Democrats including Hillary Clinton of running a child sex-trafficking ring out of the basement of a family pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. (The basement of the parlor was alleged to be connected to U.S. Congressional offices by a series of underground tunnels, through which child sex slaves were being trafficked.)<\/p>\n

When Jones blasted Pizzagate out on his right-wing talk show Infowars, the conspiracy went viral. The owner of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor and his employees endured weeks of harassment, including death threats, until on December 4, 2016, the Pizzagate conspiracy made headlines when 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch drove across four state lines to \u201cinvestigate\u201d the matter and fired three shots from an AR-15 into the parlor. His mission: \u201cSave the children.\u201d That slogan would become a favorite hashtag for conspiracy theorists all over the dark web.<\/p>\n

Welch was eventually sentenced to four years in prison, and though he later admitted his \u201cintel\u201d may not have been \u201c100 percent,\u201d he never disavowed Pizzagate\u2014which, of course, never had a shred of evidence to support it. The whole matter of a pedophile sex-trafficking ring run by congressional members of a Deep State might have died with the 2016 election of Donald Trump, but instead it mutated and took on a kind of second life, especially with the rise of QAnon in 2017. That was partly owing to the fact that Trump, then entering his presidential role, would follow Welch\u2019s example of refusing to disavow Pizzagate, if only because it scored him political points in his election bid.<\/p>\n

Michael Flynn, Trump\u2019s first appointed national security advisor (an appointment that would last a whopping 22 days), would go on to support Pizzagate in his official role by retweeting links to it with incendiary bylines, like: \u201cNew Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc…MUST READ!\u201d\u2014thus offering a veneer of legitimacy from one of the highest offices in the State department to one of the most baseless conspiracy theories on the internet. Flynn\u2019s tweet and others like it would be met with more stringent, late-in-the-game efforts by Facebook and Twitter to curb the spread of \u201cfake news,\u201d misinformation, and disinformation on their platforms\u2014probably a case of far too little and far too late.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to the 2018 midterm election, newly-minted online forces like QAnon, alongside \u201cboots on the ground\u201d fascist groups like the Proud Boys, would resurrect Pizzagate in ways that framed Donald Trump as an evangelical force for \u201cgood\u201d fighting against an \u201cevil\u201d Deep State cabal of Satanic pedophiles (which now included Hollywood celebrities as well as Democrats). By the summer of 2020, #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurChildren (not to be confused with the charity foundation Save The Children, whose imagery and signage QAnon co-opted) became popular hashtags and bumper stickers for an angry far-right mob of online \u201cdigital foot soldiers,\u201d mostly linked to QAnon, who continue to insist that the Biden government is part of a Deep State cabal of pedophiles. #SaveOurChildren is a nod to their hero, Edgar Maddison Welch, who translated online fantasy into real-time, self-guided action.<\/p>\n

The general impact of \u201cPizzagate\u201d marks a point of confluence where fascist outliers and far-right \u201cfringe\u201d elements became ideologically indistinguishable on key questions from the mainstream Republican Party. Having been banned from Twitter and Facebook after Trump\u2019s defeat in 2020, the Pizzagate-effect made its way to new social media platforms like Tik-Tok, where it took on a new polish and eventually found its way into the minds of younger, less politically-affiliated, more anti-establishment social media users. In a more recent incarnation of Pizzagate, codenamed \u201cFrazzledrip,\u201d Hillary Clinton and one of her former aides are alleged (without evidence of course) to have filmed a Satanic blood ritual in which a child slave is fileted alive so that her torturers can harvest adrenochrome, the chemical in the blood which conspiracists believe to be the elixir of life and longevity.<\/p>\n

For the record, no such \u201cFrazzledrip\u201d video ever existed; but such conspiracy theories have generated a huge amount of traffic on YouTube, where new details continually emerge to \u201csupport\u201d a conspiracy, thus constantly breathing new life into old conspiracies and especially antisemitic tropes. Like social media, YouTube is algorithmically designed to generate an endless stream of content. The overall vileness of that content can sometimes be scaled down into slightly more \u201cacceptable\u201d 2.0 versions, and this seems to be where #SaveOurChildren [from pedophiles] found its traction\u2014mainly on Facebook pages, Instagram, and Twitter, which can link directly to YouTube.<\/p>\n

Targeting trans and queer people<\/h4>\n

Since the passing of DeSantis\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law in April, a slew of anti-trans ideology and hate rhetoric has been unleashed on social media accounts such as \u201cLibs of Tik-Tok\u201d (which has since been banned on the platform, but is still active on Instagram) and \u201cGays Against Groomers\u201d (an Instagram account). \u201cLibs of Tik-Tok\u201d began as an anonymous account from which its owner\u2014who has since been \u201couted\u201d as Chaya Raichik by Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz\u2014would troll the pages of queer and trans people on Tik-Tok, then repost links to them on Twitter with incendiary bylines, like: \u201c[Elliot Page] with Dylan Mulvaney before it became trendy to transition [between genders].\u201d (The original headline intentionally uses Page\u2019s deadname.) Once the links appeared on Twitter, the Tik-Tok \u201clibs\u201d would get \u201cowned\u201d by becoming the target of relentless attacks by anyone and everyone on the right-wing spectrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cLibs of Tik-Tok\u201d specifically targets trans and queer people as well as healthcare clinics, doctors, and therapists who support gender-affirming care (which assists minors with things like hormone treatment through transition). Other targets include high school and college sports that support trans athletes. Trans and queer teachers who come out to their students are a favorite target\u2014Raichik brags about getting teachers fired for being too open about gender, alleging this to be a form of sexualizing and indoctrinating students. When \u201cLibs of Tik-Tok\u201d was given a public boost by Joe Rogan on his Spotify podcast in August 2021, the Twitter feeds swarmed with right-wing hate speech targeting queer and trans people\u2014much of it no doubt coming from Rogan\u2019s own audience of hypermasculine, right-wing adrenaline junkies.<\/p>\n

In June of 2022, a group that calls itself \u201cGays Against Groomers\u201d formed explicitly for the purpose of harassing LGBTQ+ people and their supporters, especially targeting trans youth. The group describes itself as a nonprofit \u201ccoalition of gay people who oppose the recent trend of indoctrinating and sexualizing [or what they refer to as \u2018medicalizing\u2019] children under the guise of LGBTQIA+.\u201d Their message is that the liberal establishment is pressuring children to transition, and even to have \u201cgender-corrective surgeries\u201d (which right-wing pundits refer to as \u201cgender mutilation\u201d)\u2014all of which is patently false, even absurd; but anyone who supports trans rights or even acknowledges the existence of gender dysphoria, or who does not toe the line of straightlaced conservatism by insisting on two genders, can be called a \u201cgroomer.\u201d<\/p>\n