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Last Friday, I went on All-In with Chris Hayes to discuss billionaire Stephen Ross decision’s to hold a fundraiser for racist President Donald Trump. On air, I said, “I have no problem shining the light back on the donors who fund this kind of racialized hate. I mean, I go further. I want pitchforks and torches outside this man’s house in the Hamptons. I’ve been to the Hamptons, it’s very nice. There’s no reason it has to be. There’s no reason he should be able to have a nice little party. There’s no reason why people shouldn’t be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood.”
I stand by that, but I borked the structure a little. In my head, I wanted to go: “shine a light” –> “peacefully understood” –> “torches” –> “f**k the Hamptons.” The “torches” were supposed to parallel the “light” and the Hamptons bit was supposed to be the punchline. Same thoughts, same words, different order. These people who support Trump are racist assholes and I wanted to make the point that disagreeing with them peacefully doesn’t require disagreeing with them “nicely.” But structurally, the way it read in my mind versus the way it came out on air is the difference between getting screamed at by white people versus getting screamed at by white people with guns. The way I phrased it allowed the alt-right to take the first part and ignore the second part, with predictable results.
Of course, I’m not in the business of actually caring about these people, so on Sunday on Joy Reid, I said this:
You don’t communicate it to them — you beat them. Beat them. They are not a majority of this country. The majority of white people in this country are not a majority of the country. And all the people who are not fooled by this need to come together, go to the polls, go to the protests, do whatever you have to do. You do not negotiate with these people — you destroy them.
Yep, that’s just accurate. Words, sentiment, and structure all check out there. That came out exactly right.
Again, that drew predictable responses, including this fabulous devolution of headlines which brilliantly shows what white wing media is all about in this country:
- Fox went with: “MSNBC guest tells people not to ‘negotiate’ with Trump supporters: ‘You destroy them’” — which, okay, fine. Fox gonna Fox.
- Washington Examiner went with: “‘You destroy them’: MSNBC guest offers advice on dealing with white Trump supporters” — which, I mean, leaves out some context but whatever.
- Some rando site went with: “MSNBC Yakker: Destroy White People” — OH COME ON!
With headlines like that, my inbox exploded. People see the trolls and idiots on Twitter and Facebook. But those people are still somewhat aware that their comments are public. They are restrained, if you can believe it. The people who email me, well, they tend to think that their BS gets to remain private.
I’m not about to doxx anybody. Most of their email addresses are fake anyway, and even if they aren’t, a man’s gotta have a code. But I want you to see some of these people. They kind of explain WHY I do not believe Trump voters can be negotiated with. And also, you know, here are some LEADS in case I turn up dead. [WARNING: these emails contain strong language which I’m not going to bleep out.]
[Marge]
ACCORDING TO THESE —— YOU ARE A RADICAL TROUBLE-MAKING NIGGER.
SELF-RIGHTEOUS HYPOCRITICAL ASS-HOLE AND INGRATE.
YOU HATE WHITEY— MAKES YOU A RACIST PIECE OF SHIT.
NO SUCH THING AS A PEACEFUL PROTEST WHEN CARRYING TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS.
YOU THINK ALL TRUMP SUPPORTING WHITE PEOPLE SHOULD BE DESTROYED.
WHAT ABOUT TRUMP SUPPORTING NEGROES?
HARD TO BELIEVE YOU ATTENDED HARVARD.
BUT, THEN AGAIN.. SO DID BARRY & MOOCHY OBAMMY.
THEY WERE MADE TO TURN IN THEIR LICENSES TO PRACTICE LAW.. BECAUSE THEY WERE (ARE) CORRUPT AS HELL.
IF IT WERE NOT FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, THEY NOR YOURSELF WOULD HAVE EVER ATTENDED HARVARD.
*YOU PEOPLE* MAKE A MOCKERY OF EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH.
WHITE PEOPLE BUILT THIS NATION AND YOU NIGS DESTROY IT.
ITS A FACT—- ANYTHING YOU CANNOT TEAR UP OR STEAL, YOU BACK UP AND SHIT ON.
I’M NOT REFERRING TO ALL BLACK PEOPLE—- JUST THE NIGGERS.
ALL NIGGERS ARE BLACK— NOT ALL BLACK FOLKS ARE NIGGERS.
YOU’RE A NIGGER.
She goes on like this for another page, like she’s going through her notes from the HMS Beagle, trying to explain the difference between a Galapagos n***** and good black people.
[Jerry]
Fox showed your nigger ass today and being you want to call ALL WHITES Racist we may as well start really being one . When your Nigger Daddy Obummer was in office we let him do his job ,but 4 some nigger afro punk that u are u think the World is racist id we vote Trump . All u did was make me and my family friends and 1,000,000 millions of other deplorables make sure we get out and vote . 68 million racists didn’t vote Trump in ,69 million did ! In 2020 your fat ass nigger afro punk faggitt face with the girls name will find out just how racist we can be .
Ahh, the classic, “I’m not racist but you made me racist you dumb n*****” routine. I’ve got about 10 versions of this story this week. But I like this one because it also gets the math wrong.
[Mike]
You ASSHOLES are so fucking stupid how about all illegal things Clinton and nigger boy Obama did TRUMP is making America great again FUCK YOU CUNTS
At some point Mike realized he didn’t say anything specific to me, so he emailed again:
Eli — He is one stupid nigger
I mean, I usually get all my insults out in one email, so who is the dumbass now?
[UCONN]
I hate kikes and niggers and i will do everything i can at all times to vote ha ha for them being killed. Pig and nigga can both be wiped dead off the planet, nigger
Sometimes people can’t decide if I’m black or Jewish, but this man made sure to cover all his bases. What’s troubling is that this guy emailed me with a Uconn.edu address. I checked it, and it’s fake, so I can’t do anything. But, code aside, when there are people like this on campus I feel I have a duty to report it to the proper campus authorities.
I’ll end with “Patty”…
Mr. Mystal has stated that Trump supporters should be destroyed? Are you kidding me? Send to me your telephone number. Right now!
A solid 30 percent of my hate mail includes people who demand that I share my phone number or home address with them, so that they can continue to yell at me. Which is WILD, when you think about it. Like, who are these people who think I’m going to say, “You know, I should really call them up and engage them in conversation?” Who the hell do they think they’re emailing, Joe Biden? The bald HUBRIS of mediocre whiteness never ceases to amaze me.
In any event, I want people to take away two themes from this:
1. When you support white wing media and Republican elected officials, THESE are the people whose side you’ve chosen to be on. For years, for decades, Republicans have acted like their their so-called “limited government” policies could be detached from the bigotry and misogyny of their supporters. Trump has put the lie to that theory. If Trump or Fox or the Republican Party had any shred of decency, a quick look at the people who are “on their side” would make them RE-EVALUATE their entire political platform, as well as their life choices. Instead, Republicans continue to act like you can support “tax cuts” and “conservative justices,” but not “WHITE PEOPLE BUILT THIS NATION AND YOU NIGS DESTROY IT.” It doesn’t work that way. It’s never worked that way. The people who continue to support Republicans are no longer merely ignorant about the true “base” of their party, they’re willfully malicious.
2. Fox writing a story about me and then these nut jobs popping up in my inbox is not a bug, but an actual feature of their coverage. The goal of their coverage is to inspire the crazies, who will then make me uncomfortable, in hopes that me and people who believe what I believe will shut up or self-censor.
And it works, better than you might think! I haven’t written a lot this week. It’s a little hard to focus when you open your work inbox and you have to spend a morning going through “true threat analysis.” It sends you down a hole and, even when you come out clean on the other side, the journey still takes hours that could have been spent doing something productive. And I’m more used to this than most (thanks, former ATL commenters). Most of this stuff bounces right up off me, but Fox knows and Breitbart knows that not all of it will. That’s the point. It’s a “chilling effect,” not a liquid nitrogen freeze ray.
So you can see why I’m somewhat resistant to the notion that these people, these Trump supporting assholes, are the ones who need to be “won back,” in order to defeat Trump. You can see why my willingness to “negotiate” with these people is nil. You can see why I believe in fighting fire with fire instead of some kind of triangulated appeasement strategy. F**k these people. F**k ’em right in their f**king ear.
I’m going to keep saying that. I’m going to keep kicking hornet’s nests. Not because I’m immune to stings, but because these hornets need to get the hell off my lawn.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.