The Terror of a Swastika: Eichenwald’s Bugbear

The latest piece of political theatre to grace the tubes has been the amusing non-event of Kurt Eichenwald, editor at Vanity Fair, writer for Newsweek, and virulent anti-Trumper, accidentally tweeting out a picture which revealed his interest in MILF themed hentai comics.

He was arguing with Tucker Carlson at the time, worrying at the Fox News correspondent over the eternal threat of Antisemitism, unaware that he’d failed to close the tab in his browser which was opened on to the Bi-Chiku hentai.  Rather than admit his faux pas, he doubled down; claiming that he and his kids were trying to prove the existence of tentacle porn to his wife.

Ethan Ralph and Mister Metokur have already covered the topic, so there’s no need for me to pile on as well.  What has drawn my attention, however, was the “Antisemitic” image that Eichenwald was hyperventilating about in the first place.  An amusing 4chan photoshop job, which cranks the anti-Jew rhetoric up to 11, creating a ridiculous parody:

I’d like to run a thought experiment with you: imagine that you were out at the bar, and four young men in leather jackets walked in, with shaved heads, German crosses, swastika patches, and lightning bolts tattooed to the sides of their neck.  Regardless of your ethnic background, you’re liable to sit up and take notice.  Even if you’re the perfect specimen of an “Aryan Ubermensch”, the outfits of these young Neo-Nazis are foundationally anti-social, to the point of threatening violence, suggesting that they’re looking for a fight first, and political debate second.

We’re talking about amygdala threat recognition, of course; even if you were a card carrying member of Stormfront, these young men would set off your Spidey Sense.  They’ve stepped so far outside of the bounds of social norms, that anything is possible, up to and including murder.

Now if, instead of these violent young men, you instead imagine that you’re standing at a bus stop, when you notice a bit of graffiti on one of the pillars: a crudely drawn swastika marked out with a Sharpie.  How would you react to this?  In my case I’d likely chuckle, and think to myself, These summer-fags are the cancer that’s killing /b/.

The group of young men is a distinct threat to the status quo; the second is little more than thumbing the nose at society’s mores, and until there’s some sort of pattern, there’s no sort of threat.  But that’s all assuming that you have a healthy, functioning amygdala.  How would your average citizen react to this sort of vandalism?

In March of 2016, the notorious Weev decided to find out.  In his “brief experiment in printing” he decided to write a script that would hijack printers that weren’t isolated on their network – this turned out to be upward of a million devices – and have them print out a propaganda flier for the Daily Stormer:

The result?  Mass pandemonium.

At UMass Amherst they phoned the police, and the University Chancellor had to issue a statement of condemnation.  So did DePaul University, they even went so far as to launch an investigation to figure out who was behind it (hint: their website is printed at the bottom of the flier).  So did Princeton, Smith, and Mt. Holyoke, and various students reported that they “no longer felt safe” on campus.  The incident even exploded into the Mainstream Media, with the New York Times and the Washington Post, amongst others, reporting on this terrible, terrible Hate Crime™.

To be fair, most people saw it for what it was: the major lesson to be learned here was that Port 9100 should probably be isolated, otherwise somebody worse will come along, and cause your printers to burn out their ink cartridge by printing nothing but black pages (presumably, in today’s political climate, this would also be considered a form of White Supremacy).  The sane response is not to have sit-ins to discuss the spectre of racism and antisemitism infusing the campus, but for some people, that’s exactly how they responded.

Imagine these coddled college students, sitting around in the computer labs, when all of a sudden swastikas start popping out of their printers.  Can you see their minds seizing?  Something unexpected just happened – something that they believe is a sign of the apocalypse – and so, desperate to assuage their panicking amygdala, they phone the police over a damned swastika!

An interesting side effect of this mental dysfunction, is that these panicked Anti-Fascists will utterly fail to respond in the face of actual threats.  Take the above thought experiment, with the group of young men in biker combat gear.  Remove the lightning bolts (overt Nazi propaganda would trigger them into silence, and tattling to the police), but keep the shaved heads and German crosses.  After the initial shock of seeing a group that doesn’t adhere to the popped-collar, salmon-shirt, socks and Birkenstock norms that they embrace, they’ll quickly move in and try and offer friendship.

I know this, because this is what happens any time I’ve been out riding.  My friends and I will be approached with offers of friendship, by r-types who are desperate to find allies against “The Man”.

So we return to Kurt Eichenwald: terrified and upset over a silly meme tweeted at him (and the only reason it was sent was because he’d previously overreacted to similar memes), holding it up as if it were some sort of argument against Donald Trump.

In reality, it’s merely an argument against being a lolcow.

He then gets caught looking at some relatively tame pornography – and immediately goes into denial mode.  Legitimate threats such as Islamic terrorism, however – to those, he is utterly blind.

What a curious animal the Leftist is.  Terrified of jokes, sycophantic to enemies, blind to existential threats, and dishonest about the most innocuous of things.  You really should read Anonymous Conservative’s book on the topic, it’s the best work I’ve read that explains their pathetic psychology.  And understanding them is vital: our society is riddled with them.

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