Berkeley Students Rightly Protest Against Breitbart Speaker: Trumpism and its Discontents

Racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia , and online bullying - thats what Breitbart and its senior editor, Milo Yiannopoulos stand for and proudly enable . Last year his Twitter account was shut down after he had led racist and misogynistic attacks against SNL s Leslie Jones. His response to the account suspension by Twitter was to claim that his despicable, hateful Twitter tirades were nothing more than his conservative opinions . He, of course, managed to sneak in Islamophobic and racist jabs in his repudiation of Twitter for its justified decision:

With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives.

Yet, Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at UC Berkeley this week by the Berkeley College Republicans because "he gives a voice to repressed conservative thought on American college campuses". Im not a conservative or a Republican but I strongly beg to differ on several points:

Hate speech is not free speech, so hes not voicing anything other than unprotected, provocative language that spurs psychological and physical violence against minorities.

Conservative thought is not repressed. If anti-minority TrumpSpeak is what is meant by conservative thought then its laureate just became president of the United States and nominated the most reprehensible cabinet and administration in our countrys history. Spend a few seconds on any social media platform, let alone Twitter, and youll find TrumpSpeak in spades there too.

Yiannopouloss Breitbart is where he voices his opinions and probably the only space where he should. That said, Breitbart is worse than a tabloid. It not only reports plainly false news, it fabricates conspiratorial allegations that attack Jews, black Americans, LGBTQ communities, women, and, to be sure, Muslims.

From Breitbart To The White House

Students at Berkeley were right to protest. Neo-Nazism should not be free to engage in the marketplace of ideas. It is a morally bankrupt and entirely anti-democratic enterprise. Trump, who seems to have a special affinity with bankruptcy and ethical deficiency, has emboldened and encouraged these groups. There is perhaps no clearer evidence of this than his hiring of at least three former Breitbart higher ups: Steve Bannon , who declared that the US is at war with Islam and pulled his kids out of a school because he didn't want them consorting with Jews , not to mention the plethora of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim blogs published on Breitbart under his watchful eye; then there's Sebastian and Katharine Gorka. This married couple produces anti-Muslim books, videos, podcasts, and lectures that Goebbels would be proud of. All of them went from Breitbart to the Trump White House.

They are now top Trump officials and part of the National Security Council - they were also recently joined by yet another Breitbarter, Julia Hahn whose anti-Muslim, anti-immigrants reputation earned her the position in Trumps team. Sebastian Gorka is Trump's Assistant Deputy. With Michael Flynn at the helm of the NSC, a man who makes no distinction between Islam and terrorism, it's no wonder the Muslim ban was carried out, "extreme vetting" of Muslims (which could affect American citizens ) is being implemented and potentially expanded to include social media accounts and phone contacts, there is indifference over 30 civilian casualties at a weekend US raid of Yemen, inexcusable silence on the terrorist attack of a Quebec mosque carried out in the name of Trumpism, and Iran has been ominously "put on notice" . This is all within the first two weeks. Guantanamo hasn't been officially addressed but Trump has vowed to keep it open and fill it further. More extreme forms of torture of detainees are also on "conservatives'" x-mas list.

I'm certain these actions and the callow ideology behind them are not traditional conservative values, despite what Paul Ryan is now saying, or not.

I hope there are still some real Republicans out there with enough backbone to stand up against the hijacking of real conservatism and the concomitant precipitous radicalization of the GOP by the Tea Party and its even more radical offshoot, the Trumpers (or perhaps "radical Trumpist extremists" is more fitting ?). Many Trumpists secretly call themselves "Centipedes " in private online pro-fascist forums, according to an in-depth study by Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed was notoriously deemed a "failing pile of garbage" by Trump at his first press conference after the election. His derision should be taken as a badge of honor.

Islamophobia is Racism, Trumps Muslim Ban is Unconstitutional Religious Test

Islamophobia is not a "rational fear" of terrorism or terrorist groups, as many Trump trolls will claim. It is anti-Muslim bigotry that unconvincingly attempts to operate behind the aegis of theological criticism. These individuals and groups know about as much about Islam as ISIS does - that is to say: virtually nothing authentic and only the apocryphal dreck produced by elementary-school-dropouts-turned-militants hellbent on killing Muslims and drawing the US into an apocalyptic war . Some of these self-proclaimed jurists have higher education but either not in Islamic studies or not from reputable institutions that produce certified scholars or legal experts.

Islamophobia can also be understood as anti-Muslim racism . The racialization of Muslims can be seen in things like the Muslim ban executive order that the Trump regime insists is not an unconstitutional religious test but rather a constitutional restriction based on geographic parameters with exceptions for religious minorities who are "members of religious minorities in their countries of origin". The seven countries on the list, however, are Muslim-majority societies with Christian minorities. We can do the math . Trump promised a Muslim ban then shockingly won the election and had to produce something with a patina of legality so he threw together a crackpot team to help: Giuliani , Bannon , Miller , the Gorkas , Kobach , and others. Instead of targeting Muslims explicitly they picked on brown people who happened to be from Muslim majority countries and are not Christian. That said, some Arab Christians have been impacted by the ban too.

Despite Trumpism, the growing anti-#MuslimBan protests across the country are heartening .

#NoBanNoWall.