To be fair, I’m sure Ken Burns would approve.
Snell is a lawyer, which is how he gets on TV to spout Democratic Party talking points, on the theory that biased, irresponsible propaganda is somehow more credible when a lawyer issues it. Still, lawyers aren’t supposed to lie or deliberately deceive the public. No, Tristan, you idiot, that is not a Nazi salute. I am hardly a frequent church-goer, but even I’ve been at services where the congregation was urged to raise hands exactly like this.
“Can you say what they said at Gettysburg? ‘When you see us lined up as one, sweep down the hill to victory,'” evangelical leader Lance Wallnau said after asking the crowd to rise at a prayer rally in support of Republican Doug Mastriano’s run for PA Governor. “Father I pray, that indeed Pennsylvania will be like Little Round Top, and America will have a new birth of liberty,“ he said before giving his prayer.
Tristan, sharp as a tack, immediately, recognized the reference to that infamous German victory at Gettysburg, just like at Pearl Harbor…
What can we conclude from that tweet?
- We can conclude that Tristan’s bias has made him so dim that no ethics alarms rang before he defamed everyone at that rally by calling them Nazis on Twitter.
- We can conclude that he whipped off that tweet without doing any research or talking to someone who might recognize evangelical prayer meeting gestures when they see them.
- We can conclude that what this guy says, writes, asserts and argues cannot be trusted, which is a problem for a lawyer.
- We can conclude that any TV network that brings Snell on as an “expert” is not interested in enlightening its audience, but misleading them.
From a macro perspective, we can perhaps conclude that Democrats are really going to bet all of their chips on the “Republicans and conservatives are Nazis!” fearmongering strategy launched by Joe Biden in The Speech That Will Live in Infamy. The party is really that desperate, or, in the alternative, that deranged.
Or perhaps American voters are as stupid, hateful and ignorant as people like Snell (hey…isn’t that a German name???) apparently think they are.
And hope they are.
Ethics Alarms 
Even if this was not an evangelical method of engagement, don’t all elected officials and the military raise their right hand and swear an oath at some point in time like that? Is that too a disguised NAZI salute?
Apparently, every raised hand at a Republican or Republican-inspired event is evidence of Nazism, regardless of whether it is performed exactly like the erstwhile “German Greeting” or not.
It’s time to confront the massive wave of constant rhetorical lies coming from the political left.
I’m dead certain that Tristan Snell knows full well that that was NOT a Nazi salute in any way shape or form, there is absolutely no reasonable comparison, thus making Tristan Snell an intentional bald-faced liar and an immoral partisan hack. Yes Mr. Snell it’s my opinion that you’re a bald-faced intentional liar.
Until we stop pandering to these intentional liars and hacks and get in their lying faces and forcibly confront them with their intentional defamation they will not stop their lies. They have literally weaponized their free speech rhetoric and they need to be put to shame in a very, very public way. It’s time for the political right to get their underwear in a bundle, get off their asses and dish out some in-your-face Sicilian Ethics on steroids.
If conservatives are not willing to get out of their comfy lounge chairs and confront the totalitarian liars and hacks that are actively destroying everything that makes the United States what it is, then the totalitarians will win and conservative cowards, yes cowards, are part of the reason why.
Remember, these call to action words are just as true today for Conservatives as they were for progressives in 2008…
Turn Obama’s words into a conservative call to action and unite against the totalitarian horde that’s already got a massive foothold in our country.
Bingo
“Snell (hey…isn’t that a German name???)”
Snell is a surname from Cornwall in England meaning swift.
It could also be an Americanisation of the Dutch van der Snel or the German Schnell.
I’d go with the Americanization of “Schnell! Schnell! Schnell!! from Colonel Klink in a “Hogan’s Heroes” episode. I assume the surname Fast is an Americanization of Schnell or Snell, but wiki says Howard Fast’s surname was shortened from Fastovsky! I always thought the imperious and autocratic Snells I knew who founded and ran a law firm were of direct Kraut descent. Did not know they were actually Cornish.
The eponymous Snell of Snell’s law fame was Dutch.
I don’t *get* takes like this.
Ken White asked Twitter whether there was context for Trump calling the New York AG “Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James”, or whether it was “just a random synapse misfire from a douchey racist?”.
Giving Trump all the benefit of every doubt, I could squint and see how James’ propensity to pop up with random charges to harry Trump could uncharitable be characterized as a high-stakes game of peekaboo… But I have to admit I was confused as well.
But I was confused, because I didn’t see the racist connection (other than it was Trump, and orange man bad)… So I go through the reply. And there’s about seventeen different variations about how “peekaboo” might be racist ranging from it being a coded reference to “jigaboo” (Which… I’m going to be honest… I’ve gone 36 years of life without ever hearing once before) to “peekaboo” being what slavers said when they caught escaped slaves.
The point I made then, which I will reiterate, is that I have no investment in Trump being a good person. I gave up on his moral compass years ago. He might very well be a racist. But it seems like every time these situations arise, they’re inevitably based in these innocuous-seeming bits of vestigial racism that wormed their way into popular culture. If you have to take five minutes to explain the context that makes something racist, then maybe the racism wasn’t intended, and the person making the statement is just as historically and culturally engaged as the average person and doesn’t know better.
More…. I’m not even convinced that “peekaboo” is actually racist. I think, and I could be wrong, but despite all the strict moral clarity of the people in Ken’s comments, I’m not convinced that there’s actually a racist history behind “peekaboo”, I think it just ends in “boo” and that sounds vaguely racist, and these people are all in the throes of a niggardly principle problem.
Which…. Is exactly what’s happening here, with Snell… He saw something that vaguely looked like a Seig Heil, and without knowing another thing about the situation, without looking at the context, without caring to… He defaulted to “this is fashy” and ran with it.
Which… is dumb. I mean… Does this actually fool anyone who didn’t already think like him? What does this do except look very foolish to anyone who actually looks into it?
I am sad that Ken White has let Trump Derangement eat his once considerable intellect.
“Or perhaps [dem] voters are as stupid, hateful and ignorant as people like Snell (hey…isn’t that a German name???) apparently think they are.”
The guy knows his audience.
Ah, HT, you are much too young. If you had been a kid in the 40s, 50s, you likely would have heard the term ‘jigaboo’ used as a less-than-complimentary reference to blacks. The term ‘boo’ applied to a person is just a shortened form of the slur. But, ‘peekaboo’? What parents have not played that game with their infants?
As you rightly note, people will strain to find anything, anything at all, with which to denigrate their political opponent. Apparently, it is much more effective politically to do that than to state and show what you will stand up for.
What Snell is doing is exactly what I see in some social media posts (of people I can’t stand to follow regularly – so, I peek every so often). Simple-minded memes and un-supported statements are passed on as if they were revealed truth. I find it depressing because I don’t think there is any way to get through to those people. I remind myself that you cannot win an argument with an idiot nor a true believer. I have to wonder if it even is worthwhile to expose the idiocy or the false belief. The last time I tried that with a close family member who was giggling about gassing everyone in the White House (a previous administration), and who even ignorantly threw in a Jewish slur (‘I heard there are cockroaches there’), it turned into a huge argument, a ruined dinner out, and no changes in beliefs.
My brilliant, charismatic, ex-Marine and racist first year law school house mate (from Philly) had a dizzying vocabulary of racial slurs, and that was one of them, as well as the shortened version “jiggs.” He also liked “splibbs” which I have never encountered anywhere else.
” If you have to take five minutes to explain the context that makes something racist, then maybe the racism wasn’t intended, and the person making the statement is just as historically and culturally engaged as the average person and doesn’t know better.”
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Pulling an obscure origin or usage out of the air to demonstrate that the person using a term is racist is unfair.
I am with you on this, HT.
Check the tweet, with the most recent replies thereto:
My thought is that Snell, like most intellectual liberals, has utter contempt for Christianity and, when you throw in fundamentalist Christianity or born-again Christianity, the contempt probably launches off the Contemptometer and shoots through that Big Gaping Hole in the Sky. In his mind, Christians are simply masquerading their white supremacy and nefarious nazisms in the cloak of the New Testament. Therefore, any Christian raising a right arm in prayer is merely coded messages of white power.
jvb
It is interesting and telling that there are those who somehow are able to distinguish between “evangelical,” “fundamentalist,” or “born again” Christians from “other Christians.”
I guess what is actually being said is there are real Christians (in accordance with the actual conversion “process” known as the “gospel”) and others who merely identify as “christians” in the sense of nonspiritual and worldly social affiliations.
In point of fact (Biblical) rather than the cultural use of the term, “Christian” is a person who has followed the Gospel in humility and honesty and thus is “evangelical, fundamentalist and born again.”
Any other type of “christian” is merely a social affectation without spiritual content of transformative effect.
Little of what Tristan Snell comments on leads me to believe he isn’t doing everything he can to gain relevance to recover from what must be a failing law career.