Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The punch heard round the world

We'd rather punch him in the face. Because we're "better"

Maybe I've had a few too many, but I'm starting to regard the sucker-punching of Richard Spencer last Friday as an epochal cultural moment. Before I explain what I mean by that (and why it's not completely insane and/or the whiskey talking), here's a bit of background courtesy of the Gray Lady:

Is it O.K. to punch a Nazi? 
That is not a brainteaser or a hypothetical question posed by a magazine on Twitter. It is an actual question bouncing around the internet after an attack on a well-known far-right activist, Richard B. Spencer, in Washington after the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president on Friday. 
Mr. Spencer, who is credited with coining the term alt-right and describes himself as an “identitarian,” was punched in the head on Inauguration Day by a person clad in black as he was being interviewed by a journalist. At the time of the attack, Mr. Spencer was explaining the meaning of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon figure adopted as a mascot by the alt-right, a racist, far-right fringe movement that is anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and anti-feminist. Video of the attack shows Mr. Spencer reeling to one side under the force of the blow and his attacker darting through a crowd after landing the punch.

Watch the video, and understand that someone could have been severely injured or even killed by that punch:


So? Violence happens at large gatherings, especially when politics is involved. It's a part of life, inevitable, like the movement of the tectonic plates. There was plenty of other violence during the inauguration, committed by all shades of the political spectrum.

Conservatives rioting during the inauguration

Victim of angry Republican mob

Trump supporters expressing their dissatisfaction with the police

Right-wing activists attacking symbols of American capitalism

So the punch is par for the course, yawn, nothing to see here. What interests me is the reaction to it all over the internet, namely... laughter. What? Yes.


Ok, the meme is funny. And why should I give a shit about 66,000+ randos on the internet laughing at a guy getting punched in real life? I'll explain, but first this:


Jon Favreau was Barack Obama's speechwriter from 2005 to 2013. In other words, he had the ear of the most powerful man in the world for five years. I'm not sure what he's up to today, but anyway he has a third of a million Twitter followers (a rough proxy measure of social influence). Favreau also made this fascinating comment:


Meh, just some mild politically motivated violence and property damage, nothing to see here...

And there's this from a journalist for Vulture.com (48K+ followers):


And this.

And this:

Newsweek apologized Tuesday for publishing a story that praised an assault on white nationalist Richard Spencer, who was punched on video on the day of Donald Trump's inauguration.
Newsweek published a since-deleted story titled, "The Infinite Joy of Watching a Nazi Get Punched to Music," by culture editor Joe Veix.
"On a day when many Americans were despairing over what they see as the transition of power to a fascist demagogue, it was a small moment of reprieve. It was possibly the first entertaining day on the internet since the election," Veix wrote.

You get the point, I hope. Now, out of morbid curiosity I read through many of the replies to Favreau's mocking tweet. The majority of them are either laughing along with Favreau, or outright defending the idea that it's cool to punch Nazis. It makes for an amazing study of human moral reasoning. The most common argument goes like this: "Normally I don't condone violence, but I'll make an exception for Nazis." There are a lot of people on the internet who share this exact view.

There is also the popular meme that punching Nazis is a heroic, all-American act. (Should I bother pointing out that the US in 2017 isn't a war zone and Spencer isn't a uniformed soldier of an enemy nation?)

Then you have the people who claim punching him only makes his movement stronger. In other words, it's wrong, but for tactical reasons. Not many people argue that assaulting Spencer is wrong because it's "wrong" or "illegal." Even the world's leading media organ shied away from this position, framing the issue as if there is a reasonable case to be made for sucker-punching Spencer. (Journalistic neutrality!)

This suggests that casual acceptance of extreme violence to make a point has become entrenched among a large segment of educated, liberal America. Ridiculous? Why? Consider if the reverse were true. The video of Spencer getting punched would trigger widespread condemnation, rather than mockery and ambivalence. If you doubt that, consider how Twitter would react to a video of a feminist getting sucker-punched at the Women's Marches. It's entirely possible that I'm drunk right now, but where's the hole in my logic?

Notice, I have not attempted to define, criticize, or defend Richard Spencer's views. Because that's 100% irrelevant. If you're googling Spencer's background to figure out how you feel about him getting slugged, you're already lost, there is nothing I can do for you. The only thing that matters is that Spencer was not breaking any laws, was not hurting anyone, and was not threatening anyone when a masked thug tried to educate him with his fist.

The reason I'm viewing the Punch Heard Round the World as a cultural inflection point is not so much that left-wing violence is a novelty in America. (Q: How many domestic terrorist bombings did the FBI record in 1970-71? A: More than 2,500. No, that's not a typo, see here and here for details. The Seventies were nuts.)



You might say it's as American as apple pie. No, the real game-changer will be the reaction from the right. If Spencer and the various factions and flavors of the right are learning any lesson from his very tactile encounter with the left, it is that the right's traditionally hands-off approach to political disputes may be a non-starter in 2017 and beyond, for the simple reason that it will eventually get them murdered.

So expect politics to start getting a bit crunchier over the next few years. And pour me another one.
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