josh trevino.jpg

(Tonight's guest poster is Red Dan who uncovered Ben Domenech's identity on RedState as "Augustine")

Let’s delve into the writings of one of the motivators and founders of a site that, until recently paraded “Collaborative Republicanism for the Masses” as their masthead…up until the point that the GOP brand (or perhaps the RedState brand?) was so tainted that the catchphrase was changed to “Conservative News and Community."

Tacitus, a.k.a Josh Trevino, who of late has been rushing about defending and bolstering his friend Ben “Augustine” Domenech’s tattered reputation (including declaring that he has no respect for honor codes – a startling admission for someone who spends an inordinate amount of time talking about honor)…is apparently a cleverer sort than some of his more loudmouthed brethren.

Josh, you see, is far too urbane to go around blabbing his secret fantasies about folks closer to home – unlike some of the swamp-things previously cited on these pages. (Well, except when he gets all hot and bothered enough to reiterate his friend Ben “Augustine” Domenech’s smears of the King family):


…all these un-conservative things were deeply-held beliefs of Martin Luther King. Add in the rest. Add in the evidence already discussed; add in his involvement with causes like the Poor People’s Campaign; add in the promotion of public-employee unions he was engaged in when he died; and add in his personal failings. He was a plagiarist. He was a base philanderer. He was a willing transmitter of Communist and defeatist memes in one of our nation’s darker hours. He was a regular columnist for The Nation.

But back to the main point – Josh does not often come out of the closet when referring to Americans, English-speakers, or neighbors: It’s too risky, it opens him and his allies to broad and withering fire from all sides (Liberals and other humans aghast at such putrid views, and others who might agree, but do NOT want such views aired in public – I call them the “shhhh” crowd.)

No, Josh is an expert at externalizing the rage, and blaming an “other” that is far removed from most folks’ experience, speaks a different language, and worships a different deity. Once demonized through carefully filtered selections and carefully amplified instances, that “other” provides the basis and the excuse to justify any number of “gedankenexperments” up to and including meandering bloviations about genocide…read on, you’ll see. An analysis of Trevino/Tacitus’ “contributions” reveals a component of racist demagoguery that has so far not been addressed: Islam, Arabs, and non-Christians. Our Friend Josh and his pals want a holy war, and they want it bad. Really bad. The enemy is identified! The Saracens are on the march!

Tacitus, unplugged, or is it unhinged:

Lovely people, keeping alive the grand tradition of lynching and all. What is it with folks in this part of the world and the frenzied public desecration of dead bodies? Mogadishu, Ramallah, and now Mosul. Alive and well alongside slavery, female genital mutilation, and religious apartheid in places populated mostly by....well, here we go again with the Islam versus culture versus "it's all exaggerated" versus "the Tamils do it too" arguments…. Barbarous savages.

Well, the first instance used as an excuse for labeling an entire people “barbarous savages” turned out to be a false alarm. But not to worry, Holy Warriors! The phrase is easily typed and its utility has no expiration date:

Just curious -- can I call them barbarous savages now? Well, no matter. I absolutely do. This is who we're fighting, folks. If you don't think there's a direct connection between terrorism, culture, and barbaric scenes like this, think again.

Appeasers are among us, and we call them Dhimmi! Bush is a Dhimmi! crossposted at RedState Racists Think So TOO!

I have argued many times that the President's most egregious and damaging lie, the carping of partisans notwithstanding, was the one he told in apparent sincerity: that "Islam is peace." […] Sensible people admit that this nation is, ultimately, at war with Muslim orthodoxy, not in whole, but in large part: the social place of Islam according to its traditional theology, and the impetus to jihad and the imposition of dhimmitude thereof, are the insurmountable obstacles to lasting peace between the Muslim world and the rest of humanity. One of two things will bring about that peace. Either Muslims will embrace something more broadly pluralistic and, yes, private -- or we as a society will capitulate. Actually, that's not entirely true. There is a third thing that will bring about peace: genocide. […] …there's a reason Muslim terrorists run amok across the globe while Methodist and Hasidim bombers do not.

He’s brave enough to criticize Dear Leader, demonize a billion people, and contemplate genocide, all in the same piece of writing.  Dhimmis infest the governments of Europe, the Media, and everywhere else! And then there is Tacitus/Trevino’s extended series on “Dhimmitude” which includes:

Barbarian hordes are destroying France!!!

For the ninth night, the cities of France burn. The nation of Charles Martel and the men of Tours suffers the blows of the enemy it once turned back from Europe’s heart. So it comes to pass that insurrection spreads, destruction and havoc reign, and the very elderly are burned alive at the hands of the jihadists of the Fifth Republic. […] Indeed, the Muslim rebellion in France is hardly the first — nor the last — example of jihadist barbarism in modern Europe. […] Islam is truly the enduring challenge of and to European identity.

The citadel of Christendom is burning!!!

It is the tenth night of the intifada in France …. As the battles drag on, their insurrectionary character becomes ever more stark. It is no longer a question of a few Parisian suburbs: every community in France with a significant Muslim population, “from Rouen in Normandy to Bordeaux in the southwest to Strasbourg near the German border,” is under threat.

The Infidels are upon us!!!

And so it comes to this. Having expended sufficient rage on the symbols of their enemies, the still-irate masses of Islam move on to the enemies themselves. I have already noted whom they perceive those enemies to be: Christians now join the hated Jews as bêtes noirs of the Presidentially-sanctioned religion of peace. That the mass of despised may not identify as Christians — and in Europe this may be particularly true — is wholly irrelevant to the offended hordes. The West is a Christian entity, and Westerners are products of the Christian heritage.

Note that Enchiridion Militis has an entire section devoted to “Dhimmitude” and the capitulation of western governments and media to the hated enemy – Islam! I think that the site should be named Christian Warriors on the Web, but its name is taken from Erasmus’ Handbook for the Christian Soldier, or The Manual of the Christian Knight, and it is a creation of RedState founder Josh Trevino, who sums up the basic thrust of the site as follows:

This we hold: That we are of the West, that its culture matters, that its faith matters, that humanity matters, and that these things are worth defending: and that when we abandon these things, the enemy rushes in to fill the void. Founded by Joshua Treviño in 2006.

and is host to many RedState front-pagers and editors…have a look – it ain’t pretty. Christendom, Unite! To Arms! The Mussulmen are nigh!

The theme continues at “Spot-on”

We care about Europe out of common interest: its enemy is ours. We have seen that enemy at work of late…. What to call that enemy is a conundrum all its own. Some would have it that the foe is political Islam; others a radical Islam; others a national or cultural stridency in which Islam is merely an incidental tool; still others a false Islam. Certainly we can say what it is not: it is neither the infantile, sanitized faith touted by the shallow minds of the present Administration; nor is it the innocently beleaguered victim of its dhimmi-minded predecessor. And certainly we can say who, if not what, threatens us: people who identify as Muslim, and are prepared to do violence to that end.

So…where does this leave us (other than with a bad taste in the mouth and imagery of Josh Trevino sitting at his keyboard wearing a suit of armor and fantasizing about the recapture of Malta, or whatever)?

By demonizing the “other” either at home (as has been so deftly dealt with by the superstars who preceded me in this series) or abroad, the partisans and activists of the Right – the GOP, the Conservatives, the “Libertarians,” their fellow travelers, and their useful idiots – have devised a means of pushing regressive policy by selective targeting of (it must be coincidental) Brown, Black, and Non-Christian people upon whom can be heaped blame for any failures of Dear Leaders, excoriation for any ills suffered by American (white) society, and hatred for all that is not perfect in the lives of these small, contemptible people.

Do you want to cut welfare? Go after black and brown single mothers!! Do you want to destroy Federal infrastructure, emergency programs, relief for disasters, or aid for rebuilding? Katrina got you down and making your Boy King look like an utterly incompetent fool? Looters! Shoot the Looters! And then there’s that whole Mayor Nager thing… Do you want to justify and promote vigilantism and beef up budgets for cracker-ridden “security forces” in the Southwest? How about some pictures of Mexicans, Central and South Americans coupled with a few choice “wetback” insults and pseudo-academic “analyses” of labor and immigration!

But if you want to beef up the President’s stature, rescue the Neocons from their own stupidity, justify massive military budgets, war without end, and engage in Risktm-inspired imperialist fantasies about encircling China and controlling the world’s petroleum reserves? May I suggest you snap a few pics of irate, turbaned, swarthy folks in far lands… couch it all in the “culture war” ethos, add a few hefty dashes of Christian Dominionism and Opus Dei-inspired whackjobbery about clashes of civilizations and “Dar al Islam” and…VOILA! Instant Holy War, a few victories in the polls, and a clean slate to slash taxes, gut federal programs, eviscerate governmental oversight, and trash the constitutional checks and balances on executive power.

And at the root? Racism, fear of the other, and abhorrent justifications of any and every bloody excess simply out of hatred, ignorance, and steroidally-enhanced triumphalism more appropriate to the 13th century than today.

Previous posts in the series:

Right Wing Racism: Steve Sailer by Armando
Educating Wolfie by Pam Spaulding
Let’s Go Real Far Right… by Matt Stoller
Tramsmitting Extremism by David Neiwert
The Fork in the Road — The Right and Race Online by Steve Gilliard
Late Night FDL: A Thin Candy-Coat of Legitimacy by TBogg
What Lies Beneath  by Matt O.
Breaking The Code by Digby

Matt O. has also been compiling racist quotes from right-wing websites over at The Great Society.