A few years ago, after the marches in Charlottesville, I added (extinguisher of tiki torches) to my nym here. I’ve made various other changes over the years, such as when I snarked on the non-existent massacre at Bowling Green. But I kinda let this little comment ride, because it reflects how I feel about America right now, and our duty as decent citizens to unite against the growing white supremacist hate.

A day ago, it was noted that Trump cannot label these mass shootings as terrorism, because to do so would implicate his followers as terrorists, and himself as the inciter-in-chief:

“This is a clear manifestation of the political discourse that has taken place in the country over the past two years or so,” one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told The Daily Beast. “It cannot be blamed on mental health. This is an ideology-driven hate crime. This is terrorism and the White House has trouble labeling it as such. It is very frustrating.”

And then there’s this today:

“How far is it from Trump’s saying this ‘is an invasion’ to the shooter in El Paso declaring ‘his attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas?’ Not far at all,” Biden will say. “In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”

It is tempting to blame this all on Trump.

But Trump is just one man. It is the right-wing news media that give him cover by lying to their audiences. It is those audiences of gullible frightened old white people who eagerly drink up the hate.

What Joaquin Castro has done has to be just the beginning. We need to name-and-shame each and every one of Trump’s enthusiastic supporters. By this point they know.

They fucking KNOW.

No letting them cling to the excuses that the Germans living near the concentration camps, that they “didn’t know what was happening and now that they do, they are shocked.”

Generallismo Francisco Franco’s followers were allowed to live their lives openly, without fear of reprisal. This is being re-evaluated in Spain - FINALLY.

They must be held accountable for what they have done, for what they are doing, for what they will do. They must not be let off the hook for this. Not like the “pacto de olvido” in Spain that has allowed Franco’s sick & deviant supporters to pretend that while bad things happened, sure, that’s all in the past, and besides the Other Guys did bad stuff too…

We must drag these evil Trump supporters out into the full glare of media name & shame. We must humiliate them. We must hang Trump around their necks and stigmatize them so that they live their every day henceforth in a state of deep guilt and embarassment.

What Joaquin Castro is doing must be only the first step in this process.

REP JOAQUIN CASTRO: I’ve heard so many stories from folks the last few years, but in particular the last few months as his campaign has started to intensify, about how they don’t feel safe. These are brown-skinned people that can’t hide their skin color. They can’t hide themselves in public. He’s made them a constant target. they can’t get away from that. Every time they go outside, they’re fearful. So, yeah, you’ve got a lot of people in this country that are living in fear because of this president. And what I’m asking for is for people who are making contributions to that effort to think twice about it, and I’m directly asking the president to stop spending money on campaign ads that target an entire community and inspire shooters like the one in El Paso to go do what he did.