 Joe Honick |
National Policy Institute's Richard Spencer, former Ku Klux Klaner David Duke and a collection of racist thugs got everything they could have asked for in the chaos of Charlottesville this weekend: national on-site network coverage, hours of cable TV debate, 24/7 social media and the cherry of the cake, a squishy presidential speech in which the tweeter-in-chief failed to called them out for their hate and violence.
The fact they got a few kicks and knocks from cops and counter-protestors was small penalty for the PR value they sent across the nation.
Like ISIS, the Nazis and white supremacists of Charlottesville will use this weekend's savagery as recruitment tools.
The white supremacists are no different in their thinking than the vicious nature of Hitler and those who carried out his evil ideas, while claiming the innocence of merely following orders.
But what they bring to the discussion are both the protection of the First Amendment and a canny knowledge that media of all kinds can be pressed into virtually non-stop coverage and excessive analysis all of which feed sick minds just waiting to be fed with hate.
Spencer and his stench are damned effective media manipulators, knowing that all the charges from politicians from the President of the United States to state officials and law enforcement feed his flames of terror in America and abroad.
Media and politicians cannot help covering such events, even as the flames of possible war threaten.
Nor is it enough to simply use the language of anger and disgrace over the events, especially when some political figures helped serve up some pretty ugly and slanderous language of their own.
Until the media cover the Spencers and Dukes as the pitiful losers and clowns that they are, there will be many other Charlottesvilles.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications. He can be reached at [email protected]
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