Gerald “Jerry” DeLemus (left) and Blaine Cooper on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016, became the first of 19 defendants to take plea deals in the April 2014 standoff between U.S. Bureau of Land Management agents near Cliven Bundy’s property about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Ken Ritter (The Associated Press) (OregonLive)
It was great to see this story last week. Angry white men go to jail. It seems like everyone’s talking about angry white men (AWM) these days. Who are they? What are they angry about and what’s the deal with their lawns?
The politicians want to know the answers to these questions so they can get their votes. The mainstream media want to talk about them to help the non-angry white men understand why they must be appeased–instead of all others.
Fox News and right-wing radio just straight up pander to them. They also need to create more, since their viewers are dying off.
(Speaking of dying off, fun fact: If you compare two people with equivalent schooling and income, the Trump supporter will be the sick fat one. I’m not making this up. See WaPo study under the health subhead.)
I was listening to Micheal Kimmel on Marketplace talking about his book, “Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, which came out in 2013. He has talked to several hundred of these guys and described them as having, “aggrieved entitlement.” (Doesn’t that sound like a joint problem? “Uncle Joe has traveling lumbago–with aggrieved entitlement.”)
“They were right to be angry, they had been badly done by.” What he wanted to say to them–but couldn’t because he was the interviewer–was, “Do you really think that it was immigrants who issued those predatory loans that forced you to sell your house or leave it in the middle of the night? Do you think it was feminist women who are responsible for climate change? Do you think it was LGBT people who outsourced your job?’ So, I feel that they have a right to be angry but they are delivering their mail to the wrong address.”
Too bad he couldn’t ask the question. But if he had, and they believed him, would he have been able to convince them to direct their angry “mail” to the right address? A great idea, but it’s based on a false premise.
Kimmel is approaching the men and their opinions about the targets of their anger like a good liberal, which is, “People are basically good. If they knew the truth they would direct their anger at the real villains, not scapegoats!” vs the conservative view which is, “People are no damn good. Take care of yourself and family. Only suckers help others. Don’t let “those” people get something for nothing.”
“Trump: Gracious in Defeat” -Bizarro Times, Nov. 9, 2016
When Trump loses in November, these angry white men are going to take it out on people they believe stopped Trump: Progressives, Democrats and women. They will also go after the people they believe made America crappy for them: immigrants, Muslims, people of color, the LGBT community and of course, the “liberal media.”
They will be angrier than ever. They will feel more “voiceless” since Trump has been saying what they all have been thinking. (BTW, what are the odds he will start saying sensible stuff after he loses? Zero. Zilch. Nada. )
The professional defeated Trump supporters will get jobs in media and in the right-wing complain-o-sphere taking money from billionaires while attacking all things Democratic.
The ones to look out for are the “2nd Amendment people” Trump was referring to when it came time for President Clinton to appoint Supreme Court Justices. All it will take to set them off are few “sarcastic” Trump Tweets.
The good news is there is a program set up to deal with these angry white men and their threats that seems to be working. DeLemus and Cooper are the first two to be sent through this system. I think it’s important we pay attention to it because the program will be attacked by the right –since they are ones primarily being busted by it.
The right will want the left to join them in condemning these arrests and prison sentences using lefty messages: “See? The government is spying on people! They are trying to block people’s right to assemble for peaceful protests! They are trying to stifle free speech!”
The mainstream media will go back to Vietnam war protests, The Weather Underground, and EcoTerrorists” for their, “Both sides do it” stories to provide “balance.” But the reality is that the left has long known not to be armed for their protests. They know not to support armed protesters. When they are unarmed, they have the moral high ground and public sympathy.
It’s not a conspiracy theory anymore, it’s a conspiracy fact
Following Trump’s loss, Fox News and right-wing radio hosts like Hannity will continue to support “Patriots” who want to “take back America” with bullets instead of ballots. Like before, people who organize armed responses to government actions will get plenty of air time with no hard questions.
However, this time around people will know that the Bundy’s and their militia buddies didn’t get away with conspiring to get people with guns to threaten others. They can see the consequences to people who threatened others with guns.
I want all individual activists who are threatened by angry white men with guns to know about this case, especially Coopers’ story.
Neither Cooper nor DeLemus were actually at the event/stand-off. Cooper stated “I was calling people to participate,”
He [Cooper] told the judge he interfered with the execution of federal court orders by recruiting armed gunmen to display support for Bundy and his sons Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Mel Bundy and Dave Bundy and stop the roundup of the family’s cattle from the scenic Gold Butte area.
DeLemus, 61, of Rochester, New Hampshire, also pleaded guilty to a felony alleging that when he drove cross-country with guns he intended to display “force and aggression” to stop the roundup. (emphasis mine)
Related Trump info: that angry white guy on the left in the photo above is Gerald “Jerry” DeLemus, he’s the co-chair of the Vets for Trump group. He won’t be able to vote for Trump in November –because he is now a convicted felon.
The program I mentioned above? It’s a coordinated program with the FBI and the DoJ. These two were arrested, arranged a plea, were tried and convicted in a court of law. Their sentencing is in December. They will serve time – up to 6 years. It’s how the system is supposed to work, there are laws, people break them, they are arrested and tried using compelling evidence. A judgement proportional to the crime is rendered. The person pays the fines, serves times and suffers other consequences, such as losing their right to own guns.
The reason I’m glad that these two are going to prison is that when the armed protestors at the Bundy Ranch pointed their guns at Federal officers, there were no arrests. This was very discouraging. The government tip-toed around the whole situation because they were afraid of another Waco or Ruby Ridge.
At the time I suspected that the FBI and DoJ cut deals with these Bundy Ranch thugs, but it wasn’t until some of the same people were arrested at the Oregon Wildlife preserve take over did I see the evidence of the deals (I wrote about it here). The DoJ now has additional solid evidence of their intentions.
I’m tired of death threats being dismissed as No Big Deal, especially when the threats come from people who love to brag about their guns. I now point to Cooper, DeLemus and the other 17 and say,
“Look at what happened to these guys. Other will go to prison too–just like those Bundy guys. These violent threats will have consequences. Their guns and their freedom will be legally taken away.”
Of course they will cry that “Hillary’s government isn’t legitimate!” like they did to Obama. But the fact remains that right-wing threats were tracked back to the right-wing extremists which led to arrests, trials and convictions.
The part that is especially sweet is that apparently the government didn’t have to engage in illegal surveillance. In the deal that Cooper cut, he revealed that he made calls to some of the people who will be on trial in February.
A smart prosecutor got the “mid-level organizers” to roll over on the big fish! What a concept! I wish they would have used that method on the financial fraudsters.
Another part to notice and take advantage of is that these people pumped out reams of incriminating info on social media, before during and after the event at the Bundy Ranch. In Oregon we even have video of some of them making threats.
Bottom line:
When Trump loses, he won’t be a voice of moderation, he will seek to incite. His supporters will keep making threats.
When they do, we can help law enforcement get them busted for it.
A history of their comments, followed by their public actions, can prove that they weren’t joking or being sarcastic and that they did intend to get people with guns together to intimidate people. (Having evidence to prove their INTENT is very important, especially when it comes to a recent Supreme Court ruling made about comments via Facebook posts.)
These thugs aren’t clever enough to understand that the dodges they used before won’t work now. We won’t buy the, “I was joking. I was being sarcastic.” lines or the “I didn’t intend to scare anyone.” crap anymore. Everyone needs to know that people are going to jail for this.
