Over the past few days, The Philadelphia Inquirer has profiled the business of an on-line retailer, Steven Wiegand, who lives in New Jersey, in a series of articles. The name of his website is ‘Micetraps’, which is clearly and allusion to Art Spiegelman’s landmark graphic novel, Maus; it should be noted that in Maus, the Jews are depicted as mice, and the Nazis as cats. So, the name of Wiegand’s website, Micetraps, is what fascist humor looks like.
Wiegand’s product line?
All things Nazi, Confederate and white supremacist, including hard-core Nazi music:
Among the items available in his store: Confederate and Nazi flags, a button bearing the image of a lynching and the phrase “Good Night Black Pride,” and a vinyl record titled “Ethnic Cleansing: Hitler Was Right (More Dead Jews).”
Hate music is at the core of his business.
Many of the songs Wiegand sells do not have overtly racist titles, with the message more subtly coming through the lyrics. Other songs have a direct, hate-filled point. For example, the track “Gays Have Gotta Go,” from a 1996 Midtown Bootboys album, begins, “Americans today should take a stand. Kick AIDS-spreading faggots out of our land. Diseased, dirty, perverted scum. Get them out of my land, they make me sick.”
After the Inquirer’s profile prompted concern from his neighbors in the quiet, middle class suburb of Mt. Holly, it appears Wiegand is considering discontinuing his current business model. So exposing him, showing who exactly is part of the throng of hate, can have an immediate, positive effect.
But it is also important to acknowledge that he lived and ran his business in a quiet, middle class suburb; it should be a reminder to us all that white supremacists, and white supremacy, need a large middle class, suburban contingent to survive.
Wiegand’s defense of himself sounds familiar:
Wiegand said last week and again Monday he has no connection to the white supremacist movement and does not espouse any of its beliefs. He said he understands why people wouldn’t believe him.
“I can’t keep saying, ‘I’m not a bad person, I’m not a bad person,’ when I keep selling this stuff,” he said.
He said he first thought about closing down his business in the early 2000s when he lost a job at a gas station because of it. He said he kept going in part because he believed — and still does — in people’s First Amendment right to buy the material he sells.
“It’s always been, to me, I’m operating my business. Someone orders it. I put it in an envelope. And I send it,” Wiegand said. “But at the point a Jewish community center is concerned or the guy down the street and his kids are worried, in this world with how charged up it is and all the violence, it’s time to end it.”
Wiegand said after the article was published, he saw individuals posting about his business on his township’s Facebook page and talked to neighbors who he said are “really scared and afraid right now, and that hurts me.”
“At this point, I can understand the Holocaust stuff is upsetting, or the other things,” he said. “I just can’t do it anymore.” (emphasis added)
At this point, I can understand the Holocaust stuff is upsetting
At this point?
What prevented him from seeing the Holocaust as ‘upsetting’ before this’? I’m reminded of Upton Sinclair’s trenchant observation: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
Even if we’re to take Wiegand at his word, that he doesn’t share the beliefs espoused by the products he made his money from, that he only supported himself by defending free speech, does that absolve him of moral culpability?
Whatever his regrets today (and he only seemed to have second thoughts after what he did was exposed to the world), it seems his promotion of white supremacist symbols and propaganda displays a little more self-awareness than that; his justifications are, as my dad might say, too clever by half, and his renunciation of operating as a purveyor of hate is less than inspirational: “at the point a Jewish community center is concerned or the guy down the street and his kids are worried, in this world with how charged up it is and all the violence, it’s time to end it.”
How, Mr. Wiegand, do you think it got to this point?
Because people like you created the conditions for white supremacists, Nazis, to march, to terrorize, to assault, to murder, with a feeling of impunity. Charlottesville happens when hate is normalized in our society, and you did your part in normalizing it, bringing it home to quiet, middle class suburban communities.
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What should not be surprising, but remains problematic for many progressives to reckon with, is how Wiegand sees himself: “Wiegand said last week and again Monday he has no connection to the white supremacist movement and does not espouse any of its beliefs.”
Mr. Wiegand gives us the prototypical rationalization that we have heard over and over from those that voted for and support Trump— ‘But I’m not a bigot’.
And many progressives, and mainstream pundits, counsel us to look for, and reach out to those who have aligned themselves politically with the party of white supremacy (the GOP), voted for Trump, and until someone is murdered, stuck by them both. They are now, maybe, regretting or reconsidering their vote. And say it again: ‘They’re not all bigots’.
In a reply earlier today to DKos member aliberaldoseofskepticism’s statement (he was commenting in reply A Voter’ s diary): “There’s also the difference between voting for him in spite of his racism versus voting for him because of his racism.”, I said this:
Don’t be so quick to accept the claim of anyone who said they voted in spite of racism, or misogyny, or homophobia, or religious bigotry.
The odds that one or more of those four types of bigotry were present in the voter’s worldview, explicitly, and so represent a motive for their vote, are greater than they were absent. The burden is on the one making that dubious claim to offer more proof than the self-serving justification ‘I’m not a racist, I only affiliate myself with them, and voted for one’.
I haven’t met too many people who only oppose bigotry intellectually, but not viscerally, emotionally. People don’t just say ‘Racism and misogyny are wrong’, they abhor them, and when they hear expressions of them (for instance by Trump), it evokes revulsion and rage. Appropriately so.
That a Trump voter did not experience these appropriate, basic human emotional reactions to Trump— revulsion and rage— says something about them.
Even if we were to accept the idea that some Trump voters, somewhere, opposed in principle racism, misogyny, homophobia, and religious bigotry, these things were so manifestly on display (including the Nazis and klan members attending his campaign rallies), that to then vote for Trump indicates that the Trump voter is ok aligning themselves with those that perpetuate bigoted ideas and institutions, for whatever purpose they deem more important. That is, they are ok with the presence of bigotry, bigots, and the perpetuation of bigoted institutions.
Tell me how we logically distinguish being ok with the presence of bigotry, bigots, and the perpetuation of bigoted institutions, from simply being bigoted.
It’s a statement of willingness to accept that others will face discrimination, hate crimes, and violence, because of who they are, but you the Trump voter are not troubled by that, because it won’t be directed at you or your family.
How is that not bigoted?
Can we allow the average Trump voter (90% rank and file GOP), or the Wiegand’s of the world, to claim: ‘I allowed myself to be surrounded by white supremacists, and voted for politicians that pursue white supremacist policies and programs, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them, or should be held accountable for the assistance I gave them, or the cover of respectability and normality I provided them”?
When do we require adults to take moral responsibility for their choices, and who they align themselves with? Are expediency or ‘cultural comfort level’ to be taken seriously as moral justifications?
Similarly, do we so cheaply offer our gracious acceptance of this kind of self-absolution, because we think it will give us some pragmatic political advantage in the short-run?
If we allow that, there will be more episodes like Charlottesville, and worse.