The other night I watched Real Time With Bill Maher with a friend.

The other night I watched Real Time With Bill Maher with a friend. She admitted after the interview with Milo Yiannopoulos she'd never heard of him before. Not because she's not intelligent or doesn't keep up with current events, but because his name had never crossed her desk. And to be honest, while I'd never seen him speak, I had heard of him, it only through articles like this one, where someone (usually a woman, for some reason) was trying to make sense of Milo's rhetoric and behavior.

After watching Bill Maher interview the conservative provocateur I couldn't help but walk away thinking all these articles were correct: Yiannopoulos is nothing more than a shock jock 2.0. Everything about the man is designed to push buttons and provoke outrage. That's all he is. He doesn't believe half the vitriol that leaves his tongue, but rather he enjoys the shock and awe reflected back on him from the crowd.

And I wish I could say he was harmless, but like this piece states, other people, mostly young men who have never experienced the world, have picked up his shtick and carried it with a profound sense of seriousness. And right there we see a scenario played out time and time again for as long as humans have been walking upright. A charismatic "older" man enchants younger men looking for purpose. It's s right of passage for most of us and in some cases religions were founded. In others, dynasties. In many cases bloodshed was the medium by which their societies were altered.

Today these messiahs may not rally their followers with promises of blood, glory and promises of earthly rewards, but rather with popularity and the belief that their righteousness is, well, righteous. Instead of fighting for land, resources or believers they're fighting a battle over rights, equality and the very building blocks of a Constitutional society.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with these false messiahs popping up from time to time. More often than not they're a catalyst for change. Not in society but within the hearts and minds of these young men that get swept up into the fervor. A trial by fire for their core beliefs. It's the real life equivalent of seeing how close to the fire you can get before you're burned.

Most of us will learn to respect fire after getting to close, but others will gladly burn themselves in the flame.

Originally shared by Sue T

Long. Worth reading.
"It seems perfunctory to point out the hypocrisy of building a movement and a career on the back of insulting people — Muslims, migrants, women, people of color — while nursing a hair-trigger sensitivity to any personal attack you haven’t pre-approved. That hypocrisy, though, does not appear self-evident to anyone within this movement, because a fundamental tenet of far-right pro-trolling is that it’s only other people’s feelings that are frivolous. Their own feelings, by contrast, including the capacity to feel shame when they’re held accountable for their actions, are so momentous that infringing them is tantamount to censure, practically fascism in and of itself. These are men, in short, who have founded an entire movement on the basis of refusing to handle their emotions like adults.
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these are little boys playing games with the lives of others. That doesn’t excuse the horror of the game for one second. It makes it worse. Much worse, in fact. They are children who have the privilege of that particular innocence that involves never learning from their mistakes, never taking responsibility, never worrying that their sins will be unforgiven.
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These boys will be allowed to forget everything but their own immediate feelings for as long as society allows them, and this society allows straight white boys to dodge personal and emotional responsibility until at least the age of 70. The current man-child president would be Exhibit A, but not every lost boy gets a golden throne. In this culture war, most of them are cannon fodder."
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https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986#.mzt1ofhbu