Last weekend, I posted about the Charlottesville tiki torch spectacle that was put on by Richard Spencer, Mike Enoch, Nathan Damigo, and others. Again, while it’s not something I would have done, a couple important points were raised in defense of the action.

First off, as I noted in the last piece, no matter what went on, the media was going to malign this group as soulless racists hellbent on destroying the beautiful progressive agenda that is enriching us daily. I had some ideas about a free concert, or perhaps some readings from Civil War historian Shelby Foote. But to be quite honest, even showing up to defend a Robert E. Lee statue is going to be portrayed negatively by the bloodsuckers of the Fourth Estate.

Another fair counterpoint to bring up is the attention this event received. There’s a great chance the media would have mostly ignored the protest without this showmanship. And even if they did cover it, since Richard Spencer was there, it would have been portrayed as some kind of Nazi meetup regardless of the torch aspect. So, I can certainly why some people said “Fuck it, who cares what the media makes it out to be.”

The one justification I don’t really put a lot of stock into is the THEY DO THIS IN EUROPE ALL THE TIME argument. Well, yes, that may be, but this isn’t Europe. Regardless, I don’t think it was a make or break moment either way. Sadly, it feels like the statues in most places are on the way out regardless. In states where Republican legislatures have put in safeguards against removal, like in Tennessee, they might be able to hang on. But “progressives” everywhere are using the statue boogeymen in order to mobilize their base and just to have something to blab about in general. The Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu (who threw one of the Rebel statues in the trash, by the way) actually tried to blame the statues for some kind of major flight of smart people out of his city.

 “The cultural and economic and the spiritual loss to this city for having those statues up that have run people out of the city,” Landrieu claimed. “The great migration that sent some of our best and brightest to places across the country that we don’t have the benefit of has been incredible.”

Total hogwash, of course, but that’s the kind of thing coming from the left these days.