Sunday, September 20, 2009
Traficant’s scary new fans
EDITOR:
An interesting thing has happened since disgraced former Congressman Traficant took to the airwaves and internet with his odd, meandering rant on Greta Van Susteren’s “On the Record.” The video is a YouTube hit, at least with neo-Nazis and anti Semitic conspiracy buffs. That’s right, the wonderful world of anonymous, consequence-free hatred has decided to accept Jim Traficant into its fraternity.
As of this writing there are 275 comments left by YouTube users, most of them by people who blog about shadow governments and “the Jews who run the world.”
This would be comical if it wasn’t so twisted. If I had the space and an R rating I could list some of the more brilliant comments, but I suppose I’ll have to work within the confines of what I have. Here are a few of the gems: “all media and politicians are whores of zion,” “Good for James Traficant for speaking the truth. ‘Israel’ is nothing but a squatter Middle East state. It has NO right to exist,” “Wake up white man...” This comment was left by a user whose screen name is ‘WatchTheJewWiggle’: “9/11 was done by Israel. Zionism is a sick ideology that has taken over America.”
What’s most interesting about citizen Traficant’s newest fan club is that none of these things are out of context and you need only read the first few pages of comments to find some of the most obscene, vitriolic assaults that you’ve ever come across.
I’m not implying that it was Mr. Traficant’s intentions to pander to the lunatic fringe, but he certainly has — literally overnight — become a darling of the downtrodden, misguided, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, antigovernment, anticapitalist nitwits who troll the internet looking for evidence of a grand, unifying conspiracy. I suppose if he choses to run for Congress again he’ll have the neo-Nazi vote sewn up. After that, all he needs is another 49.9 percent of the people to vote for him and the majority will be his.
MICHAEL PHILLIPS
Canfield