THE BULLY BOY OF BOZEMAN

    So polls are closing in a Montana Special Election to replace Ryan Zinke, who became US Secretary of the Interior in March. The Corporate Media is supporting the Democrat, of course: an aging hippie named Rob Quist who recently did a photo-op with Senator Sanders. The Media has been framing this election as 'a referendum on Trump'; but the election is actually rather meaningless in the overall scheme of things. Montana voters typically vote the man rather than the party.

     Also, the Republican candidate is Greg Gianforte, a RINO who was a 'Never-Trumper' in 2016, but has picked up a few of Trump's memes and sound-bites to repackage himself. About the only thing this election really means for 2018 is which party will lose the seat that year.

     But things turned interesting yesterday when Gianforte lost it in front of the press and beat a reporter from the British press, one Ben Jacobs of The Guardian. Alicia Acuna, of Fox News witnessed the outburst and stated that Gianforte began screaming at Jacobs, took him by the neck, threw him to the ground; punching and kicking as well. Shamefully, Jacobs did nothing to defend himself (the British Press just isn't what it used to be).

     Gianforte claims that the incident was blown out of proportion; and that he was being set up by the Liberal Media---although Alicia Acuna is hardly a Liberal and the Gallatin County Sheriff, who donated to Gianforte's campaign, saw enough evidence to file assault charges. The altercation probably won't change the outcome of the election, since Montana has early voting and about 70% of votes were cast before this happened. Quist has always trailed in the polls by significant margins.

       The whole affair speaks very ill of Gianforte's character, especially his attitude towards a free press. It is one thing for President Trump to choose alternative means of informing the public and physically attacking or intimidating reporters. Trump's way still respects  Freedom of the Press, Gianforte's does not. In fact, Gianforte has had a history of this kind of hostility. In withdrawing its endorsement of Gianforte, The Helena Independent Record noted:

       "In the past he has encouraged his supporters to boycott certain newspapers, singled out a certain reporter in a room to intimidate him, and even made a joke about choking a news writer. These are not things that we can continue to brush off."

       Our Founding Fathers had issues with the Media in their own day, but President Thomas Jefferson once famously said that "newspapers without government are preferable to a government without newspapers." We don't want to live in any kind of society where the press fears the government. The problem with our Corporate Media in recent years has been its servility to the Deep State, not its fear of challenging it. Thus we can't criticize Trump for identifying the press as part of the problem; Trump's issue with the Media is that it lacks freedom and objectivity.

       But as to Gianforte, The Billings Gazette said it best: "We hope that this incident will cause us all to look in the mirror and take a few deep breaths. This incident is not Montana. It is not America. It's not who we are and attacking---literally---those with whom we disagree cannot be justified nor explained away."

       Exactly. But the Republican Party has a bigger problem of its own with kooks on its fringes who are applauding Gianforte. Vox Day, for example, praised the beating and denounced Republicans who criticized it as Cuckservatives.

      "We're not Conservatives. We're not Republicans," Vox said truthfully for a change, "We are the Alt-Right and both the Left and the Cucks are terrified of us, because unlike the Cucks and Cons, we are trash that not only punches back, but punches back twice as hard."

      Trash Culture defines Greg Gianforte and Vox Day perfectly. What a future the Far Right and the Radical Left offer: the privilege of being kicked with the left or right jackboot while pretending that getting to choose makes us free.

       Conservatives are not weak because they don't beat up opponents. That's for our enemies to do. Take a lesson from Trump and just say 'no' to the Corporate Media. Who looks stronger? Trump, who doesn't fear standing up to the Media, or Gianforte, who jumps on a guy half his size and beats him while he's down? If people can't see the difference, we've lost our way as a culture for certain.