Quote Originally Posted by cher1 View Post
Can't disagree. Just to highlight how dysfunctional his presidency is, I read an article recently saying that Fred Perry have banned the sale of their black polo tops with yellow trim to America. They were concerned that the proud boys were wearing them as a uniform. This was before the presidential debate.

Trump's response when asked about them at the debate a few days later? “Proud Boys – stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a rightwing problem.”

It comes to something when a British clothing company takes more action against an American extremist right wing group than the American president.
There is a grain of truth to the fact that Antifa (or groups inspired by that ideology, for those people who think Antifa doesn't exist) get something of a free pass from large parts of the media.

Obviously I'm not equating them to right wing militias, who I think I'm right in saying even before this kidnap plot were considered as dangerous as Islamic terror cells by the FBI, but they do regularly engage in unpleasant behaviour which is either not reported or explained away. Trump takes this grain of truth and exaggerates it, distorts it, and makes false equivalences from it. Trump is in my opinion a bad man acting in bad faith, but I think the current media climate enables him to do that to a certain degree.

These right-wing types have always had a fascination with Fred Perry shirts, which is strange considering he was apparently very much against that sort of thing. I remember travelling around Europe when I was younger while wearing my Fred Perry polo shirt and sporting very short hair, and a bunch of skinheads coming over to me to shake my hand. I was young and naive at the time so it took me a while to figure it out!