Armed Nazis fail to intimidate LGBTQ folks in Missoula, Mont.
Emboldened by national & local GOP policies, Nazis call for executions of trans people at peaceful #TransDayOfVisibility rally
Pictured: Nazi marching on behalf of Montana Republican policies against LGBTQ citizens.
After making myself visible at a Trans Day of Visibility rally in Billings, Montana I was feeling a chill vibe. I was proud of my community for showing up strong in a town that otherwise votes red. It meant a lot to me as trans person with a constant target on my back.
I checked an incoming message before I started my car to leave. The message was urgent:
Armed Nazis had tried to disrupt the Trans Day Of Visibility rally in Missoula.
Bastards. I had had a feeling they'd target one of the Montana TDOR events.
Thing is, we already knew exactly who some of them were, too, especially seeing as I’d just written specifically about, Andrew “Sal” Salacinksi, for carving a swastika and other Nazi symbolism into sacred Crow land at Four Dances Special Recreation Management Area right near Billings. (Nearly 3 months later and as of this writing, the Bureau of Land Management has refused to press charges.)
Real classy, Sal.
Salacinksi is also leader of the Big Sky Active Club (chuds) and director of the National Socialist Movement who are what I best describe as “cartoonishly Nazi.”
Like, when I say "Nazi" I don't mean white nationalist simp. I mean, like, a fucking Nazi.
“Oh, so what? You just accuse everyone who disagrees with you being LGBTQ of being a Naz— oh.” #TrueStory
He apparently works at a place called COP Construction in Billings as of January, and his uncle Matt Salacinski is a Billings area FBI Special Agent.
The Billings area FBI is notoriously racist, and as such there's a disconnect from Native communities that lead to distrust which elevates outrageously high #MMIW numbers in the area. I once wrote a story where the FBI in Billings once refused to investgate a seeming obvious clearcut case of a Native American cowboy by his white man co-worker. They agent in charge had just said, "It's just another dead Indian.” The FbI actually fought to not investigate the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Another Nazi involved was White Lives Matter leader—a group that advocates for genocide of all non-white people in North America, Europe, the UK, and Australia—was Sebastian Campbell by way of Kentucky who now lives in Butte, Montana at some abandoned Saint James Hospital.
While the Nazis certainly never succeeded in scaring anyone off—red state queers are scrappy as fuck—as they certainly made a scene for several minutes with chants referring to LGBTQ people as needing to be “put down” like dogs, and "Pedophiles get the rope!"
Back in muh day, the only guns we needed were *flexes.*
Another chant I'd recognized from Nazis who'd crashed a Drag Queen Story Hour in Ohio was, "Weimar conditions require Weimar solutions!" which is in reference to the Weimar Republic of Germany being mostly accepting of queer and transgender people before Hitler took power on Jan. 30, 1933. By May 10 of that same year infamous nationwide book burnings took place in Berlin, where Joseph Goebbels proclaimed, “No to decadence and moral corruption! Yes to decency and morality in family and state!”
Sounds like a DeSantis speech if only he used the word “woke” like six more times.
What is forgotten is the literal fuel and the spark of these book burnings were kicked off a few days earlier when, on May 6, Nazis ransacked 20,000 books from the Institute of Sexology in Berlin which strongly advocated for LGBTQ rights. Present at the institute was the first trans woman to undergo gender affirmation surgery, Dorchen Richter.
She was never seen or heard from again.
Among the titles burned on May 10 was Heinrich Heine’s 1823 work, “Almansor,” which prophetically included the passage, “That was only a prelude, where you burn books, you burn people in the end.”
These Nazi groups have supported and lobbied for Montana GOP policies demonizing and dehumanize LGBTQ people, and in a show of solidarity one woman identified as Tammie Auras of Missoula spoke with the Nazis, later thanking them for what they do.
Tfw you hate teh queers so much your overton window became literal fucking Nazi.
Republican Rep. David Dunn, who ironically was being called out for claiming his LGBTQ constituents were guilty of having "pedophilia" parties, was shown pics of the Nazis his rhetoric emboldened.
Dunn's immediate response to threats of exiection against Montana citizens he represents via well-known Nazis was—here it comes—to spinelessly blame "antifa."
Because. Of. Course.🙄 Stunning and brave response there, D-Man.
Nonetheless, we are grateful to actually have real AntiFascist Montanans with spines actually willing to stand up for us LGBTQ folks and against Nazis.
Glad to report my political beliefs are more aligned with the one flipping off the Nazis.
While certain people may defend the Nazi free speech “right” to show up with guns while threatening executions, I say we must use collectively use our own free speech voices to say, as the Dead Kennedys once philosophically noted in song, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!”
Confirmed: Montana GOP are posers for not condemning Nazis threatening their LGBTQ constituents.
Condemning Nazis shouldn't be a politically partisan issue.
Just saying, if Nazis align with your political ideology that's basically become infatuated with hatred at a group, and they're using your platform to recruit, maybe rethink your “values” and governing skills.
Nazi chatter says they are yuuuge stans of Montana republicans Carl Glimm and Braxton Mitchell.
I know when people see a these Nazis show up, you are no doubt taken aback. When I was younger in Billings, gangs of like 20 violent skinheads would show up randomly to public areas until many were indicted for federal hate crimes. So when I saw these same types of dorks showing up again in Montana, I was like, "Nope, not this again."
“Violence is like a weed—it does not die even in the greatest drought,” famed Nazi hunter Simon Weisenthal once noted.
He also said, “Information is resistance,” so armed with my proverbial pen, I write this to help better educate and #resist against bigoted ignorance.
These are piece of shit people and ruinous viruses upon society who will take apathy as a sign weakness. You have to push back and not allow them to fester.
That's ackshullee Sir Karl Popper to you, Zirs. Also, "So much for the tolerant left,” were Hitlers's last words. Probably.
Exercise Constitutional rights to tell Nazis fuck off and hold elected officials accountable who act like rulers instead of public servants to all. Be a discontented whiney bitch.
Without progressives, we wouldn't have the Civil Rights Act, women and minority voting rights, 40 hour work weeks and weekends, gay marriage etc.
The arc of justice and history isn’t always smooth wave, but a hard fought swim against currents.
Pictured: Montana State LGBTQ students and allies recently drew a big ass flag as a reaction to Nazi mass killing threats at them and silence from faculty.
Nonetheless, don't forget to enjoy the beauty of life that water brings.
I'll close with the words of a comrade.⬋⬋⬋
"For all the baby gays and fellow queers growing up in MT, I know it’s hard. The policy loses are rough. But we as a community have weathered worse and we will continue to fight and dance," they said. "When it’s hard, remember our ally’s, and how fecking pathetic these Nazis are who oppose us."
❤️ you fam🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈, & stay safe.
~Adria