Bernie Sanders' Second Life Headquarters Besieged by Trump-Supporting Swastikas (vice.com)

Wagner James Au, writing for Motherboard (edited and condensed):As Donald Trump continues to ride roughshod over much of the United States, there are multiple reports that Trumps' virtual fans are riding roughshod on Bernie Sanders' unofficial headquarters in Second Life as well. Sanders' spot is in the sim (Second Life region) of Caspoli, with a Bernie 2016 banner that can be seen from satellite. It's a Roman-themed hangout space in a peaceful meadow, where Bernie supporters often gather to share news of their favorite candidate. But lately, the place has been besieged by pro-Trump griefers. [...] During a Bernie rally in Second Life, Sanders support group member Macaria Wind goes on, Trump-supporting demons flew around Bernie's rally, endlessly typing "TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!" into text chat.

Comments

False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like something Bernie would do for sympathy.

Re:False flag?

[avandesande]

The simpler explanation would be 'troll'

Re:False flag?

[NotDrWho]

It sounds like something Linden Lab would do to let people know that Second Life still exists, apparently.

Re:False flag?

[npslider]

Second Life still exists?!

Re:False flag?

[Applehu Akbar]

If I wanted to be mean and hex Bernie's SL presence, swastikas would be the last thing I would put up. I would poke fun of his platform by doing something like have a set of unicorns chained to a capstan, labeled Bernie's Energy System. Or how about a theme park called Venezuelaland, with hopeless peasants shooting each other over the last few rolls of toilet paper.

Re:False flag?

[PopeRatzo]

Most of what's been pinned on Trump supporters has actually been paid and planted people from the Hillary camp, and in a couple of cases Cruz/"establishment" people.

You are delusional.

https://img.washingtonpost.com...

Re:False flag?

[Anonymous Coward]

And McCain had a fundraiser who had a meth lab in her home. Let's blame the candidate for anything one of their fans does!

Maybe I should go around saying "I love PopeRatzo" while kicking puppies and wearing a shirt with pictures of dead babies on it. By your logic, it's a reflection of YOUR character, right?

....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[OutOnARock]

who knew?

Re:....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually the real news here.

Re:....wait....SecondLife is still a thing?

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't work that way. The problem is that the Presidential election is normally how Democrats get voters to come vote for Congresspeople; it's largely why they do so poorly in the mid-term elections.

Bernie is the one who's actually gotten the youth excited about voting; there's some strong parallels between his campaign and Obama's in 2008. Obama won largely because the Democrats got the young voters to turn out, after being inspired by his speeches. However, this didn't quite happen this time: they were inspired by Bernie (but this time there's actually substance because Bernie actually has a long track record in Congress supporting his rhetoric, unlike Obama; the youth learned this lesson), but apparently not enough to win the Primaries for various reasons (too many voters thinking Hillary is "entitled" to be President, dirty tricks by the DNC to help Hillary, blatant fraud in some of the primaries such as Illinois where hand recounts proved the machines lied).

What could quite possibly happen is that, with the DNC coronating Hillary and pushing Bernie aside, the young voters will be pissed off and disillusioned, and not bother voting. This means the Dems will lose Congressional seats too. The DNC has really shot itself in the foot here IMO. Only appealing to dried-up retirement-age feminists and conservative blacks and then adopting a condescending tone towards the 35-and-under crowd is not a recipe for success in the general election, unless they've engineered some fraudulent results with the voting machines in many places.

The Democratic Party's biggest problem is voter apathy. They try to pitch themselves as the party for left-leaning (and farther left) voters, minorities, working and lower classes, etc. But then when in office they just kowtow to their big corporate donors, mainly Wall Street and Hollywood, and then whine about how they can't get anything done even when they have control of Congress and the White House, and adopt very centrist and pro-corporate policies. This isn't inspiring to the people they claim to represent, and definitely isn't inspiring to young people who are more idealistic. Polls show that Hillary is downright despised by these young voters. So I really don't see this turning out well for the Dems.

I used to spend a lot of time there...

[ZorinLynx]

It's somewhat comforting to know that nothing has changed in ten years. :)

What a time to be alive

[Anonymous Coward]

Politics in the 21st century, folks. It's only going to get weirder.

Doubtful

[bsharitt]

There are two things I find unlikely about this story.

1. That Second Life is still a thing.
2. That these are actual Trump supporters.

It's just trolls getting a two-for-one deal. They get to disrupt the Bernie supporters while at the same time painting Trump supporters in a bad(worse?) light.

Re:Doubtful

[PinkyGigglebrain]

I agree, its unlikely these where Trump supporters. The use of the Swastika would not be something that a real supporter would want associated with Trump.

So the question is who would benefit from something like this?

I've got two suspects right off the top of my head, in order of likely hood;
supporters of Hillary or supporters of Cruz.

Why the fuck is /. wasting our time with this?!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is why /. is wasting our time with such a stupid submission.

Come on! As I look through the Firehose, I see numerous stories far more relevant, interesting and newsworthy than this pathetic one is.

And don't suggest that I submit stories. I tried that, and they must have been too relevant or something (they had to do with computing), because they ended up silently discarded. I'm not going to waste my time doing that again!

Editors, can we please avoid these pointless political submissions? Yeah, they generate a lot of comments, but they're typically useless comments. They're a lot like YouTube comments or Twitter tweets; they're voluminous but extremely low-quality comments. They're far more harmful to Slashdot than they are beneficial.

Satire, not "Supporters" or "False Flag"

[eepok]

No Trump supporter would associate Trumps campaign with a swastika. That would hurt Trump's campaign. The same goes for anyone attempting a false flag attack.

Instead, this was done by people satirizing Trump supporters as brash bullies and mocking Trump's rhetoric as Nazi-reminiscent.

It's not a hard distinction to understand, but apparently the article's author had some difficulty making the connection.

MOD PARENT UP

[damn_registrars]

I don't respect Drumpf or any part of his campaign but I have yet to see a Drumpf supporter embrace a swastika as a symbol of their campaign. They might not be the sharpest tools in the shed but even they know better than to venture down that road...

To those protesting Trump's innocence...

[hyades1]

Is there any doubt at all in the minds of sane people that 100% of White Supremacists and neo-Nazis who actually intend to vote in the coming US federal election will cast their vote for a Republican?

This certainly shortens the list of suspects in this situation.