Lively

Their "multiple Reggies" theory brings new meaning to his "my body is ready" catchphrase.

I'd say that actual racism is a much bigger problem than people calling it out, and part of the reason it's allowed to flourish is because so many people refuse to talk about it or do anything about it even in places where it's plain and obvious. Staying quiet and allowing the status quo to go unchanged is not a good solution.

I think maybe a more charitable way of interpreting what you said is to try to assume the best of intentions about people until proved otherwise. I'll grant that we don't know for sure what Palmer thinks, but I've seen enough to be quite sure about the much of the community in /r/The_Donald, and it's very bizarre that he's chosen to associate with them.

I'm guessing we have very different definitions for what passes as racism then. Every time there is any unruliness at a BLM protest (or even a non-BLM protest of similar incidents), I see the Trump fans in The_Donald try to smear the entire movement and do nothing but dismiss police brutality / violence as an issue. Every time there is any terrorist act, there are calls to ban hundreds of millions of people from even entering American for beliefs that aren't even really related. Basically any time people who aren't white complain about an injustice, "/r/the_donald" is curiously unsympathetic, and would rather pass around memes about how the cultural marxists / SJW's are out to get them.

So yes, that's what I would call racism (and the same goes for sexism while we're at it). It's not always as obvious as a person wearing a hood, most of the time it's a complete unwillingness to consider the lived experiences of people who aren't the same color / gender / etc, and knee-jerk dismissal when they tell you that things aren't as easy for them.

If this were any other election I would be more sympathetic, but to many of us, Trump represents an existential threat to the country, categorically different from any American politician in living memory; we're going to get a little worked up about the people who are validating him as "normal" and acceptable (see the response to Trump appearing on Jimmy Fallon's show).

Your analogy relating this to Giant Bomb doesn't make any sense at all.

Did you read the Daily Beast articles? Palmer himself confirmed to them via email that he posts to that Reddit account, and he was cooperating with the admins of "The_Donald" subreddit to donate and spread the style of memes and message from that subreddit to real-world political advertisements.

Have you visited "The_Donald" subreddit, and seen what they tend to talk about and how they talk about it?

I have, periodically for the last 4 months; I can confirm personally that the Pepe the Frog image has been adopted as pretty much their go-to mascot. In addition, as I've posted earlier in this thread that there is a constant stream of content hating on Muslims, complaining about nearly every attempt that women and minorities to stand up for their rights and dignity, and a strong support for nationalist and xenophobic sentiment. It follows that the moderators of a community like that (who are the organizers of Nimble America) are at least complicit in perpetuating this kind of behavior, since they certainly aren't doing much to reign it in.

Just because they're not literally putting swastikas on the frog doesn't mean he isn't being associated with this kind of horrible shit - it's often been observed that if fascism ever takes root in America, it will drape itself in more American iconography, so asking "where are the swastikas" probably isn't the best question.

Now, it's possible that Palmer was just in it for the "shitposting", and not the racism, but it still shows a weird lapse in judgement on his choice of bedfellows, because it should have been obvious that this kind of blowback would happen after it got out. At the very least, I don't think he can stay in the role of spokesman (although I think he was already retired from that after the anti-competitive DRM stuff blew up, as well as the pre-order delays).

I have to think that the amount of Giant Bomb "funny" we've missed out on because of PC stuff is infinitesimally small, it's still the best place on the internet to have fun with people who love games. If there's been a shift in tone, I'd chalk it up to the crew getting more mature, some of them starting families, and of course the transition from the crazy Whiskey media days to the CBSi tenure.

...and blaming everything on Muslims, and complaining about nearly every attempt that women and minorities make to stand up for their rights and dignity, along with paranoid conspiracies about how SJW's have taken over our country, and so on.

But sure, it's "just a fan club". I've visited it periodically over the last few months just to see what they're up to, so no one can tell me I didn't witness all these things come up constantly.

If you spend a little time in the relevant subreddit "The_Donald" (which I have, because I'm a masochist), it's very clear they have strong racist, nationalistic tendencies.

That's what happens when an image is adopted as the go-to mascot of a group with strong white supremacist leanings.

Where does Mortal Kombat fall on this list?