Meet your new RepubliKKKan frontrunner.

He needs to go to jail and find out first hand what rape is really like.

I haven't seen any evidence that Slog takes direction from readership.

The site sounds familiar. I might have come across a negative review there of Mad Max: Fury Road, which was objectionable to the reviewer because of Furiosa.

"How much did the mainstream media's fascination with Donald Trump activate the country's neo-Nazi impulses?"

A very interesting question. I think there is zero doubt that his campaign has been mostly driven by free media publicity. And the type he is appealing to is notorious for parroting back what Fox News et al tell them so it seems entirely possible that they wouldn't have had these opinions or at least been so adamant about them without him frothing on from every TV/radio/website. Of course there had to be underlying sentiment for his ideas to be so readily embraced but Trump, egged on by the media, has really stoked the fires.

I think a photo spread would be a great way to handle this story. Show up for the meet up and take pictures of all who have found "the pet shop." Post them on SLOG. They are meeting in a public place so they are fair grounds to have their photos taken.

You could stop being tricked by every scam artist within 500 miles into basically writing press releases for them. No one outside of their little bubbles even knows who they are until you give them free publicity.

Also, I hate to break it to the protestors (are they protestors?) that if you want a secret code phrase to be effective, you can't let a newspaper publish it.

@3: No one deserves to be raped. I know, he is a guy, so "ha ha male on male rape" but there is still something desirable about being better people than one's enemies.

There are those who love to generate outrage and there are those who love to be outraged.

Seems like a mutually beneficial relationship.

There's a pet store like six blocks from the statue of Lenin. Just send a representative from Petco over there with some puppies to direct people to the pet store.

Whatever happens, don't counter-protest. Please, people. Counter-protesting is the dumbest fucking tool we have. "Hey, you know what will put these idiots with a persecution complex in their place? Getting a shit load of people together to yell at them and publicize their shitty cause!"

This group is advocating for rape to be legal in private circumstances.

Basically, women are whores unless they stay off the streets and/or fight back if attacked.

Some sort of flash mob rendition of West End Girls?

@8: Speaking of some one who doesn't know what's going on out side his own bubble! You're so funny.

I guarantee you that most women with an even moderate on line presence know who this dirtbag and his followers are.

Perhaps all it needs is a few willing plants to cheerfully misdirect people to random locations.

How bout a bunch of leather daddies and puppy players greet them with collars and leashes and make a big gay stink out of it? "I got yer pet shop right here." Assuming we want a sex-positive discouragement of actually attending the meeting. Alternatively, we could give out bad information and direct them to a sekrit location full of the above.

@16: So basically you are saying that this guy is one of the most famous people on the planet? Since you are saying well over over 50% of the world population with "moderate" online presence know all about him?

Somehow I doubt it, but believe whatever you want. The greater point is that when someone is screaming nonsense on a corner, you usually do not want to give them a bullhorn, that's all.

Loving bobjoebob's suggestion. Then, once the followers are driven away (if any even show), have a big gay puppy party on the spot!

@21: No Theodore, that would David Bowie.
You are painfully naive if you are under the impression that Roosh V, is some how not a widely known jackass, particularly among women who frequent the Internet.
I invite you to avail yourself of the Google before retiring to your usual somewhat solipsistic position that since you have not heard of, or experienced something it does not exist.
@22: Thank you Ken.

Instead of a "counter protest" at the same location, why not a fabulous celebration of LGBTQ pride, femenist pride, & equality somewhere separate, unaffiliated & cover the shit out of that? If it turns into a thing, just "cover" this story as "awesome people were celebrating &, side note, shitty people were having a constipated protest about that awesome thing we celebrate; now back to being awesome". Ignore, go on with your life while positively displaying the fabulousness of equality.

I like the photography idea. Just plant someone out there and snap snap snap away...

I'm guessing they won't pass on the opportunity to hit up bars and clubs afterwards to practice their "skills." While any women showing up would be immediately suspect, I think it would be interesting to share with women which bars/clubs the guys are planning to go... so that totally informed gals could then hit up the same venues if only to fuck with them.

While I'm certainly intrigued to see what kind of human filth finds solace in belittling half of our species, it's probably better to stay away from their pity party.

If it's any consolation, odds are they all have miserable, lonely personal lives and shitty upbringings.

Why do you not listen to our majority opinion, Slog? :-(
http://www.thestranger.com/events/235154…

Ha! I say this sounds like Islam and they censor it. Talk about irony.

@30: It is doubtful that you understand the meaning of that word.
Or the concept of context for that matter.

I would very much like to disrupt the notion that Roosh has a loyal audience of any size or can build a "tribe" wherever he likes. My idea for counter protest doesn't involve shaming these people unless singing We Are The World seems shameful to them.

@30, Maybe next time lead with "like most major organized religions", no need to split hairs here.

@33, you mean ignore reality out of some horrifying allegiance to political correctness?

Mad max fury road cosplay!!

@34: Let's add "reality" to the list of concepts of which you have a shaky grasp as well.

This jackass is middle eastern or Persian. Is it that hard to lay off the white male bashing for at least one article? His parents emigrated to the US from Armania and Iran. Not two countries know for valuing women. You imply a lot that he is looking to spread this to white males. Why not just say that he is looking to spread this to pathetic males. Isn't that better? No race hate.

I think they should definitely cover it with cameras since these losers are afraid to be publicly associated with their vile views. Leather daddies and puppy players is also a great idea.

I'd really love to see someone attend one of these meetups and start a discussion about how the best way to pick someone up is to treat them like a human being, with respect and dignity and thoughtfulness. I think it would be completely fascinating, and moreover, I think it would be a genuinely productive approach. Roosh himself is irredeemable, but many of the sad sacks who follow him around are probably reachable.

@37 he is actually a known white supremacist. Internalised racism is very real. But please, keep derailing the conversation with your #notallwhitemales bullshit.

How about a fundraiser? Get a couple folks to pledge a buck or two for every shitlord that shows up, donate the funds to RAINN. Park a table on the sidewalk in front of the meeting area with a nice flashy sign so passers-by can also kick in donations if they don't feel like pledging.

@40 the guys a horrible person with horrible views but some quick search couldn't find articles linking him to white supremacy, got any links?

To the original question - How about giving horrible people attention relative to how many followers they have? Someone like trump is already popular so is worth writing articles about how horrible his views are.

I thought the title was talking about innumerable commenters.

@43-45: Would you like ranch or thousand island with you word salad?

These things were cancelled, according to another site.

Announce that, instead of covering "the event"(without saying what you aren't covering), you are running big pictures of cute kittens in the space you would have used to cover what you are refusing to cover.

Don't counterprotest, just have a few people show up as "passers- by" and clandestinely film the faces of every pos woman- hater who shows up. Run their images through Facebook's facial recognition software, then publish an article naming and shaming every pig in attendance. I guarantee you, these dirtbags are terrified of being publicly connected to their idiotic, selfpitying, hatemongering online personas. Bonus; once their faces and names are publiished and their hate for women is publicly known, they are pretty much guaranteed to never get laid again (except by eachother).
All it takes is one photographer in every city to publicly shame these pigs into complete submission.
I'll be taking it upon myself to cover a few events in the south.
Who's with me, ladies?

@24: When did I say he did not exist or that something I have not heard of does not exist? Stop making stuff up. You Google him and you get a WIki page and tons of his own nonsense before a reputable news story even pops up, and that is only when you specifically ask for news.

You are just assuming that because YOU are very familiar with his ramblings that everyone else is. Your statement would be more accurate if you said women who read Jezebel have heard about him, not all women who have internet access.

None of this even matters, anyway it is just splitting hairs on a meaningless point. If someone is saying stuff you do not want others to hear, stop giving him more press and more access to people. Not that hard.

My suggestion?

Someone come up with a better way to direct the people he is taking advantage of. A way that puts an emphasis on consent, personal enrichment, healing, and cultivating joie de vivre.

It isn't the most satisfying way to go about it but I'm pretty sure it would be the most successful.

There is a need, in some circles, for people to have a way to overcome poor socialization, lack of understanding, and simple straight up fear.

Right now if a lonely desperate guy wants to try to figure out how to not be a lonely desperate guy he has one option.

Roosh V or another one of his ilk.

Now, I know the tendency would be to tell the lonely desperate guy to go fuck himself and figure it out somehow.

This is the lonely desperate guy fucking off and figuring it out. If we, collectively, continue to simply mock, protest, and hate instead of coupling that with directing them to somewhere where they can actually not be shitty anymore, the Roosh Vs of the world will always have an audience.

@57.
Lovely philosophy, too bad it doesn't apply to reality. These guys aren't lonely insecure assholes just because they've somehow managed to go through life unaware that kindness, love, and equality are valid possibilities. On the contrary. They are lonely insecure assholes because they are rightfully rejected by society at large for being irredemably hateful, irrational creeps. They are every bit as aware of kindness, love, and equality as every other human on the planet, and they have chosen to violently, hatefully reject and disparage those qualities in themselves and others. They are not emotionally deprived lonely souls, on the contrary, they are spoilt, overindulged mental infants, who genuinely think they're on a holy crusade to punish all women for merely existing. They are beyond reasoning with. They are so completely committed to their irrational hatred as to be written off as a lost cause that the world would be a better place without. The best means of dealing with them is to publicly expose them so that the rest of society is adequately aware of their true nature, so that they can be properly shunned, barred from breeding opportunities, and eliminated from the gene pool .
I realize this will probably seem offensive to your kind and inclusive nature.
So, by all means, go hold hands and sing cumbaya with them. Try to reason with them and explain to them that all people are individuals and that their selfinflicted misery cannot be cured by spreading gneralized, irrational fear and hate.
You will quickly become unavoidably aware that you are beating your head against a brick wall of self-pitying, self-serving morasm that has only the vaguest connection to reality .
Irrational hatred can't really be defeated with love; it doesnt work that way. At best, it can only be isolated, ostracized and prevented from breeding until it's kind is wiped from existence.
Identify these walking piles of dung, and socially quarantine them until they've all died off.

@56: I didn’t say all women Theodore, but as far as the readership of Jezebel goes, you mean millions of women on the internet? Oh, and tell me, the government of Australia; do you think they are aware of him because they are inside that “bubble” you mentioned or because they read Jezebel? The Labor party in Great Britain? What about them? Oh! Or all those mayors in Canada?
Hm?
Your Google-fu is sub-par my friend.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lab…
http://globalnews.ca/news/2493330/mayors…

Again, Theodore, just because you haven’t heard of something, or someone…..

You are a good argument for why covering events like this is of benefit actually. Now you, and others like you reading Slog, are aware of Roosh and the pernicious community/movement of which he is a part. Your ”bubble”, as it were, has been pierced.

@56 also the readers of cbc. Canada mayors have been coming out against this asshat.

@62: Oh I don't think so. While Theodore does tend to display a knee jerk irritation when confronted by anything that doesn't disproportionately effect his own demographic, and is always eager to find some evidence that those causing him discomfort are "just as bad" and can thus be dismissed, he is not a bad guy, and most certainly should not be lumped in with Roosh or the MRA/PUA community.
I understand that ignoring a problem like the one of which Roosh is an example is an attractive alternative, particularly for those not personally effected like Theodore, but as we have seen, worldwide now in this case, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

For a readership that goes non-linear at the mere suggestion that a bicyclist can be in the wrong the comments here are rather tame. That can mean only only one thing- the vast majority of the stranger readers hate women.

I don't think the vast majority of Stranger readers hate women. I just think women's issues generally speaking these days - not just amongst Stranger readers - are never taken as seriously as, say, issues about race, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, etc. Those issues are always taken deadly seriously. It has become unacceptable, rightfully, to openly dislike minorities and more recently, non-straights - to openly question the validity of their arguments and positions. But some time starting in the 80's, it became and has continued to be entirely acceptable for even so called "liberals" to question the validity or arguments made about women's rights ie feminism, to the point where, insanely, a term has even been coined which equates women who argue for their rights with being 'Nazi-like' ie "feminazi". Think about that. We agitate for our rights as human beings, and because the world apparently can't stomach uppity women - we are supposed to be quiet and un-annoying regarding our anger at being discriminated against - we are (routinely) called or equated with Nazis. Exactly how much is the world flipped completely on its head?

Can one imagine if, say, the Black Lives Matter folks were routinely derided in this way when arguing for and being active for their rights? Can anyone imagine if someone coined a highly popular term that then spread like wildfire for them - for years and years - that equated their struggle for their rights with Nazi-ism? No. One can't. Because we've crossed that bridge a long damn time ago - being called or considered a racist is a huge insult, and rightfully so. Particularly if you are in the public eye, it will get you fired, and quick. (One of the many examples out there: Michael Richards and his racist rant at a club in 2006 - he was instantly rendered unemployable and remained so for nearly a decade.)

Being called 'sexist' packs nowhere near the same punch, for some reason. I think for a lot of people it's a joke - calling someone 'sexist' vs the extraordinary lengths people will instantly leap to to defend themselves against the charge of being called or thought of as 'racist', or these days, anti-gay (the latter, at least in more advances circles).

The thing that always gets me is that women are I believe 51% of the world's population. We sure as fuck aren't a minority, and we encompass every racial and ethnic and religious minority, and majority, going. All of those groups (save Muslims in the west these days) one is harshly criticized for being 'against'. Pretty much if you're racist, you keep those opinions to yourself, or only when in the company of like minded racists. But with women and sexism, the attitude so often is, oh for fuck's sake, will you shut your fucking shrill mouth you whiny bitch? Stop pretending rape happens! Stop pretending sexism even exists or that you have it bad at all! Stop complaining about the worldwide phenomenon of violence against women, the lack of equal pay (which is really your fault) or FGM or acid routinely thrown in the faces of women who turn down a 'suitor', or the lack of ability to access abortion readily in the richest country in the world, or at all in many countries. Don't like not having control over your own reproduction? Don't like the prospect of being forced to bring a baby to term you desperately don't want, can't afford, too many other starving kids already, oh and you're only 14 and were raped by your uncle? Why the fuck did you open your legs to begin with?! We have little to no respect for the notion that you are supposedly discriminated against and/or marginalized in ANY way, BUT we will of course fall all over ourselves to support Civil Rights/Black Lives Matter or It Gets Better because THOSE people have a valid argument, while you, bitch, don't.

In a word, it's fucking maddening. Depressing.

@65: I know, right? It is enough to drive a woman to drink.
Oh wait, the CDC ruined that for us too. :P

And in today's news ...

UNICEF: There are at least 200 million girls and women around the world who have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), with nearly a quarter of them being under the age of 14 when they were cut, according to a new report released by the U.N. children’s agency (UNICEF) on Wednesday ...

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/20…

Obviously way to late to this game, but doesn't "Where is the nearest pet shop?" spoken on a dark street corner sound like something out of Monty Python's Hungarian-English dictionary?

@59: Yes, if you look for stories about him on Google, they do exist, like I said above. And I am unsure where you got this straw man that suggests I believe there is no misogyny online (this was the "bubble," I guess?), but that was never the argument. There are lots of stupid people saying stupid things online.

The argument was, maybe we should stop giving these people more press, because without press, they have nothing.

@62, 63: All this projection and attempts to stereotype me are flattering and funny, please keep going!

I think as many feminists as possible should show up in dark suits and sunglasses and look like secret service people to freak them out and then if they try to have a meetup they should start dancing to upbeat music to hog all the attention to show that we won't let them sour our mood or let them take video of us acting like an angry feminist assaulting them like some videos online already, like they want us to so it can feed their persecution complex.

@69: But Theodore! It was your contention that Roosh was not well known! That only women who read Jezebel would be aware of him!
This, of course, is demonstrably untrue.
I never said, nor do I believe, that you are unaware of on line misogyny. I believe that you are aware of it in the same vague, that’s something over there that doesn’t really affect me so I’ll sort of dismiss it from my mind, way you are aware of Australia.

To wit: You are aware of koalas but not that the its government has not only heard of Roosh but knew enough about him to consider banning him from their continent.
Your lack of information (or bubble) regarding Roosh V led you to believe him to be a sort of small time internet troll, and thus to be dealt with accordingly, and ignored. Now you know better.

As far as my observations regarding your online persona, they are just that: my observations based on what you have posted here, lo the many years that you and I have both been on Slog.
I believe you believe yourself to be level headed, even handed, and fair minded. I believe that you have little time for those you find not tough enough to endure the slings and arrows of this world, and that you value integrity, intellectual honesty and hard work. I believe that finding examples of hypocrisy among the left leaning denizens of this blog brings you great satisfaction and bolsters your confirmation bias that progressives respond emotionally to issues of the day rather than rationally as you believe yourself to do.
To that end you are not above putting words in people’s mouths.

You do tend to respond with a certain dismissive irritation when things that do not disproportionally effect your demographic are discussed. You will concede that a problem exists, but not to the scale that those actually effected by it experience. That those effected insist that they know better, annoys you and you will double down yourself into a corner rather than consider that you may not actually be in possession of all the facts.
Our discussion here serves as a pretty good example of this. : )

I also believe you have an excellent sense of humor, and are an ethical and intelligent person.
Again, these are just my observations of how you present yourself here, and I am sure it is an incomplete picture of you as a man. Which is why you should come to a Slog Happy, and I can observe what you’re like with some whiskey in you.

The best thing you can do with this guy is ignore him. If everybody ignored Roosh, he would go away. Wouldn't it be nice if all of life's problems could be solved that way.

@68 "Obviously way to late to this game, but doesn't 'Where is the nearest pet shop?' spoken on a dark street corner sound like something out of Monty Python's Hungarian-English dictionary?"
That line cued anybody who knows what Roosh is really about that this whole thing was a joke/publicity stunt. Want to learn what that's really about? Google: Roosh pet shop opener

Hmm..." what roosh is really about"...
I'll take self-hating, internalized homophobia for 200, Alex.

The guy's entire schtick has always been "No, really, I swear I actually want to have sex with women...really! Ya know, because of how gross they are and how much I totally hate them, and to prove how superior and perfect males are!"
This is not the philosophy of a heterosexual male, that's all I'm saying.
It's selfhating homosexuality in denial, taken to a ridiculous extreme.
That guy's gonna feel a lot better when he finally gives in and admits that all he ever really wanted was some hot sexy man-love. He's just having trouble finding the right guy.

Also, love how theodore keeps changing his position (but only slightly!) every time he gets his ass handed to him.
Dude, you do realize the thread is visible in it's entirety, right?