A group of Howell, Michigan-area residents on Saturday showed up to protest a local theater company’s performance of The Diary of Anne Frank, shouting slogans in opposition to the American Legion Post 141 hosting the stage adaptation of the journal of the teenage Holocaust victim.

And yeah, Detroit affiliate WXYZ actually uses the word “protest” in their text article and on the screen in the segment above to describe what’s unambiguously a hate crime in the moral sense if not in statute. That’s not a “protest” any more than the Holocaust was a “solution.” Like they’re upfront about it being intimidation by actual Nazis, but the slippery wording is more than a little disconcerting. “Protesting” carries them a lot of the way toward legitimacy, like they’re on the same tier as pro-choicers outside the Supreme Court on the day of the Dobbs decision. Hell, say what you will about the “pro-lifers” waving gruesome photos of the aftermath of abortions at their “protests,” at least those freaks by all appearances believe their cause is just and they’re doing the right thing.

What were these guys “protesting”? Jews? Is there anything else to say besides they were simply protesting Jews, not even with some Moms for Liberty-type horseshit pretense like the content of the play is somehow inappropriate? Is it on us to point out that if they actually were committed to combatting the malign reach of the “International Jew” then they’d show up at an AIPAC fundraiser or something, and it’s obvious they’re simply too fucking lazy, cowardly, or both to do that?

Anyway yes, this county voted 61 to 37 percent for Trump this year. You guessed correctly.