Fighting over the cast and characters of a sci-fi blockbuster sounds silly and childish until you look at what it says about Trump's white nationalist followers and their penchant for embracing violence as a final solution (Nazi reference very much intended and appropriate).

In the last couple of days, Steve Bannon's goons from the white nationalist movement have been crying that the new Star Wars film, "Rogue One" is hurting their feelings and should be boycotted. Why? Because the Empire, based on the Nazis, is naturally white, patriarchal and evil while the good guys are diverse and led by a *gasp* woman:

One writer at the neo-Nazi site Infostormer called “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” slated to be released this month, a product of “anti-white hate” produced by Jews. “Nearly all of the major characters are non-Whites and the main character is an empowered White female,” the post reads. “This film should be boycotted.”  

Here's a meme they whipped up to point out the "anti-white" message that's obviously being propagated by those pesky Hollywood Jews:

Darth Vader, of course, is a hero because he fights for white supremacy. A couple of weeks ago, Bannon, Trump's top puppeteer, was even quoted by The Hollywood Reporter as saying, "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power." And he apparently wasn't being ironic.

That would be the same Darth Vader that murdered a roomful of children. A quick refresher for those of you that have purged the awful prequel trilogy from their minds:

This is who Bannon and his white nationalist followers consider the hero of the story? It would be nice to think that they simply forgot about this part but it's more likely they consider Vader leaving a pile of dead children in his wake an admirable quality. Remember, they were quick to cheer and defend Anders Behring Breivik, the white nationalist mass murderer who slaughtered 77 people, many of the children, because they were too liberal.

Murdering children is a not a bug of white nationalism, it's a feature:

The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.

The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children.

Yes, Darth Vader is a fictional character so all of this sounds frivolous but it speaks to the cruelty and -- let's not mince words here -- evil at the heart of the white nationalist movement. No matter how often they claim they simply want to preserve white culture (whatever that is) and their "genetic purity", they always seem to circle back to violence and genocide against the "subhuman" races. That's the inevitable conclusion when a political movement strips the humanity from a group of people. After that, there's no ethical, moral or intellectual barrier to exterminating those people. As a movement, white nationalism is inextricably dedicated to exactly this kind of dehumanization.

Steve Bannon has Donald's ear, more so than anyone else other than his children. He has built a movement explicitly based on racial hatred and violence. A movement that thinks a child killer/genocidal monster is the hero of the story. They are telling us exactly who they are and as Maya Angelou says, we should believe them the first time.

It cannot be repeated enough. None of this is normal. The second we allow it become so, we're opening the door to atrocities.