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</div><div>Slate on Wednesday published an interview with Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who has spent the last year analyzing the demographic background of Capitol rioters.<div>Slate described his conclusions about the rioters as "sobering" and in particular pointed to his "research that tied rioters’ home counties to the areas that had lost the most white population in recent years."<div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div>While speaking with Slate, Pape said that he was surprised that so many of the rioters were doctors, lawyers, and other well paid professionals, and not the kind of people who usually fall in with extremist militas."When you look at this, it’s just one category after another after another that shouts out mainstream," he said. "The Jan. 6 insurrectionists really are best understood as a product of the mainstream."Pape then explained how he and his team of researchers went about trying to learn just how mainstream MAGA rioters' beliefs are among the general population, and found them to be surprisingly widespread."21 million American adults agree with two radical beliefs: one, that the use of force to restore Donald Trump to the presidency is justified, and two, that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election and is an illegitimate president," he said. "That is, 21 million don’t hold just one of those beliefs—they hold both of those beliefs. It’s 8 percent of the body politic, but that’s really significant. That really can’t easily be characterized as just the 'fringe.' We normally would think the 'fringe' would be 1 percent or less."Underlying these two beliefs, Pape said, was the "great replacement" conspiracy theory that claims the American government is systematically trying to replace native-born white Americans with people of color from other countries."When you ask questions about their belief in 'the great replacement,' you see that that is head and shoulders the No. 1 belief that’s driving the difference between being in the 21 million versus being in the rest of the body politic," he explained.</div><div>=</div></div></div><div><div>=</div><div>alrt rt EUR</div><div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Krange, O. Kaltenborn, B.& Hultman, M. (2018). <a href="http://network.mynewsdesk.com/wf/click?upn=efDx2YJlulFxrzWdtb9kVn5sEj-2FCHc4uJn5819fZT7xbpElQrqHE2T0lEI3y-2Fb6dULH3FHmNC-2BnVLV2yHQ-2F6Gg-3D-3D_Krev5Rfnj-2BxDumtC9NHGZli6Ao-2Fzc0RvnFiDvzdnvTKfi-2BpSdDC8qDBy7Lmg3toUmeZI5BUjX-2F0ybIJAYCbDF8bQ6acxgphqyvU7gM7c51uv-2B6AN-2FdcXeMvg-2FaVM-2BS6Wnf7YISZuvxuu7DLU0BnimG5khlDouZMW7NIDQFBpWyJURRLbpRGic47A9KXBfCJ7de-2FYrwy6amYtqr9OfnFlN-2FS0cB79-2Ft2FfDuqoDbEeUyDp96HUpK6S1cCdYrR4L4lLanAF1PPgGHpoSlH9axUb803PM9ZUubKMAxfBwrqqUd07ZR6J-2FylOiPFL4kUQESeYYlvtSYfXZoebcre4pkkj5ruSuht-2BxHYWyaA2JxLXPZViwIAVaaq9m00Z-2BSyKcti5iBWtIsbRH79Ls8jiznAhw-3D-3D" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 600; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">“Cool Dudes in Norway: Climate Change denial among conservative Norwegian Men”</a>, Environmental Sociology.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"> </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">McCright, A., Dunlap, R (2011). <a href="http://network.mynewsdesk.com/wf/click?upn=D1iYPTHP71KZSiE6rcyvp63XQlHeyU-2B37ozldnJRUBqBw8LqeKRywtGfJ3Kijd38yDmjdaLJ-2BF5Xsb3V9M-2B2pdjN14sY5IZ277nTPiXToI4-3D_Krev5Rfnj-2BxDumtC9NHGZli6Ao-2Fzc0RvnFiDvzdnvTKfi-2BpSdDC8qDBy7Lmg3toUmeZI5BUjX-2F0ybIJAYCbDF8bQ6acxgphqyvU7gM7c51uv-2B6AN-2FdcXeMvg-2FaVM-2BS6Wnf7YISZuvxuu7DLU0BnimG5khlDouZMW7NIDQFBpWyJURRLbpRGic47A9KXBfCJ7W4pRzTyuQvwJ36YnByxZ6UlULK3rnwDwVG1qBmZbp8jTtoKF93e0VuQIe4JrGQ1AJeKAP-2BfQiDzxfpEkjJhhmRvSDGkIyzWR098SYDsAzo2IgGr8J-2Fo-2FKHd2oA70i5hCB9BeRV55miKYECPBDarz4pAl8twMhxG5YhymhjaB61REyHxWSM9yAr5vrneLaUMfpWw27EmvvwwSPJeellcY-2Bg-3D-3D" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 600; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">"Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States"</a>, Global Environmental Change.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">In their article ‘Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States’ the authors state: ‘Clearly the extent to which the conservative white male effect on climate change denial exists outside the US is a topic deserving investigation.’ Following this recommendation, we report results from a study in Norway. McCright and Dunlap argue that climate change denial can be understood as an expression of protecting group identity and justifying a societal system that provides desired benefits. Our findings resemble those in the US study. A total of 63 per cent of conservative males in Norway do not believe in anthropogenic climate change, as opposed to 36 per cent among the rest of the population who deny climate change and global warming. Expanding on the US study, we investigate whether conservative males more often hold what we term xenosceptic views, and if that adds to the ‘cool dude-effect’.1 Multivariate logistic regression models reveal strong effects from a variable measuring ‘xenosceptic cool dudes’. Interpreting xenoscepticism as a rough proxy for right leaning views, climate change denial in Norway seems to merge with broader patterns of right-wing nationalism.</div><div>
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</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/tucker-carlson-2653475417/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/tucker-carlson-2653475417/</a></div><div>salon</div><div>The American people live in the same country. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/30/do-we-even-want-the-truth-the-capitol-riot-is-fading-into-the-memory-hole/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">That does not mean they share a common reality</a>. This inability to agree upon basic empirical facts and the nature of the truth is undermining the country's democracy.Moreover, a type of collective malignant <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/06/narcissism-can-be-contagious--and-the-repercussions-extend-beyond-relationships/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">narcissism</a>, in which entire communities of people believe that their opinions supersede empirical reality and scientific fact, is undermining America's present and future prosperity, stability and freedom, not to mention the basic health of our society.To wit: A majority of Republicans apparently believe the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and that it was somehow "stolen" from him and his followers by Joe Biden and the Democrats.Roughly 30 percent of Republicans <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/559206-poll-30-percent-of-republican-voters-say-its-likely-trump-will" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">claim to believe that Trump will be reinstated as president</a> this year, something that is not possible under current U.S. law. In addition, 50 percent of Republican voters have convinced themselves that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/53-republicans-view-trump-true-us-president-reutersipsos-2021-05-24/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Donald Trump is still the "real" president</a>.Approximately one in four Republican voters believes in significant portions of the interlocking antisemitic conspiracy theories of the QAnon fictional universe, with its claims about a "deep state" that controls American society and the world through Satanic rituals and human sacrifice. Of course, in the QAnon universe Donald Trump is imagined as a great hero and leader who will defeat this evil plot and restore American "greatness," not-so-subtly understood as a privileged state for white people.In a season of death during which the coronavirus pandemic has killed at least 600,000 Americans, a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-businesses-reopening-opinion-poll/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">new CBS/YouGov poll</a> shows that 29 percent of Republicans will refuse the lifesaving vaccines. They have made this decision largely because of Trump and the right-wing media's disinformation and outright lies about the coronavirus pandemic.This crisis is far greater than what historian and political scientist Richard Hofstadter warned about in his seminal 1964 Harper's essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." In a moment when <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/07/welcome-to-republicanistan-the-gops-jim-crow-pseudo-democracy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a proto-fascist white supremacist Republican Party is waging a war on democracy</a> and the truth, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2021/04/14/right-wing-propaganda-is-annihilating-the-truth-about-jan-6--democrats-must-fight-back/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the white right's conspiracist thinking represents an existential threat</a> to the safety and security of the United States.In a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/14/former-harvard-psychiatrist-lance-dodes-trumps-psychosis-is-still-an-enormous-danger/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">recent conversation with Salon</a> about Trump and his followers, psychiatrist Dr. Lance Dodes offered this warning:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">It certainly is a public mental health emergency, and one that has occurred many times in human history. Followers adopt the belief system of a populist tyrant which becomes the new permitted reality, spreading to others who are swept up by their need to be included. That belief system, however fantastical or delusional, remains accepted truth until it is finally shown to be false. Those who have been conned into believing the tyrant's lies find comfort in their conviction that they know the truth, enabling them to feel superior to doubters.
</blockquote>On Jan. 6, right-wing conspiracy theories and other delusional ideas came together in a type of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/05/18/why-the-republicans-big-lie-works-so-well-a-sociopathic-party-and-a-damaged-country/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">synergistic disaster in the form of the Trump regime's attempted coup and the attack on the U.S. Capitol</a>, as a mass of white supremacists, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/10/the-capitol-attack-white-supremacist-terrorism-meets-evangelical-christianity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Christian fascists</a>, right-wing paramilitaries and QAnon believers <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/17/stop-the-steal-means-start-the-coup-experts-on-trumps-jan-6-coup-plot-and-the-power-of-denial/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">attempted to nullify the results of the 2020 Election</a>. These groups and ideas are not altogether distinct; there is considerable overlap of ideas and believers between them.Those outside of the right-wing conspiracy community are likely unaware of the other fantastical beliefs and delusions that played a role in the events of Jan. 6.Jason Colavito is a professional skeptic, researcher and author whose essays have been featured at The New Republic and Slate. He has also appeared on the History Channel and the American Heroes Channel. Colavito is the author of several books, including "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780806164618" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Mound Builder Myth</a>," "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780786479726" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jason and the Argonauts Through the Ages</a>" and the forthcoming "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781684351480" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Legends of the Pyramids: </a><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781684351480" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Myths and Misconceptions about Ancient Egypt</a>."In this conversation, Colavito places these "new" conspiracy theories about QAnon and the Big Lie about the 2020 election — as well as the decades-long popular obsession with UFOs — in a larger context of fear and anxiety about social change in America, arguing that a particular version of insecure white masculinity (and white supremacy more generally) is central to many of today's most widely believed conspiracy theories.Colavito also details how right-wing extremists are using UFOs, "ancient aliens" and other supposedly "fun" conspiracy theories to radicalize and recruit new members, and discusses how figures like Rudy Giuliani and Tucker Carlson as well as the "Stop the Steal" plotters figure in that dynamic.At the end of this conversation, Jason Colavito shares his thoughts about the soon-to-be-released Pentagon report on UFOs — which will almost certainly not report that the Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials.QAnon, the "Deep State," Donald Trump's Big Lie and and now a report by the U.S. government on UFOs. How do you explain this confluence of events?First, it's important to understand that all these conspiracy theories are interrelated. It's not like QAnon is completely separate from UFOs and that is completely separate from a conspiracy about Jewish bankers taking over the world — as Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested, by using "Jewish space lasers." These conspiracies are all connected by this idea of rejected knowledge — that there is a secret body of knowledge that can tell a person how the world really works, and is being hidden away from the public by elites.People who believe in conspiracy theories are searching for a means to understand a complex and changing world in a simple way, one that flatters their own particular prejudices, particular beliefs and feelings that they should be the ones at the center of the historical narrative.One of the foundational issues involved in all of these conspiracy theories is white supremacy. It doesn't always seem obvious. In many cases, some of the people who believe in one particular variety of conspiracy or another are not themselves motivated primarily by white supremacy, and may not even be aware of the connections to white supremacy. But at their core, many of these conspiracy theories revolve around ideas about the way things were in a semi-idealized past, whether that semi-idealized past was Donald Trump's presidency, the 1950s, the 19th century or some other period. These were times when white people were at the center of the historical narrative in America and the West. In this worldview, everything was great and good and wonderful.What we see in the United States are demographic trends which are causing a deep disconnect and deep concern among many white people who believe that they are losing economic power, losing status and losing their privileged social position. Of course this is not necessarily true in reality, because white people still control the overwhelming amount of political and economic power in the United States. However, they do see themselves as losing that power because in large measure the actual elites — the people who are running the economy, running politics and so on — have created a situation where the middle-class lifestyle of my generation's parents and grandparents simply does not exist anymore unless you have multiple incomes and the kind of education that requires enormous amounts of debt.There are all these different societal changes going on and conspiracy theories are a way to try to explain it that lets a person feel as though they are still in control of the narrative. When you look at conspiracy theories in the aggregate, that is the underlying motive behind all of the different expressions of weird and extreme ideas.How do we explain these waves of conspiracy theories in a larger context?This is something that we see in United States history over and over again. In the wake of social change people turn toward extreme ideas such as the supernatural and the paranormal and toward conspiracy theories.Much of what we see today is very similar to what was going on in the 1950s and the 1960s. There was a confluence of paranormal and political conspiracies at the same time. The UFO panic emerged in the late 1940s through the 1960s and did not occur in isolation. It was happening at the same time that McCarthyism and the second Red Scare was burning through the country. People were seeing communists behind every bush and trying to use the power of government to destroy what they perceived to be communist infiltration of the country.Joe McCarthy had stoked nativism, nationalism and many forms of bigotry in order to gin up a vast conspiracy theory that there was massive communist infiltration. McCarthy, incidentally, didn't limit his hatred just to communists. He assumed that communists, being deviants, were close allies of the homosexuals and therefore he and his allies created a massive purge of gay people from government, leading to decades of oppression and some of the strictest anti-gay laws that the country has ever had. But while he's doing this, the UFO panic is happening outside of Washington and eventually in D.C. itself.That isn't entirely a coincidence, because in both cases, what you're seeing is that beneath the placid surface of what should have been the most prosperous, peaceful time in American history there is also a deep anxiety because World War II had shaken the foundations of the American Dream. While it was patched together with suburbia and sitcoms and all of those things that conservatives love to hold up as the idealized post-war world, in reality it was a Band-Aid over massive amounts of social change, particularly in terms of the role of women. Women had experienced great liberation during the war years because the men were off fighting abroad.After the war, men tried to force women back into those pre-war gender roles. The postwar years also saw a growth in the African American civil rights movement.This comes together with how these social tensions and changes manifest in almost a spiritual way when people look up into the sky and see saviors or demons flying in the heavens. UFOs, right from the beginning, were identified not just as space aliens. Some people thought they were angels harboring the end times of revelation. Others thought that UFOs were secret communist technology infiltrating our skies. This is an example of tensions and ideas that are percolating through politics and society being remixed in symbolic form and ascribed to a supernatural cause. What we're seeing today, I believe, is closely related to that same process, that social tensions are driving a symbolic expression of tension as various conspiracies and supernatural occurrences.How do we apply those questions of identity and agency to these current conspiracy theories?It is important to recognize that many of the conspiracy theories are driven by people who are looking for ways to express control over the historical narrative. Most of <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/13/what-are-the-true-goals-of-qanon-its-the-21st-centurys-ultimate-catfish-scheme/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">what later became QAnon</a> was already in circulation on the internet and on cable television years before it came together as a pro-Trump conspiracy theory. QAnon reaches all the way from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" straight through to UFO conspiracy theories, and draws in the Satanic panic and related ideasThese are narratives that we already found circulating on programs like "Ancient Aliens" or "America Unearthed" and other History Channel shows and cable TV series years before. This happened because the cable TV networks understood that their audience is primarily older and white, and in the case of the History Channel largely male, and they program towards that demographic.To qualify my point: I do not think that cable TV networks were purposely planning to have white nationalist programming or anything like that. We are talking about TV networks staffed by hundreds of people using production companies around the world to produce content. But you have media all over the world driving toward the same ends because they're chasing the same audience. And once you start trying to flatter your audience into thinking that they are empowered and that they are the dynamic drivers of history, you end up in the same place every time.What did you see in the events of Jan 6. when Trump's followers attacked the U.S. Capitol? In particular, what did you make of the "QAnon shaman," who is a known figure in the right-wing conspiracy world.
The QAnon shaman — who goes by a couple of different names, by the way — represented not just the neo-pagan theme in the QAnon movement and the white nationalist-adjacent conspiracies, but he was appropriating, to himself, other themes and ideas as well. The QAnon shaman has a series of videos that he put up on YouTube and other video-sharing platforms prior to the Jan. 6 attack in which he talked about a vast number of bizarre conspiracy theories.There he cites people who had appeared on the History Channel by name, discussing a conspiracy theory that was popular among the ancient aliens crowd about "the secret space program." This is the idea that there is a secret space program in which the United States is engaged in warfare with one group of space aliens with the help of another group of space aliens. There is a spiritual component as well, which involves psychic powers.The secret space program conspiracy theory has been circulating for years. But the QAnon shaman, in his videos, claimed to believe that he had been recruited, apparently against his will, into the secret space program because of his great psychic powers. He also claims that he was using those powers to combat space aliens on behalf of the U.S. government by traveling to another dimension.Yes, it is easy to make fun of such claims, but such conspiracies played a role among the people at the Capitol rioting on Jan. 6. Incidentally, at least one of the Capitol rioters was wearing an "Ancient Aliens" sweatshirt with Giorgio Tsoukalos' face on it. [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_A.Tsoukalos" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Tsoukalos</a> is a ufologist who has frequently appeared on "Ancient Aliens."] I do not believe that was entirely a coincidence, because it is the same set of conspiracy theories about the "deep state," space aliens, secret cults and how elites are hiding things from the public that animate both the ancient conspiracy theories and the QAnon conspiracy theories. There is significant overlap, where some QAnon beliefs are derived directly from beliefs that also appear on "Ancient Aliens."One of the huge failures of the mainstream news media is that they are not paying attention to what people are actually consuming. Among the most extreme fringes of American political and social life there is see a very deep and abiding interest in these conspiracy theories, and we don't see the U.S. mainstream media engaging with that enough — especially not before the 2016 election, and not even fully until after the Jan. 6 riot.It is easy to say we're not going to take this seriously, but something can be both ridiculous and dangerous at the same time.For example, QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory. It is also a white male power fantasy. More generally, how are these right-wing fantasies a space for a particular type of white masculinity?The History Channel adventure mystery shows tend to have the same aesthetic. They feature very big blocky fonts, lots of dramatic music. These shows also feature middle-aged white men in either Indiana Jones cosplay or in tactical military gear marching around, having adventures and bonding in brotherhood over historical mysteries that flatter their own prejudices, mysteries that just happened to find that white men were here before Columbus and built this country from scratch even before Native Americans had come to the Americas.The aesthetic is laughable, but it is also one that's desirable for a certain demographic in the United States. There is also an important overlap between these shows and their political consequences. A man named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Hutton_Pulitzer" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">J. Hutton Pulitzer</a>, who also goes by Jovan Pulitzer and a couple of other names, appeared on "The Curse of Oak Island" and some other ancient mystery-style shows, described as a treasure hunter, a historian and many other titles. On "Curse of Oak Island" they went looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Pulitzer's persona at the time was "the treasure force commander," who was supposedly leading a "crack team of historical investigators as they hunted history's greatest artifacts."<div>Where did he go next? Rudy Giuliani and the Donald Trump campaign used his ideas about ballot fraud to help create the recounts that we see in Arizona and the ongoing efforts to do the same in Georgia. In both instances, Pulitzer is being paid as a consultant to find evidence of ballot fraud through his amazing technology of looking for bamboo in the ballots to prove they came from China. This also involves looking for creases in what Pulitzer calls the "origami ballots" to "prove" that they were folded up by Asian people.This guy went right from the History Channel straight to a Trump conspiracy world. While he might be the most direct line between History Channel conspiracies and the extreme right-wing pro-Trump community, he's not the only one. Just the other day, Nick Pope, one of the ancient-astronauts theorists from the "Ancient Aliens" show, appeared on Rudy Giuliani's podcast. There you have the former lawyer for Donald Trump talking UFOs with a guy from "Ancient Aliens." Tucker Carlson was also on "Ancient Aliens" talking to Nick Pope. Carlson has UFO theorists from the History Channel on his show.What is Tucker Carlson's relationship to the UFO and ancient aliens conspiracy world?In a speech that Tucker Carlson gave a while ago, he said that after the 2016 election, he was so completely dumbfounded by the unlikely probability of Donald Trump winning that he started to think that other improbable things might be true. As a result he developed an interest in UFOs and flying saucers. But in a more practical sense, Carlson has been all in on pushing flying-saucer conspiracy theories, in large measure because flying-saucer conspiracy theories have long been associated with right-wing extremism.Now, that is not to say that everyone who is interested in UFOs and flying saucers is a right-wing conspiracy theorist — but right-wing extremist groups have made a concerted effort to infiltrate flying saucer and UFO communities in order to use that belief in conspiracy theory as a wedge issue to draw more people into that type of conspiratorial thinking.What happens is that UFO and flying saucer beliefs become a wedge issue that draws people into more extreme beliefs, because once you feel that one conspiracy theory may be true, it becomes easier to believe that the next conspiracy theory may be true. When you see Tucker Carlson going all in on UFOs and flying saucers, he is creating a situation where people can embrace one conspiracy theory and be led to another.How have you been processing this new hysteria about UFOs (which are now described by the U.S. government as "UAPs") and the soon-to-be-released Pentagon report?What we can do is emphasize what we know, what we don't know and what needs to be investigated. Many of these videos of UFOs can be explained in conventional terms. Now, that doesn't mean that they are necessarily conventional, but if you can explain it that way, that is a very strong indication that we shouldn't be looking at space aliens.In the case of claims that we have wreckage of flying saucers and other alien artifacts, you need to listen to what the experts, the involved parties, are actually saying. [Former Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid has repeatedly said that he keeps getting misquoted. He does not in fact believe that there is any wreckage. Moreover, all of the supposed alien metal that has ever been seen in public and tested turned out not to have extraterrestrial composition. The only tests that were made publicly available indicated that the alleged alien metals were in fact industrial waste. This has happened several times over the decades, going all the way back to 1947.What we need to do as science educators, journalists and historians is to educate the public — not necessarily on the specifics of each and every case but on the rules of evidence, the burden of proof and how experts come to an understanding of what something is or what it could be. That's a difficult task. It's a lot easier to say, "Could be aliens," or "Maybe not aliens," than to say, "There are a range of possibilities. Some are more likely than others. We base our conclusions on a preponderance of evidence and so on." That is complicated and hard, and it does not fit in a 30-second soundbite.The Pentagon report on UFOs is probably going to be sufficiently vague. People are going to see what they want to see in it. What do you do with that moment when you read the same report and conclude that there is no proof of alien visitations, and true believers conclude the opposite? In essence, true believers will default to the script that lack of sufficient evidence is in fact proof of the conspiracy.I wish there were a good answer for that. But unfortunately, what you suggest is likely going to be the outcome. People will see in the report what they want to see, and it will just move on to the next stage of the conspiracy. This is what happened with all previous government reports that found no evidence of space aliens and no UFO threat. The UFO community will take that as more fuel for their belief system. They'll look for ways to spin it into a focus for a new round of conspiracy theories, a new round of demands for disclosure and research, and a new round of accusations that the government is hiding the truth.Perhaps the most devastating answer of all is that the government doesn't actually have the truth, because government is made up of people, and people have many different belief systems and ideas. You will find people in government who believe that flying saucers and UFOs are alien spacecraft. You will find people in government who think that they're Satan's minions and could provoke the forces of hell. You will find people who believe that flying saucers are nothing but optical illusions and misidentified drones and weather phenomena. Just because the government says something does not give it the weight of holy writ. The government and its reports are the work of people, and as such are fallible.The New York Times preview of the report's content seems to suggest that the government will say that they don't know in some cases — but that's been the case for the last 70-some years. Each and every report has said that there are a number of UFO cases that cannot be explained. Being unexplained doesn't mean they're unexplainable, it means that we don't have the knowledge or the information to make a determination right now, and maybe not ever.Sometimes you have to live in the ambiguity and to understand that the preponderance of evidence is sometimes the best that we can do. Science, after all, isn't a complete description of the entirety of existence. It is the best description we have at any one time, and sometimes you just have to live with the fact that there are going to be some things that don't quite fit in, some things that it may take years or lifetimes to fully investigate and understand.So far, we haven't had any evidence that indicates space aliens. Until one of those space aliens decides to let us see a flying saucer and the aliens waving inside, we're going to have to go with the best evidence that we have and the preponderance of evidence and what it indicates.</div><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/fox-news-tucker-carlson-horrifies-viewers-with-a-message-disturbingly-similar-to-a-white-supremacist-slogan/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Fox News' Tucker Carlson horrifies viewers with a message ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/tucker-carlson-capitol-riot/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Fox News' Tucker Carlson faces blowback after defending the ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/tucker-carlson-2653418577/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Experts slam Tucker Carlson's baffling suggestion that the FBI is ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/20/business/media/tucker-carlson.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Tucker Carlson Calls Journalists 'Animals.' He's Also Their Best ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.adl.org/news/media-watch/adl-letter-to-fox-news-condemns-tucker-carlsons-impassioned-defense-of-great" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">ADL Letter to Fox News Condemns Tucker Carlson's Impassioned ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/16/tucker-carlsons-tinfoil-hat-theory-blaming-fbi-jan-6/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Tucker Carlson's baseless conspiracy theory that FBI 'organized' Jan ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div>
</div><div>=</div></div><div>
<div>===</div><div>
</div><div>sounds like TP ~ BO? // gop base shrink an 621
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/demographics-of-trump-supporters/">
</a></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/demographics-of-trump-supporters/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/demographics-of-trump-supporters/</a></div><div>
</div><div>cdv</div><div>
<div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653260577"><div class="body-description">Five months ago, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/05/31/our-first-memorial-day-since-trumps-coup-is-america-ready-to-move-forward--or-stuck-in-reverse/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">supporters of Donald Trump attempted a coup</a> to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/02/republicans-have-a-dream-the-end-of-democracy-and-the-return-of-jim-crow/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election</a>, launching a lethal attack on the U.S. Capitol. Since then, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/04/14/right-wing-propaganda-is-annihilating-the-truth-about-jan-6--democrats-must-fight-back/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">the

Republican Party has chosen to try to erase or rewrite the story of

what happened that day, in order to conceal its culpability</a>. Public opinion polls and other research show that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/29/philosopher-jason-stanley-fascisms-definitely-not-beaten--but-theres-reason-for-hope/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">the Republican Party's war on the truth</a> about Jan. 6 — and reality more generally — is working. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/24/republicans-2020-election-poll-trump-biden" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">A majority of Republicans actually believe that the election was "stolen"</a>.

A not insignificant number of Republicans also believe that the events

of Jan. 6 either did not occur or were somehow crimes committed by

antifa or Black Lives Matter activists as part of a plot to "discredit"

Donald Trump.In the months since Trump's supporters attacked the Capitol, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-arrests-latest-2021-06-01/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">what have we learned about them</a>? To this point, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/most-arrests-capitol-riots-misdemeanor-225235647.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">510 people have been charged with crimes</a>

for their participation in the Capitol attack, and 130 of those have

been charged with assaulting, or otherwise causing harm to police or

employees at the Capitol. Out of those 130 defendants, 40 have been

charged with using deadly or dangerous weapons or causing serious bodily

harm. Several dozen of those who raided the Capitol that day have been

charged with conspiracy, and three defendants have also been charged

with terrorism.At least 62 members of right-wing paramilitary organizations and street gangs were among <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/02/16/republican-party-is-now-a-terrorist-organization--and-none-of-this-is-a-surprise/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump's attack force on Jan. 6</a>.

Some of those present that day did in fact have serious plans to

capture and kill Vice President Mike Pence and prominent Democrats such

as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Many of Trump's foot soldiers believe

that they are "patriots" who were following his direct commands to

overthrow the results of the 2020 election and keep him in power. Dozens

of active-duty and retired military and police also participated in the

attack on the Capitol. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/10/the-capitol-attack-white-supremacist-terrorism-meets-evangelical-christianity/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Right-wing

propaganda media, the antisemitic QAnon conspiracy cult, and white

right-wing churches and other extremist groups played an outsized role

in radicalizing Trump's supporters</a> — which in turn led to the Capitol attack. Trump's

attack force was not exclusively "working class." It also included

middle- and upper-class white people from all parts of the country — not

just "red states" — who have been radicalized by racist fears of

somehow being "replaced" by nonwhites.Robert Pape, a political scientist and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/06/capitol-insurrection-arrests-cpost-analysis/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recently discussed the demographics of the Capitol assault</a> in the Washington Post:<blockquote>

The charges have, so far, been generally in proportion to state and

county populations as a whole. Only Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and

Montana appear to have sent more protesters to D.C. suspected of crimes

than their populations would suggest.

Nor were these

insurrectionists typically from deep-red counties. Some 52 percent are

from blue counties that Biden comfortably won. But by far the most

interesting characteristic common to the insurrectionists' backgrounds

has to do with changes in their local demographics: Counties with the

most significant declines in the non-Hispanic White population are the

most likely to produce insurrectionists who now face charges.
 </blockquote> In an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article for the Atlantic, Pape provides further context</a>: <blockquote>

[T]he demographic profile of the suspected Capitol rioters is different

from that of past right-wing extremists. The average age of the

arrestees we studied is 40. Two-thirds are 35 or older, and 40 percent

are business owners or hold white-collar jobs. Unlike the stereotypical

extremist, many of the alleged participants in the Capitol riot have a

lot to lose. They work as CEOs, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, IT

specialists, and accountants. Strikingly, court documents indicate that

only 9 percent are unemployed. Of the earlier far-right-extremist

suspects we studied, 61 percent were under 35, 25 percent were

unemployed, and almost none worked in white-collar occupations.

 </blockquote>In total, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/02/01/after-trump-the-crisis-white-america-at-the-historical-crossroads/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump's

loyalists who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 represent a wide swath of

American life. Those same people also collectively embody so much of

what is broken in America</a>.One dominant narrative about the

rise of Trumpism is that it reflects a type of "working class" revolt,

in which the feeling (and the reality) of economic precarity made

Trump's fake populism seem like a viable solution to the country's

problems. But such claims often obscure as much as they reveal about the

rise of American neofascism and Trump's enduring power over his

political cult members.Research shows that the <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">median household income of Trump's voters is around $72,000 a year</a>

— significantly higher than the median household income in the United

States as a whole. Other research shows that white supremacy, racial

resentment and a desire to protect white privilege are the central or

perhaps principal values and beliefs that motivate Trump's followers. Many

members of the white upper class and rich voted for Donald Trump for

reasons of personal financial self-interest (i.e., greed). Other

Trumpists were attracted to his movement for ideological reasons such as

a belief that America's secular democracy should be replaced by a

Christian fascist autocracy.One of the main rebuttals against a

simple claim that working-class angst and rage was the swamp that

birthed Trumpism is the fact that Black and brown members of the working

class (and poor) overwhelmingly rejected Trump in both 2016 and 2020. In

an attempt to better understand these complex relationships between

race, class, Trumpism and the events of Jan. 6, I recently spoke with

Arlie Russell Hochschild. She is a professor emerita of sociology at the

University of California, Berkeley, and the author of nine books, of

which the most recent is "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781620973493" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right</a>."In

this conversation, Hochschild explains how a group she describes as

"the elite of the left behind" are Donald Trump's real base of support.

She discusses how Trump exploited feelings of shame, failure,

entitlement and fear among the white working class to win them over to

his fake populist movement. Hochschild also shares her thoughts on the

Jan. 6 attack, which she sees not merely as an attempt to overthrow the

results of the 2020 election but an attack on the idea of democracy

itself. Given the Age of Trump, his coup attempt and the

Capitol attack, along with the myriad of other things he has wrought,

how are you feeling?I'm anxious. Was Jan. 6 a planned

coup? Yes, I see it as definitely planned. But was it intended to kill

people? I feel like it was a mixed event in that regard. Part of what

happened that day was Donald Trump putting on a type of reality TV show.

People were dressed in horns, for example. It was entertainment. The

events of Jan. 6 were a type of assault — not just on people and

property but on the very seriousness of democracy itself. So I had a

double reaction. It was killing something, but what was it killing? It

was killing a culture of faith in government and respect for civil

servants.You are absolutely right that there were mixed

elements at work among Trump's attackers. But they did have a core group

of people who were screaming that they wanted to kill Mike Pence,

senior Democrats and others they targeted as enemies. If Trump's attack

force had been successful and killed enough congresspeople, a quorum

would have been impossible. I believe that was Trump and his

co-conspirators' plan, to create enough death and chaos to declare

martial law. How did you make sense of the obvious rage shown by that

mob?
The people who voted for Donald Trump did so for

a variety of reasons. There were those who voted for him because of

taxes or social issues, guns or being "pro-life." Others because they

liked Trump's bravado. Some because they feel a generalized sense of

decline. Some Trump people supported him because of racism. I think that

the dominant group of Trump voters are people I would call "the elite

of the left behind." These are not the abject poor. However, they are

not rich either.They're rural or small-town and white. They sense

themselves as being part of a declining part of society. I believe such

feelings are also global with right-wing populism, as seen in response

to such issues as race and immigration. Fear and anger is displaced onto

scapegoated groups.But the group that's doing such things here

in the United States specifically are the "elite of the left behind."

Going back to 1970, there are winners and losers to globalization and

the winners are generally coastal and more cosmopolitan and better

educated. They can have jobs that are not as vulnerable to being

automated or off-shored.These losers from globalization consist

of different kinds of people. But the people who are mobilized are the

elites of that group. I remember going to a Trump rally in a bus. This

was in New Orleans, with a member of the Tea Party who I had gotten to

know and who I was following around for my research. On the bus, people

were saying, "Oh! Look how many of us there are! We're all for Trump!"

Trump has mobilized them. He's pulled them together. He's gotten them to

see each other.And here is how I believe race is operative. The

white Trump supporters I met actually see themselves as some type of

minority group: "We're being put down. We are being prejudiced against.

They call us rednecks and hillbillies."The Age of Trump

is a story of emotions. One of the main emotional beats is that Trumpism

is a response to a declining sense of social capital on the part of his

followers. The folks that I got to know around Lake

Charles, Louisiana, go to church once or twice a week and they know each

other. They are the ones who stayed. Black people have left the

community. The highly educated entrepreneurs and other change-makers

have left too. We see lots of rage on the television from these

communities. But there are other emotions at play as well. We need to

discuss shame. This is a group that is ashamed of itself. This is partly

the fault of American Individualism. If you're doing well, you take

credit for it. If you're failing, that's your fault and you feel

ashamed. That is connected to being part of the economy and community

that is vulnerable to offshoring, which is part of a more general story

of the American Rust Belt.These people are not doing as well as

their fathers, which is the classic male comparison to make in terms of

the American Dream. They are supposed to be doing better than their

parents did, but they are not.In many ways the data shows that

class differences cut deeper than they did 20 or 30 years ago. In 1970,

if you had a B.A. or you did not, it didn't make too much difference in

terms of the likelihood that you're married, that you're staying

married, that you're living with the mother of your children, that

you're coaching basketball, that you're going to church, and that you're

employed. Those things were pretty similar whether a person had a B.A.

degree or not.But now a B.A. degree has an entire biography

attached to it in terms of what it means and represents. Now a person

without a B.A. may have a narrative where they are living with their

third partner. They lost custody of the kids. Their grandparents or

parents are taking care of them.Another version of this story

sees you having a hard time kicking an addiction. You're out of the

labor force. You're selling drugs. You've got a little bit of jail time.

You're ashamed. This isn't a story just of deprivation or whining about

deprivation; it is a story of loss and shame.Many of these

people I spoke to are feeling a sense of loss. They're feeling shame

because they are not doing as good as their father and grandfather and

the era they harken back to. Donald Trump has brilliantly exploited such

feelings and presented himself as an answer to that shame.Here

is how Trump accomplishes it. Trump does something outrageous. For

example, he says, "Mexicans are rapists." Then the press and punditry

will say, "You can't say that! It is outrageous!" The mainstream news

media shames Trump and then he rages at the shamers.I believe

that there is something cathartic there for the "elite of the left

behind," a group that is right-leaning. It is about getting rid of

shame, almost like going to confession at Catholic church. Trump's

followers love him for that. They are proud to "make America great

again," and that includes "Make you and your class and your race great

again" as well.The "elite of the left behind," as you

describe them are not poor people. As we know from research Trump's

supporters have a median household income of about $73,000 a year. These

are not poor people. How and why do they believe they have been "left

behind"?Among the 47 percent of people who voted for

Trump, some of them are just really rich and wanted to cut their taxes

more. They want to get richer. But the people that I talked to, who I

consider "the elite of the left behind," are not rich. They're not even

upper middle class. These people are middle and lower middle class.With

these intersections of whiteness, class and social capital there is

also a deep anxiety that somehow they will "slip down" America's

hierarchy and be equal with or perhaps (in their minds) below Black

people.
I believe that is correct. They feel very

similar to how they imagine poor Black people to be, and they are afraid

of that: "Now it's our turn. This is going to happen to us." In one of

the chapters of my book, I examined the position of poor whites as being

wedged between rich whites and black people. They think the only way

out is to identify up to the other white people. That is the psychology

at work. It happened in the plantation South and it is still here in the

21st century.What are your thoughts about the book

"Hillbilly Elegy"? I have heard many people speak about your book

"Strangers in Their Own Land" with "Hillbilly Elegy" literally in the

same conversation. I found the praise for "Hillbilly Elegy" very much

unwarranted.I didn't have that response to the book. I

took "Hillbilly Elegy" to be a type of fairy tale. It's a kind of a

rags-to-riches narrative. It has the structure of "I was a born of an

addict, which means I was born psychologically poor, I had one dad after

another." That means there was no steady male figure in the picture.

That is the "rags" part of the narrative. Then the narrative becomes "I

had a steady partner who was a Supreme Court law clerk, and I will be a

better person than I came from." At its heart, "Hillbilly Elegy" really

is a psychological rags-to-riches story.There remains so

much superficial writing and other coverage of and about the so-called

white working class in the mainstream news media, especially among the

pundit class and political reporters. To your eyes, what did they get

wrong?They're listening through a hardened shell. It

takes emotional labor to disarm your deep moral and political alarm

system and permit yourself a great deal of genuine curiosity about

people who you see as some type of Other. That's hard work to do. You

have to do it purposefully. That's what I think many people can't do. If

one feels like the person in front of you would attack you under normal

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                        <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/05/us-election-demographics-race-gender-age-biden-trump" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">US voter demographics: election 2020 ended up looking a lot like ... ›</a></font>
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    </div></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===<br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/scholar-explains-how-the-conservative-movement-transmits-sanitized-versions-of-white-supremacist-ideology/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/scholar-explains-how-the-conservative-movement-transmits-sanitized-versions-of-white-supremacist-ideology/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">paul r salon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the longest sustained period of racial justice protests in American history segues into the heat of election season, dark shadows have appeared, from the vigilante</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/08/26/two-killed-in-kenosha-protest-over-jacob-blake-shooting-as-armed-militia-descends-to-defend-stores/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>killing of protesters</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in Kenosha, Wisconsin — and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/01/trump-and-his-allies-are-redefining-right-wing-violence-as-self-defense--thats-dangerous/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>widespread conservative defenses</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">of the teenage accused murderer — to ludicrous</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/08/27/black-lives-matter-protesters-terrorism-felony-charges/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>charges against protesters, including "terrorism,"</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to the Trump administration's</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/10/the-trump-regime-defends-racism-for-once-theyre-being-honest/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>crackdown on federal antiracism training</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, calling it "anti-American," and Attorney General Bill Barr's call for</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/17/right-wing-talk-about-sedition-and-the-insurrection-act-has-one-purpose-stealing-the-election/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>protesters to be charged with sedition</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So much for the notions that Donald Trump has no ideology, or, for that matter, that getting rid of him will make America great again. In July of 2016, I wrote about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/07/16/donald_trumps_weaponized_platform_a_project_three_decades_in_the_making/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>why such views were myopic</u></a>: "Trump advances core paleoconservative positions," researcher Bruce Wilson told me, including "rebuilding infrastructure, protective tariffs, securing borders and stopping immigration, neutralizing designated internal enemies and isolationism."</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's record as president has been surprisingly consistent for such an erratic figure, with his purely rhetorical support for infrastructure as the most notable exception. And therein lies a key to the current moment:<b>&nbsp;With infrastructure removed from the equation — the most broadly popular position Trump's ever embraced — the remaining white nationalism stands out in stark relief, highlighted in the frenzied push toward violent confrontation around the election, and beyond.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dr. James Scaminaci III has just published a report about the long historical genesis of this recent push for</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Political Research Associates, "<a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2020/08/31/battle-bullet-advancing-vision-civil-war" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Battle With Bullets: Advancing a Vision of Civil War</u></a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">." Scaminaci has a PhD in sociology from Stanford and has worked as a civilian intelligence analyst with expertise on the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and organized crime. So the spread of social chaos, internecine violence and associated enabling ideologies is a subject he's familiar with.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Scaminaci traces the roots of culture-war and race-war narratives as far back as the&nbsp;<b>Haitian revolution of the early 19th century.&nbsp;He observes that Steve Bannon nurtured those carefully at Breitbart News and they have played a key role in radicalizing Trump's base over the past five years, to the point where some of his supporters are visibly preparing themselves for violence.</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some parts of this story have been relatively well covered, but Scaminaci provides a much more integrated and historically extensive account of how we reached our present state. I reached out to him recently for an interview by email to discuss some of his key insights and how they provide us with a much clearer picture of the forces pushing America toward civil war. The following has been lightly edited for clarity and length.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In your article, you write: "Over the last several years, a narrative around the threat of civil war — and more specifically, a racial civil war — has been growing on the Right." You observe that this comes in different versions and has deep historical roots, dating back to the colonial era. Before getting into the details, why is it important to recognize this history and learn about it?</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">I wanted to convey that what we are seeing now on the right wing has a long history, a history that is either overlooked or ignored.&nbsp;<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781631496417" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jill Lepore</a>&nbsp;and other scholars looking at the right have noted that&nbsp;<b>modern day "patriots" cast themselves as lineal descendants of the founding fathers and the American Revolution — that they are revolutionaries against the existing "tyrannical" federal government. But that history is drenched in violence and blood against Black and indigenous peoples</b>. That context cannot be omitted. And the idea that whites are under existential threat from Black folks also needs to be put into historical context.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Second, the right-wing idea that the federal government is "tyrannical" is largely the product of white supremacist politicians, both Republican and Democratic, and intellectuals like William F. Buckley. This was the idea that&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">post-World War II federal support for civil rights was</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;federal overreach</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, was unconstitutional</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, and that it upset allegedly harmonious race relations in the South and eventually in the North.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to white supremacists, the existential threat to white people in the Jim Crow South came from Black folks, whether children or adults, even touching anything that could be shared with whites. A schoolbook touched by a Black child became a Black textbook. Blacks and whites could not share drinking fountains or sit in the same seats on a bus.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What I wanted to portray in "Battle With Bullets" is that whites have long viewed any expression of nonviolent Black agency as an existential threat to themselves that required whites to resort to a brutal, genocidal racial civil war.</b>&nbsp;One can understand the palpable fear of a slave revolt before 1861. But white supremacists have claimed that registering to vote, voting, moving into a white neighborhood after a history of redlining, moving into managerial or foreman positions in the workplace, or being cast as heroes or superheroes are</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;existential threats.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You write that "The most dangerous versions of that [civil war] narrative come from leaders with paramilitary forces, while other appeals seem intended to generate a heightened sense of crisis." Can you give an example of each and then help us understand how the two are related?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Roger Stone is a political operative who has graduated from ratfucking political operations into calling for a civil war or violence or martial law. He is an ideological chaos agent. He can help set the narrative mood for the right wing</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/bio/chip-berlet" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Chip Berlet</a>&nbsp;has written, elites know how to write the score for scripted violence. Somehow, the gunmen always know who to kill. In a similar category are the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">numerous&nbsp;<b>Christian right leaders&nbsp;</b>who broadcast the same civil war message to their Christian nationalist supporters and followers. I also quoted [Dallas megachurch pastor]&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/10/01/what-robert-jeffress-meant-when-he-said-removing-trump-would-cause-civil-war-like-fracture/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Robert Jeffress</a>&nbsp;in the article.</span></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/american-exceptionalism-has-to-die-david-neiwert-on-the-rise-of-the-far-right" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">David Neiwert</a>&nbsp;owns the beat on tracking the transmission of fringe ideas to the conservative mainstream. Even a decade before Trump, the ideological lines were blurring.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2008,<b>&nbsp;Michael Savage</b>, a right-wing radio host, said, "[T]he white person is being erased from America's future. ... There is a racial element to the immigration invasion." Then&nbsp;<b>Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly claimed, "So now, it's becoming a race war."&nbsp;</b>The&nbsp;<a href="https://doscentavos.net/2008/05/07/cap-hate-radios-bigotry-against-hispanics/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Center for American Progress</u></a>&nbsp;went on to note tha</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">t O'Reilly claimed that immigration reformers "hate America ... because it's run primarily by&nbsp;<b>white, Christian men</b>" and were seeking "to change the complexion...of America."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That is no different from Jean Raspail's theme in "</span><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/miller-pushed-racist-camp-saints-beloved-far-right" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Camp of the Saints</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" or the narrative at&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0804/article_756.shtml" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Social Contract, a white nationalist journal</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;which published Raspail's novel.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Or Glenn Beck on Fox News in February 2009, airing his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/02/22/fox-news-war-games-coming-civil-war" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>racial civil war scenario</u></a>&nbsp;within one month of the first Black president taking office</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Or a variety of&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Christian Right leaders&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">during the Obama years calling for or suggesting a racial civil war is coming, including&nbsp;</span></b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/perkins-if-scotus-legalizes-gay-marriage-it-could-lead-to-revolution/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Tony Perkins</u></a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/klayman-revolution-black-muslim-obama" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Larry Klayman</u></a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/joyner-get-ready-second-american-revolution" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Rick Joyner</u></a>.</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted the "<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2006/rising-anti-immigrant-sentiments-draw-extremist-elements-issue" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>symbiotic dance</u></a>" between white supremacist groups and&nbsp;<b><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/john-tanton" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">John Tanton's hardline anti-immigration movement</a>, as well as the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/small-number-patriot-groups-still-cause-big-problems" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>sharing of conspiracy narratives</u></a>&nbsp;between white supremacists and the "patriot" militia movement.</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conservative movement, both the political and religious wings, transmit sanitized versions of white supremacist ideology. The latter is premised on preparing for, if not instigating, a racial civil war in America.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Jackson, a scholar who covers "scientific" racism, in a recent article titled, "<a href="https://altrightorigins.com/2017/09/20/going-full-nazi/#more-6413" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Going Full Nazi</u></a>,"asked the question: "[W]hat is the point of drawing a line between the 'mainstream' and the 'alt' right? Perhaps there is no useful distinction to be made." The angry white guys with guns are dangerous because they have weapons of war. But the dividing line between them and the "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/07/05/how_4th_generation_warfare_helps_to_explain_the_rise_of_donald_trump/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Fourth Generation Warfare</a>" chaos agents creating a crisis of legitimacy is increasingly blurred.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You write that this rhetoric is rooted in a narrative adapted from the<b>&nbsp;1973 French novel you just mentioned, "The Camp of the Saints."</b>&nbsp;Can you explain its basic narrative?</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The novel has seven key ideas</b>&nbsp;that its critics and proponents have noted.</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;One, mass migration is an invasion. Two, immigrants and refugees are invaders. Three, the invaders will eventually destroy Western culture and replace Western populations.</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Four, the West's political elites do not have the moral strength to defend the West. Five, the invaders must be physically removed and/or violently repelled. Six, there is a difference between the "real country" and "real citizens" and the "legal country" and "legal citizens." Seven, multiracial, multiethnic or multi-confessional societies are not only unstable but undesirable, and lead to the "balkanization" of societies — a view also imported from Serbian genocidal propaganda into the American and global right.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The main variations within this "Camp of the Saints" worldview are whether the political elites lack moral strength to resist the invasions ("Great Replacement"), enact immoral policies which&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">weaken Western societies to invasion ("</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">demographic winter")&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">or actively collaborate with the governments of the invading migrants to facilitate the invasion (as in John Tanton's network). The other variation distinguishes the neo-Nazis from all the other segments: whether or not the Jews are responsible for the destruction of their societies ("white genocide").</span></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">You note that for both France and the United States, the historical roots of this narrative go back to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/haitian-revolution-1791-1804/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804</a>. In the U.S. this has produced the "white genocide theory" and in France the "great replacement" theory. What distinguishes them and what draws them together?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The "white genocide" theory is premised on the fear of a Black slave revolt against the white slave-owning society. The "great replacement" theory is based on the fear of massive nonwhite immigration coupled with lower white birth rates leading to a "replacement" of the white population with a nonwhite population, and the transformation of the culture.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White supremacists use the more palatable, more sanitized "great replacement" theory interchangeably and conflate them. But they have different causal mechanisms.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On the other hand, the neo-Nazis and other proponents of the "white genocide" narrative consider&nbsp;<em>any</em>&nbsp;action by Black people to improve themselves, to gain access to privileged white spheres of social action or to more equitably redistribute power and status as an existential threa</b>t. "Great replacement" proponents do not share this outlook. Nor do "great replacement" proponents, in general, blame Jews for what they consider to be massive immigration.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You write, "It would be a mistake to see these various 'White Replacement' narratives as isolated from mainstream conservative thought in Europe or America." How has their influence spread through terrorist acts?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the right-wing information sphere, ideas swirl around, mix, recombine and mutate over time to fit changing circumstances. Raspail's "Camp of the Saints" is foundational to this narrative or worldview. Raspail directly influenced the emergence and popularity of the "great replacement" theory, which is the catchall theory cited by white terrorists.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But&nbsp;<a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190877583.001.0001/oso-9780190877583-chapter-11" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bat Ye'or's conception of the problem</a>&nbsp;— that European elites conspire with Arab elites to produce both subservience to Islam and the "great replacement" — directly influenced the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/04/19/breivik_product_of_the_internet/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik</a>, who was motivated to provoke a decades-long civil war to stop the formation of what Ye'or called "Eurabia." Breivik, as well as the "great replacement" narrative, have inspired numerous white terrorist acts around the globe.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Returning to the American context, How did Steve Bannon and Breitbart spread their influence?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>Bannon'</b>s principal contribution was to use Breitbart News to mix white supremacist ideology into the Republican Party and the Christian Right, and to heavily promote Raspail's "Camp of the Saints." In 2015 and 2016, Breitbart was the largest driver of ideological influence on the righ</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">t.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How has this spread through the Trump administration?</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The "Camp of the Saints" worldview largely shapes Stephen Miller's approach to immigration issues. Raspail's bottom line was that "the barbarians had to be repelled" either by violence or cruelty or both. Trump's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/09/trump-cruelty-is-point-its-actually-worse-than-that/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>immigration policy has been cruel</u></a>, and as Adam Serwer noted, "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>cruelty is the point</u></a>."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You also call attention to the Christian right's specific variant called "demographic winter," and argue that this has played a central role in evangelical support for Trump and his wall. What should people know about that?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The term "demographic winter" appears to have come from Don Feder, communications director of the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/world-congress-families" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">World Congress of Families</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;[a far-right, anti-LGBT Christian group]</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. He is the most prominent WCF official&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0402/article_309.shtml" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>linked to the Tanton</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0804/article_760.shtml" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>anti-immigration network</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and was apparently influenced by Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" ideas, which circulate widely in conservative and right-wing Jewish circles.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November 2005, Feder's view of Muslims in France reflected the worldview of Raspail and other "Eurabia" writers. Feder blamed the French riots of that year on "<a href="http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1531895/posts" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>demographic winter</u></a>," "lax immigration policies" and "brain-dead multiculturalism." Where "demographic winter" differs from Raspail, the "great replacement" and the Eurabia narratives is that liberal elite support for women's reproductive freedom and gay marriage are the principal culprits, in addition to massive Muslim immigration.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">What resonates with conservative Christians and Christian nationalists is the idea that Christian (Western) civilization is under threat from nonwhite immigration, Christians are being persecuted in the West and around the world, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/02/walls-around-trump-are-crumbling-evangelicals-may-be-his-last-resort/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>only a strong, authoritarian leader building a wall can save them</u></a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Survey data supports my contention that white evangelical Protestants have a "Camp of the Saints" worldview: Seventy-eight percent favor strict limits on "legal immigration," 76% favor "building a [border] wall," 69% support a "temporary" Muslim ban and, 54% favor "preventing refugees from coming into the United States," according to October 2019 PRRI data.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The last section of your article deals with the emergence of the "<b>Boogaloo boys"&nbsp;</b>during the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. How can we better understand them in terms of the longer history you've laid out? What lessons need to be learned?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The first lesson to be learned is that Donald Trump and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/20/matt-shea-rightwing-messages-chat-records" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>local elected</u></a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/23/1852607/-Rep-Matt-Shea-defends-his-ties-to-far-right-extremists-by-linking-to-white-nationalist-website" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Republican</u></a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/01/republican-matt-shea-rightwing-rally-guns" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>officials</u></a>, especially the so-called "constitutional sheriffs," have a much closer relationship to the armed wing of the Christian right.&nbsp;</span><a href="https://4thgenwar.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/a-short-history-of-public-trump-campaign-ties-to-the-cspoa/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>Bruce Wilson</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/8/1975970/-Trump-caravan-in-Oregon-deliberately-blurs-lines-between-mainstream-GOP-and-extremist-right" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>David Neiwert</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;have been&nbsp;</span><a href="https://twitter.com/brucewilson/status/1122460753875935232" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><u>tracking that</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second lesson is that&nbsp;<b>Trump is openly orchestrating armed demonstrations of force against Democratic Party governors and mayors.</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The third lesson is that it is very easy to take off your camouflage fatigues and put on a Hawaiian shirt and pretend you just got concerned — but not before you spent around $2,000 on a rifle, tactical gear and ammunition. Journalists should stop being so credulous.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The last lesson is that claims that the "patriot" militia support Black Lives Matter protests are preposterous. The BLM protests are not simply about wrongful deaths at the hands of law enforcement — something a majority of whites can see and empathize with.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BLM is calling for reckoning, a "Third Reconstruction" of America — politically, economically and culturally — in the context of a deliberate confrontation with that racist, violent history. Even at the intellectual level of the&nbsp;<b>"Never Trumpers," those potentially most sympathetic to BLM, there is a blindness or an inability to confront that larger American history and the smaller Republican Party history regarding racism.</b>&nbsp;To think that "angry white men with guns" have thought it through is absurd.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What's the most important question I haven't asked? And what's the answer?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I do not know the answer to the question: "Why do scholars and journalists not consider the religious basis of America's long-term crisis of legitimacy in terms of politics and science?" But I would suggest that&nbsp;<b>scholars and journalists have glommed on to the least important of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/11/richard-hofstadters-tradition/377296/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Richard Hofstadter's</a>&nbsp;explanations, "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780307388445" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Paranoid Style in American Politics</a>," and ignored his more trenchant analysis in "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780394703176" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Anti-Intellectualism in American Life</a>," which focuses on the epistemological disruption caused by fundamentalist Protestantism. They also ignore Marty Lipset's and Earl Raab's use of the concept of monism in describing the right wing in "<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Politics_of_Unreason.html?id=wQS4AAAACAAJ" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Politics of Unreason</a>." Those old guys were on to something.</b></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div>