secede rebel separate

i thought i already had a node

merri ok

see polarization/ demonization

also maga 3rd party a kind of secession? see kelly newsmax

see rw violence civil war stoked by border BS 1 24

secession --> dog whistle for violent civil war:

see MTG

overton window shifts?

east wash --> idaho?

// brexit?

ALBERTA CANADA ALTA TEJAS

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ALSO IN THE NEWS:Oregon counties vote ‘yes’ on secession from state: report

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AN 3 26

For many years, Canada and the United States — both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949 — were close allies and trading partners. But U.S./Canada relations took a turn for the worse when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened its northern neighbor with steep tariffs and called for Canada to become "the 51st state" — an idea that Prime Minister Mark Carney and millions of other Canadians are adamantly against.

But in an article published by The New Republic on March 2, Ottawa, Ontario-based journalist John Last details MAGA efforts to exploit separatists in Canada's Alberta province.

Last explains, "Recent months have seen the escalation of a brazen campaign by separatists in the oil-rich province of Alberta to dismember the country and lease its resources to an expansionist American regime, with direct support from officials in the U.S. government…. A recent push for a referendum on independence has achieved unprecedented success, in no small part due to tacit support from the Trump-aligned provincial government."

Last notes that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith "was one of the first Canadian officials to kiss the ring of Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and has long tested the limits of her powers to pursue his crusades and causes at home."

Duane Bratt, who teaches at Mount Royal University in Alberta, told The New Republic, "Since the moment Alberta became a province (in 1905), there's been a movement to separate…. There is an ideological alignment with Trump. On gun rights, climate change, trans rights, renewable energy, wokeness.… it's all consistent with American right-wing movements."

Patrick Lennox, a former intelligence officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told The New Republic, "There's a real national security threat there. This is the perfect scenario for foreign interference."

Lennox views as the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as a "warning shot" for Canada and other countries rich in resources.

"The Trump Administration's crusade against Canada may have deeper causes," Last explains. "Figures like Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, who has explicitly compared Canada to Ukraine, see Canada as a bastion of decadent liberalism in the West that must be broken and subdued, one way or another."

---

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an 1 24

Representative Marjorie Greene Taylor (R-GA) has pitched the idea of a "national divorce" between red and blue states as a solution to policy disagreements between Republicans and Democrats — regarding issues ranging from the border crisis to COVID vaccinations.

The Georgia lawmaker has also been one of the most vocal GOP leaders calling for the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — despite "no current evidence that he is corrupt."

In February 2023, she made her proposition clear, tweeting, "We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done."

In a Monday, January 29 op-ed, MSNBC political contributor Steve Benen calls on Republicans to examine the party's support of Greene — who's a member of the House Homeland Security Committee — and answer the question of whether or not it backs her repeated calls for "the dissolution of the United States."

TheRachel Maddow Show producer raises a few questions — "not rhetorical" — such as, "How comfortable are GOP leaders with one of their prominent members calling for the breaking up of our country? What are they prepared to do about it? Can Americans feel confident in the work of the House Homeland Security Committee knowing that Greene is on it — and she no longer wants to live in the same country as millions of Americans?"

Benen writes, "Basic American patriotism generally prevents elected officials from endorsing the dissolution of the United States, but we’ve reached the point in our collective history at which members of Congress can publish such messages — which would’ve sparked a genuine scandal up until fairly recently — and much of the political world shrugs, seeing it as somehow routine."

He adds that although Greene's "extremism has become predictable," Republicans' "responses to her radical vision are still relevant."

Therefore, Benen emphasizes, "House Speaker Mike Johnson and his team should let the public know whether they’re comfortable with such a dynamic — and what they’re prepared to do in response if they’re not comfortable with such a dynamic."

---

aha before any gop dirty trick ok rationalized b/c THEY dems are baby murderers; nowsecession --> dog whistle for violent civil war:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-guest-says-**secession-necessary**-because-democrats-are-so-unclean-and-are mutilating kids

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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-promotes-texas-secession-movement

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mma 3 23

Fox News is not content with knowingly lying to its audience and spreading dangerous claims in the pursuit of profit. The network is also seeking to further destabilize the country along partisan lines, as its hosts and guests are increasingly promoting various schemes like a “national divorce” to break up parts of the United States.

Last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) issued an absurd call for a “national divorce.” But Fox’s obsession with finding some way to split the country internally goes back a long way, since at least President Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012, when both Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity and the cast of Fox’s The Five responded sympathetically to fruitless secession petitions from aggrieved Republicans in states Obama did not carry.

Later, in December 2020, the network gave a friendly interview to the Texas state GOP chair who called for red states to “form a Union of states” and to push back in some unspecified manner after the Supreme Court had upheld Joe Biden’s victory and rejected the defeated President Donald Trump’s legal challenges.

More recently, the network’s on-air talent have supported efforts to split off conservative counties in California into a new state called “Jefferson.” (Fox has previously been very interested in the so-called “Calexit” movement, an ostensibly left-wing call for Californian independence, which was ironically supported by right-wing Russian dictatorVladimir Putin.)

The “national divorce”

The network is now defending Greene’s impossible proposal for what she called a “national divorce.” Last week, Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity endorsed her idea that people who move from blue states to red states should be barred from voting for five years to avoid altering the partisanship of their new home states. (It’s possible Hannity hadn’t considered the implications of such a policy, which would bar someone like himself — a New Yorker — from voting if he were to move to a Republican-controlled state.)

So far just this week, the network has supported two different internal separatist movements in the United States, in addition to Greene’s proposed “national divorce.”

“Greater Idaho”

To start with, on Monday morning one of the network’s purported “straight news” personalities openly approved of a push for Republican-voting counties in Oregon to join the Republican-dominated state of Idaho instead. After quoting an op-ed saying the plan would free “rural, conservative communities from progressive blue-state law," Fox News correspondent and overnight anchor Ashley Strohmier stated simply, “I would be OK with it.” Later that night, FoxNews.com published an article further promoting the so-called “Greater Idaho” plan.

Two days later, the Wednesday edition of Fox & Friends aired a credulous segment on the plan, interviewing Republican Idaho state Rep. Barbara Ehardt, a proponent.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt concluded the interview by pining for such right-wing separatist movements to sprout up elsewhere: “There are people in New York that would love to do this, too. Because New York City’s so liberal, but the fringe area is not at all. So, it does affect elections."

[vid]

in 2022, the “Greater Idaho” movement was given the level of attention and analysis it actually deserves from legitimate news outlets: *The Daily Show the scheme, which an expert estimated could cost the state of Idaho $10-15 billion.

“Buckhead City”

Fox has also taken up the cause of so-called “Buckhead City,” a wealthy district in Atlanta where some activists have sought for years to separate from the city and form their own municipality. On Monday, a committee in the Republican-controlled state Senate advanced a bill that would allow Buckhead to separate. The bill must still pass through a full vote in the state Senate, separate passage in the state House, and be signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

Greene appeared again with Hannity on Tuesday night’s show, during which the two further discussed her “national divorce” proposals, and Greene declared that conservatives “want our own safe space, and we deserve it.” Hannity then brought up the Buckhead case, which Greene of course supported.

[vid]

HANNITY (HOST): What would you say about cases like we see counties in Oregon wanting to join Idaho? We see Buckhead — I used to live in Georgia for four years, where you are — and Buckhead wants to separate, for example, from Atlanta, have their own police department, their own government. So you have these examples where people want to join up with another state or another county or another town. Should they have the right to do that?

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Absolutely. Don’t we believe in freedom in America? Isn’t that what America is all about? It’s the -- it’s the people and their choices, and the freedom to do so. I’m a huge supporter of Buckhead City.

Then on Wednesday’s edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host interviewed the volunteer CEO of the Buckhead secession committee. Carlson declared that the neighborhood’s push for separation “really is a test of democracy,” rhetorically asking, “Since when did democracy become so unfashionable? I thought everyone was in favor of democracy. What happened?” (Carlson has a prolific record of spreading conspiracy theories about the January 6 insurrection, recently questioned the legitimacy of American democracy, and has made various pronouncements about which groups of people shouldn’t be allowed to vote.)

Carlson concluded the interview by wishing the group success and calling for more such separatist movements: “So if you win this, I think it will be a sign for towns across the country: You don’t have to be managed into the ground by criminals who hate you. You can run your own affairs. It’s democracy."

[vid]

fox gave the Buckhead push more promotion Thursday morning, with Fox & Friends hosting local talk radio host MalaniKai Massey, who is also a Buckhead resident.

Co-host Ainsley Earhardt mentioned briefly at the start of the segment that Kemp was “throwing cold water on the proposal, questioning its legality,” a topic that she did not revisit in any major detail.

Massey briefly addressed the topic, sounding a cautiously optimistic note: “Is everything on paper always going to go as planned? Absolutely not. However, you’ve got to talk to the bond people. You’ve got to talk to the attorneys, have addressed all of Gov. Kemp’s concerns that he put out yesterday.”

Earhardt concluded the interview: “I’m sure some government officials don’t like this because they’re worried other neighborhoods, your surrounding neighborhoods, will do the same thing and they’ll lose more and more money."

[vid]

the Buckhead proposal actually presents major legal and financial difficulties, with a coalition of area business groups warning on Monday that the proposal would “choke off economic development” in Buckhead itself. Then on Tuesday, Kemp’s executive counsel warned that the proposal was potentially unconstitutional for the manner in which it would seek to apportion the city of Atlanta’s public debt, and that the specter of further city break-ups could trigger the “possible widespread default” of local government bonds in Georgia. Fox’s own online reporting Thursday depicted this letter as a sign that Kemp himself had “delivered a blow” to the Buckhead City cause.

Rather than addressing the numerous problems that these Balkanization proposals would actually pose, Fox’s hosts have instead extolled the desire of conservative voters to have “their own government” in the name of “democracy,” in an attempt to declare that they shouldn’t have to live under a political system when they don’t like the majority results.

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an ah 2 23

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has set off yet another controversy — this time, by calling for GOP-dominated red states to secede from the union.

On Monday, February 20, the far-right conspiracy theorist and MAGA congresswoman tweeted, "We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done."

Some conservative Republicans were quick to call Greene out for her secessionist fantasy, including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and former Rep. Liz Cheney. Romney told the Salt Lake Tribune, "I think Abraham Lincoln dealt with that kind of insanity …. We're not going to divide the country. It's united we stand and divided we fall."

Cheney, in a February 20 tweet, posted, "Let’s review some of the governing principles of America, @mtgreenee: Our country is governed by the Constitution. You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Secession is unconstitutional. No member of Congress should advocate secession, Marjorie."

But other Republicans have remained silent. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) considers Greene an ally, and many Republicans are terrified of the possibility of being called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by former President Donald Trump and others in the far-right MAGA movement.

Greene is hardly the first Republican to make incendiary comments. But in an article published by The Hill on February 23, journalist Al Weaver stresses that she enjoys greater prominence in her party than GOP extremists of the past. Greene, Weaver notes, is a "key ally" of the House speaker, sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, and is a "possible" Donald Trump running mate if he wins the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Brian Rosenwald, a historian and scholar at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told The Hill, "There have absolutely always been gadflies in both parties who were extremists who were kind of going places that no one was comfortable with. Having an extremist in Congress is not new. Having someone willing to say insane and incendiary things (is) not really new. What I think is new …. is that here’s someone saying these things and doing these things and being embraced by leadership."

A Republican operative, interviewed on condition of anonymity, wasn’t especially troubled by Greene’s call for secession and dismissed it as a politician "just trying to stir the pot a bit."

But Rosenwald doesn't see it that way. In his view, Greene’s prominence in the GOP-controlled House shows a growing appetite for dangerous extremism in her party.

The Penn historian told The Hill, "This is the problem with how things get normalized.… Part of the problem the Republican Party has had for probably 40-plus years is they roll their eyes at the fringe of the party. These are the people who are getting more and more popular with their base, and these are the people that are getting the attention and sort of setting the agenda."

Read The Hill’s full report at this link.

===

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an 2 23 badash?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) celebrated Presidents Day by calling for red and blue states to separate in a "national divorce."

"We need a national divorce," Greene tweeted Monday morning, barely weeks after calling President Joe Biden a "liar" in the nationally-televised State of the Union. "We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this."

Greene also called Democrats "traitorous," and angrily accused them of shoving down Republicans' throats "sick and disgusting woke culture issues."

"From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat'straitorous America Last policies, we are done."

Some blasted Greene's choice to make her remarks on the national holiday, officially Washington's Birthday, some noted she sits on the Homeland Security Committee, whileothers noted blue states contribute more to the federal coffers than red states, which are more likely to be supported by blue states. (The "red" and "blue" state descriptors are not only somewhat subjective, but fluid, as Democratic voters flipped two states from red to blue and held all the others in 2022.)

One Twitter user reminded that Greene is a "key advisor" to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. Her support of the embattled McCarthy helped put the gavel in his hand, and he has pledged loyalty to her. "I will never leave that woman," McCarthy reportedly said after becoming Speaker. "I will always take care of her."

attorney, journalist, and SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah had just four words in response: "This is treasonous. Period."

Others also called it "treason," and still others "sedition."

Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect, tweeted, "remarkable how casually these people suggest literal treason."

Another Twitter user observed, "This is a member of Congress, who sits on Homeland Security Committee, calling for secession. We fought a war over this once and 160 years later the losers still can't let it go."

===

an 6 22

NO LNX

Talk of secession in Texas means political violence is already here. Thanks to SCOTUS, there will be more

Blackboard with "Texit"written on it (Shutterstock).

John Stoehr June 23, 2022

The Texas Republican Party issued its platform Monday. Among other terrible things, it called for the Lone Star State to secede from the US.[and UN]

This was met with mixed reactions from liberals. On the other hand, some said great – good riddance!On the other, some said secession would mean the abandonment of people who are already on the margins of society. As my friend, the historian Thomas Lecaque said: “Every time you say ‘let them secede,’ slap yourself in your stupid overprivileged face.”

I think there’s a third perspective.

Right-wingers know they’re winning

:{:{}:

Liberals do not, perhaps cannot, see that political violence is normal in this country. Political violence, in fact, is so ubiquitous that one could say it constitutes the political reality of the American experience. We all live inside white power. Serious challenges to it are met violently. There are always serious challenges to it. Political violence is always already normal.

Violent reactions to democracy, however, usually backfire, politically speaking, unless political conditions prevent them from backfiring.

I don’t know exactly what those conditions would be, but they surely involve polarization over the fundamentals of America – over whether it’s a white man’s country. When these conditions allow, political violence stops backfiring. First, it will be tolerated. Then, it will be encouraged.

That tells us something.

That the right-wingers are winning.

And they know it.

We have been tolerating subversive political violence since at least 2012. As I’ve argued, every shooting massacre is in one way or another part of the white-power reaction to Barack Obama’s historic twin victories.The GOP has since then gotten the public tied up in knots over the ins and outs of the Second Amendment. That’s deadlocked public opinion long enough to push political violence as a means of state-level social control.

Forward to 2022, after the J6 coup, to see the evolution from tolerating subversive political violence to encouraging overt political violence.

Indeed, as of this writing, the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will encourage more overt political violence. In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court struck down a 108-year-old New York state open carry law, saying it was too restrictive of Second Amendment rights.

Eric Greitens, a Missouri Republican running for the Senate, made an ad in which he’s holding a shotgun and inviting voters to go RINO hunting. A GOP challenger to Nevada’s Democratic attorney general reportedly told a friend: "This guy should be hanging from a fucking crane.” Couy Griffin, a rightwing organizer with influence on Donald Trump, has often said that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The former president reportedly said hanging Vice President Mike Pence wasn’t a bad idea.

All of this is to say talk of secession does not come from nothing.

There is a context. That context features the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence. We should remember that.

Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an anti-Trump Republican, said that political violence is coming. So is a sustained period of democratic instability. But we’re already in that period. We have already seen the evolution from subversive political violence to overt political violence.

That’s why the Texas GOP now formally supports secession.

Talk of secession is a consequence of political violence – especially political violence that is now working in the Republicans’ favor.

Indeed, they appear to believe political violence not only doesn’t backfire anymore – it’s now a political asset. Whatever political violence the future holds will be an expansion of overt political violence that’s already here.

Secession-talk is a sign that they know they’re winning.

Refresh liberalism

As usual, liberals missed it.

They tend to think political violence is unusual, an interruption of normal life. There’s more to this thinking than the basic human longing for peace.

Unlike rightwingers – unlike anarchists, Marxists, communists, even some progressives – liberals do not seek out conflict, because liberals do not see politics as war by other means. Politics is about problem-solving.

:{:{}:

To liberals, politics is about process, strategy and established rules and norms. And anyway, labeling peace as normal, and violence as abnormal, pits those encouraging violence against those favoring the status quo.

Which is to say, pits rightwingers against conservatives.

But in order to insist that political violence is abnormal, (white) liberals must pretend that white power is not the political reality we inhabit. By pretending white power has nothing to do with it, (white) liberals end up legitimating the status quo – which is, as I said, already politically violent.

Our precious norms won’t stop political violence.

They’re already politically violent.

Indeed, by insisting on preserving established rules and norms, liberals paper over the root problem, which is that white power constitutes our political reality. In this way, liberals, I think without meaning to, hasten rather than circumvent the destabilization of American democracy.

As I said, Kinzinger thinks that’s coming.

No, it’s here.

Liberals think they are addressing political violence. They think that by appealing to peace, law and order, they are seizing the advantage.

They aren’t.

The more they stick to “the rules,” the worse things get. Politics isn’t war by other means. It’s about problem-solving. But when liberalism’s solutions aggravate things, perhaps it’s time to refresh liberalism.

Secession, seschmession

As I said, on the one hand are those welcoming the Texas Republican Party’s support for secession. Good riddance, wrote the Post’s Dana Milbank. On the other hand are those saying no liberal should welcome such a thing, as the human tool of secession would be horrific.

Both sides are missing the political violence that has made talk of secession seem real, credible and plausible (though entirely illegal).

It’s that political violence we need to focus on.

We need to admit it’s here – that it’s been here.

And liberals need new ways of thinking about it.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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far-right secessionists want rural Oregon to become part of Idaho: report

Alex Henderson

December 25, 2021

The term “secessionist” is often used in connection with far-right extremists who want to leave the United States altogether. But journalist Antonia Hitchens, in an article published by The Atlantic on December 23, ta...

===

no lnx

Black flag: Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol

Chauncey DeVega and Salon October 12, 2021

It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply.

Trump and his followers were loud, exuberant and enthusiastic on Jan. 6. The lethal attack on the Capitol had been publicly announced weeks in advance, and should have come as no surprise. Trump's rallies and gatherings continue to celebrate violence and the prospect of revenge — and specifically of "getting even" with Trump's "enemies."

Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chairman and White House strategist, has now threatened to recruit Republican-fascist "shock troops" with the apparent goal of undermining the U.S. government, and by implication multiracial democracy, if and when Trump and the Republicans regain control of both Congress and the White House.

On a daily basis Fox News and other elements of the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine use stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence. To this point, the Democratic Party and the political and news media class in general have remained in denial, and largely passive in response.

In one troubling new development, Trump supporters have begun flying all-black American flags, in an implicit threat to harm or kill their opponents — meaning nonwhite people,"socialist liberals," Muslims, vaccinated people and others deemed to be "enemies" of "real America." As media critic Eric Boehlert recently noted, the liberal opinion site Living Blue in Texas is sounding the alarm about the specific meaning of the black flag and the Republican-fascists support for terrorism and other political violence. That post, "Are Your Republican Neighbors Planning on Killing You?", merits lengthy quotation:

It didn't take long to find hundreds of videos where these Trumpers and so-called patriots were hanging black American flags. ...

Black American flags are the flags that mean "no quarter shall be given." They are the opposite of the white flag of surrender.

According to the people on TikTok and the Sun (British tabloid), the black American flag originated in the civil war and was flown by the Confederates.

It means that they will not surrender, will not take prisoners, and are willing to die for their cause. It means they will execute their enemies.

Who are their enemies? Pretty much any non-Conservative. You know, Democrats, Liberals, LGBTQ, BIPOC, and the vaccinated. ...

So, we're the enemy, and they're openly professing to want to execute us. … So, why are they doing this

Covid vaccinations, mostly. They believe that Joe Biden has declared a civil war on them by mandating that employers with over 100 employees and the military have vaccinations.

Yes, they say civil war, and they say it's already started. But, unfortunately, many of them also live in states where masks and vaccines are required by state governments, healthcare, and law enforcement.

An alarming number of military members have been making Tik Toks talking about how they are being discharged because they refuse the vaccine. It's alarming because there is probably an equal number of guys on there talking about the civil war plans and actively using Tik Tok to recruit these military and ex-military members.

The biggest message they have been sending out is, "it's time" or "the time is now." ...

Although showing guns on Tik Tok is supposed to be against community guidelines, they show lots of videos of their guns, shooting them, wearing them, or sitting on their bed.

They primarily use Tik Tok as a recruiting tool and let others know their willingness to commit violence. Then they tell people to message them or where to find them on Telegram.

However you interpret these videos posted by Trump followers and other neofascists — which could be mainly performative — it is clearly true that the American right is increasingly willing to accept or condone violence as a means of expanding and protecting their social and political power. (Salon did not find licensed news photographs of these flags, and has made the editorial decision not to reproduce the images mentioned above, which are easy to find on social media.)

Public opinion polls and other research have repeatedly shown that millions of Republican voters and Trump followers would support the use of violence to remove Joe Biden from office because of the "Big Lie" and their belief that that he is not a legitimate president. Similarly, a large proportion of Republicans believe that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were "patriots" whose use of violence was justified.

And a new poll from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics even suggests that more than 50 percent of Trump supporters want "red states" to secede from the Union. Republican elected officials and other right-wing opinion leaders have continued to escalate their threats of political violence against Democrats and other targeted groups.

In a recent speech to the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light" conference, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., issued what sounded like a declaration of war:

:{:{}:

It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows to say, "No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in…. We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inherent truths that predate any version of government. Because, my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is. It's our duty to stand up, Let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country.

During an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, terrorism and national security expert Malcolm Nance said that Cawthorn's video "picks up on the themes that are not just coming from the Steve Bannon level and Donald Trump level, they are coming from the Republican street — and that Republican street is armed. They're angry. They have been fed an entire line which makes them believe that America is no longer America and that they no longer want the America that the rest of us, the 60 percent of the country, live in. And they`re willing to take up arms for it."

Nance also noted that Cawthorn's propaganda video is thematically similar to the type of propaganda used by Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida to radicalize and recruit members.

During an interview with Scientific American magazine, Dr. Bandy Lee, the principal editor of the 2017 bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," explained how a mentally pathological leader can "infect" his followers and perhaps even an entire nation:

I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence — while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a "lock and key" relationship….

"Shared psychosis" — which is also called "folie à millions" ["madness for millions"] when occurring at the national level or "induced delusions" — refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person's symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia andpropensity for violence — even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.

Trump and his regime gave permission and encouragement to his followers and other supporters to engage in antisocial and other anti-human behavior on a national scale. Once such a process has begun, and those forces are unleashed, it is not easy to stop. Fascism is not a simple machine with an on-and-off switch. In practice, fascism is given life and takes corporeal form through its followers, with each one being a potential carrier of the pathology.

As Hussein Ibish warned in a recent article in the Atlantic, "The cancer of political violence is not an endemic American disease. At the moment, it is a Republican disease. No one but Republicans themselves can cure it. Until they do, the violence of the right is only going to keep swelling and crashing. From a Middle Eastern perspective, this is all appallingly familiar."

Fascism is a highly virulent social disease that usually destroys the host body – but not before spreading the disease to many other people. In fact, if the original host dies, he or she can be elevated to the status of martyr for "the cause," serving to inspire existing followers and lure in new ones.

Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is the symptom of a sick society. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. For America to counteract the deep underlying illness that has made Trumpism possible will require a long-term cultural and moral reckoning. Anything less, and the disease of American fascism will only go dormant until it is resurrected again — perhaps in a more dangerous and virulent form.

===

state rep secession

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/iowa-gop-lawmaker/

===

secede is soft/slow civil war?

https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/after-newsom-recall-fails-ben-shapiro-says-secession-may-be-best-hope-conservatives

===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/stop-the-steal/

no lnx twt

Ali Alexander, the lead organizer of the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, has resurfaced after going into hiding following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Streaming on Trovo Wednesday night, Alexander claimed that while he has been licking his wounds, he has been plotting to restart rallies in March, abolish the media, and build a separate society for Trump supporters.

As former President Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial this week for inciting an insurrection with his speech at the Stop the Steal rally the morning of Jan. 6, it appears Alexander has yet to face charges for his role. Alexander rebooted the so-called Stop the Steal campaign the day after Election Day, when Trump's lead began to slip as mail-in ballots began to be counted. He pushed voter fraud conspiracy theories, embraced QAnon conspiracy theorists and far-right activists in his campaign, claimed to be doing God's work, and organized three massive rallies in Washington, D.C., that featured the Proud Boys hate group, paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers, and other extremists.

Following Jan. 6, Alexander was booted off most major social media platforms and, as a result, is now streaming on Trovo, a gaming platform that appears to be growing in popularity among far-right actors kicked off other platforms. On Wednesday night, Alexander lamented the “racist, bigoted, anti-Christian, anti-Southern, anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-human smear machine" that he says targeted him, and he promised to create chaos. “We've got to get back in the driver's seat," he added.

“They've done a great number on my life, they've cost me tens of thousands of dollars, they've really destroyed parts of my life, but in a lot of ways, I have no other choice but to announce that I'm building the future, so I'm making strategic investments in tools that fight deplatforming and tocreate chaos on existing platforms," Alexander claimed.

“America is going to have a choice, and I promise you that, between going onto this dystopian future or fighting in what I'm calling the American sovereignty movement," he said. “And I'm gonna get back, and I'm going to do rallies again starting in March, I'm gonna have indoor gatherings in March, in Michigan, in Arizona, in Georgia, in Texas. I'm going to do a media tour."

Alexander said he had been plotting how to do away with the free press and other “systems that control us": “So I want you guys to know that I've been licking my wounds, but I've been plotting, I've been planning, I've been scheming because we have to do away with this whole system. The free press is not free, and they're not the press, they need to be abolished. The systems that control us have to be abolished."

“I'm going to create a society, and a community, and a culture, and a language for [Trump supporters], and there are tens of millions of us. … Winning can just be 10 million people creating a new megacity," he mused. “Let's build our own city, let's seriously build our own city, let's build a back-up city in South America."

Alexander also didn't miss the opportunity to push the claim that the insurrection was a “premeditated psyop."

“Like everyone is saying the impeachment trial is proving that there was a premeditated psyop against both Trump and Stop the Steal, so how could we incite an insurrection that was premeditated by people we don't know?" he said. “And yet, are there big platforms welcoming me back saying we treated a Black man wrong because we wanted to pretend he was leading a white supremacy movement? No. These people are evil. And we will make lists of them, and they will not be welcome in this new society, they won't be welcomed on new platforms, those people who have tried toforce Marxism and thought control on us."

Alexander said that if the “deep state" charges him with a fake crime, he'd be prepared to fight: “If they want to charge me with a fake crime, if they want to martyr me, then I will meet them on that battlefield. I'm not somebody, I'm not somebody that talks a talk or tweets a tweet."

“I've licked my wounds, I'm pissed off. I'm more pissed off than I was the night of the election I created Stop the Steal. We win. They lose. To God be the glory," he said in closing.

Ahead of the Capitol insurrection, Alexander embraced increasingly violent rhetoric, calling for revolution and rebellion. A short distance away from the White House the day before the insurrection, Alexander started a “Victory or death!" chant at a Stop the Steal rally. “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate," he declared at that rally. “1776 is always an option."

After the violence at the Capitol, Alexander posted a since-deleted video of himself saying “I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this." He encouraged viewers to tune into his Stop the Steal website, which he called “the home of the rebellion against an illegitimate government."

This article was originally published at Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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talking to texas

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/wyoming-secession

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aha rhet morph from civil war (proslavery) to 1776, no one says so, but builds on Tea Party tobacco koch BS

https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/infowars-alex-jones-funded-and-fomented-mob

no vid

great banner pix saved jnzmegaphone

Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and coordinated with the White House in the organizing of a January 6 event that culminated in a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. In comments made on Infowars broadcasts and during speeches delivered in Washington, D.C., in the days before January 6, Jones and his fellow Infowars host Owen Shroyer frequently used violent and revolutionary rhetoric in calling for the overturning of legitimate election results.

Five people lost their lives during the violent incursion in the Capitol that immediately followed an inciting speech given by the president on January 6. Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she attempted to breach the Speaker’s Lobby, which is close to the U.S. House of Representatives floor. U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher by Trump supporters. Three other Trump supporters died after experiencing medical emergencies, including one who was trampled to death by the mob.

Some Trump supporters made it clear their purpose in the Capitol was to hunt down and kill lawmakers. The quick thinking of [AA] Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who faced down the mob alone, diverted rioters away from the Senate floor, as captured in a stunning video taken by HuffPo reporter Igor Bobic.

Jones’ Infowars outlet was promoting a January 6 event as early as December 31. In a video posted to Infowars’ streaming platform Banned.video, a man ranted about the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, saying, “These liberals think they can just do whatever the fuck they want. You know why that is? It’s because we sit there and we say we want to talk it out.” The video transitioned to promotional material for Infowars’ January 6 event and included a voiceover of Jones saying “It’s 1776 time,” a reference to the Revolutionary War. vid]

on January 2, Jones said during a broadcast that “it takes money to put my crew and security in D.C., and it takes money to organize this, and we put a lot of money -- myself -- into paying for the event Trump is going to be at and the other event.” He then encouraged viewers tobuy nutritional supplements from the Infowars Store and told them they “are funding the second American Revolution.” AHA ITS TEA PARTY DERIVATIVE]

The next day, Jones again discussed his involvement in planning and paying for the event. During his broadcast, he excoriated Trump supporters who were hesitant to travel to Washington, D.C., claiming, “I’ve seen people making a lot of excuses. ‘Oh, antifa is dangerous.’ It’s a lot more dangerous walking across the street.There’s hardly no antifa. They are a bunch of cowards.” (After mayhem unfolded at the Capitol, Jones and his outlet falsely blamed antifa supporters for the violence that took place.) He added, “It’s not about Infowars getting the credit for this, it’s about the fact that no one would step up and put the money in. ... I stepped up and put the money in for the 5th and for the 6th and then a donor came along, a great patriot, and paid $400,000-plus for the rest of it. I’m in over $130,000, and I'm not complaining about that. I had to do it when no one else was two weeks ago.”

Jones, Infowars host Owen Shroyer, and other Infowars employees then traveled to Washington, D.C. During a January 5 speech in downtown Washington, Shroyer said, “Americans are ready to fight. We’re not exactly sure what that is going to look like, perhaps, in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election of Joe Biden.” He went on to “salute” Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) for their efforts to overturn the election and said of the people gathered there, “We are the new revolution.”

Meanwhile, Jones was at an event outside the Supreme Court, where he told a crowd, “We are facing Satan, and the answer to Satan’s 1984 is George Washington’s 1776.”

That evening, Jones and Shroyer regrouped to give more speeches in downtown Washington. Shroyer told a crowd, “Thomas Jefferson once said when the government fears the people, there is freedom. But for too long now the people have feared the government. … I can tell you that thecrooked politicians that occupy our Capitol are in fear right now. Do you know how I know this? Because they are scurrying around in secret tunnels to avoid ‘we the people.’ Right now as we speak they’re scurrying around like the little rats that they are to try to avoid you.”

When Jones took over the lectern, he told a cheering crowd that“we have only begun to resist the globalists” and that “they have tried to steal this election in front of everyone.” Jones also said,“I don’t know how all this is going to end, but if they want a fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”

He went on to say, “This will be their Waterloo. This will be their destruction.” (Waterloo refers to the pivotal battlefield defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte that ended the Seventh Coalition.) Jones also said that Winston Churchill “gave a famous speech where he said all I can promise you is blood, and pain, and war, and suffering. But the alternative is even worse:total slavery.” He then led the crowd in a “1776” chant.

The violent rhetoric continued the next day at Infowars’ event, which immediately preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During a January 6 speech in downtown Washington, Jones again told a crowd, “We declare 1776 against the New World Order.” Shroyer spoke from his own bullhorn while standing beside Jones, saying, “They said you lost this election in a landslide to [Joe] Biden. We said, ‘No, we don’t buy your bullshit.’ But, guess what? You want to feed us bullshit? We’re going to bring it right to your front door and you can eat it yourselves.” (Some Trump insurrectionists at the Capitol did in fact smear their own feces throughout the building’s hallways during the attack.)

At one point, Jones told the crowd to head to the Capitol “peacefully,” in contradiction to much of what he had said about what should happen on January 6. He also attempted to rile up the crowd by falsely telling them that Biden’s win in Arizona had been reversed and that “we have only begun to fight. This is 1776.” As people began to make their way to the Capitol, Shroyer yelled from a bullhorn that Democrats are “tyrants” and led the crowd in a “death to tyrants” chant. Jones then can be then heard attempting to privately confer with his crew, saying, “Let’s take it to the Capitol.”

While Jones and Shroyer did not enter the Capitol building and instead retreated to a “secure location” during the insurrection, an Infowars cameraperson, who identified himself only as “your boy Sam with Infowars.com,” did go inside as both a mob participant and a recorder of the events. Shortly before entering the building, he said, “We have had enough,” and “I got to be honest, this is not a peaceful protest.” Once he crossed the threshold, he yelled, “Guess what? We are in the Capitol, baby!” From a video uploaded to Banned.video with the title “Patriots Storm Congress Raw Footage Includes Execution of Ashli Babbitt,” it is apparent that “Sam” was just feet away from Babbitt when she was fatally shot near the Speaker’s Lobby. Although recent Infowars videos identify him only as “Sam,” older videos posted to Banned.video reveal that he appears to go by the name Sam Montoya.

As the attempted insurrection unfolded, Infowars’ Harrison Smith, who was guest-hosting The Alex Jones Show because Jones and Shroyer were in Washington, praised the “patriots” who were storming the Capitol, at least one of whom participated in beating officer Sicknick to death. The following day, Jones again claimed to have spent “close to a half a million dollars” organizing the gathering in Washington and also said that he organized the event in coordination with the White House.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Jones called on his supporters to “surround” the Georgia governor’s mansion and “rise up” because officials in that state refused to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory. In December, Shroyer praised the efforts of Trump supporters to violently disrupt the Oregon state legislature’s consideration of a COVID-19 relief bill.

Throughout the Trump presidency, Jones has often hyped the prospect of a second American Civil War that would pit conservatives against liberals, including saying that he would personally participate in violence and help execute supposed traitors. In recent months, Jones has hosted Oath Keepers militia founder Stewart Rhodes, who said during his Infowars appearances that his followers were on alert for a command from Trump to start carrying out mass violence against Democrats in Washington, D.C., and at other locations.

For his part, Shroyer said during a November 18 broadcast that prominent Democrats and members of the mainstream media “deserve” to be the victims of mass violence if Trump is not allowed to continue to be president, despite his defeat. He added, “I know I won’t have to be the one to get my hands dirty. I can sit right here in studio and just broadcast the whole thing.”

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// go to cda after election loss?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/the-gop-and-crazy-secessionist-groups-are-no-longer-separate-they-are-now-joined-at-the-hip-conservative/

in recent days, some supporters of President Donald Trump — from Texas GOP Chairman Allen West to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh — have been floating the idea of Republicans seceding from the United States if President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20, 2021. Conservative Never Trump journalist Tim Miller, in an article published by The Bulwark, argues that far-right secessionist groups can no longer be viewed as an entity separate from the Republican Party. Now, Miller laments, the GOP and radical secessionists are joined at the hip.

"A group of secessionists out west who have branded their states 'New California' and 'New Nevada'— no word from New New York — filed an amicus brief (on December 11) joining with 100-plus Republican leaders urging the Supreme Court to cancel the legally cast votes of millions of Americans in four states and reinstall President Donald Trump against the will of the people," Miller explains. "This is not a trolly take on American news using the tropes normally employed to describe events in Third World countries. It is a simple accounting of what the totalitarian party has become."

In the lawsuit that Miller describes, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out millions of votes in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan — and the High Court rejected the lawsuit.

"The majority of the Republican Party establishment — including the president himself, the runner-up in the last presidential primary, the House majority leader, and the chief law enforcement officials in 17 states — is teaming up with a crank secessionist movement for a coup," Miller warns. "That is where we are at."

[twt]

miller, an ex-Republican who formerly served as communications director for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, notes that when Robert Thomas, chairman of the New Nevada movement, filed an amicus brief supporting the Texas lawsuit, his "closing request" for the High Court was "to validate the standing of two new states that have seceded from the Union as well as to approve the efforts of his comrades-in-arms to invalidate the election by judicial fiat."

The conservative writer explains, "Here's the thing. Crazy, bored coots in Nevada tootling off letters to the editor about the End Times and overthrowing tyrants is nothing particularly new or noteworthy…. What's new is that the coot claiming that democracy is tyrannical and must be disobeyed is making an argument that fits perfectly with the other Supreme Court briefs being filed by a preponderance of the members of a major political party."

Miller wraps up his article by arguing that New Nevada and New California shouldn't be regarded as fringe groups that most Republicans would never associate with — such groups are now mainstream within his former party.

"That's what it has come to in December 2020," Miller writes. "The crazy FW: FW: FW: e-mail guy ranting about how 'democracy is tyranny' is a replacement-level participant in a Republican Party and conservative establishment for whom overthrowing tyrannical democracy is now the entry-level position. The New Nevada Party is the GOP, and the GOP is the New Nevada Party."

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1220 an

Some Texas Republicans are threatening to secede from the United States over President Donald Trump's election loss, but one GOP strategist says that's the last gasp from a dying majority.

Party leaders and lawmakers threatened to leave the country after Texas attorney general Ken Paxton failed in his bid to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the election, but GOP strategist Susan Del Percio says in a new column for NBC News that they're fighting another type of losing battle.

"Even as the Texas GOP attempts to pledge its undying loyalty to Trump, the reality is that Texas will eventually go blue," Del Percio wrote. "While 2020 polls showed a tight race, it was always highly unlikely that Biden would win Texas. However, he was able to close the gap to just 6 points, an improvement on Hillary Clinton's 9-point gap in 2016. Yes, 6 points is a solid victory, but Trump won the same 52 percent in 2020 as he did in 2016, showing no growth for the Republican on the ballot."

Texas added about 3.9 million people in the last decade, the largest population growth in the country, and Hispanics make up about half of that growth, and those changing demographics will strengthen Democratic chances there — just as they did in Georgia.

"When this change does come to Texas, will Republicans work to recognize the diversity in their state — or will they become even more outspoken as they become outnumbered?" Del Percio wrote. "In a state where elected officials are already willing to incite sedition or propose sedition, the future looks bleak. Politicians of all stripes eventually lose their power, unless they learn that governing is about respecting the needs of the constituents — all of them."

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===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/texas-secession/

cody f

after the Supreme Court decisively shut down a lawsuit attempting to overturn the 2020 election, Texas GOP Chair Allen West issued a disturbing statement floating the idea of possible secession over the result.

The case was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, though it was widely panned by legal experts. Some believed that Paxton, currently under investigation by the FBI, was using the lawsuit as a vehicle to win President Donald Trump's favor and obtain a presidential pardon. Despite the lack of merits, the president and his allies rallied behind the lawsuit, with Trump himself calling it "the big one" — apparently trying to distinguish it from the more than 50 additional failed election lawsuits filed on his behalf.

From the start, the lawsuit never had the chance. Paxton tried to exploit a feature of the constitutional system that allows states to sue each other before the Supreme Court. But Paxton's arguments that four key swing states had violated the Constitution in conducting their elections were specious, and there was no reason to take them seriously. The court concluded, unsurprisingly, that Texas didn't even have the standing to bring a challenge to other states on this ground and rejected the argument without it even being officially filed.[2 sorta dissent thomas and ----]

For West, this absolutely predictable and expected result was a galling affront.

“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, have decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law," he said in a statement. "Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable."

[vid?]

this was mostly just a comical tantrum. But the ending became deeply disturbing, as he explicitly floated the idea of seceding from the United States.

He continued: "This decision will have far reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution."

This is exactly why many have argued that Trump's disinformation campaign against the election and attempts to overthrow the result are so dangerous. While there was no reason to expect the effort to be successful, it would clearly succeed in convincing millions of Americans, perhaps a majority of Republicans, that the constitutional order was fundamentally broken. That raises the possibility of violence, disorder, and conflict....here is no legitimate way for an American state or group of states to secede from the rest. That's why the American Civil War began. Suggesting secession is essentially threatening war.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois was sharply critical of the statement:[twt] my man abe said no...

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/ammon-bundy-is-building-a-far-right-theocratic-army-under-the-guise-of-defending-rights/

There's been a buffoonish quality to Ammon Bundy's brand of far-right "constitutionalist" politics over the past six months, primarily organized in a typically paranoid response to COVID-19-related public-health measures: Protesting at the home of a police officer who had arrested an anti-vaccination fanatic for violating the closure of a playground. Trying to bully his way inside a health-board meeting. Getting arrested twice in two days for ignoring his ban from the Idaho Statehouse. Going maskless at a Caldwell High School football game that forced the game to be called off, for which he was not only ejected but banned from future games by the local school district.

The endless antics, however, have always obfuscated a darker, much more dangerous agenda. A disturbing new in-depth report by Devin Burghart at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights reveals that all the time that Bundy has been gathering media time and headlines, he's been building a massive army of volunteers—a network called People's Rights—intent on imposing a far-right authoritarian state, all under the guise of defending individual rights.

Bundy first announced the formation of the People's Rights network in March, when he held a gathering not far from his home in Emmett, Idaho, discussing plans to organize people to form ad-hoc gatherings to "defend" local citizens against COVID-19-related "tyranny." Bundy told the audience that they didn't need to obey the governor's stray-at-home or business-closure orders. And he pledged to bring fellow "Patriots" to the rescue if anyone felt pressure from "authorities" to comply.

"I will be there," Bundy told the Idaho Press. "I will bring as many people as we can. We will form a legal defense for you, a political defense for you, and we will also, if necessary, provide a physical defense for you, so that you can continue in your rights."

As it has played out on the ground, these gatherings have become bellicose, and frequently armed, mobs protesting police officers at their homes, breaking into health-board meetings that were being held online, and breaking down the doors inside the Statehouse and attending committee meetings unmasked in order to intimidate state legislators.

The incident resulting in the cancellation of the football game between Caldwell and Emmett high schools is emblematic of these anti-democratic intimidation tactics at work.

Bundy, whose son plays for Emmett High, showed up in Caldwell for the game without a mask—though one was required for entry—and refused to put one on, first taking a seat in the stands, then moving to a fenced area away from the stands. As he livestreamed the exchange, Bundy refused to leave when game officials asked him to.

Moreover, members of his network watching on Facebook sprang into action and began phoning 911 dispatchers in Caldwell—not merely to complain, but to threaten and intimidate. The flood of threats was so overwhelming and worrisome that at halftime, officials announced the game was being cancelled.

"The threats made to dispatch appear to have stemmed from the dispute between Mr. Bundy and the Caldwell School District personnel that requested he wear a mask while attending the game," a Caldwell police spokesman told the Idaho Statesman. "The calls did specifically reference the football game."

Ten days later, the district voted unanimously to ban Bundy from Caldwell school grounds for the next year.

The IREHR report explores how this is all being organized. The People's Rights network, it explains, has seen rapid growth fueled by "a fusion of Bundy's core of the far-right paramilitary supporters built up over years of armed standoffs with a mass base of new activists radicalized in protest over COVID-19 health directives."

Bundy devised a secure online system built on SMS text messaging to enable the network to organize without public scrutiny or exposure. IREHR managed to obtain access to the network, however, and reports that "Bundy has assembled a team of 153 'assistants' in sixteen states." It goes on to identify all of those people, and found that their backgrounds include significant activism in radical right causes—and that, somewhat unusually, the majority of those local assistants are women (though the national and state leadership remain dominated by men).

This network is not engaged in the usual far-right battle against "government tyranny," which is the usual rhetoric that surrounds "Patriot" groups. Bundy's network instead is pro-government—but one that has no compunction about erasing the rights of people its participants have deemed morally depraved:

Instead of a more traditional "anti-government" narrative, People's Rights leaders have expressed a desire for governmental power to be used to protect the "righteous" against "wicked" liberals, antifa, Black Lives Matter activists, and others. Several People's Rights leaders are running for elected office—to become the government. Absent that sort of intervention, leaders have proposed a type of* armed enclave-style "neighborhood" nationalism, where "righteous" neighbors stand against the "wicked." People's Rights leaders have often defined the "wicked" using far-right conspiracism, racism, antisemitism, anti-indigenous, and anti-transgender sentiment.*

Moreover, in addition to building an "Uber-like" paramilitary response system that can be mobilized whenever people believe their rights are under attack from godless liberals, IREHR's report explains that discussion within the surreptitious network go well beyond such imagined "self-defense" measures.

Some of the People's Rights network participants are running for elective office, hoping to promote the group's theocratic-state agenda from within the halls of power. Mario Perea, a People's Rights assistant from Idaho, told would-be participants in a rally for a political candidate: "We claim, and we use, and we defend our rights. In order to defend our rights, we have to get people into these government positions. That is a form of defense because we're being attacked politically. So we need to fight back and resist politically."

The politics include a sensibility attuned to modern "Patriot" movement rhetoric, particularly the rising "Boogaloo" talk about broad social breakdowns and violence surrounding the coming election. Mostly, there is a fairly typical eagerness for the battle to begin.

"Are you ready for Civil War November 4?" asked People's Rights leader Tony Pellegrino in a Facebook post.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trump-praised-armed-michigan-protesters-then-militia-members-reportedly-plotted-the-governors-kidnapping/

heavily armed militia members and other protesters gathered at the Michigan State Capitol in May 2020 demanding that the mask mandate be ended and the coronavirus quarantine be halted. It was during that protest that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said that she would not negotiate with terrorists.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump was tweeting "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" and praising them as "very good people" who were simply "angry."

*The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry… https://t.co/N9En6o8DcP*

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1588336943.0

According to the court documents it was directly after that the militia members began building a larger group to help with a plot against the Michigan governor and the violent overthrow of the state capitol.

"On June 6, 2020, CROFT, FOX and approximately 13 other people from several states gathered in Dublin, Ohio. CHS-1 was present at this meeting. The group talked about creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient. They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. At one point, several members talked about state governments they believed were violating the U.S. Constitution, including the government of Michigan and Governor Gretchen Whitmer," said the court documents.

It was in that month that the group began to build their plot and coordinate with other militias.

It's unknown if the president or Attorney General Bill Barr were briefed on the plot or the FBI investigation. Neither have commented on the arrests.[barr says no knowledge, rep grills ilhan?]

Six of the men were taken into custody after a raid in suburban Detroit Thursday morning. They were Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta and 24-year-old Ty Garbin.

An additional seven men affiliated with a militia known as Wolverine Watchmen were also arrested. They are: Paul Bellar, 21, Shawn Fix, 38, Eric Molitor, 36, Michael Null, 38, William Null, 38, Pete Musico, 42, and Joseph Morrison, 42, cited the DailyMail.

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