David Neiwert

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</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to get a sense of how far to the right the Republican Party has moved, one need only compare 2023's MAGA Republicans to politicians who were considered arch-conservative during the 1960s and 1970s. President Richard Nixon, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) and the National Review's William F. Buckley were highly influential conservatives back then, but the MAGA Republicans of today would dismiss them as RINOs: Republicans In Name Only.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nixon would be condemned for supporting environmentalism and universal healthcare, and Goldwater's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/16/us/goldwater-vows-to-fight-tactics-of-new-right.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">disdain for the Religious Right</a>&nbsp;would be as much of a deal breaker as Buckley's decision to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">exclude the John Birch Society</a>&nbsp;from the National Review. Veteran Washington Post columnist and ex-Republican George Will, once the United States' most famous conservative journalist next to Buckley, is now an outcast in the MAGA movement.</font></p><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><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his new book&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Insurrection-Radical-American-Democracy/dp/1685890369/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3D5HQEWGUN5XQ&keywords=age+of+insurrection+neiwert&qid=1688570394&sprefix=The+Age+of+Insurrection%2Caps%2C801&sr=8-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">"The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy,"</a>&nbsp;journalist David Neiwert takes an in-depth look at the gains that the far right has made since Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the rise of his MAGA movement. Violent extremism, Neiwert warns, has become increasingly widespread in the United States.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>READ MORE:&nbsp;</strong><strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/joe-biggs/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Proud Boys verdict is in: Guilty of seditious conspiracy</a></strong></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<b>Guardian</b>'s Charles Kaiser, in an "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Age of Insurrection" review</a>&nbsp;published on July 5, explains, "Right-wing extremism has always been a feature of American life, from the diehard supporters of slavery in the 19th Century to the 20,000 fascists who filled Madison Square Garden in 1939 and the violent opponents of integration who beat and killed civil rights workers and leaders throughout the 1960s. Today, this ugly tradition of hatred is perpetuated by dozens of vile groups, from the&nbsp;<b>Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to the Family Research Council and a slew of Christian nationalist organizations."</b></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kaiser continues</span>, "But as the investigative reporter David Neiwert argues in his terrifying new book, there is one terrible difference: the relentless mainstreaming of such disgusting ideas. The white nationalist ideology which inspired Payton Gendron to travel 200 miles to massacre 10 people in a Black Buffalo neighborhood is becoming as American as cherry pie."</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Neiwert's book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">according to Kaiser</a>, "offers some of the most detailed descriptions I have read of the movement's biggest moments, including Charlottesville and the January 6 Capitol attack." And he "documents how so many far-right conspiracies have made their way into the mainstream, especially the Great Replacement theory, which says progressives want to flood the country with immigrants, to undermine white citizens.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span></font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"How successful has this effort been?"&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kaiser observes</a>. "In 2020, the Republican Party refused to withdraw support from of any of the '64 GOP candidates.… with QAnon connections…. Neiwert's book is full of reminders of how social media promote right-wing lies. When a veteran of the Tea Party movement teamed up with two ex-writers for Steve Bannon's Breitbart News to start a 'Stop the Steal' Facebook group in November 2020, it got 300,000 followers in 24 hours…. The book ends with a horrifying description of how the movement has metastasized since the January 6 attack."</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>rEAD MORE:&nbsp;</strong><strong><a href="https://www.alternet.org/oath-keepers-founder-forced-child/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Oath Keepers founder forced his child to guard the family home with a rifle and body armor: court docs</a></strong></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kaiser continues</a>,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"By fall 2021, Proud Boys and 'patriots' were everywhere, harassing 'LGBTQ+-friendly teens at libraries, mask-promoting school board members and mall shops that required masks.' In Trump-loving rural areas, daily life 'had become filled with foreboding, intimidation, threats and ugliness, all emanating from authoritarian right-wingers directing their aggression at anyone who failed to follow their dictates.'</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;America's only hope lies in the power of important books like this one to inspire decent citizens to redouble their efforts to defeat these vile scourges of freedom and democracy."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">READ MORE:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/treacherous-march-of-normalization-abc/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Treacherous march of normalization': ABC News slammed for 'puff piece' on Moms for Libert</a>y</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">charles Kaiser's full review of David Neiwert's book is available&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/05/the-age-of-insurrection-review-far-right-trump-david-neiwert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><em /></font></p><div id="story_page_post_article" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tp-cxense-placeholder-inline tp-widget-placeholder"><div id="cxense-ff213be4f89eb23ae78d1f6cdb9c24c7b1534ebf" /></div></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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.444px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-violence-2659628810/" class="from-your-sitelink rm-stats-tracked" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Proud Boys Fined $1 Million for Destroying Property of Black Church</a></li></ul></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.313em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">----</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.313em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">rww --></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">West Valley Republican state senator proudly displays a flag tied to Christian nationalism and other extremist movements on her desk on the floor of the Arizona Senate, though she says she has embraced the symbol for its historical meaning and doesn’t care that “fringe groups” have adopted it.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The white flag with a pine tree on it and the phrase “<b>An Appeal to Heaven”&nbsp;</b>was&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-wacr.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">originally used by George Washington</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;and the Continental Army. It was later adopted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Massachusetts#Naval_and_maritime_flag" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">its naval and maritime flag</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;from 1776 until 1971, when it was replaced by a similar flag that did not include the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven.”&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In recent years, the flag has been adopted by evangelical Christians and&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-pennsylvania-lawmaker-and-the-resurgence-of-christian-nationalism" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Christian nationalists</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, who see the flag as a rallying call. Christian nationalists believe that the United States is Christian nation that should base its laws and practices around the teachings of Christianity. For&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/new-apostolic-reformation-mtg-mastriano-dutch-sheets-1234584952/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">followers of the movement</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, the flag symbolizes what they view as America’s Christian roots.&nbsp;</span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The flag has also been embraced by far-right extremist organizations&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://towcenter.medium.com/the-pine-tree-flag-how-one-symbol-at-the-capitol-riot-connects-far-right-extremism-to-christianity-f02314a5f759" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">like the Proud Boys</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;and some neo-Nazi groups.</span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arizona Sen. Janae Shamp, R-Surprise, rejected the notion that her use of the flag indicates anything beyond her commitment to fighting to protect “our liberty and freedoms” from “the too many wanna be kings who inhabit elected office and (government) bureaucracies.”</font></b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Something that has had a particular meaning for 250 years retains its original meaning, no matter which fringe group might seek to co-opt it,” Shamp said in an emailed response to questions about the flag. “I hope and pray that my fight enjoys a similarly favorable outcome as (George) Washington’s original struggle, and that I will succeed in restoring at least some small measure of liberty before I’m done.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That’s why I fly the flag. I don’t know who else uses it or for what.”&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shamp did not respond to questions about whether she embraced the beliefs of Christian nationalism, and said she doesn’t know anything about Christian dominionism, a closely related belief system. She called the Arizona Mirror’s line of inquiry “lazy” and “an attempted hit.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”&nbsp;</span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I work everyday with people of all faiths and even some who hold no particular faith or even no faith at all. That’s how America works,” she wrote. “So anybody stupid enough to try to put me into some sort of discriminatory box deserves the public ridicule they’ll get for trying to convince people of something so obviously wrong.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">To investigative journalist, author and researcher&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://twitter.com/davidneiwert?lang=en" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">David Neiwart</span></a></b><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">, </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">who&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box;">has written extensively about the far-right and conspiracy theorists,&nbsp;</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">the lines between many different groups have begun to blur as a “universe” of far-right groups from QAnon, militias, white supremacists and others have gained political influence, particularly among conservatives.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Most of them, however, share a few things in common, he said, including beliefs in “right-wing authoritarianism” and the alleged supremacy of Christianity.</b></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">And after looking at the&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-trump-voters-explain-why-163927091.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">various people</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PpZhsJ1MI" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">things</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;Shamp has supported over the years, including various extremist and Christian nationalist figures and causes, Neiwart said it’s clear to him that Shamp ascribes to those beliefs.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“She is definitely a Christian nationalist, she is&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.azmirror.com/2023/05/30/az-senator-janae-shamp-who-spearheaded-qanon-linked-covid-hearing-spread-qanon-online/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">definitely QAnon</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, and a fully enraptured Trumpite,” Neiwert said.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></font></span></p><h4 class="editorialSubhed" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christian nationalism and Christian dominionism&nbsp;</font></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">While a surge in Christian nationalism in recent years has garnered media attention — due in part to high-profile conservatives like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/opinions/christian-nationalism-marjorie-taylor-greene-tyler/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">explicitly declared herself a Christian nationalist</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, and the backing of influential leaders like&nbsp;</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">white nationalist Nick Fuentes — Christian dominionism has similarly been&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/quiet-rise-christian-dominionism" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">on the rise</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, though with much less fanfare.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While<b>&nbsp;Christian nationalism</b>&nbsp;centers on the idea that God intended America to be a Christian nation — one without religious pluralism — and that Christians should control all levels of government and society,&nbsp;<b>Christian dominionism holds that Christians should take total control over most aspects of society.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;</b></span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">One of the more popular Dominionist beliefs is in the so-called “</span><a target="blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Mountain_Mandate#:_{:text=The%20Seven%20Mountain%20Mandate%2C%20also,within%20Pentecostal%20and%20evangelical%20Christianity.}" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Seven Mountain Mandate</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">,” which draws from the biblical book of Revelations and requires Christians to&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/the-seven-mountains-revelation/news-story/be825c6262f5e764a3c2cbd385442702" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">invade the “seven spheres” of society</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. In doing so, American life can be reshaped to hew to conservative Christian values.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The idea has been&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://theoutline.com/post/8856/seven-mountain-mandate-trump-paula-white" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">embraced and promoted by</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;people like Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk and Paula White, the televangelist who served as a “spiritual advisor” to Donald Trump while he was president.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Neiwart, the key difference between Christian dominionism and nationalism is that dominionists want everyone under Christian rule, while nationalists think everyone should convert to Christianity.&nbsp;</font></b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>“Christian nationalists take it a step further than Christian Dominionists,</b>” Neiwart said, adding that a dominionist wouldn’t care if a Muslim was present,&nbsp;</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“they just want them under the thumb of Christian leaders.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">One of the&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/michael-flynn-is-recruiting-an-army-of-god-in-growing-christian-nationalist-movement" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">biggest promoters</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;of Christian nationalism and dominionism has been disgraced</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2022/0428/Disgraced-general-to-far-right-hero-Michael-Flynn-rides-the-next-wave" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn</span></a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">, Trump’s first national security adviser, who has claimed that he is waging “spiritual warfare” and building an “army of God.”&nbsp;<b>Flynn is also&nbsp;</b></span><b><a target="blank" href="https://twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1583120240275120128?s=20" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">known to associate</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;with other known Dominionist groups.&nbsp;</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><b>Shamp is a fervent supporter of Flynn’</b>s, and has posted praise of Flynn often on social media. The recent COVID-19 special committee she co-chaired was sponsored in part by an organization that&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/general-flynn-and-patrick-byrnes-the-america-project-hires-election-integrity-expert-301527098.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Flynn co-founded</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“I get goosebumps every time General Flynn talks about our great Nation!” Shamp said in a&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYHPjNEh6g8/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">December 2021 post</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;accompanied by a video of Flynn.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">At a Trump rally in Florence in January 2022, Shamp&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-trump-voters-explain-why-163927091.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">told Business Insider</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;that the “No. 1 person standing up for ‘we, the people’ is probably Gen. Michael Flynn.”&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She explained that Flynn was helping fight for the “grassroots, for citizens to get involved, for us to take our country back” from the “political elite.” Flynn later endorsed Shamp in her bid for the Arizona Senate.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Shamp, a conservative from Surprise, has also been found to have shared a number of QAnon posts on her Facebook, including some linked to&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/arizona-state-sen-janae-shamp-has-promoted-neo-nazis-and-other-virulent" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Neo-Nazis and antisemites</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.&nbsp;</span></font></span></p><h4 class="editorialSubhed" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The flag and extremism&nbsp;</font></h4><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The flag, which Shamp displays on her desk and in&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230602165512/https://twitter.com/AZSenatorShamp" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">her Twitter banner image</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, has also been connected to extremist groups and violent events. During the violent events of Jan. 6, the flag&nbsp;</span><a href="https://secularaz.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/pine-tree-flag-insurrection.png" target="blank" data-slb-active="1" data-slb-asset="2119910990" data-slb-group="16799" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">was seen</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;being carried by a number of individuals.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It has also been adopted by groups that support the likes of Fuentes</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who during protests over mask mandates and COVID vaccines, flew the flag, as well as at their annual gatherings, according to Neiwart.&nbsp;</span></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That is what in part makes it hard to know who exactly was flying the flag at the riots on Jan. 6, far-right extremists or Christian nationalist types, Neiwart said, but that doesn’t change one underlying thing.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“I would say Christian nationalism as a phenomenon is one of the real undergirding movements involved in the insurrection</b>,” Neiwart said, adding that the militias and other groups such as the OathKeepers all had underlying Christian nationalist roots or beliefs. “All these Christian patriots that formed these militias are Christian nationalists as well.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shamp’s flag is not the first time the flag has appeared in the Arizona Senate, either.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, the Secular Coalition of Arizona pointed out that a small version of the flag was being displayed on the security desk in the Arizona Senate; it was later removed. A spokeswoman for the Arizona Senate Republican caucus did not respond to multiple requests for comment about what policies, if any, the Senate has regarding the display of flags.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">A larger version of the flag was&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/christian-nationalist-pine-tree-flag-flying-at-arizona-capitol-12917517" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">displayed in the second-floor lobby of the Arizona House of Representatives</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;last year, as well. Again, after the Secular Coalition of Arizona&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/christian-nationalist-pine-tree-flag-flying-at-arizona-capitol-12917517" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">inquired about the flag</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, it was quietly removed. The flag had previously been displayed in the chamber in 2017.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Secular Coalition of Arizona sees the flag as a violation of the constitutional doctrine requiring a&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://religionnews.com/2023/04/28/yes-virginia-the-constitution-does-separate-church-and-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">separation of church and state</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">.&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">For Neiwart, the appearance of the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag in Arizona, and statehouses&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/01/13/rep-grothman-displays-christian-nationalist-flag-outside-congressional-office/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">across the country</span></a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, is troubling.</span></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.313em; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.azmirror.com/subscribe" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); background-size: 0px 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; transition: background-size 0.4s ease 0s;" /></font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><a href="https://www.azmirror.com/subscribe" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background-image: linear-gradient(transparent 65%, rgb(229, 233, 237) 0px); 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padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: var(--line-height-result-title-main); vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: var(--letter-spacing-result-title-main); position: relative;"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/1/2120294/--Constitutional-sheriffs-embrace-of-Big-Lie-could-have-consequences-for-elections-in-November" rel="noopener" target="self" class="eVNpHGjtxRBq_gLOfGDr LQNqh2U1kzYxREs65IJu" data-testid="result-title-a" data-handled-by-react="true" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: block;"><span class="EKtkFWMYpwzMKOYr0GYm LQVY1Jpkk8nyJ6HBWKAk" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: top; display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: inherit; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">Extremist sheriffs double down with their embrace of Trumpist 'election ...</span></a></h2></div><div class="E2eLOJr8HctVnDOTM8fs" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" font-style="font-style" inherit="inherit" font-variant="font-variant" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" font-stretch="font-stretch" line-height="line-height" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline"><div class="OgdwYG6KE2qthn9XQWFC" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: var(--line-height-result-snippet-main); vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="MILR5XIVy9h75WrLvKiq" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Sep 1, 2022&nbsp;</span><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Leaf</span>&nbsp;harkened to the "constitutionalist" claim that county&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">sheriffs</span>&nbsp;are the supreme law of the land, saying: "What that does, it gives you the power—and I don't know if you're gonna appreciate me...</span></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kos</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>Extremist sheriffs double down with their embrace of Trumpist ‘election integrity’ campaign</div><div>
</div><div><b>David Neiwert</b></div><div><b>Daily Kos Staff</b></div><div>Thursday<b>&nbsp;September 01, 2022 </b></div><div>
</div><div>Barry County, MI, Sheriff Dar Leaf</div><div>Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf sought warrants on voting machines even after coming under investigation for tampering with the devices.</div><div>
</div><div>Daily Kos</div><div>TAGS</div><div>Arizona</div><div>Constitutionalists</div><div>Michigan</div><div>PinalCounty</div><div>Recommended</div><div>RichardMack</div><div>RightWingExtremists</div><div>ConstitutionalSheriffs</div><div>cspoa</div><div>MarkLamb</div><div>BarryCounty</div><div>ExtremistSheriffs</div><div>
</div><div>It’s a testament to the cult power of Donald Trump’s Big Lie that an elected lawman who himself now faces investigation for tampering with voting machines will not only refuse to apologize, but proceed to double down. Another law enforcement official subscribing to the same authoritarian conspiracy theories is meanwhile threatening everyone within his fiefdom with repercussions if they don’t submit to his similar “investigations,” and setting the stage for his nakedly partisan deputies to patrol at polling places.</div><div>
</div><div>These cases, both involving the so-called “constitutional sheriffs” movement’s open embrace of Trump’s election denialism, reflect the challenge that awaits much of the country—particularly the rural areas where these sheriffs rule—when we head to the polls in November. Their well-financed campaign, coordinated with leading Trumpists, to overturn election results and seize voting machines they suspect of skewing the vote could wreak havoc with election results around the country if it continues to gain steam.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Dar Leaf, the sheriff of Michigan’s Barry County, has played a leading role in the unfolding saga. It recently emerged that not only does Leaf insist that<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;his dubious “investigations” of election outcomes in his county—based almost entirely on a fraudulent Dinesh D’Souza pseudodocumentary</span>—are legitimate, but that he has continued to seek warrants to confiscate voting tabulators from election officials in townships throughout his county.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>Leaf sought warrants to seize machines and search offices of the Barry County Clerk, as well as in Woodland Township and Irving Township, Bridge Michigan found through a Freedom of Information Act request. His affidavits could not cite any evidence justifying the searches, saying only that Leaf sought "evidence of the crime of election law violations."</b></div><div>
</div><div>The report found that Leaf wanted to seize "components of voting and election equipment"—tabulation machines, poll books, election reporting modules, as well as 2020 election paper ballots. He also demanded keys to unlock the devices.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Leaf’s intentions, the affidavits showed, were to have the voting equipment "forensically examined" by someone "who is certified and trained to conduct data extractions."</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">His involvement in seizing one such tabulator in 2021—which resulted in its being dismantled and examined, then returned with its seals broken—is part of a state investigation that involves not just Leaf, but the Republican nominee for Michigan’s attorney general, Matthew DePerno.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Last month, the current Democratic attorney general, Dana Nesso, filed a petition for a special prosecutor</b>&nbsp;to handle that investigation since it involves her likely Republican opponent in the fall election. The petition indicated that state police investigators believed that DePerno was “one of the prime instigators,” along with Leaf and a state legislator, of a conspiracy to persuade Michigan clerks to allow unauthorized access to voting machines.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DePerno’s campaign issued a statement ridiculing Nessel’s petition as “an incoherent liberal fever dream of lies.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor Pratt's office refused to sign off on the warrant requests because Leaf had not established "probable cause" to conduct the searches.</div><div>
</div><div>"There just wasn't anything in there that amounted to any fraud that I could see," she told Bridge Michigan.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Leaf’s efforts on Trump’s behalf began in December 2020, when he filed a lawsuit demanding Barry County’s voting machines be impounded—which was swiftly laughed out of court. He then embarked on an “investigation” of the machines by sending a deputy and a&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">private investigator</span>&nbsp;to grill township officials about their intricacies.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>It was during one of these interrogations that the Irving Township clerk surrendered one of the town’s Dominion machines to Leaf’s team. “I’ve been told they took it (to the Detroit area) and tore it apart,” she told a local TV station, noting that when the machine was&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">returned during a meeting in a parking lot,&nbsp;</span>its security seal had been broken.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>Dominion’s machines&nbsp;</b>were the focus of a conspiracy theory popular after the election among the Trumpist right claiming that vote totals had been secretly manipulated to hand the presidency to Joe Biden. The theory was widely circulated on right-wing media such as Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, all of whom now face multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits from the company.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Leaf was connected through his attorney, Carson Tucker, to a number of the leading Trump-loving conspiracists the former president employed, including ex-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood. “My client Barry County Sheriff and several other county sheriffs in Michigan would like to consider issuing probable cause warrants to sequester Dominion voting machines if there is evidence of criminal manipulation,” Tucker wrote to them in one email.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>His claims made little sense in Barry County, where Trump won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin</b>. Rutland Charter Township clerk Ruth Hawthorne observed tartly: “They seem to think there was some kind of microchip in our tabulators that was throwing votes to Biden. But Trump won Barry County. He won by 65 percent of the vote, so I don’t know where they’re thinking that any kind of chips were in any of our machines or thinking that something had happened to them. The whole thing is nutty. It is nutty, totally nutty.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Leaf’s extremism was well established before the 2020 election. He had appeared on stage at an anti-masking rally bashing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer with three of the “Patriots” who were later charged with plotting to kidnap and execute her. He first suggested to reporters that perhaps the plotters were only trying to make a “citizens arrest.”&nbsp;<b>Leaf and other Michigan “constitutional sheriffs” also later refused to enforce a statewide ban on guns in Michigan polling places.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><b>His “election integrity” campaign in Michigan caught the attention of Richard Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Keepers Association (CSPOA), who then announced a nationwide campaign involving all of the country’s “constitutional sheriffs.</b>”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In May, Mack called on sheriffs and police around the U.S. “to come together in pursuit of the truth regarding the 2020 election.” A CSPOA press release made clear that the basis of their “investigations” was D’Souza’s widely debunked pseudodocumentary, 2000 Mules:</span></div><div>
</div><div>Considering the persistent allegations of election fraud since even before the 2020 elections began, and as a response to the perpetual polarizing effect this has had on the American people, the CSPOA would like to put this issue to rest. Our constitutional republic and peaceful future as a free people absolutely depend on it.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In the opinion of the CSPOA, there is very compelling physical evidence presented by truethevote.org in the movie “2000 Mules” produced by Dinesh D'Souza.</b>&nbsp;“Law Enforcement has to step in at this point,” asserts D'Souza, and we absolutely agree with him. Therefore, we are asking for all local law enforcement agencies to work together to pursue investigations to determine the veracity of the “2000 Mules” information.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In fact, D’Souza’s documentary has been repeatedly demonstrated to be utterly groundless garbage. It has been debunked by Reuters, the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, FactCheck.org, Politifact, and NPR, to name only a few of the outlets where its phony “facts” and false premises have been eviscerated.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In short order, the CSPOA had teamed up with Trump’s most fervent election denialists, True the Vote,</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">which receives substantial funding from notorious pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.</span>&nbsp;“Constitutional sheriffs” in other counties—including one in Kansas and another in Wisconsin—attempted similar “investigations” but came up empty-handed.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>At a Las Vegas gathering organized by Mack and True the Vote in July, Leaf called the county prosecutor’s refusal to hand out the search warrants "ridiculous,” adding: “We think we have enough for search warrants and everything else,” Leaf said during the conference, which also featured speeches from Trump loyalists like Lindell. “We're gonna keep moving forward, folks. We’re not done with this.”</div><div>
</div><div>Leaf harkened to the “constitutionalist” claim that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, saying: “What that does, it gives you the power—and I don’t know if you’re gonna appreciate me saying this—if we can’t get anywhere, we’re looking at doing grand juries, at the common law.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>One of True the Vote’s partners in the “election integrity” campaign is another “constitutional sheriffs” organization called Protect America Now, run by Sheriff Mark Lamb of Arizona’s Pinal County.&nbsp;</b>Lamb was a featured speaker at a Trump rally in Prescott in July, where he revved the crowd up with promises that the nation’s sheriffs would intervene on their behalf in future elections.</div><div>
</div><div>“We’re gonna make sure that we have election integrity this year,” Lamb declared. “Sheriffs are going to enforce the law. This is about the rule of law. It is against the law to violate elections laws—and that’s a novel idea, we’re going to hold you accountable for that. We will not let happen what happened in 2020.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lamb has plenty of local critics in Pinal County. At recent meeting of the county’s Board of Supervisors, he was accused by longtime residents of indulging in baseless fearmongering over election results.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roberto Reveles, a longtime Arizona civil rights activist, told commissioners that Lamb was engaging in naked partisan threats: “I recently was subjected to the intimidation referred to by a previous speaker. Sheriff Mark Lamb walked up to me and pointed at me … and said, ‘You and your fellow Democrats are destroying our country.’”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Lamb defended himself shortly afterwards during an appearance on Newsmax. “Last week in the board meeting I had probably 8 to 10 Democrats show up and absolutely blast me because I believe in the ‘Big Lie,’” Lamb said.</div><div>
</div><div>“It clearly shows that these folks don’t care about election integrity,” he continued. “They’re happy that their guy is in power, and right now they should care more than ever because this guy in office,&nbsp;<b>Joe Biden and his administration, is absolutely destroying America and freedom and they’re turning this into a country that we just don’t recognize.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Local Democrats like Ralph Atchue, formerly a candidate for Arizona Senate, state that Lamb and his deputies will begin patrolling polling places. “I hear from everybody that the line is being crossed,” Atchue told Jessica Pishko of Bolts. “Completely blurred.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>Far-right election denialists in Seattle’s King County placed signs during the July primary at ballot drop boxes warning people that their actions were being recorded on camera. Ironically, the King County Sheriff’s Office is now investigating those actions at the behest of the county’s elections office.</div><div>
</div><div>“The specter of law enforcement at the polls is already enough to discourage people from going to the polls,” observes Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. “Moreover, the threat of surveillance of polling places and drop boxes proposed by groups like True the Vote is meant to intimidate voters, particularly people of color, and deter them from casting ballots.”</div></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/soverign-citizen/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/soverign-citizen/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yikes militia have guns, xians want Armageddon</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">remix?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Sovereign-citizen members bolster their audiences by adding QAnon beliefs to their mix</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Image via Screengrab.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;David Neiwert</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and Daily Kos</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;June 26, 2022</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The “sovereign citizen” movement—comprising scam artists and their gullible followers who claim that, by filling reams of documents full of pseudo-legal babble, ordinary citizens can declare themselves free of government rule at any level, thus becoming the law unto themselves—seems to have figured out how, after a couple of decades of mostly lurking on the fringes of the extreme right, to expand its reach and revive (if not entirely rebrand) itself: Go full QAnon.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last weekend, onetime Pennsylvania Republican candidate Bobby Lawrence boasted that he and his “American State Nationals” operation filled a room in Keene, Texas, with 650 people who paid $120 each to take their special “training”—which teaches that&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">birth certificates are</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;satanic&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">documents that enslave people by subsuming them under a corporation, but they can free themselves by filing their prescribed “redemption” documents.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;They also ardently promote Qanon conspiracy theories, including the claim that John F. Kennedy Jr. was secretly Trump’s real vice president.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Anti-Defamation League has been warning about this coalescence since January, with Lawrence and his cohort David Straight, who have been holding these seminars around the country and, thanks to the fresh appeal of absorbing QAnon beliefs into the similarly conspiracy-fueled worldview of sovereign citizens, have increasingly been packing them in.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As their backgrounder explained:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lawrence teaches sovereignty with a QAnon bent, urging his followers to become&nbsp;<b>“American State Nationals</b>” before Trump is reinstated as president. “American State National” is one of many terms that sovereign citizens use to&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">distinguish themselves from citizens under the jurisdiction of the illegitimate, de facto government</span>.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Trump is working on the ‘Fall of the Cabal’ which will allow our Constitutional Republic to Rise again, however the newly partially restored Constitutional Republic will need We The People of restored status via ‘The Great Awakening’ to fill and function in the newly partially restored&nbsp;<b>Constitutional Republic,</b></span>” Lawrence posted to<b>&nbsp;Telegram</b>&nbsp;in October 2021. “This will only be accomplished v<b>ia We The People reclaiming our Birthright&nbsp;</b>by becoming American State Nationals... As the number of American State Nationals and one of the People increases, so will the Function of the [sic] our Constitutional Republic. It will start at the<b>&nbsp;absolute local level&nbsp;</b>(you and your neighbors) and then grow and grow and grow.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Sovereign-citizen and QAnon beliefs meld together almost seamlessly, as the ADL explains, because their fundamental worldviews involving a massive global cabal nefariously conspiring to enslave mankind are so similar</span>. The sovereign movement’s belief that the current U.S. government is illegitimate serves to support their view of the Biden presidency as fraudulent<b>, as well as the means for “freeing” themselves from such “tyranny.”</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lawrence primarily promotes a version of sovereign-citizen beliefs called “Redemption Theory,” which deals with the core concept that everyone who is an American citizen is designated a “strawman”&nbsp;<b>corporate entity</b>&nbsp;at birth, making them subsidiary properties of America Inc. “</span>Redemption” is the process by which they split the strawman from the flesh-and-blood human, and its purpose is two-fold. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) explains:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Once separated from the corporate shell, the newly freed man is now outside of the jurisdiction of all admiralty laws</b>. [Arrrrh me hearties<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">] More importantly, by filing a series of complex, legal-sounding documents, the sovereign can tap into that secret Treasury account for his own purposes.&nbsp;</span>Over the last 30 years, there have been hundreds of sovereign promoters packaging different combinations of forms and paperwork, attempting to perfect the process.<b>&nbsp;While no one has ever succeeded, of course, they know with the religious certainty of a true cult believer that they’re close. All it will take is the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;right combination of words</span>, say the promoters of the redemption scam.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lawrence regularly regales his audiences with his version of the “redemption” scam, but with a powerful QAnon flavor.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">At an April 21&nbsp;<b>“Patriots Arise” event in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—</b>where he shared the stage with Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano—</span>Lawrence launched to into a rant that manifested that commingling two conspiracist universes produces twice the crackpottery.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>He explained how modern births and the birth-certificate process are actually satanic rituals:</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Fred read a quote from [Woodrow Wilson adviser] Edward Mandell House where they talk about this construct, where they’re<b>&nbsp;gonna make slaves of us all, through a system of pledging, where we pledge our children as surety through something called a birth certificate, and a satanic ritual that takes place. …</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So I’m gonna walk you through a&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">satanic ritual&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">that takes place, and it started with the birth certificate, which was actually chartered under the Department of Transportation. And everything is Admiralty.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We all live under the water, and what is law, and where does law come from? Where does the word “law” come from? Land, air, and water.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And where the founders of this nation thought about what law was, was the Bible, the Geneva Bible, the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">King James Version 1611 edition, where we got the word law from.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And land, air, and water was in Genesis Chapter 1, verse 24 through 28, “and God created the heaven and the earth.” And God giveth man dominion over the earth, and God giveth man dominion over the land, and all the creatures that walk and creepeth. And God giveth man dominion over the air, and all the birds that fly, and&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">God giveth man dominion over the water, and all the fish that swimmeth. And this is law.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Lawrence then repeated stock sovereign-citizen beliefs (all every bit as risibly false as his etymology for the word “law”) that there are three tiers of law: Canon law, common law, and Admiralty law, each reflecting rule over air, land, and water respectively. Then he went on:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">So how do they get you to pledge your child, and how did our parents and our grandparents&nbsp;<b>pledge us as property[slavery?] ,</b>&nbsp;as surety, in our personification, all capital names? It was through an evil, satanic ritual called the birth of a child.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">You see, a mother goes into a foundling center, and she goes to see the doc—<b>tor; a tor is a bill of lading when a ship arrives at the dock</b>—and the mother puts her feet up on the stirrups and the mother’s&nbsp;<b>water&nbsp;</b>breaks, and the child comes out of the water through the birth canal, like you berth a ship, into the air, into the hands of the dock—tor. And then, historically speaking, a satanic ritual would take place—a child was smacked on the butt, turned upside down, cried out in fear and pain. And then before the child could put their feet on the land and take the breath of God as a free creation of God, a legal bond document came out. It’s on bond paper because it’s a banking instrument, it’s a surety bond.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;child’s soul was taken</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;on the back of that document. It was called the soul print</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And then the umbilical cord and the afterbirth was thereby dead and abandoned by the mother, because that was part of your birth, part of your being born. The construct, the evil says that now that is dead, a part of you died and now you are a dead vessel, you are an all-capital legal fiction. They called you a person. If you look at your driver’s license, if you look at every document that government or any business sends you, it’s in your all-capital name. Your personification. Now the Bible tells us not to take on the persona, not to take on the person.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawrence also harkened to the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;stock radicalization belief in “red-pilling”: “We are living in Babylon right now,”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;he said. “It’s a corporate construct. It’s a Matrix. Keanu Reeves has said publicly that The Matrix is a documentary of how we are living our lives. Your money’s not real, you don’t own anything.”</span></b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And near the end, he wrapped it all up with a classic QAnon-style claim that Donald Trump is secretly One Of Them:</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Yes, President Trump has done many things for us. And I won’t go into a lot of them, because quite frankly a lot of folks aren’t ready for it. And it’s hard to verify. But Donald Trump has told you all, if you go back to his speeches, he’s told you that when he comes back, he’s gonna be little letters, lower case.</b>&nbsp;Look to his speech in 2021 at CPAC in Texas. He said when we go back to the White House this time it’s going to be in little letters. He told you at another rally that people are sovereign. He told you at another rally that you’re all millionaires. He told you in another rally that you’re the elite. And they’re the scoundrels. He told you at another rally that the Bar Association is corrupt. He tells you on and on—he might talk for two hours, but only four sentences are for those who are awake. And there’s a huge difference between being woke and awake, is it not?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Lawrence has formed close associations with leading QAnon influencers such as Ann Vandersteel, Allen and Francine Fosdick, the Pennsylvania-based hosts of the QAnon show Up Front in the Prophetic, and David Straight.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Vandersteel posted proudly announced on<b>&nbsp;Gab</b>&nbsp;that she was “officially an American State National,” meaning she no longer was beholden to the U.S. government. She touted the supposed benefits of becoming an&nbsp;<b>“American state national,” such as freedom from paying federal taxes to getting to “vote as a delegate, which has the power of four votes,</b>” in an appearance on “The Conservative Daily Podcast,” hosted by Joe Oltmann and Max McGuire.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>She said she had been introduced to these ideas by Lawrence, who ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2018.&nbsp;</b>Vandersteel indicated that Lawrence was radicalized afterward through his contacts with David Straight, a sovereign citizen activist who also promoted QAnon theories. Vandersteel claimed that Straight was a “commissioner on President Trump’s child sex-trafficking commission.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ADL analyst Mark Pitcavage explained Lawrence’s rant on Twitter, noting that “redemption theory” originated with a sovereign-citizen guru named Roger Elvick back in 1999, and it became widespread within the movement.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“Basic redemption theory is something like this: In 1933, the US went off the gold standard and could therefore no longer pay its debts to the international bankers<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To get around this, the government turned humans into collateral by converting birth certificates into stock,” he wrote. “They did this in part by creating fictional duplicates of every person (dubbed ‘strawmen’). You can tell when a document refers to the straw man instead of the flesh and blood person because the name will be in all caps, not upper and lower case.”</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">He also noted that much of the talk is devoted to explaining the sovereign-citizen belief that the conspiracy which infiltrated and subverted and replaced the original, legitimate government with a de facto tyrannical government had done so by replacing constitutional law with inferior “maritime” or “admiralty” law.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“Finally,” he noted, “the Satanic references thrown in there are derived from QAnon and presumably designed to make these theories more palatable to QAnoners.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Given the size of Lawrence’s audiences now, and the regularity and breadth of “American State Nationalist” training sessions, the ADL’s January warning—“Given the flexibility of the sovereign citizen movement and its pseudo-legal tactics,<b>&nbsp;it is quite possible that increasing numbers of QAnon adherents will find sovereign citizen ideas attractive in the future”—</b>seems more than prescient. It may, in fact, prove to be understated.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump Proves Once Again That White Crime Gets a Pass from His ... ›</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The racist 'Great Replacement' theory is now 'mainstream ... ›</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Capitol rioter who demanded Pelosi be turned over to be lynched ... ›</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">'Living people': who are the sovereign citizens, or SovCits, and why ... ›</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is the 'sovereign citizen' movement? - BBC News ›</font></font></font></font></p><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tucker-carlson-2656827634/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tucker-carlson-2656827634/</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx vid</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tucker Carlson tries to gaslight his way out of having pushed Putin’s anti-Ukraine propaganda for a month</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>David Neiwert and Daily Kos March 02, 2022</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tucker Carlson is utterly baffled that people would think he is rooting for Vladimir Putin and Russia in its war on Ukraine. “You know, it’s such an awful thing to say,” he said on his Fox News show Monday, after playing a clip of Congressman Eric Swalwell saying he and other Republicans were on Putin’s side. “We hesitated to play that, even—it’s very common, you hear it every day. The question is: Why are they saying that? It doesn’t make any sense.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gaslighting, of course, has become Carlson’s specialty.&nbsp;<b>In reality, Carlson spent most of the month prior to the invasion praising Putin and echoing Russian propaganda: running down Ukraine, deriding it as a “State Department client state”—not a democracy, but “a tyranny”—and claiming that Russia just wants to keep its borders secure, everything the fault of Joe Biden</b>. So much so that he became the hero of Russian state television, where his rants were translated and replayed, and he was praised as an astute American.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now that the horror is hitting home, Carlson suddenly has realized that he backed the wrong horse and is scurrying hard to dig his way out. The first step in that, of course, is gaslighting his audience about what he had been saying just the week before, and blaming the war on Putin now—yet somehow it’s still all Joe Biden’s fault. Those clips have yet to appear on Russian TV.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The major tone shift occurred Friday, a day after the invasion: “It’s a tragedy, because war always is a tragedy, and the closer you get to it, the more horrifying it seems,” he said. He also squarely put the onus on Russia and Putin: “He is to blame for what we’re seeing tonight in Ukraine.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Vladimir Putin started this war,<b>&nbsp;so whatever the context of the decision that he made, he did it</b>,” [CYA?] he said. “He fired the first shots.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>It’s a sharp and complete reversal of his previous arguments. On Feb. 17, he spouted Russian propaganda in claiming that Ukraine is not a legitimate nation. He also attacked U.S. officials who provided military aid to Ukraine.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“These people are so ghoulish,” Carlson said. “Of course they’re promoting war, not to maintain the democracy that is Ukraine. Ukraine is not a democracy. It has never been a democracy in its history, and it’s not now. It’s a client state of the Biden administration.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>This narrative became a staple of Carlson’s defense of Russia’s war<b>. On his Feb. 22 show, he again spouted Putin’s propaganda: “The point here is to defend democracy. Not that Ukraine is a democracy. It’s not a democracy. Ukraine’s president has arrested his main political opponent, he has shut down newspapers and television stations</b>&nbsp;that have dared to criticize him. So in American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny. But Joe Biden likes Ukraine, so Putin bad, war good.”</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The next day, he again dismissed Ukraine as “a State Department client state,</b>” claiming that<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Democrats wanted Americans to “wholeheartedly support jumping with both feet into a highly complicated conflict in a part of Eastern Europe where we have no national interests.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>The most noteworthy part of that Feb. 22 episode, however, was<b>&nbsp;how Carlson defended Putin against his “haters” by comparing him to American liberals, who he clearly saw as far more nefarious:</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It might be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, ‘What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my kids to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?’ These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that. So do why does permanent Washington hate him so much?</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The day after the invasion began, on Feb. 24, it was more of the same. The invasion, he claimed, demonstrated that Biden was a foreign-policy failure who had promised he would keep it from happening, making Putin’s war a “humiliating defeat for Joe Biden.</b>”</div><div>
</div><div>Russian state media promptly began re-airing Carlson’s rants with translated subtitles, particularly the Putin-didn’t-call-me-a-racist episode. His attacks on Ukraine’s legitimacy also received heavy play. They also replayed Carlson’s Feb. 24 interview with ex-Congresswoman<b>&nbsp;Tulsi Gabbard,</b>&nbsp;who told him: "Sanctions don't work. This is the whole problem with the Biden administration: They are so focused on how do we punish Putin."</div><div>
</div><div>The clips became the topic of Russian TV news talk shows, where Carlson was uniformly praised. “Excellent performance,” the editor of a Russian national defense journal commented. “We can only have solidarity with this view.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Of course, Carlson is hardly alone in spreading pro-Russian propaganda on Fox News. On Feb. 24, just before bombs began falling on Ukraine, host Laura Ingraham interviewed ex-president Donald Trump by phone, who praised Putin—“I do know him very well. We’ve had many, uh, times together. I got along with him fantastically”—and ranted at length that the invasion was Biden’s fault, and the war never would have happened if the election hadn’t been stolen from him.</span></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Near the end of the interview, Ingraham asked Trump about the speech given earlier that day by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing it as “a kind of really pathetic display” and described Ukraine’s United Nations ambassador as “looking like a defeated man.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>And despite the seeming change in tone, Carlson’s “pivot” still found him ardently defending Russian propaganda, and serving as its useful tool.</b>&nbsp;Angry that authorities and platform owners in the U.S., Canada, and in Europe are taking action against the Kremlin-owned American news outlet Russia Today and other agitprop producers like Sputnik—both of whom also heavily replayed his pro-Russia rants—Carlson fumed that it all constituted “moral blackmail,” gaslighting away his previous remarks: “No one in America takes pride at the sight, feels anything but revulsion at the sight, of Russian troops within Ukraine.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Sure enough, RT promptly retweeted Carlson’s clip: “Tucker Carlson defends media freedom as Senators use their power to shut down free speech on social media—especially so-called ‘Russian propaganda.’”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Lis Wahl, a former anchor at Russia Today, explained to The Daily Beast, the distinction between a propaganda operation like RT and what’s aired on Fox News has essentially vanished:</span></div><div>
</div><div>While the American voices Russian media uses to influence Western audiences hail from the far-left and the far-right, the poison of disinformation asymmetrically originates on the ideological right. Research has demonstrated that followers of the former president stick to hyper-partisan and conspiracy-laden sources such as Breitbart, Info Wars, and Fox News.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">During Trump’s election and throughout his presidency, the rightwing ecosystem grew more conspiratorial, extreme, and anti-democratic. It is during this time that Russian media and right-wing media became indistinguishable.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Today, the chief purveyors of pro-Russian disinformation in the U.S. are now on Fox News. I have warned that quite often the pro-Putin claims on Fox and RT essentially mimic each other. But much of the American public, and even many in the mainstream media, fail to realize the extent to which this disinformation has become part of the fabric of the new media landscape, and therefore, American political discourse.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/chrisitan-nationalism/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/chrisitan-nationalism/</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of the far-right extremist movements that arose online and then in real life over the past decade—the alt-right, white nationalists, and other authoritarian proto-fascists—have been generally ecumenical and areligious in their rhetorical appeals and organizing, other than their frequent expressions of antisemitism. But that’s beginning to change, as Jack Jenkins explored&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/01/26/christian-nationalism-jan-6-extreme-right/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">this week at the&nbsp;Washington Post</a>.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">With “Groyper” leader Nick Fuentes leading the way, it’s becoming much more common to hear them embracing Christian nationalism</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">—an ideology long embraced by the larger radical right, particularly the so-called </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Patriot” movement. Moreover, a number of these white nationalists appear to be pushing even farther into a particularly ugly—and previously stagnant—brand of religious nationalism:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/christian-identity" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Christian Identity</a>, the bigoted theological movement claiming that white people are the true “Children of Israel,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”<b> that Jews are the literal descendants of Satan, and that all nonwhite people are soulless “mud people.”</b></span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Jenkins reports, since the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, Fuentes’ white-nationalist “America First” organization has increasingly employed Christian nationalist rhetoric: Chanting “Christ is King” at the antiabortion “March for Life” last week and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/18/2065114/-Republican-politicians-and-white-nationalists-spreading-antisemitism-along-with-COVID-denialism" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at anti-vaccine protests</a>, using crucifixes as protest symbols, and similar rhetorical appeals.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In a speech at the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/9/2020273/-Paul-Gosar-takes-Steve-King-s-place-as-House-Republicans-designated-white-nationalist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">America First conference in Orlando</a>&nbsp;in March at which he declared America “a Christian nation,” Fuentes warned his audience that America will cease to be America “if it loses its White demographic core and if it loses its faith in Jesus Christ.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Christian nationalism—and even the idea of separatism, with a subtext of White, Christian and conservative-leaning [influences]—took a more dominant role in the way that extremist groups talk to each other and try to propagandize in public,” Jared Holt of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab told Jenkins.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Christian nationalism has long been a feature of the nation’s extremist right, dating back to the original Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s and its later version in the 1920s. </b>Fuentes’s rhetoric “could have come word-for-word from a Klan speech in 1922,” historian Kelly J. Baker told Jenkins. “The Klan’s goal here was patriotism and nationalism, but it was combined with their focus on White Christianity.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>This worldview was a powerful animating force at the Jan. 6 insurrection, embodied by the moment when the self-described “Patriots” entered the vacated Senate chambers, took over the dais, and&nbsp;<a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/02/25/the-insurrectionists-senate-floor-prayer-highlights-a-curious-trumpian-ecumenism/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">proceeded to share a prayer</a>&nbsp;led by Jacob “QAnon Shaman</b>” Chansley.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=270F8s5TEKY&t=470s" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">A video</a>&nbsp;captured by&nbsp;The New Yorker&nbsp;shows the moment: One insurrectionist shouts, “Jesus Christ, we invoke your name!” The men bellow “Amen!” Then Chansley begins to lead them in prayer, saying: “Thank you heavenly father for gracing us with this opportunity to<b> stand up for our God-given inalienable rights.”</b> He also thanks God for allowing them to <b>“exercise our rights,</b> to allow us to send a message to all th<b>e tyrants, the communists and the globalists</b> that this is our nation, not theirs.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He concluded: “Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be<b> reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists, and the traitors within our government.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As historian Katherine Stewart&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/opinion/jan-6-christian-nationalism.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">explained in the&nbsp;New York Times</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.546px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">A final precondition for the coup attempt was the belief, among the target population, that the legitimacy of the United States government derives from its commitment to a particular religious and cultural heritage, and not from its democratic form</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. It is astonishing to many that the leaders of the Jan. 6 attack on the constitutional electoral process styled themselves as “patriots.” But it makes a glimmer of sense once you understand that their allegiance is to a belief in blood, earth and religion, rather than to the mere idea of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”</span>
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A number of the groups, notably the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who led the insurrection similarly voiced their affinity for Christian nationalism</b>. The morning of Jan. 6, as Jenkins reports, a group of Proud Boys led by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/4/2014010/-Notorious-Proud-Boys-brawler-among-eight-members-now-under-arrest-for-roles-in-Capitol-siege" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ethan Nordean</a>—the primary leader of the men who later spearheaded the siege of the Capitol, were seen praying together.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a gathering of Proud Boys near the Washington Monument on Dec. 11&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-1KfSxLvEY&feature=youtu.be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">captured on video</a>&nbsp;by independent journalist Dakota Santiago for Religion News Service,<b> Nordean had spoken about “sacrificing ourselves for our country”</b> while speaking at an impromptu Proud Boys rally near the Washington Monument, according to footage provided to Religion News Service (RNS) by independent journalist Dakota Santiago.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nordean—a notorious street brawler nicknamed “Rufio Panman”—described an epiphany he had during a protest about Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross:</b></font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.546px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">I had a moment of realization where I was like, “You know what,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> I’m going to be diehard about everything in my life. I’m gonna be <b>real</b>.” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">Because everything that we have sacrificed—because you know how hard it is in this environment that we live in—it is time that you rise to the occasion. <b>Be real.</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">Now you may not believe in that, but it’s important in the very least for my case for me, because </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">this <b>man</b> did this thing. Just as we sacrifice ourselves for our country. <b>A man provides and protects even when he’s not loved. That is what we do.</b> We are hated but we do it in anyway, we keep showing up every day and we <b>protect these people from these tyrannical dictators.</b></span>
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The same religious fervor has intensified in the aftermath of the insurrection, particularly as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/2065615/-The-Patriot-Movement-s-creep-into-the-GOP-mainstream-formed-the-war-on-democracy-s-nexus" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">“Patriot” movement believers</a>&nbsp;and their mainstream Republican enablers have doubled down with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/7/29/2042815/--Bloody-shirt-gaslighting-hits-fruition-as-Republicans-valorize-insurrectionists-attack-accusers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a gaslighting narrative</a>&nbsp;insisting that what happened Jan. 6 wasn’t an insurrection, it was a righteous protest by Real Americans.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That narrative has been ardently adopted by Christian nationalists like the Trump supporters interviewed earlier this month by NPR:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.546px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Outside on the walkway, Murray Clemetson stands with an armful of hand-made signs he brought to church, such as, "<b>Set the DC Patriots Free" and "We Are Americans, Not Terrorists</b>." The law-school student and father of three —a<b>ll home-schooled</b>— was at the "Stop The Steal" rally in Washington, D.C., last year.
"The only insurrection that happened on Jan. 6 was by the agent provocateurs, paid actors, and corrupt police and FBI," he says, disputing all the evidence made public in the more than 700 criminal cases that the rioters were Trump fanatics.
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The church the interviewers reported from is <b>Ken Peters’ Patriot Church in Tennessee, one of the nation’s most prominent Christian nationalist congregations</b>. Peters is a rabidly pro-Trump pastor who has appeared onstage in recent months with Mike Lindell, the “My Pillow” conspiracy theorist who claims Donald Trump was the victim of election fraud. Peters also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/jan/13/shawn-vestal-pastor-who-organized-anti-abortion-ra/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spoke to the crowd</a>&nbsp;gathered in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/6/2006324/-MAGA-marchers-ginned-up-on-violent-rhetoric-give-Washington-preview-of-today-s-election-protests" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at a pre-rally</a>&nbsp;for the next day’s “Stop the Steal” protest that devolved into the Capitol insurrection.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Peters’ predilection for linking arms with violent white-nationalist thugs like the Proud Boys manifested itself&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/11/2045231/-The-religious-far-right-links-arms-with-Proud-Boys-in-Church-at-Planned-Parenthood-events" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">in summer 2021 in Salem, Oregon</a>, outside a Planned Parenthood clinic targeted by Peters</b>’ “Church at Planned Parenthood” campaign. A phalanx of Proud Boys provided “security” for the event, including notorious brawler&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/19/2075562/-Where-s-Tiny-Notorious-Proud-Boy-Toese-in-Washington-jail-awaiting-charges-in-Portland-violence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Tusitala “Tiny” Toese</a>, currently in jail awaiting trial on assault charges.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The sermon Peters delivered during NPR’s visit to his church turned a</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> similarly convenient blind eye to Donald Trump’s manifest flaws as a Christian hero. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">We consider the left in our nation today to be a giant bully,” Peters said. “And when there is a bully on the schoolyard and somebody rises up and punches back, 'Hallelujah!' So we are thankful for Trump."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Then he added: "But you know what? If Trump passes away tomorrow, God forbid, does that stop us? Does that slow us down? Not one bit. We'll be looking for the next guy to lead the way.</b>"</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, the long-term determination of Christian nationalists to impose a narrow sectarian view on American government and society are reflected in its legislative assault on state laws, an attempt to reshape U.S. laws from the ground up as well as the top down.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/04/project-blitz-the-legislative-assault-by-christian-nationalists-to-reshape-america" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Their program “Project Blitz,”</a>&nbsp;revealed by journalist Frederick Clarkson in 2018—a detailed and complex system of proposed legislation with which Christian nationalist beliefs are gradually embedded within state laws—is only one example of the breadth and depth of their assault on liberal democracy.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The use of Christian symbols, iconography, Scripture in efforts to dominate and exclude are as old the republic itself," Rev. Fred Davie, executive vice president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/28/white-nationalists-use-christian-symbols-send-messages-racists/4457702001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">told Trevor Hughes of&nbsp;<em>USA Today</em></a>. "It's deeply baked into our nation. It's deep, but it's also been proven time and time again to be wrong."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While many Christian nationalists are grounded in more traditional evangelical views, there is also a component who are cynically embracing religious fervor as a way of broadening their community of white supremacists and expanding their recruitment base.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"For them, it's just shorthand for identity,</b>" Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Hughes. "There absolutely is a connection between far-right political extremism and far-right religious extremism, but I doubt these people are showing up at church every Sunday and reading their Bibles."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research sociologist Matthew DeMichele told Hughes that many of t<b>oday's religious displays are an "intense redeployment of old tactics."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"People don't want to say that this is a country founded on white supremacy. But we know that to be true," DeMichele said. <b>"It's very important to understand that it's not new for white supremacists to have a Christian identity. But it is intriguing there has been the strengthening overlap of the white nationalists and those of Christian Identity."</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The striking aspect of the surge of Christian nationalism has been its ability to unify sectors of the radical right, from militia-oriented “Patriots” to bigoted white nationalists to conspiracists like the authoritarian QAnon cult. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Alex Newhouse, deputy director of the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Besides faith, told Jenkins that social media have been powerful vectors for this confluence.</span></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This unification is pretty unprecedented,” Newhouse said. “The infusion of Christian nationalism throughout that unification process has been particularly interesting and, in my opinion, is going to end up being pretty dangerous.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Newhouse particularly has noticed a sudden uptick, since 2019, of interest in Christian Identity, the infamous religious movement long associated with neo-Nazis, particularly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/aryan-nations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the Aryan Nations operation</a>&nbsp;in the northern Idaho Panhandle between 1978 and 2000, which was an Identity church.</b> Newhouse noted that Christian nationalist appeals may “disguise a much more dangerous uptick in adoption of Christian Identity.”</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the leading voices in this resurgence of Identity beliefs, Newhouse says, is <b>Kyle Chapman, the cofounder of the Proud Boys-affiliated Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights </b>who later attempted to create an explicitly racist and antisemitic offshoot&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/12/1995319/-Proud-Boys-post-election-crackup-offers-revealing-glimpse-of-their-deep-white-nationalist-nature" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">called “Proud Goys.”</a>&nbsp;(Chapman is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/story/2022/1/12/2074298/-Two-notorious-Proud-Boys-figures-now-under-arrest-for-felony-assault-in-two-separate-cases" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">currently awaiting trial in Idaho</a>&nbsp;on charges of assaulting a health-care worker when he was hospitalized last November.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Newhouse said Chapman has been interacting with Christian Identity influencers on the encrypted chat platform Telegram, while “blasting out Christian Identity propaganda.” Another key Trumpist figure—Qanon influencer GhostEzra,who has 300,000 followers on Telegram—posted explicit Identity messages. Identity theology—including references to the “two seedline theory,” which claims that Eve also mated with Satan in the Garden of Eden and thus gave birth to Jews—has been popping up with regularity on QAnon and Proud Boys channels on Telegram, Newhouse reported.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“There’s this gradual move toward a more revolutionary, burn-it-all-down posture, and I think Christian Identity for a lot of these people has become a way for them to organize their thoughts,”</b> he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/opinion/jan-6-christian-nationalism.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Stewart explained in the NYT</a>,<b> Christian nationalist beliefs are not merely spreading among far-right extremists. Perhaps even more pernicious is their spread among mainstream conservatives in the media and especially within the Republican Party:</b></font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.546px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">National organizations like the <b>Faith & Freedom Coalition and the Ziklag Group,</b> which bring together prominent Republican leaders with donors and religious right activists, feature “Seven Mountains” workshops</span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);"> and panels at their gatherings. Nationalist leaders and their political dependents in the Republican Party now state quite openly what before they whispered to one another over their prayer breakfasts. Whether the public will take notice remains to be seen.</span>
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As I’ve&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/2/1933440/-Review-Christian-nationalism-s-insidious-hold-on-America-is-not-an-overnight-phenomenon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">observed previously</a>&nbsp;(while reviewing Stewart’s excellent review of Christian nationalism,&nbsp;The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism)<em>:&nbsp;</em>When viewed through the lens of its real-world outcomes, fundamentalist Christianity is less a coherent theology than it is a form of spiritual or religious totalitarianism, one that requires abject submission to what is actually a very perverse and narrow interpretation of the meaning of Scripture.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This approach translated naturally into political authoritarianism—the kind that Donald Trump practices. And Trump in turn has proven very adept at feeding the psychological needs of the kinds of personalities that adhere to such movements.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many leaders of the Christian right like to dress up in red, white, and blue and announce themselves as true patriots. But they are the same people who seek to pervert our institutions, betray our international alliances, treat the Constitution as a subcategory of their holy texts, demean whole segments of the population, foist their authoritarian creed upon other people’s children, and celebrate the elevation of a “king” to the presidency who made a sport out of violating democratic laws and norms.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We can only be grateful that he is out of power now. And it will be incumbent on everyone who treasures their democratic institutions to do everything in their power to defend them against this lethal tide of extremism now.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ammon-bundy/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ammon-bundy/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david n kos</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the consequences of the GOP's sidelong embrace of its extremist elements—from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/12/2030221/-Republicans-double-down-on-gaslighting-narrative-in-House-hearing-It-was-not-an-insurrection" 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;">insurrection denialists</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/21/2031502/-The-Big-Lie-isn-t-something-Republicans-are-interested-in-investigating-because-they-made-it" 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;">Big Lie gaslighters</a>&nbsp;to the QAnon cultists like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/24/2031855/-Crickets-from-Kevin-McCarthy-after-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-compared-mask-wearing-to-the-Holocaust" 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;">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/tags/LaurenBoebert" 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;">Lauren Boebert</a>—is that far-right extremists are now perfectly comfortable identifying as Republicans. In some cases, they're demanding the overthrow of the party's establishment—which can't seem to decide whether to fight back or just succumb willingly to the incoming far-right tide.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Establishment Republicans in Western states are particularly under siege from extremist elements among their voting base.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article251599273.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">I<b>n Idaho</b></a><b>, for instance</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>, armed-standoff-guru-turned-pandemic-denialist Ammon Bundy filed paperwork to run for governor, in a race already featuring another leading state "Patriot" movement figure.</b>&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/activists-with-ties-to-proud-boys-may-seek-leadership-of-clark-county-gop-2360444/" 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;">In&nbsp;</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/activists-with-ties-to-proud-boys-may-seek-leadership-of-clark-county-gop-2360444/" 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;">Nevada</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;an insurgent far-right group organized on social media and led by P<b>roud Boys members are attempting an open hostile takeover of the Clark County GOP, the state's largest county-level Republican organization.</b></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bundy's filing is rich in irony. For starters, he is currently banned from the Idaho Statehouse in Boise after&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/26/1972626/-Bundy-s-anti-pandemic-antics-earn-him-two-ejections-from-Idaho-Statehouse-in-two-days" 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;">his two ejections and arrests</a>&nbsp;for defying masking requirements, for which he is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/16/2021350/-Facing-trial-for-Idaho-Statehouse-disruption-Ammon-Bundy-refuses-mask-is-arrested-once-again" 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;">currently standing trial</a>. For another,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/politics/ammon-bundy-run-idaho-governor/277-aa8a55c1-3998-42ba-958e-b7809547b6bc" 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;">as KTVB notes</a>, Bundy himself is not even registered to vote in Idaho, and has apparently never done so in the five years or so that he has lived in Emmett.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also named himself the treasurer of his campaign, which means that he will have to refile the paperwork, according to the Idaho Secretary of State's office, which&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/IDSecOfState/status/1395886582465392646" 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;">tweeted out an explanation</a>: "Because a treasurer must be a registered Idaho voter, Ammon Bundy will either need to register and refile or name a new treasurer by refiling. IDSOS staff have notified him as such."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Republican field to replace incumbent Governor Brad Little (who has not announced whether he will seek re-election) is already large, and Bundy's competition in the primary already features another leading "Patriot" movement figure,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/19/2031242/-Idaho-s-conservative-governor-isn-t-crazy-enough-so-his-far-right-lt-governor-is-challenging-him" 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;">Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin</a>,&nbsp;</b>who announced her candidacy last week. While Bundy was probably the earliest far-right figure in Idaho to take up the cause of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1932782/-Always-paranoid-Patriot-militiamen-push-back-against-coronavirus-social-isolation-measures" 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;">opposing COVID-19-related public-health restrictions</a>, McGeachin—who has supported Bundy and his fellow standoff-loving "Patriots" steadfastly from her office in Boise—has also been on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/29/1948687/-Militia-loving-lieutenant-governor-leads-fight-against-Idaho-s-stay-at-home-orders" 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 pandemic-denialist bandwagon</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McGeachin appeared&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/idahos-lt-gov-janice-mcgeachin-has-gone-rogue-over-coronavirus?ref=scroll" 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;">alongside Bundy</a>&nbsp;at one anti-restriction rally in Boise. More notoriously,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/idaho-covid-lieutenant-governor/" 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;">she appeared in a</a>&nbsp;video in which she brandished a handgun and a Bible while sitting in the driver's seat of a pickup, railing against coronavirus restrictions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The political insurgency inside Clark County's GOP was reported Friday by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/activists-with-ties-to-proud-boys-may-seek-leadership-of-clark-county-gop-2360444/" 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;">Rory Appleton at the&nbsp;<em>Las Vegas Review-Journal</em></a><em>,&nbsp;</em>who explained that a group of far-right activists with deep ties to the&nbsp;<b>Proud Boys are positioning themselves to take over the county Republican leadership. Some of its members, meanwhile, are alleged to have threatened a number of prominent Republicans.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The group, Appleton reported, organized online—primarily using the&nbsp;<b>encrypted chat app Telegram</b>—while reveling in anti-Semitic and white-nationalist memes and rhetoric. "Two Republican women in public office told the&nbsp;<em>Review-Journal</em>&nbsp;they've been threatened by leaders of the fringe movement, as did the current board of the Clark County party, which is hiring security for a crucial meeting Tuesday," the story reads.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Calling itself the "Republican Chamber of Commerce" (despite lacking ties to any known GOP organization), the far-right group first made its presence felt last month when it organized a late surge in votes favoring&nbsp;<a href="https://knpr.org/knpr/2021-04/lee-leaves-cegavske-censured-do-political-parties-matter-nevada" 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 censure of Barbara Cegavske</a>, the state's Republican Secretary of State, for refusing to play along with attempts to overturn the 2020 election results based on Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Since then, it has been preparing to provide a similar wave of votes to sweep three of their three leading figures—Rudy Clai, Matt Anthony and Paul Laramie—into the leadership of the Clark County GOP</b>. The group has no record of doing business anywhere in the state of Nevada, and has no connection to any of the known chamber or Republican groups already established in Nevada.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet its website appears to be a nominally mainstream GOP group. Its primary emblem resembles the Republican National Committee's logo but inverted, with a red elephant on a white background encircled in red with the letters "RCC" and "Republican Chamber of Commerce" within.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anthony has achieved a level of media notoriety as one of Las Vegas'&nbsp;<a href="https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/a-post-insurrection-pep-talk-from-a-las-vegas-proud-boy" 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;">most prominent Proud Boys</a>, though he insists the local chapter is nonviolent and nonracist. After the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection,&nbsp;<a href="https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/a-post-insurrection-pep-talk-from-a-las-vegas-proud-boy" 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;">he defended the people arrested</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<b>warned against a law-enforcement crackdown on "Patriots": "They're basically going all in on tyranny, guys. … They're watching. It's to be expected. They're the enemy. They're going to shut down our ability to communicate."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As it happens, Anthony is also a fugitive: He is the subject of an arrest warrant from the state of Michigan after he broke probation by moving to Nevada and then refusing to return after Nevada declined to oversee his probation, all stemming from his 2012 arrest on a drug charge</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group's Telegram channel—owned by Anthony, and administered by Clai—is titled&nbsp;<b>"Keep Nevada Open,"</b>&nbsp;apparently an offshoot of a Facebook group with the same name that boasted 17,000 members and organized anti-masking and other pandemic-related protests. Appleton describes a review of the channel's contents by the Clark County GOP executive board, led by chief of staff Richard MacLean:</font></p><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: rgb(245, 245, 245);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MacLean showed his fellow board members several pictures and videos posted within the group, though not specifically by Anthony and Clai.

<b>One photo blamed the 9/11 terrorist bombings on Jews. Another video featured a long clip of an Adolf Hitler speech and Nazi soldier marches. Some featured cartoon characters with negative Jewish stereotypes, and one photo featured messages written on dollar bills.</b>

A post even poked fun at Republicans, claiming they seemed to be shocked at certain current events while white nationalists were thrilled by them.
</font></blockquote><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The board promptly ejected the three men from the party. However, on Thursday, 10 people including&nbsp;<b>Anthony and Clai filed a lawsuit&nbsp;</b>against both the county and state party central committees, accusing them of illegally boxing them out of Clark County GOP meetings. They claim Clai and Anthony are heading up an alternative leadership slate, and are running against a mainstream ticket headed up by state Sen. Carrie Buck.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the pushback by local Republican officials, the extremist elements remain emboldened in no small part because national-level Republicans have shown their eagerness to ignore the radicalism and even embrace it. Certainly, the local far-right leaders are confident that the party's base supports them, and not the establishment players.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We have the numbers, and they don't, so they have to play dirty," Anthony said in an interview Thursday. "It's that simple."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.idahostatesman.com/article251510548.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">McGeachin's campaign signs</a>&nbsp;feature the hashtag #IAmIdaho. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a pivotal moment in history, not just for Idaho but for our nation," McGeachin said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bundy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/noted-anti-government-activist-ammon-bundy-running-governor-idaho-n1268317" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">told NBC News</a>&nbsp;on Monday that, despite the filings, he hasn't formally announced his candidacy, but is preparing to build a campaign organization.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"The people of Idaho are very freedom-minded," Bundy said. "I had never desired (to run for office), but I knew as early as 2017 that I would run for governor of Idaho."</b></font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-a-constitutionalist-oregon-sheriff-rules-his-rural-county-like-a-personal-fiefdom/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">paul r salon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</b>&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.&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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><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 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 numerous Christian right leaders 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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><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. </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even a decade before Trump, the ideological lines were blurring.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 that O'Reilly claimed that immigration reformers "hate America ... because it's run primarily by white, Christian men" 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<b>Christian Right leaders during the Obama years calling for or suggesting a racial civil war is coming, including&nbsp;</b></span><b><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/perkins-if-scotus-legalizes-gay-marriage-it-could-lead-to-revolution/" 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>Tony Perkins</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/klayman-revolution-black-muslim-obama" 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>Larry Klayman</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/joyner-get-ready-second-american-revolution" 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>Rick Joyner</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The novel has seven key ideas</b>&nbsp;that its critics and proponents have noted. One, mass migration is an invasion. Two, immigrants and refugees are invaders. Three, the invaders will eventually destroy Western culture and replace Western populations. 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 ("demographic winter")</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;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 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font 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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The term "demographic winter" appears to have come from Don Feder, communications director of the&nbsp;<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;">World Congress of Families</a></b>&nbsp;[a far-right, anti-LGBT Christian group]. He is the most prominent WCF official&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0402/article_309.shtml" 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>linked to the Tanton</u></a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0804/article_760.shtml" 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>anti-immigration network</u></a>&nbsp;and was apparently influenced by Bat Ye'or's "Eurabia" ideas, which circulate widely in conservative and right-wing Jewish circles.</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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-fascism-ascends-2020-election-may-be-the-crisis-of-democracy-that-opens-the-door-to-a-coup/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-fascism-ascends-2020-election-may-be-the-crisis-of-democracy-that-opens-the-door-to-a-coup/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">...trump] refused to say&nbsp;that he would make a peaceful transition, and threatened to “get rid of the ballots”—loses the popular vote on Nov.&nbsp;3 to Joe Biden, as polls currently indicate, he appears poised to dismiss millions of mail-in votes. He would&nbsp;likely do this through the courts that he has assiduously packed over the past three years, particularly via the Supreme Court seat he and his fellow Republicans are intent on seizing just prior to the vote. The legitimacy of both our system of elections and the foundational courts that embody the rule of law will have been not just undermined, but potentially destroyed.</font><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fascism,&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Anatomy_of_Fascism.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">historians tell us</a>, has only ever arisen in mature democratic states, and the main condition that permits it to seize power is a crisis of legitimacy for its major democratic institutions. The election of 2020 may well bring the crisis that does the trick for America.</font></p></div><div class="row" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="col-sm-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="story-body story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many observers—notably including authors Jason Stanley and Jared Yates Sexton—have remarked that the nation’s path under a Trump presidency has much more than a passing resemblance to the descent into fascism that has befallen other societies, the best-known examples being prewar Germany and Italy.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-may-not-be-a-fascist-but_b_8973768" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The correlations are powerful</a>:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 50px; list-style: none;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/17/1872435/-Donald-Trump-has-officially-become-America-s-eliminationist-in-chief" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eliminationist rhetoric</a>&nbsp;is the backbone of Trump’s appeal, and has been from the start. His opening salvo in the campaign—the one that first skyrocketed him to the forefront in the race&nbsp;poll-wise&nbsp;and proved wildly popular with Republican voters—was his vow (and subsequent proposed program) to deport all 12 million of the United States’ undocumented immigrants</span>&nbsp;(using, of course, the deprecatory term “illegal alien”) and to erect a gigantic wall on the nation’s southern border. Significantly, the language he used to justify such plans—labeling those immigrants “criminals,” “killers,” and “rapists,” contending that they bring crime and disease—was classic rhetoric designed to demonize an entire class of people by reducing them to objects fit only for elimination. This became more refined and pronounced over the course of his presidency, as when he attacked four women Democratic congressmembers of color: “If somebody has a problem with our country, if somebody doesn’t want to be in our country, they should leave!”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s palingenetic ultranationalism is his central theme. After the race-baiting and the ethnic fearmongering, this is the most obviously fascistic component of Trump’s presidency and its neverending campaign, embodied in those trucker hats proclaiming: “Make America Great Again.</b>” (Trump himself puts it this way: “The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take the country back. We’re going to make America great again.”) That’s almost the letter-perfect embodiment of<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;palingenesis—that is, the myth of the phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes of an entire society in its “golden age.</span>” In the meantime, Trump’s nationalism is evident not just in these statement but in&nbsp;the entire context of his rants against Latino immigrants and Syrian refugees.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Trump’s deep contempt not just for liberalism (which provides most of the fuel for his xenophobic rants, particularly against the media) but also for establishment conservatism.</b>&nbsp;Trump’s biggest fan, Rush&nbsp;<b>Limbaugh,</b>&nbsp;boasts: “In parlaying this outsider status of his, he’s better at playing the insiders’ game than they are, and they are insiders. He’s running rings around all of these seasoned, lifelong, highly acclaimed professionals in both the consultant class, the adviser class, the strategist class, and the candidate class. And he’s doing it simply by being himself.”</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump constantly proclaimed America to be in a state of crisis that has made it “the laughingstock” of the rest of the world during the 2016 campaign, and insists that this occurred because of the failures of (primarily liberal) politicians.&nbsp;</b>During his presidency, the crises varied according to Trump’s political needs—an immigrant caravan’s arrival on the border with Mexico was portrayed hysterically by Trump during the 2018 midterm elections as an existential threat, while this year, America is in grave danger (according to Trump and his fellow Republicans) from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/2/1974558/-The-Fox-bred-Antifa-threat-narrative-began-as-a-far-right-conspiracy-theory-that-went-mainstream" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a largely imaginary “antifa threat.”</a>&nbsp;The coronavirus pandemic that the world knows his incompetence allowed to kill 200,000 Americans—not so much.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He himself embodies the&nbsp;<b>fascist insistence upon male leadership by a man of destiny, and his refusal to acknowledge factual evidence of the falsity of many of his proclamations and comments embodies the fascistic notion that the leader’s instincts trump logic and reason in any event.</b></font></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 0px; list-style: square; position: relative; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump’s contempt for weakness (another classic fascist trait) is manifested practically every day on the campaign trail,</b>&nbsp;ranging from his dissing of former GOP presidential candidate&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">John McCain (a former prisoner of war) as “not a hero” because “I like people who weren’t captured,” to his mockery of a&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York Times</em>&nbsp;reporter with a disability, and more recently to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/4/1974893/-More-sources-confirm-that-Trump-called-fallen-veterans-losers-as-story-expands" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">his decision not to attend a ceremony</a>&nbsp;at a World War II gravesite near Paris because the American soldiers there who had died in the war were “losers” and “suckers.”</span></font></li></ul><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of have argued—<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-may-not-be-a-fascist-but_b_8973768" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">myself included</a>—that Trump is not a fascist ideologue in the classic mold, but rather a living model of a right-wing-populist demagogue. But fascism, properly understood, is itself a species of right-wing populism: one that has simply turned metastatic, a cancer raging out of control in the body politic. If, as it seems, he is nonetheless leading America into fascism, it would be a&nbsp;<b>distinction without a significant difference.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">But, as one Twitter wag adroitly&nbsp;</span><a href="https://twitter.com/Wolfrum/status/1308037394181042179?s=20" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">observed recently</a></span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">:&nbsp;“The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting.</span>”&nbsp;<b>Conservatives (see, for example, claims by&nbsp;</b></span><b><a href="https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1162417346041933824?s=20" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Fox News’ Tucker Carlson</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;and right-wing pundit&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3stK5aPw44" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">Candace Owens</a></b><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><b>&nbsp;that the threat of white nationalism is a hoax concocted by Democrats)</b>&nbsp;and centrists have unsurprisingly dismissed such observations as undue alarmism and hyperbolic exaggeration. But then, movement conservatism, as I explored in some depth&nbsp;</span><a href="https://dneiwert.blogspot.com/The%20Rise%20Of%20Pseudo%20Fascism.pdf" target="blank" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">more than 15 years ago</a><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">, is in many regards the source of the problem, as it has been the all-too-hospitable host for the fascist cancer.&nbsp;</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Centrists and some liberals, meanwhile, seem so emotionally wedded to a belief that underneath our ongoing chaos&nbsp;all these things are still&nbsp;<b>normal&nbsp;</b>that they’re incapable of comprehending that there is nothing remotely normal at all about them....</span></font></p></div></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/red-pills-and-radicalization-heres-how-conspiracism-is-overwhelming-us/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/red-pills-and-radicalization-heres-how-conspiracism-is-overwhelming-us/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">america is drowning in conspiracy theories:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/16/1961352/-The-creep-of-the-QAnon-cult-threatens-to-consume-what-s-left-of-the-Republican-Party" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">QAnon cultists</a>&nbsp;are taking over the Republican Party, the occupant of the Oval Office praises them&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/4/1974996/-Donald-Trump-praises-Qanon-from-White-House" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in press conferences</a>, rational COVID-19 pandemic measures are&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/21/1939036/-Anti-lockdown-protesters-are-just-the-authoritarian-footsoldiers-Trump-ordered" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">met with armed protests</a>&nbsp;and raging open defiance, and&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/29/1964969/-Militiamen-s-reactionary-presence-at-protests-threatens-democracy-and-police-appear-on-their-side" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Proud Boys and&nbsp;militiamen</a>&nbsp;are&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/24/1972004/-Proud-Boys-again-bring-violence-to-Portland-and-police-again-stand-by-and-do-nothing" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bringing violence to liberal cities</a>&nbsp;while armed vigilantes riled up about nonexistent “antifa arsonists” harass strangers and journalists in fire-stricken rural areas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So I wrote a book about it. More importantly, it’s a book intended not just to document and explain the phenomenon, but to also be a guide for finding our way out of the morass. It’s titled<b>&nbsp;</b><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b><a title="" href="https://prometheusbooks.com/books/9781633886261" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us</a>,</b><i>&nbsp;</i></span>out this week from Prometheus Books. Here’s an excerpt.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[The following excerpt is from Chapter Seven, “Chaos By Design,” which describes how and why&nbsp;people are effectively radicalized online by conspiracism and its attendant disinformation. It seemed especially appropriate for the current moment.]</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It may be the most notorious Google search in history: “black on white crime.” That was the search that sent&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Dylann Roof</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;down the path that led him to murder nine black parishioners inside a Charleston, South Carolina, church one evening in June 2015. h</span><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">e described this path in a post on the white supremacist website he had created.</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was.</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">&nbsp;It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From this point I researched deeper and found out what was happening in Europe. I saw that the same things were happening in England and France, and in all the other Western European countries. Again I found myself in disbelief. As an American we are taught to accept living in the melting pot, and black and other minorities have just as much right to be here as we do, since we are all immigrants. But Europe is the homeland of White people, and in many ways the situation is even worse there.<b>&nbsp;From here I found out about the Jewish problem and other issues facing our race, and I can say today that I am completely racially aware.</b></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Roof actually has provided a kind of map of radicalization online. As information scientist Michael Caulfield explains, this whole process is actually produced by a kind of<b>self-contained data spiral</b>&nbsp;that’s based to a large extent on “curation”—that is, the way we collect web materials into our own spaces and annotate them. &nbsp;That curation creates a data feedback for the algorithm that then directly affects what you see. Curations, he warns, can warp reality because of the resulting feedback loop: they “don’t protect us from opposing views, but often bring us to more radical views.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Caulfield observes that “black on white crime” is a data void—that is, it’s not a term used by social scientists or reputable news organizations, “which is why the white nationalist site Council of Conservative Citizens came up in those results.&nbsp;</b>That site has since gone away, but what it was was a running catalog of cases where black men had murdered (usually) white women. In other words, it’s yet another curation, even more radical and toxic than the one that got you there. And then the process begins again.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Noble explains that the framing a person brings to his or her Internet experience shapes what kinds of results they see on a search engine, or a video recommendation, or a social media news feed. “In the case of Dylann Roof’s alleged Google searches,” she writes, “his very framing of the problems of race relations in the U.S. through an inquiry such as ‘black on white crime’ reveals how search results belie any ability to intercede in the framing of a question itself. In this case, answers from conservative organizations and cloaked websites that present news from a right-wing, anti-Black, and anti-Jewish perspective are nothing more than propaganda to foment racial hatred.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The key to this process of radicalization is its incremental nature: people undergoing it don’t recognize what is happening to them, since each step feels normal initially.</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is in fact precisely by design by the organizations and ideologues who are trying to recruit people into their conspiracy theories, which are ultimately about belief systems and political movements.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A onetime “red-pilled” conspiracy theorist named Matt described how he became trapped in a curated spiral like this for Kelly Weill of<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;The Daily Beast</em>. It began when he innocently watched a video of Bill Maher and Ben Affleck discussing Islam, and at its completion, the<b>&nbsp;algorithm recommended several much more extreme videos</b>attacking Islam, including some produced by Infowars conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson. One video led to the next and the next.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Delve into [Watson’s] channel and start finding his anti-immigration stuff which often in turn leads people to become more sympathetic to ethno-nationalist politics,” Matt said. “This sort of indirectly sent me down a path to moving way more to the right politically as it led me to discover other people with similar far-right views.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now twenty, Matt has since exited the ideology and built an anonymous Internet presence where he argues with his ex-brethren on the right.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“I think YouTube certainly played a role in my shift to the right because through the recommendations I got,” he said, “it led me to discover other content that was very much right of center, and this only got progressively worse over time, leading me to discover more sinister content.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“The thing to remember about this algorithmic–human grooming hybrid is that the gradualness of it—the step-by-step nature of it—is a feature for the groomers, not a bug,</b>” says Caulfield. “I imagine if the first page Roof had encountered on the CCC page had sported a Nazi flag and a big banner saying ‘Kill All Jews,’ he’d have hit the back button, and maybe the world might be different. (Maybe.) But the curation/search spiral brings you to that point step by step. In the center of the spiral you probably still have enough good sense to not read stuff by Nazis, at least knowingly. By the time you get to the edges, not so much.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peter Neumann, of the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">U.K.’s Centre for the Study of Radicalisation,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;identifies six steps on the ladder of extremist belief.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;“The first two of these processes deal with the consequences of being exposed to extremist content,” he writes. “No single item of extremist propaganda is guaranteed to transform people into terrorists. Rather, in most cases, online radicalization results from individuals being immersed in extremist content for extended periods of time, the&nbsp;<b>amplified effects of graphic images and video, and the resulting emotional desensitization.”</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Beheading videos, photos of corpses, suicides, and mass murders, all these things are part of these first two steps in the immersion process. Neumann calls this mortality salience—</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">material intended to create an overpowering sense of one’s own vulnerability to death, as well as to heighten the viewer’s moral outrage.</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The next two steps are also key to the process—namely, immersion in extremist forums, where deviant and extremist views are normalized, and online disinhibition, wherein people lose their normal inhibitions about violence because of their relative anonymity online.</b>&nbsp;“Some of the participants get so worked up that they declare themselves ready to be terrorists,” notes psychologist Marc Sageman. “Since this process takes place at home, often in the parental home, it facilitates the emergence of homegrown radicalization, worldwide.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The final stages occur when online role-playing occurs—the kind in which new recruits more or less practice their ideology in gaming situations, often in the context of<b>modern video games.</b>&nbsp;The participants project themselves into their gaming avatars, giving themselves traits that they usually do not possess in real life. After a while, this divide becomes noticeable and drives further radicalization: “[A]fter recognizing the gap between their avatar’s mobilization and their own physical mobilization, many online participants begin taking steps to reconcile the gap,” observe researchers Jaret Brachmann and Alex Levine. &nbsp;This is when they take the last step: using the Internet to connect directly to terrorist infrastructures that then begin to mobilize them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Caulfield believes one of the keys to preventing this kind of radicalization lies in establishing “digital literacy” programs wherein young people new to the Internet can learn how to confront, cope with, and overcome the challenges they will be forced to navigate there. And it all begins with the curation process, how we accumulate the materials for our personal spaces.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So, the idea here is that you might start in a relatively benign space with some kind of ideological meaning, and then someone uses this term ‘black on white crime,’” Caulfield says. “It’s probably a stretch to call the Google search results a curation, but you can think of it along the same lines.&nbsp;<b>You put in a term, and Google is going to show you the most relevant, not necessarily the best, but the most relevant results for that term.&nbsp;</b>And now you have a set of things that are in front of you. Now, on each of those pages, because you picked ‘black on white crime,’ if you click into that page that has ‘black on white crime,’ there are going to be other phrases on there.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even people with normal levels of skepticism can find themselves drawn inside. “So you go, and you do the Google search, and you’re like, ‘You know what? I can’t trust this page. I’m going to be a good info-literacy person, and what I’m going to do is, I’m going to just check that these crimes really happened.’ OK, so what do you do? You pull these crimes and what you find is that these crimes did happen, and the pages they’re going to are more white supremacists talking about how these are actually black on white hate crimes. And now they’re mentioning more things, and they’re mentioning more terms, and they’re mentioning changes in law that now make it easier for black people to kill white people.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“So you’re like ‘Oh, well, I’ve got to Google this change in the law.’ But who’s talking about this thing that’s broadly made up, or it’s a heavy misinterpretation of something? Well, again it’s white … So you keep going deeper and deeper, and every time you’re pulling out something to investigate on that page, it’s pulling you into another site, and that other site of course is covering a bunch of other events and terms and so forth. And you end up going deeper and deeper into it.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Caulfield argues that educators need to help their students develop better informational literacy, including learning how to recognize when they are being recruited into a radical belief system or cult or are being manipulated for either financial or political motivations</b>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“My contention is that the students are practicing info-literacy as they’ve learned it,” he says. “And as a matter of fact, this approach to researching online is what they have learned from a fairly early age in terms of how to approach sources and information on the web.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think a lot of academics and teachers would say, ‘but that’s not what we’re teaching,’” he adds. “Let’s just put that whole argument aside because it doesn’t matter. Whatever we’re teaching, these are the lessons they take away from it. So they are practicing info-literacy as learned, and through either chance or through engineering or through fate, whatever it is, these techniques plug really well into radicalization.”</font></p><p class="AlignCenter" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">*</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sometimes the people who fall down the rabbit holes and are recruited into communities organized around conspiracy theories would have ended up in a similar situation regardless. But people are also being actively recruited for a combination of political, ideological, and financial/economic motivations. And they are being actively deceived.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are all targets of disinformation, meant to erode our trust in democracy and divide us,” warns University of Washington information scientist Kate Starbird.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She came to this stark conclusion while conducting a study at the University of Washington involving the evolution of the discussion about the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Black Lives Matter movement on social media—and found herself walking into the unexpected realization, supported both by data and a raft of real-world evidence, that the whole discussion was being manipulated, and not for the better. The more the team examined the evidence, the clearer it became that this manipulation was intended to fuel internal social strife among the American public.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study quickly morphed into a scientific examination of&nbsp;<b>disinformation</b>—that is, information that’s intended to confuse and distort, whether accurate or not—which exists on all sides of the political spectrum. &nbsp;One of their key studies focused on Twitter to see how bad information immediately follows major crisis-type events such as mass shootings and how those rumors “muddy the waters” around the event, even for people who were physically present, and in particular how such rumors can permanently alter the public’s perception of the event itself and its causes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Consider exhibit A: the nearly instantaneous claims by Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists that the Las Vegas mass shooting of October 1, 2017, was a false flag event</b>&nbsp;and the ensuing swirl of confusion around it, which eventually permanently obscured the public’s understanding that the man who perpetrated it was unhinged and at least partially motivated by far-right conspiracy theories about guns. Police investigators avoided the evidence that this had been the case as well.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The chief reason we perceive stories, whether real or not, as “true” depends in large part on our unconscious cognitive biases, Starbird says—that is, when our preexisting beliefs are confirmed along the way. We’ve seen how these biases can be targeted by technology companies. Well-equipped political organizations can manipulate disinformation in much the same way.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If it makes you feel outraged against the other side, probably someone is manipulating you,” she warns.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The main wellspring of the disinformation Starbird dealt with in her study was Russia and its “troll farms” t</b>hat introduced industrial-strength data pollution into the American discourse via social media during the 2016 election campaign and afterward. However, she says that the disinformation can be, and often is, run by anyone sophisticated enough to understand its essential principles. These include white nationalists, a number of conspiracy-oriented campaigns involving vaccines and other health-related conspiracies, and in recent years, QAnon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The strategy, she says, is not just consistent, but frighteningly sophisticated and nuanced. “One of these goals is to ‘sow division,’ to put pressure on the fault lines in our society,” she explained in her findings. “A divided society that turns against itself, that cannot come together and find common ground, is one that is easily manipulated. . . . Russian agents did not create political division in the United States, but they were working to encourage it.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These outside organizational entities make full use of a preexisting media ecosystem featuring “news” outlets that claim to be “fair” and “independent,” but which are in fact only propaganda organizations, nearly all of them right-wing</b>. As Starbird explained in one of her studies:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This alternative media ecosystem has challenged the traditional authority of journalists, both directly and indirectly. . . . Its development has been accompanied by a decreased reliance on and an increased distrust of mainstream media, with the latter partially motivated by a perception of widespread ethical violations and corruption [METOO?] within mainstream media. . . . Indeed, many view these alternative news sites as more authentic and truthful than mainstream media, and these effects are compounding—as research has found that exposure to online media correlates with distrust of mainstream media.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">False information renders democratic discourse, which relies on factual accuracy, impossible, and as Starbird notes, “with the loss of commonly-held standards regarding information mediation and the<b>&nbsp;absence of easily decipherable credibility cues</b>, this ecosystem has become vulnerable to the spread of misinformation and propaganda.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Because it’s actually a fairly closed, self-contained, and narrow ecosystem, it becomes a real echo chamber, with stories being repeated among the various “independent” news sites, even if they seem not to show up on the major networks (Fox being the most common exception).</b>&nbsp;After a while, the repetition acts as a kind of confirmation for the stories—if people keep seeing different versions of the same headlines, they’ll start thinking the information has been confirmed by a “variety” of sources.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The tactics of disinformation can be used by anyone,” Starbird says. “The Internet seems to facilitate access towards targets of different kinds, and we are definitely seeing disinformation from multiple sets of actors, including from the U.S., including foreign actors and domestic actors as well. There’s a certain flavor of Russian disinformation that is perhaps different from some others, but the tactics are known and they are easily learned and portable.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unwinding the relationship between authoritarian governments like Russia—which has been promoting far-right political movements around the world, particularly in Europe—and white nationalists trying to “red-pill” vulnerable young people is complicated. “There are some movements, particularly these far-right movements, whose disinformation aligns neatly with Russian disinformation as well,” Starbird observes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a chicken-and-egg problem. The current manifestation of the far right or alt-right or whatever we want to call it, the information systems and some of the mechanisms for information flow all seem to have Russian disinformation integrated into them. It’s hard to know what’s cause and what’s effect, but they seem to be intertwined. In a similar way, we can see far left ecosystems around things like Syria and Venezuela are integrated with Russian disinformation as well… .&nbsp;We don’t know how causal that is versus opportunistic.”</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/never-trump-conservatives-like-meghan-mccain-are-trying-to-whitewash-sarah-palins-role-as-the-proto-trump-dont-let-them"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/never-trump-conservatives-like-meghan-mccain-are-trying-to-whitewash-sarah-palins-role-as-the-proto-trump-dont-let-them</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx vid twtr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Never Trump’ conservatives like Meghan McCain are trying to whitewash Sarah Palin’s role as the proto-Trump. Don’t let them</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Image via Shutterstock.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by David Neiwert / Daily Kos May 26, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like many of the so-called #NeverTrump crowd, Meghan McCain would like to airbrush history when it comes to explaining how and why Donald Trump came to be the bullying, dominating leader of the Republican Party—to paint Trump as an aberration who seized control of the party from the outside. Recently, she even tried to blame Barack Obama for the Trump phenomenon: “The culture war that I believe is real, and is raging in this country, I believe was ushered in with his administration,” she said, “and then exacerbated in the Trump administration.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That, of course, is not what happened. The culture wars are a strategy that had its beginning during the Reagan Administration and were cooked into a concrete form by GOP “thinkers” like Patrick Buchanan and Newt Gingrich, but completely consumed the party beginning in 2008, when McCain’s father, John, selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. So I wrote a Twitter thread replying to McCain, laying out this history with video documentation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s the thread. So far, unfortunately, McCain hasn’t responded. Other “NeverTrumpers”—with similar ties to the 2008 McCain campaign—have in fact contacted me, and I hope to have a fuller report on their responses soon. In the meantime, enjoy the links and the videos.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1) A thread about Sarah Palin, who in many ways was the key figure in the transformation of the Republican Party into the know-nothing, anti-science, conspiracy-theory-loving, cultishly authoritarian Party of Trump it is today. W/ video.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">20.4K</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:52 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6,082 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;· May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2) I've been thinking a lot about Palin in no small part because of the way Trump-hating Republicans like @MeghanMcCain are rewriting history by trying to blame Barack Obama for Trump, because apparently _he, not the GOP, stoked America's culture wars when he was president.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on TwitterView image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3) Let's be clear: the GOP has been stoking these culture wars as a means of winning election since at least the days of Ronald Reagan and his presidency. But they embraced it openly beginning in 1992 with Pat Buchanan's "cultural war" speech.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2olwuAy3_og …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;YouTube ?@YouTube</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3,422</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5:58 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">579 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4) This M.O. never ceased configuring Republican politics in the ensuing years, notably during the Bush years. But unquestionably the person who most made these culture the entire raison d'être of the GOP was John McCain's 2008 running mate, Sarah Palin.https://www.journalism.org/2008/11/20/sarah-palin-and-the-culture-wars/ …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sarah Palin and the “Culture Wars”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A distinguishing feature of the coverage of the race was how – with the notable exception of abortion – there was little discussion of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">journalism.org</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,242</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:02 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">280 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;· May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5) I became intimately familiar while on assignment in Alaska to examine Palin's connections to the extremist right, mainly the "Patriot"/militia movement, during her time on the Wasilla city council and then as the city's mayor. She had a fondness for the John Birch Society.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6) Our story ran in early October, but it unfortunately didn't make it onto the radar of the national media. Still, it remained a solid story that revealed a great deal about the political creature McCain and his campaign had unleashed.https://www.salon.com/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/ …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meet Sarah Palin's radical right-wing pals</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin's political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. "Her door was open," says Chryson -- and still is.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,058</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:12 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">299 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;· May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7) It emerged later that Palin had watched my appearance on CNN to promote the piece and had gone nuts, creating a huge fight within the campaign that she lost, thereby inspiring her to infamously 'go rogue' for the duration. Guess I did my part.https://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/how-i-helped-drive-sarah-palin-crazy …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How I Helped Drive Sarah Palin Crazy By Digging Into Her Past</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">My first week on the job here at Crooks and Liars, I went on CNN Newsroom with Rick Sanchez to talk about an investigative piece co-written with Max B</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crooksandliars.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8) However, this extremism had of course already bubbled up during the campaign -- reflected not just in her red-meat speeches but in the effect she had on crowds. This report from Al Jazeera still haunts me.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2,978</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:19 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">651 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;· May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>9) The key here is that after the election, Palin didn't tone down the extremism, but rather stepped it up. She was one of the first figures from the GOP establishment to embrace the "Birther" conspiracy theories.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10) Of course, we also know who not only followed suit, but launched his entire political career on the back of this fraudulent and racist conspiracy theory.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Embedded video</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,950</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6:31 PM - May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">268 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;· May 20, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11) Palin also played a key role in the increasing radicalization of the GOP, particularly through her connections to the Tea Party, which quickly became a major conduit for "Patriot"-style and Christian nationalist extremism.http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2010/04/video-sarah-palins-speech-to-women-of.html?m=0 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Neiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@DavidNeiwert</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12) Palin also did a lot to pave the way for the gobbledygook word-salad rhetorical style that has been Trump's hallmark.</font></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/we-are-seeing-a-wave-of-very-young-nazis-alt-right-expert-explains-why-this-year-will-be-a-key-turning-point-on-the-path-from-democracy-to-fascism">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/we-are-seeing-a-wave-of-very-young-nazis-alt-right-expert-explains-why-this-year-will-be-a-key-turning-point-on-the-path-from-democracy-to-fascism&nbsp;</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The U.S. government has&nbsp;the official public&nbsp;policy of never negotiating with terrorists, paying them ransom&nbsp;or otherwise surrendering to their demands. The logic is simple: to give in to terrorists is to encourage more&nbsp;violence and other attacks.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It would appear that the state of Michigan does not follow the same policy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Last Thursday, the Michigan state legislature&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/michigan-cancels-legislative-session-to-avoid-armed-protesters" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">announced it would not convene because of threats of violence and chaos by armed right-wing militias</a>&nbsp;and other paramilitaries, as previously seen during the recent anti-lockdown protests.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In what could be construed as an act of treason,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/07/trumps-fake-protest-movement-authoritarian-stagecraft-meets-white-privilege/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">President Trump recently ordered such&nbsp;paramilitary groups and right-wing thugs</a>&nbsp;to take up arms and to threaten Democratic-led state governments such as Michigan’s in order to force them to “reopen” their state</b>.&nbsp;Such behavior is part of a broader pattern of right-wing terrorism and violence in the United States where armed militias and paramilitaries have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.themuckrake.com/main/decline" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">allied with the Republican Party in its effort to delegitimize and undermine democracy</a>. Such an alliance is common to failing democracies and rising fascist movements. The example offered by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/11/author-of-how-fascism-works-pandemic-offers-trump-a-dangerous-opportunity-to-seize-power/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Nazi Party&nbsp;and Adolf Hitler in the 1930s&nbsp;is perhaps the most ominous

Right-wing terrorism is and will be a future template for Trump and his movement against their perceived or real enemies.&nbsp;White neo-fascist violence, and the threat of such violence&nbsp;have consistently&nbsp;escalated&nbsp;during the Age of Trump.</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matters are now so dire&nbsp;that even the New York Times, which views itself as a neutral “journal of record,”&nbsp;is sounding the alarm about Trump’s armed paramilitary groups. Last Friday, columnist Roger Cohen published an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/opinion/coronavirus-democracy.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">op-ed entitled “The Masked versus the Unmasked”</a>&nbsp;in which he issued this warning:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">So much for those resilient checks and balances I lauded to my Colorado neighbor.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Back then, in the bygone era, he wrote to me: “No wonder Republicans are laughing at us. The billionaire politicians have complete control (besides the military at this point), no oversight, and most of their constituents are armed, some heavily, and ready to defend them. Roll over and die? What the hell? Time to even things up. To save this country. Hopefully, guns will always be a deterrent, but they may be our last hope to save this country. Time to gun up, liberals!”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">If you prefer, think of “gun up” as get real, get tough, get registered, get mobilized, get implacable and vote Trump out. Or you may just want to go down to the range.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, the upcoming presidential election in November will be a test of the United States’&nbsp;ability to have a peaceful transfer of power —&nbsp;assuming the election take place, and assuming&nbsp;Trump is somehow defeated, an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How are the anti-lockdown protests&nbsp;in Michigan and elsewhere connected to the history of the Tea Party movement and its network of right-wing plutocrats and other backers? What is the role of white supremacists and other right-wing extremists in Trump’s coronavirus “protests”? How are right-wing militias and other paramilitary groups trying to plan for and incite a second American civil war and armed insurrection — which they call “the boogaloo”? If Donald Trump loses in November,&nbsp;how will these&nbsp;armed militias&nbsp;likely react?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is Trump actively encouraging right-wing violence through stochastic terrorism? And if so,&nbsp;why aren’t the American people mobilizing against such anti-democratic behavior?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with investigative journalist David Neiwert, a contributing writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Neiwert&nbsp;is also the author of several books, including the recent&nbsp;“<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9781786634467" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump</a>,” “<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780981576985" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right</a>” and the forthcoming “<a href="https://red%20pill%2C%20blue%20pill:%20How%20to%20Counteract%20the%20Conspiracy%20Theories%20That%20Are%20Killing%20Us/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us</a>.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The anti-lockdown “protests” in Michigan and elsewhere appear to be&nbsp;staged events. In essence they are fake protests which are sponsored and created —&nbsp;just like the Tea Party “movement” from several years ago —&nbsp;by rich conservatives or corporate oligarchs. In a series of recent essays, you have suggested that these events&nbsp;are more complicated than that. Can you explain?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They are astroturf&nbsp;protests in the same way that the Tea Party movement was put in place by people who have corporate right-wing money as well as the monetary support of very rich families such as that of Betsy&nbsp;DeVos [Trump’s education secretary]. But the “lockdown” protests are a movement that has taken on a life of its own. This has a great deal to do with structure and organization.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Tea Party initially was backed by right-wing corporations, interest groups and private money,&nbsp;which is why it had so much support from Fox News. But within about six to eight months the Tea Party had its ranks swell with far-right extremists from the Patriot movement. Over the next few years the Tea Party became a conduit for the revival of the Patriot movement, where right-wing extremist groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters became&nbsp;closely associated with the later iterations of the Tea Party.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The full integration of these right-wing extremist militia groups and the Tea Party took some time to happen, but with Trump it is complete. With individuals and groups such as the DeVos family having set up the structure, it is easy for these anti-public health “protests” to spread across the country. The right-wing backers of the Tea Party created their astroturf machine and now it is a type of Frankenstein monster that rampages across the country.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who are the various elements at these coronavirus rallies? What should the public and the news media really be focusing on?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nothing about this is that invisible. So much of it is visible. It is a matter of understanding its context.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Men wearing camouflage and carrying guns are not there for the purpose of defending “gun rights.”&nbsp;They are at protests in&nbsp;Michigan and other states to threaten the legislators and the governor. These men with guns are at these protests&nbsp;to threaten anybody who tries to stop them when they go marching into the state house in Michigan.&nbsp;What we saw in Michigan was seditious. If black people had behaved the same way with these guns, wearing camouflage and threatening legislators and the governor, they would have been shot dead by law enforcement.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How do&nbsp;you interpreting the symbols and codes being displayed and shared at these&nbsp;rallies?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Confederate flags were ubiquitous. There was also the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Gadsden flag</a>. The latter is now associated with the Tea Party. The Gadsden flag was associated with the right-wing extremist militants in the Patriot movement in the 1990s, and now they are present at these coronavirus protests and gatherings. The anti-vaxxers have&nbsp;now joined up with these right-wing extremists at the anti-lockdown rallies. It is a natural alliance of sorts because they are all obsessed with conspiracy theories. One of the defining features of the Patriot movement is conspiracism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You have talked to people involved in these various right-wing extremist and paramilitary groups and broader movements. How do the people at these&nbsp;rallies make sense of their claims that they are not “racist” &nbsp;or “violent” while they are carrying guns, waving Confederate flags, wearing other fascist insignia&nbsp;and in several cases displaying signs with Nazi slogans?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a great amount of cognitive dissonance among these people at the coronavirus rallies. One of my favorite images was that man with the Confederate flag who was wearing a T-shirt that says, “America, love it or leave it!”. So many of the people at the Michigan rally and elsewhere are enormously confused. But there are also people at these events who are bloodthirsty for the opportunity to use the pandemic to advance their goals. They see the pandemic as societal breakdown and therefore an opportunity to get out their guns and finally shoot all those liberals&nbsp;that they have wanted to kill for a very long time.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, along with the Confederate flags and Nazi regalia and language there is a hidden symbol operating in plain sight for those who understand its meaning and power. Notice the Hawaiian shirts and the references to something called the “boogaloo.”&nbsp;Also notice the “boogaloo” flag, which is blue and has an igloo and a palm tree on it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These are references to the “boogaloo,” a term meaning the&nbsp;second civil war that the right-wing paramilitaries and other extremists are hoping for and lusting after right now. These right-wing extremists want to replace America’s constitutional democracy with authoritarian right-wing rule. Online, these right-wing extremists spend a great deal of time talking about the “boogaloo” and killing federal law enforcement agents. They also fantasize about societal breakdown and killing their neighbors for supplies. These people are very serious about their violence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This organizing is being done online on Facebook and elsewhere. Facebook thinks this is&nbsp;fine and has not taken it down. There are not that many members in these right-wing militias and other extremist groups, but they can create a lot of havoc and hurt and kill many people. Their “boogaloo” fantasy of a second civil war and mass violence has no chance of succeeding, in my opinion. But their shared fantasies of violence have the potential to cause great harm if acted upon even by a small number of its adherents.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What would the “boogaloo” or other acts of right-wing civil war and insurrection look like, if it actually took place? “Anti-government” is usually code for white supremacy and racism against nonwhites, especially black people. &nbsp;</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Obviously the first targets are going to be people of color and LGBT folks. In this “boogaloo” and other right-wing civil war fantasies, those groups would be rounded up and put in concentration camps or otherwise disposed of. Jews would probably all be assassinated or otherwise killed. The way that these right-wing extremists talk among themselves is very graphic in terms of the violence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How are these individuals and groups using the pandemic for their recruitment efforts?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They have been intensely recruiting among their usual demographic. They radicalize disaffected young white people —&nbsp;mostly men but not exclusively, of course —&nbsp;by infiltrating every online platform, including the various message boards and forums to YouTube. They want to radicalize impressionable young people between the ages of 13 and 30. The result is that we are seeing a wave of very young Nazis.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How is the pandemic specifically being used in the recruitment and radicalization process?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It usually consists of some story about “white genocide” and apocalypse. They say that there is a plot to commit genocide against white people,&nbsp;white males in particular,&nbsp;and to destroy&nbsp;“Western civilization.”&nbsp;This is a plot led by Jewish people who are manipulating immigrants and people of color. This conspiracy is not really much different from what Nazis and other white supremacists were preaching in the 1920s. It has just been updated for the&nbsp;social media age with the use of memes, ironic humor and the like. That makes it attractive to young people.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another way that the pandemic is being used by these bad actors is through eco-fascism, where the recruiting is done by talking about how the virus has created cleaner air and animals are taking back the planet from human beings and that nature is healing. Many of these “nature is healing” posts are being spread by some of the most dangerous fascists who believe that human beings have contaminated the Earth and need to be eliminated. These fascists are pro-genocide and they have been trying to co-opt the logos of legitimate environmental groups such as Extinction Rebellion.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What are these right-wing terrorists waiting for, in terms of beginning their “boogaloo” attacks? What will the signal be?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They’re waiting for a spark. It would be something such as an incident where law enforcement decides to finally crack down on right-wing militia,&nbsp;paramilitaries and those in league with them. In the 1990s these right-wing groups retaliated with truck bombs.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Donald Trump loses the 2020 presidential election, will that be a signal for right-wing militias and paramilitaries to launch attacks against their&nbsp;enemies?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is possible that these right-wing extremists and other boogaloo types will attack locations that they believe are vulnerable and will make a difference in their “civil war.”&nbsp;One&nbsp;of the wildcards to consider is the ominous presence of Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater, who is also&nbsp;Betsy DeVos’ brother,&nbsp;and his private army of mercenaries. Prince commands a very skilled group of commandos and other ex-military and paramilitary operatives. Such a group of people could cause great harm to the country if so ordered.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donald Trump and the&nbsp;right-wing media&nbsp;have been using stochastic terrorism to encourage violence against Democrats, liberals, progressives, journalists&nbsp;and anyone he or they deem to be an “enemy.”&nbsp;On Twitter, Trump actually told the pandemic “protesters” to take up arms and force the Michigan state government and others to cease public health measures designed to slow down the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has been threatening to put Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats&nbsp;in prison for participating in a “conspiracy” to overthrow him. He continues to call Democrats and journalists “human scum.”&nbsp;Where is the outrage&nbsp;from the American people at this vile&nbsp;behavior? Are they just numb to it?</font></strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American people have been conditioned to such language by decades of relentless propaganda from Fox News, the other parts of the right-wing machine, and now Russian bots on social media. The right-wing echo chamber propaganda machine has normalized that violent language and authoritarianism. The right-wing media machine is so powerful it has intimidated and cowed networks such as CNN and MSNBC. The latter are afraid to tell the truth about Trump and the far right’s threats of violence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I have been writing about these dangers for more than 10&nbsp;years. People said I was “alarmist” back then. I don’t think they would say that about me anymore. Everything that I have warned about has exactly come true. In fact, under Trump things are worse than I predicted. America is at a key turning point right now in terms of surrendering to fascism. America must decide if it is going to become a damned and foul demon of a country by fully surrendering to fascism and Donald Trump in the upcoming election.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-far-right-wants-to-make-its-shared-fantasy-of-violent-civil-war-a-reality/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-far-right-wants-to-make-its-shared-fantasy-of-violent-civil-war-a-reality/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david n kos</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Age of Conspiracy Theories in which we are now immured has produced a kind of bastard offspring: the Shared Violent Fantasy. Exhibit A is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/25/1921786/--Boogaloo-civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the “Boogaloo,”</a>&nbsp;the far-right’s ironic name for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/25/1837424/-The-American-Right-hankers-for-a-civil-war-a-history-in-four-videos" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the long-sought “second civil war”</a>&nbsp;they believe is on the verge of erupting in the United States—and in which the ongoing novel-coronavirus pandemic has become a virtual petri dish for cultivating the fear of societal collapse essential to their worldview.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Like many conspiracy theories, and all such fantasies, the “Boogaloo” has a powerful tendency to produce real-life violence from people who absorb the underlying paranoid values and believe in them fervently</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/boogaloo-boy-arrested-texarkana-swenson" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">A recent incident in Texas</a>&nbsp;in which a self-proclaimed “Boogaloo Boi” set out to murder a police officer in order to help spark the civil war underscores the extent to which the believers are likely eventually to attempt manifesting their fantasies—</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">which can entail violence not just against authorities, but sometimes even their unsuspecting neighbors.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Aaron Swenson is a 36-year-old Texarkana man who frequented “Boogaloo”-related Facebook pages with some frequency, sharing their frequently violent memes and indulging the usual violent rhetoric in the comments. Eventually, he reached a point where he decided to act on it.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The world of “Boogaloo”</a>&nbsp;on social media—particularly on Facebook, where over 125 such pages reside—is riddled with references, both direct and obscure, to their eagerness to begin a civil war by shooting law-enforcement who attempt to enforce gun-control measures,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;or for that matter any other measures that attract the ire of the far right.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Recently, these have come to include COVID-19 lockdown and social-distancing measures.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The universe it occupies resides in a bubble of conspiracy theories and “constitutionalist” fantasies, but with a distinctly alt-right edge</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Irony abounds everywhere:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">adherents wear</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Hawaiian shirts as a reference to “the boog,” or the “Big Igloo”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(</span><a href="https://www.adl.org/blog/the-boogaloo-extremists-new-slang-term-for-a-coming-civil-war" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the “Boogaloo” flag</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;features an igloo and a palm tree).</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Their memes reference “Pepe the frog,” white-nationalist OK signals, and the common shared belief that nefarious communists are plotting to confiscate their guns and enslave them in concentration camps.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This fantasy is the justification for their announced intention to begin shooting their fellow citizens, especially those who work for the federal government or police.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On the night of April 11, Aaron Swenson began livestreaming from his pickup truck,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;telling his audience that he was out hunting a police officer—anyone would do, he wasn’t particular—to shoot and kill, all in order to start the “Boogaloo.” He told them he was seeking a lone cop to “ambush and execute.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People began calling the Texarkana Police Department, which promptly found the page and figured out both where Swenson was located and what kind of vehicle he was driving. Upon locating him, he fled a squad of police cars at high speed, eventually grinding to a halt well after his tires were flattened by a spike strip. “He was wearing an&nbsp;<b>armored plate carrier type vest when we arrested him, and officers found several loaded weapons inside his truck</b>,” the police department’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/texarkanapolice/posts/2831460176909180?tn=-R" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Facebook post reported</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At his own Facebook account, Swenson liked more than a dozen pages that mention boogaloo in their names, as a report from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Tech Transparency Project</a>&nbsp;(TTP) on the “Boogaloo” phenomenon described.&nbsp;It also noted that “some users leaving comments on the profile on the night of the attempted attack endorsed the targeting of police officers, while others suggested calling 911 in response to the live broadcast.” The two videos were active on the Facebook page at the time of the report, having amassed over 1,500 and 3,400 views, respectively; however, they have since been removed by Facebook.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Swenson&nbsp;<a href="https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/texarkana/story/2020/apr/13/man-nabbed-after-alleged-threat-kill-police-officer/824101/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been charged</a>&nbsp;with making terrorist threats against an officer, evading with a vehicle and illegal possession of a weapon.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He is not the first such “Boogaloo” enthusiast intent on making the shared fantasy into a violent reality. In January, three would-be terrorists from the neo-Nazi organization&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Base were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/16/1911985/-FBI-nabs-Canadian-neo-Nazi-reservist-two-others-preparing-for-violence-at-Virginia-Boogaloo" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">arrested by the FBI</a></b>, charged with plotting to wreak havoc with their weapons at a planned anti-gun-control march in Richmond, Virginia, around which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/16/1911814/-As-the-far-right-prepares-for-a-Boogaloo-Virginia-governor-declares-emergency" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Boogaloo” rhetoric</a>&nbsp;was already rife.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A few days later, three more “Boogaloo”-loving members of The Base were arrested in Georgia for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/17/us/fbi-alleged-extremist-group-arrests-georgia-virginia/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">plotting to assassinate</a>&nbsp;a local antifascist couple, as well as overthrow the local county government.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/21/1913086/-Not-over-Gun-rally-in-Richmond-was-just-the-first-salvo-in-the-battle-over-what-s-constitutional" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Richmond rally</a>, the “Boogaloo” was a major theme—flags, signs, and social-media posts from the event all referenced and celebrated it—that continued even afterward&nbsp;during the debate in Virginia over its gun-control laws.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And just as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/23/1930417/-White-nationalists-looking-to-weaponize-coronavirus-pandemic-both-literally-and-figuratively" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the white-nationalist</a>, conspiracist and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkewgv/experts-say-neo-nazi-accelerationists-discuss-taking-advantage-of-coronavirus-crisis" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“accelerationist” right</a>&nbsp;has sought multiple means to exploit the novel-coronavirus pandemic, the “Boogaloo” theme has become a louder topic of discussion on far-right telegram channels.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;The lockdown measures instituted by governors around the nation in response to the virus have particularly provided ample evidence for the conspiracists—in their minds, at least—of their long-running contention that “globalists” are seeking ways to enslave the world.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Signs referencing the “Boogaloo” have popped up at a number of the far-right-led protests against the lockdown measures.&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dburghart/status/1253416727368445952" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">One marcher</a>&nbsp;at the “ReOpen” rally in Topeka, Kansas, on April 23 carried a large black “Big Igloo” flag.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There has also been a certain amount of somewhat&nbsp;<b>predictable crossover between the “Boogaloo” element and the far-right conspiracists of the Trump-loving QAnon</b>&nbsp;world, some of whom have also been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/3/1933811/-Coronavirus-conspiracy-theorists-are-too-nuts-even-for-a-zombie-apocalypse-movie-scenario" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">acting out violently</a>&nbsp;during the pandemic—notably the locomotive engineer who attempted to ram the USNS Mercy with a train engine.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to&nbsp;<a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/qanon-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-travis-view-interview" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">QAnon expert Travis View</a>, the “Boogaloo” has become the preferred fallback position for people swept up in “The Storm” theories, believing that one day soon there will be mass arrests of leading liberal and media figures for their roles in a global child-trafficking ring, and increasingly disappointed at its failure to materialize.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“If that change doesn’t come, some of the followers have made reference to what they call Plan Z,” View says. “If the whole Q operation fails, then Plan Z is sort of equivalent to what the far-right extremists call the ‘Boogaloo.’ Which is civil war, basically.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the interest in a civil war. The TTP report found that most of the 125 Facebook groups devoted to the “boogaloo”—some 60%—were created in the very recent past (within three months), just as the states began declaring lockdowns and social-distancing measures. Perhaps more worryingly, “they have attracted tens of thousands of members in the last 30 days.”</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In several private boogaloo Facebook groups that TTP was able to access, members discussed tactical strategies, combat medicine, and various types of weapons, including how to develop explosives and the merits of using flame throwers. Some members appeared to take inspiration from President Donald Trump’s recent tweets calling on people to “liberate” states where governors have imposed stay-at-home orders.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite these findings, TTP notes, Facebook has been slow to remove these pages. One of the most prominent—Thicc Boog Line, which specializes in selling branded “Boogaloo”-themed gear and clothing—attracts thousands of readers. It has recently been pitching messages to its readers emphasizing the opportunity to wreak&nbsp;<b>“boojahideen”</b>&nbsp;havoc during the time of a pandemic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These findings resonate with&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/25/1921786/--Boogaloo-civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a similar report</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;issued in February by&nbsp;</span><a href="https://ncri.io/reports/cyber-swarming-memetic-warfare-and-viral-insurgency-how-domestic-militants-organize-on-memes-to-incite-violent-insurrection-and-terror-against-government-and-law-enforcement/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Network Contagion Research Institute,</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;warning that “domestic militants” are organizing around memes to “incite violent insurrection and terror against government and law enforcement.”</span></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: none !important;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.7;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">The boogaloo, a joke for some, acts as a</span><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">&nbsp;violent meme that circulates instructions for a distributed, viral insurgency for others.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The topic network for boogaloo describes a coherent, multi-component and detailed conspiracy to launch an inevitable, violent, sudden, and apocalyptic war across the homeland.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">&nbsp;The conspiracy, replete with suggestions to stockpile ammunition,<b>&nbsp;may itself set the stage for massive real-world violence and sensitize enthusiasts to mobilize in mass for confrontations or charged political events.</b></span></font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel E. Stevens, executive director of Campaign for Accountability, the umbrella organization under which TTP operates,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boogaloo-facebook-pages-coronavirus-militia-group-extremists_n_5ea3072bc5b6d376358eba98" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told Christopher Mathias of HuffPost</a>&nbsp;in a statement that “<b>Facebook’s failure to stop their platform from being used as an organizing tool for extremists is completely unacceptable.</b>”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“There is nothing subtle about how these extremist groups are using Facebook’s platform to advance their cause,” Stevens said. “Boogaloo proponents are not simply discussing ideas or political views; they are directly advocating for violent action and tactically planning how to defeat government entities.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Boogaloo” enthusiasts indeed have detailed plans for how to achieve their goals, both militarily and through propaganda, as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the TTP report details</a>. However, government and law enforcement are not the only targets that “Boogaloo” memes discuss. A subcurrent in a number of the violent fantasies that they express in their memes is the idea of committing home-invasion robberies targeting their relatively hapless and untrained neighbors as a means of thriving during the civil war—or a pandemic.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another featured a photo of an angry&nbsp;<b>Joaquin Phoenix in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Joker&nbsp;</em>with the script:</b>&nbsp;<b>“When you dispatch the normie with ease to raid their stash because they stocked up on TP and not ammunition”—with a subscript across the bottom reading: “You get what you fucking deserve</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>.</b>”One popular meme among Facebook “Boogaloo” followers was one that showed a SWAT-style armed raid team in military gear massing outside a door, with the script: “Me and my boys going for a grocery run at my asshole neighbor’s house.” Another features a grid of graphics demonstrating military hand signals during a raid, all of which are interpreted in the language of a home invasion: “Shoot that dog.” “Cover up the evidence.” “I found cocaine. It’s pretty good.” “Wrong house. Let’s boogie!”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These ideas are not particularly new among the more openly cynical participants in far-right conspiracism and survivalism. Indeed, they were openly elucidated back in 2014 by a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/01/21/doomsday-prepper-arrested-gun-charges-washington-state" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“Patriot” movement survivalist named Tyler Smith</a>, who was featured on an episode of National Geographic’s TV series&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Doomsday Preppers&nbsp;</em>boasting about his plans to invade the homes of his neighbors—particularly those who might also be preppers, since they would make better targets.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the more commonly shared of these memes</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;actually makes fun of other “preppers,” particularly those who are suddenly new to the business amid the pandemic. It shows a “Virgin Prepper” who is “always scared, can’t sleep at night,” and “has no fun,” then contrasts him with an obviously fun-loving “Chad Raider” who “Takes your good shit and burns all the rest so no one else can have it,” and is seen holding up a bag marked “All Your Shit.” He’s also “not scared of death or coronavirus.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”[vid]</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re not in it to stockpile,” he proclaimed in a segment that was used to promote the show. “We’re in it to take what you have, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He told the show’s producers that he only had a few months’ supplies for his family because he intended to aggressively assault his neighbors and steal their food and weapons caches.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All your shiny ARs, your high-powered .308 rifles, your 50,000 rounds of ammo, are all going to be ours,” he said on the show.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/01/21/doomsday-prepper-arrested-gun-charges-washington-state" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Smith was arrested</a>&nbsp;by the sheriff of Pierce County, Washington, where he resided at the time, shortly after his appearance on national TV, because he wielded multiple guns on camera in the segment, and he was already a&nbsp;<b>felon (on a sexual-behavior-with-a-minor charge) forbidden from owning weapons</b>. He spent a couple more years in prison for that, but was back on the streets by late 2016.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He was most recently spotted marching in&nbsp;<b>Portland with Patriot Prayer—</b>the far-right street-brawling group led by Joey Gibson of Vancouver, Washington—at one of its 2017 demonstrations. Gibson, as it happens,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been active</a>&nbsp;in the anti-coronavirus-lockdown protests, traveling to Seattle and Olympia for protests.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.adl.org/blog/extremists-involved-in-nationwide-protests-against-coronavirus-restrictions" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Those protests</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, of course</span><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/21/1939036/-Anti-lockdown-protesters-are-just-the-authoritarian-footsoldiers-Trump-ordered" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">, featured plenty of “Patriots”</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;wearing Hawaiian shirts underneath their body armor—a signal for what the “boojahideen” like to call “the Big Luau.” The chief organizer of the “Boogaloo” motif in Olympia was Matt Marshall, the leader of the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">III Percent of Washington, a “Patriot” militia group</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;based in Eatonville,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Washington, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/11/1910065/-Far-right-Patriots-lining-up-to-defend-Matt-Shea-their-man-in-the-Washington-Legislature" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a close ally of both Gibson</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/8/21/1880476/-Unfit-for-office-Spokane-area-officials-want-Matt-Shea-removed-from-his-legislative-seat" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">state Rep. Matt Shea</a>, the far-right legislator whose plan for a post-breakdown society called for the execution of all non-believers.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These violent fantasies keep mounting in number and vehemence. The question increasingly is what spark will inspire them to attempt to make them manifest.</font></p><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
==</font></p><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce-around-the-boogaloo/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce-around-the-boogaloo/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/civil-war-talk-takes-on-a-life-of-its-own-as-far-right-extremists-coalesce-around-the-boogaloo/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dave n<b>

the

myths and conspiracy theories that fuel the radical right often take on

lives of their own: Think of how the QAnon phenomenon </b>began as a

handful of conspiracy theorists making groundless claims and predictions

about a coming “Storm” that metastasized first into a wildly popular

body of “Patriot”/militia conspiracism, and finally into a massive

submovement operating within the framework of the Trump presidency—while

producing a growing record of lethal violence by its unhinged

believers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Something

similar appears to be coalescing around the “boogaloo”—the vision of

members of the far right of&nbsp;a coming civil war, which they claim is

being forced upon them&nbsp;by liberals who want to take their guns away as

the first step toward&nbsp;their incarceration and enslavement. In reality,

of course, a number of sectors of the far right have ginned up this kind

of rhetoric for decades—but now, a systematic study of its spread

through social media has found that it appears to be massing into a

movement of its own.</span>

The study, conducted by the

independent Network Contagion Research Institute, explores, according to

its subtitle, “how domestic militants organize on memes to incite

violent insurrection and terror against government and law enforcement.”

It focused on the “boogaloo” in large part due its increasing

popularity—particularly as a hashtag (#Boogaloo or #Boogaloo2020)—on

Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as the extreme and often

callous expressions of violent intent that form the essence of the

chatter.

In its initial forms, the “civil war” talk was generated in different sectors of the radical right in different ways. <b>Among neo-Nazis, it generally has focused on a “race war”</b>—i.e., a genocidal conflict between whites and nonwhites—dating back to the 1980s and the classic white-supremacist blueprint, T<b>he Turner Diaries. </b>This

vein of rhetoric has produced a long record of lethal domestic

terrorism, including the 1984 neo-Nazi criminal gang The Order; the 1995

Oklahoma City bombing; and more recently, the 2011 attack in Norway

that killed 87 people and the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks in New

Zealand that killed 51.

<b>
Among the “Patriot” movement believers who form militias in resistance to “the New World Order,” </b>most of the rhetoric has focused on using arms against law enforcement, particularly the federal kind, as well as the mythic “<b>blue-helmeted” United Nations soldiers about to descend on them from black helicopters.</b>

In its more recent iterations among far-right Oath Keepers and “III

Percent” militiamen, the “boogaloo” talk has mostly revolved around

resistance to liberal gun-control legislation.</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This

reached its apotheosis in January when thousands of armed “Patriots”

from around the United States descended on Richmond, Virginia, to

protest imminent gun safety&nbsp;legislation making its way through the

state’s General Assembly. Before the rally, FBI agents arrested a trio

of neo-Nazis who were preparing to open fire on law enforcement at the

event.</font></span></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>However,

one of the results of the broad emergence of popular “boogaloo”

rhetoric has been a blurring of the lines between the anti-government

extremists who foresee conflict with federal forces and the more extreme

white supremacists who lust for a bloody conflict between the white and

nonwhite races</b>. While many of the latter also eagerly participate

in the anti-government talk, many of the former appear to be warming up

to the race-war talk.</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The

NCRI study found not only that the discussion of the “boogaloo” on

social media had surged, but that discrete groups were coalescing around

the discussion and creating the nascent forms of a movement. The <b>“boogaloo”

“topic network” produces “a coherent, multi-component and detailed

conspiracy to launch an inevitable, violent, sudden, and apocalyptic war

across the homeland,” it said, adding that the models created by

researchers “show that the meme acts as a meaningful <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">vector</span> to organize seditious sentiment at large.”</b></span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
The

conspiracy, replete with suggestions to stockpile ammunition, may

itself set the stage for massive real-world violence and sensitize

enthusiasts to mobilize in mass for confrontations or charged political

events. Furthermore, the meme’s emphasis on military language and

culture poses a specific risk to military communities due to the similar

thematic structure, fraternal organization, and reward incentives.</span>
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One

of the “boogaloo” groups featured in the study, calling itself “Patriot

Wave,” illustrated perfectly how the lines between militia “Patriots”

and alt-right white nationalists were completely blurred and submerged

in the larger project of fomenting a violent civil war. Its members wore

alt-right “Pepe the Frog” patches with the title “Boogaloo Boys,” while

others wore the skull balaclava generally associated with members of

the fascist Atomwaffen Division.</font></span></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The

study also pointed to a particular area of concern: namely, the ability

of these extremists to simply blend into existing power structures,

including law enforcement and the military. <b>One “boogaloo”

enthusiast, Coast Guardsman Christopher Hasson, was arrested with a full

arms cache and a plan to assassinate liberal political leaders. </b>A

Patriot Wave member is quoted in the study: “Some of the guys we were

with aren’t exactly out of the military yet, so they had to keep their

faces covered.</span>”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The

spread of the “boogaloo” organizing on social media has been

facilitated with the use of hashtags #Boogaloo and #Boogaloo2020, which

are then accompanied by associated hashtags such as #2A, #CivilWar2, and

#2ndAmendment, as well as hashtags such as #BigIgloo, intended to elude

filters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This

kind of informational conflict—or what the study calls “memetic

warfare”—has evolved, the study says, “from mere lone-wolf threats to

the threat of an entire meme-based insurgency.”
The NCRI report was

sent to members of Congress and the departments of Defense, Homeland

Security, and Justice, among others. Paul Goldenberg, a member of the

Homeland Security Advisory Council, told NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny that

the report was “a wake-up call.”

“When you have people talking

about and planning sedition and violence against minorities, police and

public officials, we need to take their words seriously,” said

Goldenberg.

</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-racists-cynically-market-hate-by-hijacking-mainstream-symbolism/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-racists-cynically-market-hate-by-hijacking-mainstream-symbolism/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>How racists cynically market hate by hijacking mainstream symbolism</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by David Neiwert / Daily Kos January 14, 2020</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The gun that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, showed off on Instagram this week was intended to grab people’s attention: An AR-15 semiautomatic rifle adorned with dubious Christian “Crusader” decorations, sold by a Florida gunmaker who assures buyers that they are “inspired by some of the most fierce warriors who fought in nearly 200 years of epic conflicts known as the Crusades.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In addition to the pseudo-medieval decorations, the gun (called “The Crusader”) featured a magazine decorated with a caricature image of Hillary Clinton behind bars.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Trump Jr. spokesperson told The Hill: “The Instagram post was strictly about him using a famous meme to mock Hillary Clinton, as he and many others have done on numerous occasions and will&nbsp;<b>surely do again in the future, so long as it continues triggering humorless liberals.”</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, the gun itself and its decorations were what caught a lot of people’s attention, since the Crusades and medieval mythology are yet another field of mainstream culture that has been appropriated by the racist alt-right in recent years. The way alt-right activists deploy such symbology—ironically, with full awareness of its mainstream meaning, behind which the people wielding them cynically hide by claiming that the people offended or disturbed by their use are simply oversensitive liberals—is similar to the alt-right’s similar appropriation of such mainstream symbols as the “OK” hand signal, or the cartoon Pepe the Frog and its permutations.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As with all these ploys, it’s frequently difficult to discern the user’s motives. Is it an innocent display intended to invoke its established mainstream meaning? Or is it a surreptitious (and cynical) expression of affiliation with racist ideology?</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The ensuing confusion has a twin effect: It simultaneously creates chaos within the realm of mainstream discourse, while it provides cover for the spread of that racist ideology and its organizing.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The adoption of these symbols is meant largely as a way of<b>&nbsp;signaling</b>&nbsp;anti-Muslim sentiment in particular, but also this notion that Christianity needs to retake western civilization,” Howard Graves, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told CNN.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s spokesman told CNN there was no connection, saying that “Symbols on firearms depicting various historical warriors are extremely common within the 2nd Amendment community.”</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The gunmaker, Rare Breed Firearms, responded angrily: “It’s objectively silly and dishonest for leftwing groups, like the SPLC, to claim that this symbol on our Crusader model has anything to do with hate or an extremist ideology,” said CEO Cole Lelux. “In other words, these people have no idea what they’re talking about and should apologize for their outrageous smears.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Rare Breed first began making the gun, it explained the religious connotations of its decorations to the Orlando Sentinel in xenophobic terms: “They believe America and much of the world is threatened by Islamic terrorism and the Crusader is a symbol of shared Christian values and the right to defend themselves, he said. The safety selector that controls the Crusader’s trigger has three settings: Peace, War and God Wills It.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s gun featured an etching of a Bible verse as well as the Latin phrase “<b>Deus Vult,” another medieval term meaning “God wills it</b>”—a phrase with an ominous quality, since the alt-right ideologues latching onto Crusader mythology have adopted it as their personal battle cry. It appeared on the streets of<b>&nbsp;Charlottesville in 2017, and still crops up regularly in far-right demonstrations involving such hate groups as the Proud Boys.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">It turned up recently at the scene of the attempted firebombing of a Planned Parenthood women’s health clinic in Newark, Delaware. An 18-year-old man named Samuel Gulick spray-painted “Deus Vult” on an exterior wall before he threw a lit incendiary device into the building, police said.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Police investigators were able to identify Gulick through a combination of video evidence and his social media posts, in which he frequently used “Deus Vult” and ranted against abortion. More broadly,<b>&nbsp;Gulick eagerly participated in alt-right ideology, using a Pepe-esque “Groyper” cartoon as his online avatar and posting viciously anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT sentiments.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">One post featured a link to an article about transgender girl, on which he commented: “Hans, get the flamethrower.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Nazis said killing millions of Jews was a national health issue. Democrats are using the same excuse to kill American children,” Gulick wrote in another post. “When will we start shooting? Its about time we kill these genocidal demons.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His social media posts were filled with references to the Crusaders, as were those of another teenager charged last August in a strikingly similar case. Justin Olsen, an 18-year-old Ohio man, was charged with threatening federal officers for posts fantasizing about the murders of FBI agents after the 1993 tragedy involving the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Olsen operated an iFunny page titled “Army of Christ” adorned with images of Christian Crusade knights.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>White nationalist fanboys’ love affair with the Crusades dates primarily back to 2011, when Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik published a manifesto titled “2083—A European Declaration of Independence,” adorned with Crusader imagery and demanding a “Second Crusade</b>” in which Muslims would be driven out of European nations—just before setting off a truck bomb in downtown Oslo that killed eight people, and then murdering 69 teenage campers at a socialist youth camp.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At his trial, it emerged that Breivik claimed to be a member of a modern-day group of “Knights Templar,” the 12th-century military order. According to Breivik, an April 2002 meeting of the “Knights” in London featured pseudonyms for the participants such as “Richard the Lionheart” and “Sigurd the Crusader.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">More recently, the Christchurch shooter claimed a similar kind of affiliation in his manifesto, and the weapons he used to murder 51 people in March 2019 were scrawled with references to crusading knights. Fittingly, he also notoriously flashed the “OK” white-power symbol with his hands.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Crusades have also been adopted by a broad range of alt-right activists, notably at neo-Nazi websites such as The Daily Stormer, where pro-Trump memes featuring Crusade imagery have been common</b>. The debate has even made its way into academia. As Joseph Livingstone explained in The New Republic, all of these reinterpretations are travesties of history—and the internet has played a critical role in producing them.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hijacking vaguely understood religious belief systems for their own ends is nothing new for the American radical right. In the early 1980s, a number of neo-Nazis—choosing to reject the racist “Christian Identity” movement popular among their ranks at the time, on the grounds that Jesus was Jewish and therefore tainted—instead decided to adopt certain ancient&nbsp;<b>Nordic religions as their “true faith,” most notably the Odinist religion Asatru.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That trend has intensified in recent years, thanks in no small part to the increasing reach of far-right ideologies on the Internet. It’s also spread globally, and racists deploy it as a kind of cynical shield in much the same way as other appropriations from the mainstream.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Asatru recently turned up in news stories about a couple of Army National Guardsmen in Georgia</b>&nbsp;who were given the boot after their activities as neo-Nazis were uncovered. Active in a local chapter of Asatru Folk Assembly, described by the SPLC as “perhaps this country’s largest neo-Völkisch hate group,” the men complained that they were being persecuted for their faith.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ex-Guardsman Trent East told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he is not a racist—rather, he’s simply interested in his ancestry and worshiping as his forebears did.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The whole race thing started with me finding Asatru or Odinism or whatever you want to call it and seeing that as a better option than Christianity as a spirituality,” he said. “I’ve just never been a fan of Christianity, and so seeing a faith that was about my ethnic roots was something I could get into a little more.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, as the AJC noted, East’s social media profile—much of it deleted after he was exposed—told a very different story. It included “numerous memes and slogans popular among white supremacists, and his contacts include neo-Nazis and other extremists. After his doxxing, East opened an account on VK.com, a Russian social media platform popular among the racist far right.” He also attended a speech by alt-right godfather Richard Spencer in 2017, toting a sign bearing white nationalist slogans.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For white nationalists, disguising the vile bigotry inherent in their ideology is critical to their ongoing project to normalize their belief systems within the mainstream of society—which is why so many of them go to such lengths to deny their involvement or the existence of the innate racism in their movement.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As social media’s wide-open global distribution of ideas has taken hold, the work of camouflaging their beliefs has become increasingly sophisticated—particularly the way it hijacks popular internet behaviors such as trolling and the use of ironic language as both vehicles for ideas as well as means of intimidating and threatening their critics. This is central to the alt-right’s appeal to its targeted core demographic—namely, young white males between the ages of 12 and 30.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Talia Lavin at GQ acutely observes that Donald Trump Jr.’s exercise in indulging this mindset on his Instagram account—intentional, accidental, or otherwise—fits in neatly with the White House’s current push to war in the Middle East, one in which the underlying premise is that “war is holy”</b>: “It’s a Knight Templar with an AR-15; it’s Arabic script as a signal of enmity. That’s the signal Donald Trump Jr. was sending, with his snug Crusader gun-helmet. And it may be ensconced even deeper in the halls of power, with those formally entrusted with our nation’s security under the Trump regime.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The machinery of hate thus encompasses both the individual nebbishes—hiding in the dark corners of the Internet, ever-fearful about revealing themselves as the face of hate even as they revel in it as trolls—and their willing, if not always conscious, enablers who walk the world’s halls of power, as well as everyone in between. Mainstream observers, particularly those working in media, often feel confused by the resulting crossfire—unsure about the meanings of the wielded symbology, most likely feeling “left out”—and so dismiss the talk as functionally meaningless.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s not, particularly for the racist ideologues who organize and spread their hatefulness behind the resulting fog and smoke they throw up for the rest of us. Donald Trump Jr. may not have intended to send an encouraging, approving signal to white nationalists—it’s likely it never crossed his less-than-a-steel-trap mind—but intentions matter little in this arena.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s not how things work in the world of white nationalists. Just as with his father, these kinds of signals are received rapturously as proof that the Trumps are on their side, and that their values are shared by people at the very apex of the social ladder: thus, they feel deeply empowered. Any later denials are laughed at and excused as “what he has to do.”</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The key to the game, no matter who’s playing, is plausible deniability for everybody involved. The alt-right has mastered its use as a way to market and spread the movement’s hate.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/neo-nazi-troll-andrew-anglins-celebratory-mood-crushed-by-14-million-judgment-against-him/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/neo-nazi-troll-andrew-anglins-celebratory-mood-crushed-by-14-million-judgment-against-him/</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david n kos</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Over the weekend, Andrew Anglin was in a celebratory mood, thanks to&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/14/1871654/-In-racist-tweets-Trump-tells-non-white-congresswomen-to-go-back-to-the-countries-they-came-from" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Donald Trump’s racist tweets</a>&nbsp;telling congresswomen of color to go back to their native countries</b>.</font></p><div class="p1_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then, on Monday, the hammer fell on the notorious neo-Nazi troll and publisher of The Daily Stormer.&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/us/daily-stormer-lawsuit.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">A judge in&nbsp;<b>Montana</b></a><b>,</b>&nbsp;ruling in a lawsuit brought by a Jewish woman from Whitefish and the Southern Poverty Law Center, determined that Anglin owed the woman $14 million in damages for the “troll storm” he unleashed on her in early 2017.</font></p><div class="p2_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch found Anglin had acted with “actual malice,” declaring his conduct was “egregious and reprehensible,” and recommended that real estate agent Tanya Gersh be awarded the maximum in punitive damages under Montana law ($10 million) and more than $4 million in compensatory damages. The findings now await final approval from a federal judge.</font></p><div class="p3_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suddenly, after crowing all weekend about Trump’s tweets, The Daily Stormer fell silent and disappeared from the “<b>dark web</b>” site&nbsp;where it now resides. On Monday, Anglin had posted several laudatory pieces about Trump: “This is the kind of WHITE NATIONALISM we elected him for. And we’re obviously seeing it only because there’s another election coming up. But I’ll tell you, even knowing that, it still feels so good,” he wrote.</font></p><div class="p4_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noting that among the people Trump attacked was an African American congresswoman, Ayanna Pressley, who was born and raised in Chicago, Anglin said, “This is not some half-assed anti-immigrant white nationalism. Trump is literally telling American blacks to go back to Africa.” He later added, “All Trump is doing is once again expressing our collective anger. … This is what elected Trump and this is what will always be the best way for him to gain support."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anglin and his fellow neo-Nazis have openly and avidly supported Trump&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hate-groups-neo-nazi-white-supremacist-racism/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">since the fall of 2015</a>&nbsp;and all during the 2016 campaign, thanks in large part to the signals he regularly sent through social media and his speeches indicating his support for their views. After the election, these same white nationalists and far-right extremists have&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/14/white-supremacists-have-been-marching-in-president-trumps-name-literally/?utm_term=.fa800acfce2b" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continued to march in his name</a>, resulting in a wave of hate crimes in which the perpetrators have used Trump’s name to terrorize vulnerable minorities.</font></p><div class="row" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="col-sm-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="story-body story-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="p6_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Montana lawsuit resulted from Anglin’s attempts to defend fellow white nationalist Richard Spencer, who resides in Whitefish part time with his parents. Concerned by his rising national profile after the election, a number of community leaders in Whitefish, including real estate agent Tanya Gersh, began raising concerns about his presence there.</font></p><div class="p7_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Anglin became involved in the controversy by publishing Gersh’s name and addresses, as well as the names of her children, as well as those of several prominent Jewish leaders in Whitefish, alongside their photos and superimposed Star of David patches, claiming they were responsible for the Spencers’ problems</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Simultaneously, an&nbsp;<b>online army of “trolls</b>” descended en masse on some of the people in Whitefish who had been identified as opposing his parents’ business. Their Twitter and email accounts were flooded with anti-Semitic and misogynistic threats.</span></font></p><div class="p8_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So Then—Let’s Hit Em Up. Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?” Anglin wrote. He&nbsp;demurred that he was not advocating “violence or threats of violence or anything even close to that.”<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;A week later, he published another post claiming he was preparing to bus in skinheads from the Bay Area of California:</span>&nbsp;“I have already worked out most of the details with the leaders of the local groups,” he wrote. “We are continuing our barrage against the criminal Jews of Whitefish,” he wrote.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;“We are planning an armed protest in Whitefish … we can easily march through the center of the town carrying high-powered rifles.”</span></font></p><div class="p9_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-10" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Anglin’s threats initially spurred Whitefish’s&nbsp;police chief to step up patrols, particularly for the people Anglin named in his posts.</b></font></p><div class="p10_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For his part,&nbsp;<b>Spencer</b>&nbsp;attempted to tamp down the controversy—but&nbsp;only by heaping blame on his critics while rationalizing Anglin’s behavior and suggesting the whole thing was a “joke” and a “troll” prank. Appearing on white supremacist leader David Duke’s radio program, Spencer claimed he wanted to try to keep his part-time Montana home out of the limelight created by his white nationalist activism. “I don’t host conferences, I don’t hand out fliers here,” he said. “It’s just a place I go to get my work done. I like being out here. I don’t want my daughter growing up in Washington, D.C. – I don’t need to tell you why.”</font></p><div class="p11_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The problem, he claimed, was caused by local Montana activists who had organized to oppose his efforts several years before, notably&nbsp;local anti-hate group Love Lives Here and the Helena-based Montana Human Rights Network. He claimed they had attempted to strong-arm his mother into denouncing him but had failed.</font></p><div class="p12_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a YouTube rant, Spencer called for the controversy to just go away: “I’m just saying this—let’s just end this. Let’s put it to bed. The controversy’s over. Don’t bring it up again. I won’t bring it up again. I’ve said all I need to say.” As for Anglin, Spencer explained, “He’s wild. We have different styles. But this is one thing I will say, and I will say this with confidence.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Andrew Anglin is a rational person. Andrew Anglin has specifically stated that this is nonviolent and that no laws are broken. This is—this was a<b>troll.</b>&nbsp;So that’s what it is. People were pushing back.”</span></font></p><div class="p13_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The larger Whitefish community’s response to the threats to Jewish community members spoke loudly.</b>&nbsp;“It’s important to know that the businesses that were hit by this were strongly supported in the community,” said Will Randall of Love Lives Here. “Their businesses are booming now. They were hit at the beginning and were frightened, scared. And then the community came in and said, ‘Well, I’m going to buy your product. I’m going to buy your soap, or your services. We’ve got your back.’”</font></p><div class="p14_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The threats created a national stir, with various media organizations ranging from CNN and&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Washington Post</em>&nbsp;to local Montana news outfits picking up the story and magnifying it.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Eventually, it emerged that Anglin had not obtained the proper permit for a march, and he announced it was being postponed. He promised to file for a permit later, but never did.</span></font></p><div class="p15_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In April 2017, the&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/tanya-gersh-v-andrew-anglin" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">SPLC and Gersh filed suit</a>&nbsp;against Anglin, noting,</b>&nbsp;“The threats took an emotional and physical toll on Gersh. She experienced panic attacks and feared answering the phone. She often went to bed in tears and woke up crying. She had trouble leaving her home and felt anxiety in crowds. She gained weight, lost hair and was in physical pain. She had been prescribed medication and had sought other treatment, including trauma therapy.”</font></p><div class="p16_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In response to the suit, Anglin&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazi-andrew-anglin-must-come-out-of-hiding-judge-rules-anglins-lawyer-says-he-lives-in-cambodia-now" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">allegedly fled the country</a>&nbsp;to avoid being served the court papers—reportedly to places such as Cambodia and Albania.</b></font></p><div class="p17_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anglin lost a similar lawsuit earlier this year to comedian and pundit Dean Obedeillah, who&nbsp;<a title="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/us/dean-obeidallah-daily-stormer.html?module=inline" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">was awarded $4.1 million in damages</a>&nbsp;after The Daily Stormer falsely claimed he had masterminded a London terrorist attack.</font></p><div class="p18_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monday’s ruling is a court victory, but it’s unclear whether Gersh will ever collect the money from Anglin, who could remain in exile abroad in order to avoid being forced to pay. “The significance is not in whether we will collect the money,” SPLC attorney David Dinielli said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press. “The significance is that Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent from a small town in Montana, stood up to fight the most notorious neo-Nazi on the web, and she won.”</font></p></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PRA</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">B<a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/03/22/birth-of-the-alt-right/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">irth of the Alt Right</a>&nbsp;by David Neiwert</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story of how the gamergate controversy heralded the rise of the Alt Right: A world dominated by digital trolls, insanely unbridled conspiracism, angry White-male-identity victimization culture, and ultimately, open racism, antisemitism, ethnic hatred, misogyny, and sexual/gender paranoia. A place where human decency and ethics are considered antiquarian jokes, and empathy is only an invitation to assault.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">everything you love will burn</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Everything-You-Love-Will-Burn/dp/1568589948" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.amazon.com/Everything-You-Love-Will-Burn/dp/1568589948</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">e<span id="productTitle" class="a-size-large" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; line-height: 1.3 !important;">verything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America</span>&nbsp;<span class="a-size-medium a-color-secondary a-text-normal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; line-height: 1.255 !important;">Hardcover</span>&nbsp;<span class="a-size-medium a-color-secondary a-text-normal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; line-height: 1.255 !important;">– February 20, 2018</span></font></p><div id="bylineInfo" class="a-section a-spacing-micro bylineHidden feature" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by&nbsp;<span class="author notFaded" data-width="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a data-asin="B07CC1Q5ZP" class="a-link-normal contributorNameID" href="https://www.amazon.com/Vegas-Tenold/e/B07CC1Q5ZP/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Vegas Tenold</a>&nbsp;</span></font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new rep</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">once a nuclear move, now common</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">occupy publish pix and info of cops who used excess force (origin?)</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ethics of doxxing of alt rt</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anniv of charlottesville (interesting class divide: prepies with prof'l future do not want to be outed but atomwaffen proles do not care b/c see no prof future)</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-8-2018/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-august-8-2018/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see also bk</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a class="a-link-normal" href="https://www.amazon.com/Bring-War-Home-Movement-Paramilitary/dp/0674286073/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y5WGQD95XVYMHSKE5J0B" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a<a class="a-link-normal" href="https://www.amazon.com/Alt-America-Rise-Radical-Right-Trump/dp/1786634236/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Y5WGQD95XVYMHSKE5J0B" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer;">lt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The story of the remarkable resurgence of right-wing extremists in the United States</b>
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 14px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just as Donald Trump’s victorious campaign for the US presidency shocked the world, the seemingly sudden national prominence of white supremacists, xenophobes, militia leaders, and mysterious “alt-right” figures mystifies many. But the American extreme right has been growing steadily in number and influence since the 1990s with the rise of patriot militias. Following 9/11, conspiracy theorists found fresh life; and in virulent reaction to the first black US president, militant racists have come out of the woodwork. Nurtured by a powerful right-wing media sector in radio, TV, and online, the far right, Tea Party movement conservatives, and Republican activists found common ground. Figures such as Stephen Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Alex Jones, once rightly dismissed as cranks, now haunt the reports of mainstream journalism.</font></p><p style="margin: -4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Investigative reporter David Neiwert has been tracking extremists for more than two decades. In Alt-America, he provides a deeply researched and authoritative report on the growth of fascism and far-right terrorism, the violence of which in the last decade has surpassed anything inspired by Islamist or other ideologies in the United States. The product of years of reportage, and including the most in-depth investigation of Trump’s ties to the far right, this is a crucial book about one of the most disturbing aspects of American society.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">==</font></p>