Tag: right wing terrorism
Trump May Dream Of 'Civil War,' But It's Not Going To Happen

Trump May Dream Of 'Civil War,' But It's Not Going To Happen

When it comes to prognostication, my favorite philosopher has always been the eminent Lawrence Peter Berra. “It's tough to make predictions,” Yogi famously said, “especially about the future.”

For all his baseball genius, Yogi came by his skepticism honestly. He spent three years managing the New York Mets—enough to make anybody leery about expressing confidence for next year.

Nevertheless, here goes: Regarding American politics, most of this loose talk about an impending civil war is just that, talk. Organized, armed militias running around the countryside attacking political enemies? Not going to happen. Of course there will be violence. This is, after all, the United States of America, where there are cranks and loons of every kind and description armed with guns and explosives.

Terrorism, maybe. After all, it was no less an eminence than Thomas Jefferson who wrote that “[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” And Oklahoma City terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who had the phrase emblazoned on his T-shirt when he was arrested. McVeigh imagined that murdering 168 fellow citizens with a truck bomb would spark civil war. Instead, he was tried, convicted, and executed in 2001.

For the record, Jefferson penned the unfortunate phrase in France, a slave-owning aristocrat playing revolutionary at Paris dinner parties. He wrote regarding Shay’s Rebellion, a 1787 anti-tax uprising in Massachusetts which his fellow Virginian George Washington believed demonstrated the need for a strong national government. At the subsequent constitutional convention (which Jefferson did not attend), Washington’s views prevailed. As president, he sent soldiers to put down the Pennsylvania “Whiskey Rebellion” with prejudice.

Following his own presidency, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and designed its staggeringly beautiful campus: a living monument to stability, order, and Thomas Jefferson himself. One of the most appalling things about the “Unite the Right” torchlight parade there in 2017 was its desecration of “Mr. Jefferson’s university” as Virginians call it. You couldn’t expect a barbarian like Donald Trump to understand that.

But I digress. The main reason there’s so much loose talk about civil war is the publication of recent polls showing that strong majorities of Republicans continue to believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from the aforementioned Boss Trump. Meanwhile, the latest Washington Post -- University of Maryland poll shows that the “percentage of Americans who say violent action against the governmentis justified at times stands at 34 percent.” (40 percent of Republicans vs. 23 percent of Democrats.)

That and similar surveys show that between 58 and 71 percent of Republicans tell pollsters that Trump was the actual winner of an election he lost thunderously, making Joe Biden an illegitimate president.

It bears mentioning that contrary to the usual 50-50 framing, Republicans represent nowhere close to half of the electorate. One quarter is more like it. Looking at it that way brings the actual proportion of the sorehead minority down to something like half the headline number saying somebody needs to kick ass to bring back the glorious reign of the old p***y grabber.

It doesn’t say how many are prepared to drop the remote, clamber out of the recliner, and take up arms whenever Tucker Carlson says it’s time. Given the advanced age of the Fox News demographic, I’m confident the great majority of would-be warriors—like Trump himself—mean to follow the action on TV.

“The thing that’s most concerning is that [this false belief] has endured in the face of all evidence,” says Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two honorable Republicans in Congress (the other being Liz Cheney). “And I’ve gotten to wonder if there is actually any evidence that would ever change certain people’s minds.”

The answer is almost certainly not. After all, this is pretty much the same demographic that has resisted science and medicine amid a worldwide disease pandemic. Indeed, many are now angry with Trump for boasting about the very vaccines that they’ve risked their children’s lives resisting. They’re about to have a rough few weeks. Swallowing his election lies has been is risk free and easy by comparison.

There are also signs of waning certitude. The same Washington Post poll shows that the percentage of Republicans denying Joe Biden’s legitimacy has dropped from 70 to 58 percent since the January 6 insurrection. What’s more, fully 72 percent of all Americans saw the January 6 riot as a threat to democracy: a number that can only rise as investigations proceed.

Once the dam springs a leak, it’s doomed.

Having spent much of my adult life as a Yankee in the American South, I have seen this movie before. As recently as the 1960s, many Southern whites thought the world would end if schools and universities integrated. So watch the upcoming Alabama-Georgia game, and tell me what you see.

Civil war over Trump?

In his dreams. Nowhere else.

January 6 Probe Advancing As House Panel Readies Subpoenas

January 6 Probe Advancing As House Panel Readies Subpoenas

Reprinted with permission from DailyKos

On Monday, Rep. Bennie Thompson made it clear that the House Select Committee investigating events related to the January 6 insurgency could begin issuing subpoenas within the next few days. Back on August 25, the committee sent a request for documents to a long list of recipients. While some recipients have turned over the requested information, a large number have not. As CNN reports, Thompson will skip right past the farce of sending any of these people or groups reminders or asking them politely to show up at the House. Instead, the committee will move straight to the subpoena phase and let the courts tell them how much executive privilege does not apply to this case.

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Report: Right-Wing Terror Attacks Skyrocketed During 2020

Report: Right-Wing Terror Attacks Skyrocketed During 2020

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Analysis published by the Washington Post on Monday shows that in 2020, Donald Trump's last year in the White House, the number of far-right domestic terrorism incidents in the United States hit a 26-year high.

The Post analysis, based on data compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, found that in 2020, there were 73 incidents carried out by extremists on the far right, the most since the center began keeping statistics on domestic terrorism in 1994.

The report also noted a new high in the number of left-wing attacks, but said that attacks from the right were "still the much larger group." Over the last quarter-century, the study shows, right-wing attacks and plots were far more frequent than attacks from the left and caused many more deaths.

The center reported 25 left-wing attacks in 2020.

While in the White House, Trump ignored the threat of right-wing terrorism and spent his time demonizing the movement of left-wing opposition to white supremacy and fascism known as antifa.

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has released and expanded grants from the Department of Homeland Security to state and local law enforcement to investigate and prevent domestic terrorism, funds that had been held up or redirected by Trump's team.

The center released a report on Monday titled The Military, Police, and the Rise of Terrorism in the United States, stating, "The data indicate that U.S. military personnel have been involved in a growing number of domestic terrorist plots and attacks."

After the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters, among whom were many active-duty and retired military service members, the report notes:

In response to these developments, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III pledged to intensify the DoD's effort to combat extremism in the military, remarking, "It concerns me to think that anyone wearing the uniform of a soldier, or a sailor, an airman, Marine, or Guardian or Coast Guardsman would espouse these [extremist] sorts of beliefs, let alone act on them. But they do. Some of them still do." Secretary Austin also signed a memo directing commanding officers and supervisors to conduct a one-day "stand-down" to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel. In addition, the DoD launched an investigation in January 2021 to determine the extent to which the department and military have implemented policies and procedures that prohibit advocacy and participation related to white supremacist, extremist, and criminal gang activity by active-duty personnel.

Republicans in Congress and conservative commentators have criticized the initiative, saying that those who support conservative politics will be swept up in the campaign.

The conservative movement, however, has tied itself to these extremist views.

The Washington Postanalysis says:

Right-wing extremism began gathering fresh momentum after the election of Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, according to an April 2009 Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment. "Right-wing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda," the assessment said.

After Obama took office, it was none other than Trump who became the most prominent face of the "birther" movement, falsely alleging that Obama was not a natural-born American citizen. Embracing the debunked conspiracy theory did not disqualify Trump from seeking and eventually obtaining the Republican presidential nomination.

After taking office, Trump regularly used his platform to play to right-wing extremists, bashing migrants, demonizing Muslims, blaming Asians for the novel coronavirus, and embracing antisemitism.

These actions generated little criticism from his fellow Republicans.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, ignoring law enforcement warnings about the threat from extremist right-wing conspiracy theories, Trump praised QAnon conspiracy theorists.

As he debated Biden in September 2020, Trump told the white supremacist militia group Proud Boys to "stand by."

That same month, Biden was asked whether he condemned aggressive tactics by members of the antifa movement.

"Yes I do — violence no matter who it is," Biden replied.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

A member of Boogaloo Bois arrested in Graham, NC

Far-Right ‘Boogaloo’ Activist Charged With Rioting In Minneapolis

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

President Donald Trump and many of his allies in the right-wing media have been claiming that most or all of the political violence that has occurred in the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 has come from the left — totally overlooking the history of violence associated with the Proud Boys, QAnon and a variety of white nationalist and militia groups. But federal prosecutors accused a Texas-based member of the far-right Boogaloo Bois on Friday of going to Minneapolis in late May with the intention of taking part in a riot.

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