Tag: white supremicists

Far-Right Wants To Act Out Its Civil War Fantasies Now

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 the “Boogaloo,” the far-right’s ironic name for the long-sought “second civil war” 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.

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. A recent incident in Texas 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—which can entail violence not just against authorities, but sometimes even their unsuspecting neighbors.

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. Continue reading.

Trump Echoes ‘Invasion’ Rhetoric Of New Zealand Terrorist Killer

President Trump discusses the violence, injuries and deaths at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville as he talks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan on Aug. 15, 2017. Credit: Kevin Lamarque, Reuters

Just hours after a white supremacist terrorist killed at least 49 people in two New Zealand mosques, Trump used the same language as the killer to demonize immigrants.

“People hate the word ‘invasion,’ but that’s what it is,” Trump said Friday, referring to migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. “It’s an invasion of drugs, and criminals, and people.”

Describing nonwhite immigration as an “invasion” is exactly what the New Zealand terrorist did in a racist manifesto he wrote before committing the mass murder. He “wrote that a trip to France in 2017 convinced him that the country was under ‘invasion’ by ‘nonwhites,’” the Washington Post reported.

View the complete March 15 article by Oliver Willis with The American Independent on the National Memo website here.

Former GOP Strategist Reveals the Covert Message Trump Sent to Neo-Nazis by Proclaiming Himself a ‘Nationalist’

Far-right racists loved the message.

While discussing the racial politics of the Florida gubernatorial election, ex-Republican strategist Steve Schmidt argued Thursday that the whole party has been dragged down into a dangerous association with racists because of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policies.

Schmidt asserted during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” that Trump’s recent declaration of himself as a “nationalist” was a direct message to some of the most pernicious parts of the far right.

“When Donald Trump declares himself a ‘nationalist,’ the nationalists understand exactly what he means,” said Schmidt. “By the way, let’s stop calling them ‘white nationalists’ and call them by their names, which are ‘neo-Nazis’ and ‘Klansmen.'”

View the October 25 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet.org website here.

Residents rise up against white supremacists

The following article by Patty Dexter was posted on the Southwest News Media website October 26, 2017:

Zaheer Babar Khan shows off the sign he made to display at a gathering hosted by the group Make Change MN at the Minnesota River Bluffs LRT Regional Trail bridge over U.S. Highway 212 in Eden Prairie, Oct. 25. Photo by Patty Dexter

EDEN PRAIRIE — Zaheer Babar Khan immigrated to the United States in 2006 from Pakistan and has since become an American citizen.

When he saw images on Twitter of a white banner that said, “You will not replace us. End immigration now! Identity Evropa,” hanging on the Minnesota River Bluffs LRT Regional Trail pedestrian bridge over U.S. Highway 212 near Eden Prairie’s Miller Park, he decided to take action.

“I’ve known that Eden Prairie is far better than what I’ve seen,” he said.

Khan was one of nearly 10 people who gathered at the bridge on the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 25, to share a message of support for immigration and inclusiveness. Those present held up signs for motorists to see. Some drivers honked. Khan’s sign said, “New/old Americans are immigrants.”
Continue reading “Residents rise up against white supremacists”

Yes, Antifa Is Very Dangerous — But Not To Fascists

The following article by Gene Lyons was posted on the National Memo website September 5, 2017:

Call me unromantic, but I disliked a lot about the fabled “Sixties” the first time around. Some of the music was good, but otherwise 1968 was among the worst years in American life. The center nearly failed to hold.

As if the Vietnam War were not bad enough, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy made it feel as if America’s democratic institutions might not survive. Eager for “revolution,” hothouse warriors in the SDS and Weather Underground did everything possible to promote anarchy—from rioting to setting off bombs. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, pitched battles between street fighters and Chicago police brought chaos and a massive voter backlash.

The most immediate result, brilliantly chronicled in historian Rick Perlstein’s book “Nixonland,” was the criminal presidency of Richard M. Nixon. Continue reading “Yes, Antifa Is Very Dangerous — But Not To Fascists”

Trump lit the torches of white supremacy in Charlottesville. We must extinguish them.

The following column by Petula Dvorak was posted on the Washington Post website August 13, 2017:

President Trump lit every one of those torches in Charlottesville.

Yes, the white supremacists have always been with us. A parade of racist bigots is no surprise to anyone familiar with our history, especially those who have been the target of hatred and violence for centuries.

But when the mob of white men marched in Charlottesville carrying flaming torches Friday night shouting “Heil Trump” as the curtain-raiser for a day of violent clashes with counterprotesters that left three people dead, they showed the world that America is once again playing with fire.

And Trump was the one with the match. Continue reading “Trump lit the torches of white supremacy in Charlottesville. We must extinguish them.”