Sunday, November 28, 2021

Playing With Fire: Vigilantes, the Myth of Electoral Fraud and the Myth of the Second War on Terror

 Playing With Fire

The Republicans are playing with fire as they promote ideas that can become a basis for political violence and can turn our vigilantes into terrorists. Vigilantes are common in the United States as two recent cases have shown. Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people in the belief that he was helping to uphold the law and maintain social order. Travis McMichael and two other people killed Ahmaud Arbery because they believed that he had committed a burglary.   An article in the New York Times by columnist Charles Blow suggests that actions like these fit into our long tradition of White vigilantism, a tradition that includes Bernard Goetz, who shot four Black teenagers in in New York in 1984, and George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Vigilantism is Different from Terrorism

The article also describes the prolonged southern campaign of terrorism against Black people as another example of White vigilantism, but that is a mistake. The terrorist campaign waged by the Ku Lux Klan and other organizations was quite different from killings like those perpetrated by Rittenhouse, McMichael, Goetz and Zimmerman. The latter were committed by lone individuals who saw themselves as combatting crime, but none of them claimed to act to advance a political program or objective.

In contrast, the southern terrorist campaign was an organized effort to re-establish the political hegemony of the planter class in the South after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The campaign culminated in the 1890’s, when the southern states rewrote their constitutions to establish the system of legal segregation and to prevent Black people (and many White people) from voting. After the elections of 1896, when the power of the planter class had been firmly re-established, the terrorism was continued to make sure that a cheap labor force kept working in the cotton fields. Rittenhouse, McMichael, Goetz and Zimmerman were vigilantes, but they were not terrorists because they were not parts of an organized political movement and did not act in support of a political ideology.

A Terrorist Ideology for America

Some Republican leaders and propagandists are engaged in defining and promoting a political ideology that could serve as a basis of a terrorist campaign. The ideology is a claim that our democratic institutions have become so corrupted and subverted that they no longer merit the support of the American people, and that therefore, American patriots must act to reclaim our democratic government.

The work of defining this ideology began with the effort by elements of the Republican Party to delegitimize the elections of 2020. They have created and promoted the Myth of the Stolen Election. They claim that Pres. Biden was elected by means of massive, electoral fraud and that therefore, his administration is not legitimate and should not be supported by American patriots. This idea has recently received an expanded basis in Tucker Carlson’s documentary series Patriot Purge.

Carlson claims explicitly that the United States is in the grip of what he calls “the Second War on Terror.” In that war, the techniques and attitudes that underlay Pres. Bush’s War on Terror have now been turned on American conservatives. Carlson argues that in the Second War on Terror, the FBI and the entire, American security apparatus are now devoting their efforts to hunting down and arresting Trump voters. In his view, the invasion of the Capitol on January 6 was a “false flag operation” in which agents of the FBI deliberately created the riot in order to entrap and arrest Trump voters, and he labels the death of Ashli Babbit “the Second War on Terror’s first kill.” If you think that I am exaggerating, I encourage you to log into Fox Nation and listen to the three episodes of Patriot Purge.

Carlson says that our country has already been engulfed by organized, political violence that is being used by the political left to stifle conservative dissent, and that therefore, conservatives must prepare to defend themselves. They would be foolish to place their faith in a government that is actively attempting to hunt them down and kill them. In fact, conservative patriots may have no choice but to resort to violence to protect themselves and to restore our democracy.

Vigilantes to Terrorists

Our country has millions of citizens who own guns and believe that they should use those guns to maintain law and order and to uphold our democratic values. People like Rittenhouse and McMichael have shown that they are willing and ready to act as vigilantes. All that is missing to turn such vigilantes into terrorists is a national political movement with a paramilitary wing to recruit them and to provide them with the training and organization that would convert them into fighters who are prepared to act as terrorists.

Today’s Republican Party could provide the basis for such a movement. Republican politicians bill themselves as the champions of “real” Americans, and the party promotes the Myth of the Stolen Election, which provides a ready-made justification for political violence. The same politicians have shown themselves to be willing to accept violent action as we saw in Charlottesville in 2017 and in Washington on January 6. In addition, major financial supporters of the party have shown themselves to be willing to accept the Myth of the Stolen Election along with the violent action in return for low taxes on business and reduced environmental regulation. Is it unrealistic *to imagine the formation of a national, paramilitary force to “maintain the peace” and to “protect our democracy?”

When Will We Have a Terrorist Movement?

Those who promote the Myth of the Stolen Election or the Myth of the Second War on Terror are playing with fire. We have millions of citizens with guns who already believe that they should act to enforce the law and uphold the peace.  Now, we have politicians and propagandists telling them that their country is being stolen from them by electoral fraud and by the Second War on Terror. How long will it be before a movement emerges to convert our vigilantes into terrorists?

2 comments:

  1. Well said, though I disagree that “ The work of defining this ideology began with the effort by elements of the Republican Party to delegitimize the elections of 2020.” I think this ideology was defined beginning at least by the writings of Ann Coulter and others of that ilk. Once conservatives accept the premises that liberals are godless traitors, it stands to reason the only way such folk could win was through fraud - and since progressives are unscrupulous, this is altogether plausible. When you’ve dehumanized and demonized your opponents you have a lot of leeway.

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    1. Terry, I agree that the work of defining this ideology began earlier than I said. In fact, it really began earlier than you said, too. It goes back at least to Reagan's saying that government was the problem rather than the solution. However, I also think that Trump showed the Republicans that they could use delegitimizing the democratic system as a way to attract votes. I remember that in his inaugural address, he told the American people that he would be the voice of Americans whose voices were not being heard. This is exactly what authoritarian leaders say. It implies that democratic processes are not needed because the leader speaks for the people.

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