The title of this diary is the concluding sentence from Damon Young’s essay in The Root, about declarations of surprise, or bewildered reactions to the revelation that conservative America the leadership and rank and file of the GOP fascist America is comfortable with use of violence to achieve political ends put the undeserving who don’t belong here in their place:
There has never been a time in American history when they haven’t used violent force to scare, bully, intimate, injure, maim, disfigure, and murder.
They of course, are those who wish to curtail rights and reverse progress, and there has never been a time in America—not yesterday, not the week before, not the month before, not the year before, not the decade before, not the century before—when they haven’t directed their terror at black Americans.
Only from within a snowglobe of security and privilege can someone suggest what is happening now is different:
Perhaps there have been stretches of time when the terror wasn’t as conspicuous. When there weren’t as many stories in the news about them threatening the lives of those who just want to live. Which has led some people to believe that this is a uniquely partisan time. A uniquely terrible time. A uniquely dangerous time.
Far and away, America’s fascists are the most prolific sponsors and perpetrators of terrorism in the US, as highlighted by the Anti-Defamation League:
Over the past 25 years, right-wing terrorism has exhibited a considerable amount of stability. Part of this is due to the fact that most of it comes from two mature and well-established movements: the white supremacist movement and the anti-government “Patriot” movement. They have specific goals and specific enemies and can be expected to produce a steady stream of extremists willing to use violence to achieve those goals or harm those enemies. Moreover, though fringe movements, they nevertheless have deep roots in American society and cannot simply be rooted out or eliminated. Right-wing terrorism is not going away anytime soon…
… for the past quarter of a century, right-wing terrorism has been a consistent feature in the landscape of American violence, but it has garnered far less notice than some other forms of terrorism, most notably Islamic terrorism. Though a few incidents, such as the Oklahoma City bombing, or the bombings of Eric Rudoph, received extensive media coverage, many of the incidents collected here received scant media attention, particularly from major national media sources…
One thing is certain: if the United States does not treat right-wing terrorism as a real threat and react appropriately, there is no chance of lessening the danger posed by violent right-wing extremists and the 150 terror incidents described in this report will be joined by still more.
We need to be clear: there is one political party that has provided a welcome home for right-wing terrorists, offering the cover of mainstream respectability, and (admittedly incoherent) intellectual camouflage — the GOP:
The Metropolitan Republican Club has historically been a place for the traditional elite. Over the past century, presidents, senators, governors and mayors have walked through its doors, including club members Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Michael Bloomberg. But on Friday night, it was a hipster nationalist militant behind the club’s podium: McInnes, a hateful and vulgar vlogger from Canada who likes to play with his butt on camera...
In 2018, under President Donald Trump, a person like McInnes is invited to speak at a popular Republican institution not despite his extremism but because of it. His invitation to the Metropolitan Republican Club, scholars of fascism said, shows Republicans’ increasing ease with what is essentially the militant, fascist wing of their party — an especially unnerving development, given Proud Boys’ penchant for violence.
As I said in a diary more than two years ago, before the installation of Putin’s Tool in the oval office:
The chants of ‘political correctness’ and ‘take back our country’? These are notions that have been patiently instilled in the minds of conservatives over decades, as semi-conscious cues to react with blind terror and sputtering rage when they are invoked, summoning the silent majority to repel the impending invasion of dark-skinned socialists and rampaging angry lesbians, who will enslave the children, and burn whole communities to the ground.
The GOP has been following William Lind’s 4GW blueprint for decades, all Donald Trump has done is dropped any pretense that conservatism has ever been about anything other than bigotry, theocracy and rule by oligarchy. David Brooks, George Will and Ross Douthat may be doing their best to deflect the spotlight Trump has shone on the grotesque face of the real GOP, a face they have dutifully provided the opulent Carnevale di Venezia masks to hide; hundreds of columns promoting the mythical intellectual base of ‘principled conservatism’, alabaster white paper mache hiding the true visage of the monster.
Tear away the mask, and the face looks like Trump. He and his supporters always were on the floor of the GOP convention— closeted Nazis and KKK, secessionists and pro-slavery Confederacy apologists, Holocaust deniers, rape and spousal abuse excusers, none of these are strangers to the private conversations of the GOP establishment. The GOP leadership simply never had to acknowledge their presence so openly before Trump.
William Lind drew the road map, the GOP dutifully followed it, and it led them straight to Trump.
Wednesday, Oct 24, 2018 · 11:22:08 PM +00:00 · ian douglas rushlau
Charlie Pierce echoes Young’s message:
Don't Ask How It Could Happen Here. We Know How It Could Happen Here.
The following things have been bombed or blown up in my lifetime—a partial list:
- The NAACP office in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- The home of Robert Robinson in Savannah, Georgia.
- The Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
- The finish line of the marathon in Boston, Massachusetts.
- The Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia…
- Twenty-one bombings in and around Birmingham. Alabama.
- The home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama.
- The home of Harry Moore in Mims, Florida.
- The home of Robert Robinson in Savannah, Georgia.
- The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Grand Central Station and Radio City Music Hall in New York, New York.
- Forty-two different women’s health clinics all across the country.
And that’s not even to count the attempts in which everyone got lucky, or the murderers were foiled by good police work, like the attempted bombing spree in Georgia and Florida in 1989, or Kevin Harpham's attempt to slaughter peoplemarching in celebration of Dr. King’s birthday in Spokane, Washington in 2011.
So let us not be surprised by the news on Wednesday. The bomb has been as essential a part of American political history as were the knife, and the pistol, the high-powered rifle, and the rope.