THE RIGHT WING
NEWS, OPINIONS, AND POLICIES FOR DEFENDERS OF RACISM, THE STATUS QUO, AND OPPRESSION
the people who cater to the stupid
june 2023
Our Dunning-Kruger president
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
he Dunning-Kruger effect is a term that describes a psychological phenomenon in which stupid people do not know that they are in fact stupid.
VISIONARY SCIENCE-FICTION WRITER ISAAC ASIMOV SIGNALED TO THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT WITH HIS FAMOUS OBSERVATION IN 1980: "THERE IS A CULT OF IGNORANCE IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN. THE STRAIN OF ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM HAS BEEN A CONSTANT THREAD WINDING ITS WAY THROUGH OUR POLITICAL AND CULTURAL LIFE, NURTURED BY THE FALSE NOTION THAT DEMOCRACY MEANS THAT 'MY IGNORANCE IS JUST AS GOOD AS YOUR KNOWLEDGE.'"
CPAC EXPLAINED BY NANCEGREGGS, DU
SELF-PROCLAIMED CHRISTIANS WORSHIPPING A GOLDEN STATUE, MASKLESS IDIOTS WHO STILL BELIEVE COVID IS A HOAX, APPLAUSE FOR INSURRECTIONISTS AND THEIR ENABLERS, A COKE-ADDLED DON JUNIOR STILL PUBLICLY GROVELLING FOR DADDY’S ATTENTION, TED CRUZ DOING A STAND-UP COMEDY ROUTINE ABOUT HIS CANCUN TRIP WHILE HIS CONSTITUENTS STRUGGLED TO SURVIVE, AND OUTRAGE OVER MR. POTATO HEAD.
IN SHORT, IT’S A GATHERING OF EASILY-LED DUMB-ASSES WILLING TO SWALLOW WHATEVER BULLSHIT THEY’RE TOLD TO CONSUME BY A BUNCH OF REPUBLICAN ‘LEADERS’ WHO DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEM, BUT ARE SIMPLY THERE IN ORDER TO SIZE-UP THE OBVIOUSLY GULLIBLE MARKS.
OF COURSE, THE UNDERLYING THEME OF THE EVENT IS THE BIG LIE THAT THE ELECTION WAS SOMEHOW STOLEN FROM TRUMP – BECAUSE THESE IDIOTS SIMPLY CAN’T BELIEVE THAT THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WANTED A LYING, THIEVING, CORRUPT, PUSSY-GRABBER OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.
THIS IS WHAT THE GOP IS DOWN TO – A BUNCH OF LOW-IQ, NO-INFO VOTERS WHO THINK SCIENCE IS AN ELITIST PLOT, AND EDUCATION IS DETRIMENTAL TO CIVILIZATION. THIS IS THE PRECIOUS ‘BASE’ WHOSE VOTES THE GOP ARE WILLING TO ABANDON ALL MORALS AND ETHICS IN ORDER TO WIN.
THE CURRENT HEROES OF TODAY’S REPUBLICAN PARTY ARE THE PEOPLE WHO BROKE INTO THE CAPITOL AND LITERALLY SHIT ON THE FLOORS AND WIPED THEIR FECES ON THE WALLS. THAT IS THE REALITY OF WHERE THE GOP IS RIGHT NOW. AND THAT IS REALLY ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID.
The Right’s Bigoted “Boycott Target” Rap Is as Toxic as It Is Cringeworthy
The bigots’ latest rallying cry is a crude, transphobic and embarrassingly low-quality rap song littered with slurs.
By Kim Kelly , TRUTHOUT
Published June 7, 2023
When Newsweek reported that an anti-Target novelty song had topped the iTunes charts on May 30, besting pop star Taylor Swift’s latest single in the process, both political journalists and music fans were left scratching their heads — surely no one was actually enjoying this sonic garbage? Meanwhile, right-wing pundits crowed about what they perceived to be a victory over the “woke agenda” they’ve decided has crept into every facet of American life, including its big box stores. With Pride Month upon us, the rainbow capitalism that has saturated the season for years has been taking fire from the far right, whose current violently obsessive crusade against LGBTQIA people has led to capitulation from the same corporations that had been planning to profit off the queer community this June.
The bigots’ latest rallying cry, “Boycott Target,” is a crude, gleefully transphobic and embarrassingly low-quality rap song that’s littered with both slurs and lackluster features from other Z-list right-wing rappers. Its creator, Forgiato Blow (Kurt Jantz), is a 38-year-old white rapper from South Florida who has risen to the top of the grievance-soaked microgenre of “MAGA rap” by releasing a steady clip of ham-fisted odes to right-wing culture war obsessions.
He is also an extremely mediocre artist, who sank a rumored $5 million inheritance into a struggling rap career that foundered until he transitioned into his current pro-Trump grift in 2016. Jantz is an heir to the Autotrader fortune (his late grandfather, Stuart Arnold, founded the immensely successful car magazine in 1973) and his early material revolved around wealth, women, and — true to the family business — luxury cars. But in 2016, he released his first Trump-themed song, “Silver Spoon,” introducing the MAGA-branded formula he’s clung to ever since. The self-proclaimed “Mayor of MAGAville” has responded to his song’s relative success by going on major television network Fox News to complain about being silenced (truly, you cannot make this shit up).
The music video for “Boycott Target” features Jantz and his buddies romping through a Target, gesticulating at Pride-branded merchandise, carrying cases of Bud Light, and inexplicably filling his arms with boxes of tampons. The cause for their alarm is the current far right-fueled panic over Target’s line of Pride merchandise, which includes queer and trans-inclusive clothing offerings. (Never mind that the multibillion-dollar corporation has been rolling out its annual Pride collection for more than a decade). The song’s iTunes chart position might have meant something 10 years ago, too, but it has become a dated metric for determining musical popularity and success. The rise of streaming has meant that most modern music consumers now use services like Spotify or Apple Music, while older generations prefer to buy individual songs (and as Newsweek notes, it only takes a relatively small number of those purchases to impact the charts).
Jantz himself seems to be aware that his audience skews older, and accordingly markets his songs towards extremely online right-wing Boomers. “My fans aren’t teenage boys,” he told reporter Tess Owes in a 2022 profile. “My fans are 50-to-60-year-old people that probably never listened to rap music in their life. And I make them love rap music. Now they love rap music.”
Jantz’s crappy song is only one small part of the ongoing anti-LGBTQIA campaign that the far right is pushing, and in some cases, it’s already led to threats of physical violence against Target workers. Last month, the company announced that it would be removing some of its Pride collection from stores following the manufactured backlash, including merchandise from British designer Abprallen, whose (extremely cute) Satanic-themed artwork drew particular attention from joyless conservatives. Workers at some Southern locations have also reported being told to move Pride-themed swimsuits to the back of the store, including a gender inclusive “tuck-friendly” design. It’s truly pathetic to see a corporation as massive as Target caving to the demands of a handful of frenzied bigots, but it’s imperative to protect the workers who have been forced to deal with them and their ginned-up outrage.
The entire episode is shameful, and the ongoing harassment, dehumanization, criminalization and violence against queer and trans people that has been allowed — and encouraged in some quarters, like the one Jantz occupies and enables — is nothing less than an increasingly fast-moving genocide. One iTunes chart doesn’t change that, nor does it provide any real cover to the wretched human beings acting like it actually means they’re in the right. Conservatives’ desperate attempts to latch onto pop culture and use it to push their disgusting agenda always fails, and “Boycott Target” is no exception.
Unfortunately for the bigoted right-wingers insisting that the flash-in-the-pan success of “Boycott Target” means that their hateful viewpoints are justifiable, the facts don’t care about their feelings — and despite all of their sweaty, poorly tattooed posturing, Forgiato Blow and his nasty MAGA cronies will never be cool.
The bigots’ latest rallying cry, “Boycott Target,” is a crude, gleefully transphobic and embarrassingly low-quality rap song that’s littered with both slurs and lackluster features from other Z-list right-wing rappers. Its creator, Forgiato Blow (Kurt Jantz), is a 38-year-old white rapper from South Florida who has risen to the top of the grievance-soaked microgenre of “MAGA rap” by releasing a steady clip of ham-fisted odes to right-wing culture war obsessions.
He is also an extremely mediocre artist, who sank a rumored $5 million inheritance into a struggling rap career that foundered until he transitioned into his current pro-Trump grift in 2016. Jantz is an heir to the Autotrader fortune (his late grandfather, Stuart Arnold, founded the immensely successful car magazine in 1973) and his early material revolved around wealth, women, and — true to the family business — luxury cars. But in 2016, he released his first Trump-themed song, “Silver Spoon,” introducing the MAGA-branded formula he’s clung to ever since. The self-proclaimed “Mayor of MAGAville” has responded to his song’s relative success by going on major television network Fox News to complain about being silenced (truly, you cannot make this shit up).
The music video for “Boycott Target” features Jantz and his buddies romping through a Target, gesticulating at Pride-branded merchandise, carrying cases of Bud Light, and inexplicably filling his arms with boxes of tampons. The cause for their alarm is the current far right-fueled panic over Target’s line of Pride merchandise, which includes queer and trans-inclusive clothing offerings. (Never mind that the multibillion-dollar corporation has been rolling out its annual Pride collection for more than a decade). The song’s iTunes chart position might have meant something 10 years ago, too, but it has become a dated metric for determining musical popularity and success. The rise of streaming has meant that most modern music consumers now use services like Spotify or Apple Music, while older generations prefer to buy individual songs (and as Newsweek notes, it only takes a relatively small number of those purchases to impact the charts).
Jantz himself seems to be aware that his audience skews older, and accordingly markets his songs towards extremely online right-wing Boomers. “My fans aren’t teenage boys,” he told reporter Tess Owes in a 2022 profile. “My fans are 50-to-60-year-old people that probably never listened to rap music in their life. And I make them love rap music. Now they love rap music.”
Jantz’s crappy song is only one small part of the ongoing anti-LGBTQIA campaign that the far right is pushing, and in some cases, it’s already led to threats of physical violence against Target workers. Last month, the company announced that it would be removing some of its Pride collection from stores following the manufactured backlash, including merchandise from British designer Abprallen, whose (extremely cute) Satanic-themed artwork drew particular attention from joyless conservatives. Workers at some Southern locations have also reported being told to move Pride-themed swimsuits to the back of the store, including a gender inclusive “tuck-friendly” design. It’s truly pathetic to see a corporation as massive as Target caving to the demands of a handful of frenzied bigots, but it’s imperative to protect the workers who have been forced to deal with them and their ginned-up outrage.
The entire episode is shameful, and the ongoing harassment, dehumanization, criminalization and violence against queer and trans people that has been allowed — and encouraged in some quarters, like the one Jantz occupies and enables — is nothing less than an increasingly fast-moving genocide. One iTunes chart doesn’t change that, nor does it provide any real cover to the wretched human beings acting like it actually means they’re in the right. Conservatives’ desperate attempts to latch onto pop culture and use it to push their disgusting agenda always fails, and “Boycott Target” is no exception.
Unfortunately for the bigoted right-wingers insisting that the flash-in-the-pan success of “Boycott Target” means that their hateful viewpoints are justifiable, the facts don’t care about their feelings — and despite all of their sweaty, poorly tattooed posturing, Forgiato Blow and his nasty MAGA cronies will never be cool.
Who's leading the attack on CRT?
MEET THE TRUMP FAN AND HERITAGE FOUNDATION STOOGE LEADING THE RACIST, RED-BAITING ASSAULT ON AMERICAN EDUCATION
DAVID THEO GOLDBERG - SALON
8/1/2021
The attacks on "critical race theory" over these last nine months have sought to silence any critical focus on racism today, on structures, institutions, systems, acts and people deemed racist, and to reshape historical memory regarding race to this end.
Christopher Rufo has become the poster boy for these attacks, their driving force. He wasn't the only one, or even the initially intended operative to lead the charge. The Heritage Foundation promoted the initiative, with numerous of its agents — or agents provocateurs — assuming the task. Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez were the other two designated with Rufo for the work. Gonzalez published a book, "The Plot to Change America," targeting identity politics, centering terms Rufo would later mobilize to attack CRT.
Heritage fashioned a twin state-focused political strategy designed to support the conservative resurrection and return to power: the broadside against progressive anti-racism, and the neutral-looking campaign to limit access to voting by people of color, the poor and youth. The work to restrict voting has been led, more quietly, by Heritage Action (a Heritage spinoff in 2010), which has developed a template for state voting restrictions, helping to write the proliferating state legislation.
Butcher, Gonzalez and Rufo published hit pieces on the Heritage website and elsewhere, such as Manhattan Institute's City Journal. None is trained as a lawyer, or indeed in any field specializing in studies of race. To their credit, they have picked up CRT along the way, the untrained eyes seeing what the trained one has not (intended), reconfirming the sighted UFO in consultation with each other.
Rufo has gained the most traction in going after CRT. He took it on as his crusade. Acting as the crusade's voice is now his full-time employment, perhaps even — like a typecast Hollywood actor — his employability. While claiming that "CRT is everywhere," he is the one who actually is on Fox News repeatedly, where Donald Trump saw him interviewed last November and immediately gave Rufo a national platform. (From March onwards, Fox News has mentioned CRT nearly 2,000 times, 700 of those in June alone.) Rufo is the Trumpeter of anti-anti-racist agitation. So much so that his Twitter handle is @realchrisrufo — a close echo of the former president's former Twitter handle — his platform also for fundraising.
In taking on the Trumpian mantle, make-believe is the name of the game. And, as with the notorious propagandists from which he clearly has drawn influence, fabrication is at the heart of Rufo's real crusade. He has been well-prepared, having worked previously at the Discovery Institute, best known for its creationist and anti-evolution science denial.
What, then, has RealChrisRufo (RCR) "seen"? There are many sites and sightings from which to draw. So it is best to hew closely to RCR's own definitive statements on CRT, summarized in an 18-minute YouTube video he produced and in which he serves as the driving voice. It is effective agitprop, superficially slick, quick in claim and pace. His talking head is intercut with found images and computational graphics. But Rufo's public façade of earnest sincerity is belied by his extraordinary intellectual dishonesty. The video is aimed at framing CRT in completely misleading historical, intellectual and political terms. It dramatically overgeneralizes, operating through innuendo and mischaracterization. It is as revealing in what is omitted as stated. He engages in diverting decontextualization and complete misrepresentation.
"CRT," Rufo declares at the outset, is "the new orthodoxy in America's public institutions." Really? Only because he says so and is mimicked loudly by his followers in the media and at school board meetings, finding it under every rock. Walking into schools, onto campuses, you'd search in vain turning up CRT anywhere other than in specialist college classes. That the embarrassing examples of CRT the critics identify are invariably traceable only to their proclamation should give pause about their authenticity and plausibility.
If "Most Americans have no idea where [CRT] comes from or the society it envisions," it is left to Rufo to show us that it is around every corner, "why it is a threat to the country, and most importantly show [us] how you can fight it." Believing, it turns out, is "seeing."
CRT, in the Rufoist reading, began as an attempt to update Marxism. It supposedly inherited its structure of thinking from the "neo-Marxists" of critical theory — he identifies Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Walter Benjamin. Realizing in the 1960s "the actual failures" of Marxist "brutality," RCR insists that "the critical theorists abandoned the old economic dialectic of bourgeois and proletariat and replaced it with a new racial dialectic of white and black."
There are three related embarrassments to this vision. First, the only driving influences on CRT apparently are white German Jewish men. No Black, brown, Asian or women intellectual forerunners, American or globally, nor any non-Jewish whites. This is 1950s American anti-communism redux.
Second, Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin restricted to antisemitism what little discussion they devoted to racism. This is perhaps understandable, given their own experiences. Hannah Arendt is one notable exception here.
Third, in "Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement," a reader collecting all the original seminal articles and edited by for of the intellectual movement's principal founders, there are almost 1,500 footnotes (law articles are notoriously well-documented). There is not a single reference to Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin or Marcuse. There are more references to Black conservative economist and political commentator Thomas Sowell and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey (one each) than to Karl Marx. The references in the volume are overwhelmingly to U.S. legal cases, followed by the long tradition of Black American thinkers.
The obvious rejoinder will be that the "neo-Marxist" influence is implicit, known to the initiated; the unprovable parading as given. "Critical," however, etymologically means the capacity to judge the truth or merit of the object of analysis. Rufo-inspired CRT criticisms exhibit none of these qualities.
Rufo quickly broadens his target. CRT, he says, "is usually deployed under a series of euphemisms, such as equity, social justice, diversity and inclusion, and socially responsive teaching." There is an obvious political strategy at work here: Renew the longstanding conservative hysteria over Marxism and communism by misreading CRT as substitutes for its terms. The goal is to set fire to the contemporary shift in American politics regarding race and racism unfolding since the George Floyd murder and BLM-inspired protests over a year ago.
This past March, @RealChrisRufo was explicit about this strategy of fabrication on Twitter (it's almost as if tweets are the medium of the political unconscious today). He later added, "I basically took that body of criticism ... and made it political. Turned it into a salient political issue with a clear villain."
The result is Campus Watch for schools, effectively Dinesh D'Souza 2.0 — a venomous brew. This is the lesson plan for the self-appointed thought police. While schools have been the principal targets, colleges and universities are now on the radar too. Critical Race Training in Education is a watchdog-style website recently established by Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson, with two younger activists, who together run the Legal Insurrection Foundation. Drawing calculatingly on the Rufoistic misreadings, they report on "more than 300 colleges and universities" nationwide for their training in CRT and antiracism (though courses in critical theory with no focus on racism are making the list too). The aim seems to warn "parents" away from sending their children to such institutions, including Jacobson's own, and by implication to pressure the institutions to restrict CRT-related courses. This is cancel culture with a vengeance.
Rufoists never engage in sustained textual analysis of CRT. They usually refer misleadingly to an idea or sentence from the far wider, much less coherent body of critical work in the human sciences that I shorthand as critical race studies. The two most often dismissed by Rufoists are "critical race guru" Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, who are about as different in critical commitments, assumptions and arguments as they could be. Kendi has repeatedly insisted he is no CRTer. He sometimes expresses ideas that CRT advocates would reject as unworkable or incoherent, just as some diversity training programs are embarrassingly counterproductive. But they are ideas for critical discussion, not incendiary devices to end the Republic. DiAngelo's discussion of "white fragility" is not a position readily identified with CRT. Her reading of structural racism offers countering proposals that rely on personal, individual responses, leaving the structural conditions untouched. She is definitively no Marxist, neo- or otherwise.
All this matters to the Rufoists as much as schools insisting they do not teach CRT. CRT is now the operative target in almost exactly the ways "Marxism," "communism," "socialism" and "liberalism" have been in the past. The Goldwater Institute, for which Heritage's Butcher once worked, includes Howard Zinn's "A People's History of America" under its CRT catchphrase, a text among others to be banned from school curricula. Zinn's classic work was first published in 1980, before CRT was even named, or even a thing!
Rufo has also composed a CRT "Briefing Book," a handbook for cultural combat. It serves for anti-CRT combat much like Israel's Hasbara Handbook for Promoting Israel on Campus, the principal aim of which is "to influence public opinion." Indeed, a Rufoist offshoot organization, Citizens for Renewing America, offers "model schoolboard language to prohibit CRT" alongside a "toolkit" to "combat CRT in your community," much as Heritage Action provides model legislation to restrict state voting rights.
What, then, is "racial Rufoism"? It is a political strategy aiming to provide tools for whitewashing race and racism as the undiscussables of American politics, culture, education. It is a "redprint" for silencing any critical racial narrative. As American demography has become a lost conservative battle — within the next quarter-century the U.S., as California does already, will have no racial majority — the war has shifted. Who controls the levers of power? And who controls dominant cultural representation — here, the racial story that the country dominantly tells about itself? The fight over historical memory, as Nikole Hannah-Jones has aptly characterized the conservative attacks on the 1619 Project, is not just how to understand the American past. It seeks to establish the grounds for more or less full belonging to the society, the terms and conditions for being an American and staying ahead today.
Here a Tennessee school district experience exemplifies wider patterns across the country. A parent insisted that the account of Ruby Bridges, as the first Black student to integrate New Orleans schools in 1960, is hurtful to white schoolkids. Bridges' account describes a "large crowd of angry white people who didn't want Black children in a white school." The parent insisted it failed to offer "redemption" for today's white children. She also objected to another book about school segregation, expressing disapproval of teaching words like "injustice" and "inequality" in "grammar lessons." A clip of Ruby Bridges' chilling experience shows a six-year-old girl being screamed at by a crowd of angry white people spitting and cursing at her. No white redemption on offer here.
"Racial Rufoism" is obviously about denying structural or systemic racism, reducing racism solely to "individual bad apples." But it is even more about whitewashing race and racism, seeking to relieve white people today of any responsibility not just about the past — slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, lynchings — but equally for their inherited impact today. This is exemplified in the all too easy resort by Rufoists to the MLK exhortation to "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." One only has to read or hear the rest of King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech to know he offered this as aspirational. He embedded it within an insistence that its realization is dependent on first addressing the structural and systemic racism still shaping this country. Rufoism provides a way for beneficiaries of whiteness to abrogate any responsibility for expanding racial differentials in wealth, property values, employability, educational resources and access, health disparities and voting rights restrictions. Racial Rufoism provides racial deniability its fuel and rationalizing cover.
We are seeing, nevertheless, the stirrings of a more assertive critical counter to Rufoism. Because of the non-whitewashed history students are being provided in the Tennessee school district mentioned above, "teachers are reporting ... that our students are reading like they've never read before." The assistant superintendent added, "I've received a flood of emails recently that said, 'Don't do anything with the curriculum. My kid's loving it'."
Rufoist whitewashing is not just censorious, sloppy and misdirecting. It may make for effective propaganda in the homogeneous circles in which it circulates, but it amounts to boring, unappealing, tuned-out pedagogy in schools and colleges alike. Rufoism is critical only in that other, fast failing sense. The Rufoists see a future that for all but themselves — and perhaps even for themselves — is no future at all.
Christopher Rufo has become the poster boy for these attacks, their driving force. He wasn't the only one, or even the initially intended operative to lead the charge. The Heritage Foundation promoted the initiative, with numerous of its agents — or agents provocateurs — assuming the task. Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez were the other two designated with Rufo for the work. Gonzalez published a book, "The Plot to Change America," targeting identity politics, centering terms Rufo would later mobilize to attack CRT.
Heritage fashioned a twin state-focused political strategy designed to support the conservative resurrection and return to power: the broadside against progressive anti-racism, and the neutral-looking campaign to limit access to voting by people of color, the poor and youth. The work to restrict voting has been led, more quietly, by Heritage Action (a Heritage spinoff in 2010), which has developed a template for state voting restrictions, helping to write the proliferating state legislation.
Butcher, Gonzalez and Rufo published hit pieces on the Heritage website and elsewhere, such as Manhattan Institute's City Journal. None is trained as a lawyer, or indeed in any field specializing in studies of race. To their credit, they have picked up CRT along the way, the untrained eyes seeing what the trained one has not (intended), reconfirming the sighted UFO in consultation with each other.
Rufo has gained the most traction in going after CRT. He took it on as his crusade. Acting as the crusade's voice is now his full-time employment, perhaps even — like a typecast Hollywood actor — his employability. While claiming that "CRT is everywhere," he is the one who actually is on Fox News repeatedly, where Donald Trump saw him interviewed last November and immediately gave Rufo a national platform. (From March onwards, Fox News has mentioned CRT nearly 2,000 times, 700 of those in June alone.) Rufo is the Trumpeter of anti-anti-racist agitation. So much so that his Twitter handle is @realchrisrufo — a close echo of the former president's former Twitter handle — his platform also for fundraising.
In taking on the Trumpian mantle, make-believe is the name of the game. And, as with the notorious propagandists from which he clearly has drawn influence, fabrication is at the heart of Rufo's real crusade. He has been well-prepared, having worked previously at the Discovery Institute, best known for its creationist and anti-evolution science denial.
What, then, has RealChrisRufo (RCR) "seen"? There are many sites and sightings from which to draw. So it is best to hew closely to RCR's own definitive statements on CRT, summarized in an 18-minute YouTube video he produced and in which he serves as the driving voice. It is effective agitprop, superficially slick, quick in claim and pace. His talking head is intercut with found images and computational graphics. But Rufo's public façade of earnest sincerity is belied by his extraordinary intellectual dishonesty. The video is aimed at framing CRT in completely misleading historical, intellectual and political terms. It dramatically overgeneralizes, operating through innuendo and mischaracterization. It is as revealing in what is omitted as stated. He engages in diverting decontextualization and complete misrepresentation.
"CRT," Rufo declares at the outset, is "the new orthodoxy in America's public institutions." Really? Only because he says so and is mimicked loudly by his followers in the media and at school board meetings, finding it under every rock. Walking into schools, onto campuses, you'd search in vain turning up CRT anywhere other than in specialist college classes. That the embarrassing examples of CRT the critics identify are invariably traceable only to their proclamation should give pause about their authenticity and plausibility.
If "Most Americans have no idea where [CRT] comes from or the society it envisions," it is left to Rufo to show us that it is around every corner, "why it is a threat to the country, and most importantly show [us] how you can fight it." Believing, it turns out, is "seeing."
CRT, in the Rufoist reading, began as an attempt to update Marxism. It supposedly inherited its structure of thinking from the "neo-Marxists" of critical theory — he identifies Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Walter Benjamin. Realizing in the 1960s "the actual failures" of Marxist "brutality," RCR insists that "the critical theorists abandoned the old economic dialectic of bourgeois and proletariat and replaced it with a new racial dialectic of white and black."
There are three related embarrassments to this vision. First, the only driving influences on CRT apparently are white German Jewish men. No Black, brown, Asian or women intellectual forerunners, American or globally, nor any non-Jewish whites. This is 1950s American anti-communism redux.
Second, Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin restricted to antisemitism what little discussion they devoted to racism. This is perhaps understandable, given their own experiences. Hannah Arendt is one notable exception here.
Third, in "Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement," a reader collecting all the original seminal articles and edited by for of the intellectual movement's principal founders, there are almost 1,500 footnotes (law articles are notoriously well-documented). There is not a single reference to Adorno, Horkheimer, Benjamin or Marcuse. There are more references to Black conservative economist and political commentator Thomas Sowell and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey (one each) than to Karl Marx. The references in the volume are overwhelmingly to U.S. legal cases, followed by the long tradition of Black American thinkers.
The obvious rejoinder will be that the "neo-Marxist" influence is implicit, known to the initiated; the unprovable parading as given. "Critical," however, etymologically means the capacity to judge the truth or merit of the object of analysis. Rufo-inspired CRT criticisms exhibit none of these qualities.
Rufo quickly broadens his target. CRT, he says, "is usually deployed under a series of euphemisms, such as equity, social justice, diversity and inclusion, and socially responsive teaching." There is an obvious political strategy at work here: Renew the longstanding conservative hysteria over Marxism and communism by misreading CRT as substitutes for its terms. The goal is to set fire to the contemporary shift in American politics regarding race and racism unfolding since the George Floyd murder and BLM-inspired protests over a year ago.
This past March, @RealChrisRufo was explicit about this strategy of fabrication on Twitter (it's almost as if tweets are the medium of the political unconscious today). He later added, "I basically took that body of criticism ... and made it political. Turned it into a salient political issue with a clear villain."
The result is Campus Watch for schools, effectively Dinesh D'Souza 2.0 — a venomous brew. This is the lesson plan for the self-appointed thought police. While schools have been the principal targets, colleges and universities are now on the radar too. Critical Race Training in Education is a watchdog-style website recently established by Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson, with two younger activists, who together run the Legal Insurrection Foundation. Drawing calculatingly on the Rufoistic misreadings, they report on "more than 300 colleges and universities" nationwide for their training in CRT and antiracism (though courses in critical theory with no focus on racism are making the list too). The aim seems to warn "parents" away from sending their children to such institutions, including Jacobson's own, and by implication to pressure the institutions to restrict CRT-related courses. This is cancel culture with a vengeance.
Rufoists never engage in sustained textual analysis of CRT. They usually refer misleadingly to an idea or sentence from the far wider, much less coherent body of critical work in the human sciences that I shorthand as critical race studies. The two most often dismissed by Rufoists are "critical race guru" Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, who are about as different in critical commitments, assumptions and arguments as they could be. Kendi has repeatedly insisted he is no CRTer. He sometimes expresses ideas that CRT advocates would reject as unworkable or incoherent, just as some diversity training programs are embarrassingly counterproductive. But they are ideas for critical discussion, not incendiary devices to end the Republic. DiAngelo's discussion of "white fragility" is not a position readily identified with CRT. Her reading of structural racism offers countering proposals that rely on personal, individual responses, leaving the structural conditions untouched. She is definitively no Marxist, neo- or otherwise.
All this matters to the Rufoists as much as schools insisting they do not teach CRT. CRT is now the operative target in almost exactly the ways "Marxism," "communism," "socialism" and "liberalism" have been in the past. The Goldwater Institute, for which Heritage's Butcher once worked, includes Howard Zinn's "A People's History of America" under its CRT catchphrase, a text among others to be banned from school curricula. Zinn's classic work was first published in 1980, before CRT was even named, or even a thing!
Rufo has also composed a CRT "Briefing Book," a handbook for cultural combat. It serves for anti-CRT combat much like Israel's Hasbara Handbook for Promoting Israel on Campus, the principal aim of which is "to influence public opinion." Indeed, a Rufoist offshoot organization, Citizens for Renewing America, offers "model schoolboard language to prohibit CRT" alongside a "toolkit" to "combat CRT in your community," much as Heritage Action provides model legislation to restrict state voting rights.
What, then, is "racial Rufoism"? It is a political strategy aiming to provide tools for whitewashing race and racism as the undiscussables of American politics, culture, education. It is a "redprint" for silencing any critical racial narrative. As American demography has become a lost conservative battle — within the next quarter-century the U.S., as California does already, will have no racial majority — the war has shifted. Who controls the levers of power? And who controls dominant cultural representation — here, the racial story that the country dominantly tells about itself? The fight over historical memory, as Nikole Hannah-Jones has aptly characterized the conservative attacks on the 1619 Project, is not just how to understand the American past. It seeks to establish the grounds for more or less full belonging to the society, the terms and conditions for being an American and staying ahead today.
Here a Tennessee school district experience exemplifies wider patterns across the country. A parent insisted that the account of Ruby Bridges, as the first Black student to integrate New Orleans schools in 1960, is hurtful to white schoolkids. Bridges' account describes a "large crowd of angry white people who didn't want Black children in a white school." The parent insisted it failed to offer "redemption" for today's white children. She also objected to another book about school segregation, expressing disapproval of teaching words like "injustice" and "inequality" in "grammar lessons." A clip of Ruby Bridges' chilling experience shows a six-year-old girl being screamed at by a crowd of angry white people spitting and cursing at her. No white redemption on offer here.
"Racial Rufoism" is obviously about denying structural or systemic racism, reducing racism solely to "individual bad apples." But it is even more about whitewashing race and racism, seeking to relieve white people today of any responsibility not just about the past — slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, lynchings — but equally for their inherited impact today. This is exemplified in the all too easy resort by Rufoists to the MLK exhortation to "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." One only has to read or hear the rest of King's historic "I Have a Dream" speech to know he offered this as aspirational. He embedded it within an insistence that its realization is dependent on first addressing the structural and systemic racism still shaping this country. Rufoism provides a way for beneficiaries of whiteness to abrogate any responsibility for expanding racial differentials in wealth, property values, employability, educational resources and access, health disparities and voting rights restrictions. Racial Rufoism provides racial deniability its fuel and rationalizing cover.
We are seeing, nevertheless, the stirrings of a more assertive critical counter to Rufoism. Because of the non-whitewashed history students are being provided in the Tennessee school district mentioned above, "teachers are reporting ... that our students are reading like they've never read before." The assistant superintendent added, "I've received a flood of emails recently that said, 'Don't do anything with the curriculum. My kid's loving it'."
Rufoist whitewashing is not just censorious, sloppy and misdirecting. It may make for effective propaganda in the homogeneous circles in which it circulates, but it amounts to boring, unappealing, tuned-out pedagogy in schools and colleges alike. Rufoism is critical only in that other, fast failing sense. The Rufoists see a future that for all but themselves — and perhaps even for themselves — is no future at all.
THE RACIST RICH!!!
MERCERS' MILLIONS LED TO CAPITOL RIOT
How one billionaire family bankrolled election lies, white nationalism — and the Capitol riot
Rebekah Mercer is “one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement,” says longtime GOP insider Steve Schmidt
By - IGOR DERYSH
FEBRUARY 4, 2021 11:00AM (UTC)
Four years before Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pumped his fist to a supportive mob that would soon overrun the Capitol Police and hunt lawmakers through the halls of Congress, the former Missouri attorney general needed a deep-pocketed patron. Naturally, he called on the man who helped bankroll former President Donald Trump's rise: hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, whom he would soon describe as a friend while name-dropping him to court support from far-right figures like Steve Bannon, a longtime Mercer ally. It's unclear what came of Hawley's meeting with Mercer, but the Club for Growth, which has received millions from the Mercer family, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, which also got Mercer donations, quickly became Hawley's biggest financial backers, by far. Mercer's daughter Rebekah kicked in a near-maximum donation to his 2018 Senate campaign for good measure.
While Charles Koch and his late brother David have dominated Republican fundraising in recent decades, the Mercers' recent strategic investments in far-right candidates bought them a disproportionate level of influence in the Republican Party before culminating in an effort to subvert the election that fueled the deadly Capitol siege.
"The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Bannon told The New Yorker in 2017. "Irrefutably, when you look at donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs." Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, sees it differently. Rebekah Mercer, he said in an interview with Salon, is the "chief financier or one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement, and that's what it is."
Hours after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, killing five people and injuring dozens of police officers in a futile bid to stop the counting of electoral votes, Hawley joined with top Mercer beneficiaries in objecting to the results to back Trump's "big lie" that the election was somehow stolen. There was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whose super PAC got $13.5 million from the Mercers during the 2016 presidential campaign — before the family dropped another $15.5 million to back Trump. There was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., defending the majority of the GOP House caucus voting to overturn legal election results after his Congressional Leadership Fund received $1.5 million from the Mercers. And there was Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who received $21,600 from the Mercers before speaking at the rally that preceded the riot and objecting to the results. Brooks was later named by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander as having helped orchestrate the event, though his office said he has "no recollection communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is."
Alexander himself may have benefited from the Mercers' millions while working for the Black Conservative Fund, a small and mysterious group that received $60,000 from Robert Mercer in 2016. Though the group did not raise any money in 2020, it promoted the White House rally to tens of thousands of followers, according to CNBC.
The Mercers funded numerous key players who helped foment the Jan. 6 insurrection, though their full involvement remains unclear. Along with far-right candidates and groups, they have also funded the far-right social network Parler, which was used to coordinate the Capitol siege, and Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct London-based data firm that stole Facebook user data to help Trump's 2016 campaign target potential voters.
"As I discovered first-hand, the Mercers are exceptionally skillful at obfuscating and masking their political enterprises," David Carroll, a professor at The New School in Manhattan who sued Cambridge Analytica for his data in London, said in an email to Salon. "I marveled at how their ownership of Cambridge Analytica was effectively shielded from the U.K. courts where they were prosecuted."
Now that the Mercers have survived the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission and former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, Carroll added, "I would assume the family has doubled-down on investing in its own privacy."
Schmidt agreed that "it's hard to keep track of the money" the Mercers have doled out to their pet causes.
"In this movement, the money is a fundamentally important part of it. It fuels the movement and that movement is an extremist movement," he said. "Is there a better than even chance that the Mercer money is flowing, like so many tributaries, right into a larger seditious stream on this? Of course there is."
Lax laws surrounding dark money donated to nonprofit entities mean it will likely be "several years before the public will have a complete sense of how much the Mercers spent," wrote The Intercept's Matthew Cunningham-Cook.
Publicly available data shows that the Mercers helped fund numerous players who pushed the "big lie." The family donated $3.8 million to Citizens United, which is run by longtime Trump adviser David Bossie, who was tapped to lead the former president's legal challenges. Though the Mercers have pulled back their financial support in recent election cycles amid growing scrutiny, they donated $300,000 during this past cycle to the Republican National Committee, which joined Trump's legal battle.
The Mercers were also the top donors to Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward, a devoted Trump loyalist, The Intercept reported last week. Ward joined the lawsuit led by the Republican attorney general of Texas that sought to overturn the results of the election in multiple states and spoke at a December rally that featured Alexander to push Trump's election conspiracy theories. On Twitter, Ward promoted her appearance at a "Stop the Steal" rally alongside former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who urged Trump to invoke martial law to rerun the election and posted the hashtag "#CrossTheRubicon," a phrase that refers to Julius Caesar marching his army into Rome to declare himself a dictator. The Arizona GOP also promoted Alexander's tweets, which included his declaration that he was "willing to give up my life for this fight."
---
Rebekah Mercer heads the Mercer family's foundation, which donated $35 million to right-wing think tanks and policy groups between 2009 and 2014, according to the Washington Post. It marked a massive shift for the family, which donated just $37,800 in 2006, including a $4,200 check from Robert Mercer's wife Diana to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. The election of Barack Obama changed everything, leading the family to pump at least $77 million in political donations into conservative candidates and causes between 2008 and 2016. Though their early forays into politics in New York and Oregon were utter failures, and Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign crumbled under the weight of relentless attacks from Trump and general bipartisan disdain, their investment in Trump quickly paid dividends.
Rebekah Mercer reportedly led a major reorganization of Trump's 2016 campaign, connecting him with Bannon and former Cruz adviser Kellyanne Conway, who would replace Paul Manafort at the helm of the team. Mercer, who also served on the Trump transition's executive committee, pushed for Trump to hire Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who was forced to resign less than a month into Trump's presidency amid a criminal investigation and now spreads QAnon conspiracy theories online.
---
It's unclear why the Mercers fund so many far-right causes, though sources close to the family told Politico in 2016 that they "harbor a deep and abiding enmity toward the political establishment." Robert Mercer has been described as a "reclusive" former IBM computer scientist who made his fortune as co-CEO of the algorithmic trading company Renaissance Technologies. Sources close to him told The New Yorker that he is a conspiracy theorist who believes the Clintons had opponents murdered and were involved in a drug-running ring with the CIA. He has also described the Civil Rights Act as a mistake, arguing that Black people were better off financially before the passage of the landmark law, according to the same New Yorker report. Racism in the U.S. is "exaggerated," Mercer reportedly said, attributing most of it to "Black racists." He has likewise argued that climate change is not a problem and would actually be beneficial for the Earth, sources told the magazine.
"Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make," David Magerman, a former colleague of Mercer who later sued him for unlawful termination, told the New Yorker. "A cat has value, he's said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he's a thousand times more valuable."[...]
While Charles Koch and his late brother David have dominated Republican fundraising in recent decades, the Mercers' recent strategic investments in far-right candidates bought them a disproportionate level of influence in the Republican Party before culminating in an effort to subvert the election that fueled the deadly Capitol siege.
"The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution," Bannon told The New Yorker in 2017. "Irrefutably, when you look at donors during the past four years, they have had the single biggest impact of anybody, including the Kochs." Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, sees it differently. Rebekah Mercer, he said in an interview with Salon, is the "chief financier or one of the chief financiers of the fascist movement, and that's what it is."
Hours after the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, killing five people and injuring dozens of police officers in a futile bid to stop the counting of electoral votes, Hawley joined with top Mercer beneficiaries in objecting to the results to back Trump's "big lie" that the election was somehow stolen. There was Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whose super PAC got $13.5 million from the Mercers during the 2016 presidential campaign — before the family dropped another $15.5 million to back Trump. There was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., defending the majority of the GOP House caucus voting to overturn legal election results after his Congressional Leadership Fund received $1.5 million from the Mercers. And there was Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., who received $21,600 from the Mercers before speaking at the rally that preceded the riot and objecting to the results. Brooks was later named by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander as having helped orchestrate the event, though his office said he has "no recollection communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is."
Alexander himself may have benefited from the Mercers' millions while working for the Black Conservative Fund, a small and mysterious group that received $60,000 from Robert Mercer in 2016. Though the group did not raise any money in 2020, it promoted the White House rally to tens of thousands of followers, according to CNBC.
The Mercers funded numerous key players who helped foment the Jan. 6 insurrection, though their full involvement remains unclear. Along with far-right candidates and groups, they have also funded the far-right social network Parler, which was used to coordinate the Capitol siege, and Cambridge Analytica, the now-defunct London-based data firm that stole Facebook user data to help Trump's 2016 campaign target potential voters.
"As I discovered first-hand, the Mercers are exceptionally skillful at obfuscating and masking their political enterprises," David Carroll, a professor at The New School in Manhattan who sued Cambridge Analytica for his data in London, said in an email to Salon. "I marveled at how their ownership of Cambridge Analytica was effectively shielded from the U.K. courts where they were prosecuted."
Now that the Mercers have survived the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission and former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, Carroll added, "I would assume the family has doubled-down on investing in its own privacy."
Schmidt agreed that "it's hard to keep track of the money" the Mercers have doled out to their pet causes.
"In this movement, the money is a fundamentally important part of it. It fuels the movement and that movement is an extremist movement," he said. "Is there a better than even chance that the Mercer money is flowing, like so many tributaries, right into a larger seditious stream on this? Of course there is."
Lax laws surrounding dark money donated to nonprofit entities mean it will likely be "several years before the public will have a complete sense of how much the Mercers spent," wrote The Intercept's Matthew Cunningham-Cook.
Publicly available data shows that the Mercers helped fund numerous players who pushed the "big lie." The family donated $3.8 million to Citizens United, which is run by longtime Trump adviser David Bossie, who was tapped to lead the former president's legal challenges. Though the Mercers have pulled back their financial support in recent election cycles amid growing scrutiny, they donated $300,000 during this past cycle to the Republican National Committee, which joined Trump's legal battle.
The Mercers were also the top donors to Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward, a devoted Trump loyalist, The Intercept reported last week. Ward joined the lawsuit led by the Republican attorney general of Texas that sought to overturn the results of the election in multiple states and spoke at a December rally that featured Alexander to push Trump's election conspiracy theories. On Twitter, Ward promoted her appearance at a "Stop the Steal" rally alongside former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who urged Trump to invoke martial law to rerun the election and posted the hashtag "#CrossTheRubicon," a phrase that refers to Julius Caesar marching his army into Rome to declare himself a dictator. The Arizona GOP also promoted Alexander's tweets, which included his declaration that he was "willing to give up my life for this fight."
---
Rebekah Mercer heads the Mercer family's foundation, which donated $35 million to right-wing think tanks and policy groups between 2009 and 2014, according to the Washington Post. It marked a massive shift for the family, which donated just $37,800 in 2006, including a $4,200 check from Robert Mercer's wife Diana to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. The election of Barack Obama changed everything, leading the family to pump at least $77 million in political donations into conservative candidates and causes between 2008 and 2016. Though their early forays into politics in New York and Oregon were utter failures, and Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign crumbled under the weight of relentless attacks from Trump and general bipartisan disdain, their investment in Trump quickly paid dividends.
Rebekah Mercer reportedly led a major reorganization of Trump's 2016 campaign, connecting him with Bannon and former Cruz adviser Kellyanne Conway, who would replace Paul Manafort at the helm of the team. Mercer, who also served on the Trump transition's executive committee, pushed for Trump to hire Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who was forced to resign less than a month into Trump's presidency amid a criminal investigation and now spreads QAnon conspiracy theories online.
---
It's unclear why the Mercers fund so many far-right causes, though sources close to the family told Politico in 2016 that they "harbor a deep and abiding enmity toward the political establishment." Robert Mercer has been described as a "reclusive" former IBM computer scientist who made his fortune as co-CEO of the algorithmic trading company Renaissance Technologies. Sources close to him told The New Yorker that he is a conspiracy theorist who believes the Clintons had opponents murdered and were involved in a drug-running ring with the CIA. He has also described the Civil Rights Act as a mistake, arguing that Black people were better off financially before the passage of the landmark law, according to the same New Yorker report. Racism in the U.S. is "exaggerated," Mercer reportedly said, attributing most of it to "Black racists." He has likewise argued that climate change is not a problem and would actually be beneficial for the Earth, sources told the magazine.
"Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make," David Magerman, a former colleague of Mercer who later sued him for unlawful termination, told the New Yorker. "A cat has value, he's said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he's a thousand times more valuable."[...]
2020 Was a Record Year for Far Right Violence in the US
BY Spencer Sunshine, Truthout
PUBLISHED December 31, 2020
This year was quite active for the far right in the United States, especially after its relative downturn in 2019 as a violent street movement compared to the recent past. Although the far right may not have committed as many high-profile massacres as previous years, 2020 saw more murders and car attacks at demonstrations than any year in recent memory.
While the openly fascist wing of the “alt-right” continued to implode over the past year, some on the far right picked up steam: the Boogaloo movement — a new grouping of younger activists with militia-style politics, but the look and feel of the alt-right; Gropyers — white nationalists and their allies who are trying to influence the Trumpist movement from inside; and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who believe Trump is always about to arrest a cabal of liberal, deep state, satanic pedophiles. Moreover, aggressive street demonstrations led by the Proud Boys reached a fever pitch, inspired by comments from Donald Trump, and renewed opposition to the revived Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to new ground for the far right. Cities started implementing shutdowns in March, but even beforehand, conspiracy theories circulated that the virus was a hoax, a Chinese bioweapon or a plot to enslave Americans. By April, the “reopen” demonstrations were in full swing. These protests were driven by “alt-lite” members (the more moderate wing of the alt-right, which allows people of color, Jews and gay men to join), militias and Trumpists, but white nationalists also participated. One of the most aggressive actions was on April 30, when armed protesters pushed their way into the Michigan legislature.
This movement was soon overtaken by another starting on May 25, when a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, launching a new wave of the BLM movement. It took on an almost revolutionary furor; a police precinct was burned and militant demonstrations broke out across the country. Eventually, they spread even to small towns, and by July, up to 26 million had joined protests in support of this multiracial movement for Black liberation. The far right responded with increasingly aggressive counter-protests, especially as BLM rallies lost their initial intensity.
These counter-protests were driven in part by Trump’s accusation that anti-fascists (also known as antifa) and anarchists were responsible for the protests’ militancy, a rehash of 1950s accusations that Communists controlled the civil rights movement. These conspiracies reached their height on May 31 when Trump tweeted: “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” (Antifa is neither a single organization, nor does such a designation exist domestically.) When wildfires swept Western states in September, a bizarre rumor, sometimes spread by law enforcement, claimed that members of antifa were intentionally setting them. Armed vigilantes set up roadblocks intended to function as “checkpoints” to identify “antifa arsonists.”
Things turned deadly in the spring. There were a large number of murders and car attacks at BLM demonstrations. The most infamous of these was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, during an August 26 demonstration, 17-year-old militia member Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people.
Days later, far right activist Aaron Danielson was killed after he allegedly attacked random people in the aftermath of a violent far right protest in Portland, Oregon. He was shot by self-identified anti-fascist Michael Forest Reinoehl, who in turn was killed by law enforcement on September 3 — without any warning, witnesses said. Trump even gloated that law enforcement gunned him down because “they didn’t want to arrest him.” In October, far right activist Lee Keltner was killed by a security guard as he threatened a TV crew in Denver.
The killings of Danielson, Reinoehl and Keltner were all connected to very aggressive demonstrations, mostly led by the Proud Boys. These had morphed into joint anti-antifa/anti-BLM- themed events, the two movements now joined in the far right’s feverish imagination. Although found in various cities, until the election they continued to be largely centered in Portland.
The Proud Boys became the undisputed far right street force of the year, and were even mentioned in the presidential debate, with Trump telling them to “stand back and stand by.” In Portland — where BLM demonstrations have gone on for over 200 days — the Proud Boys held a series of violent demonstrations. On August 22, Proud Boy Alan Swinney pointed a handgun in the middle of a melee while police stood by. The next week, a vehicle caravan attacked bystanders with paintballs and mace, and the day ended with Danielson’s death. On September 26, the Proud Boys held an aggressive, drunken demonstration at a North Portland park while the counter-demonstration was held elsewhere. Post-election rallies included the November 14 “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C., where — for the first time since Charlottesville — well-known white nationalists openly mixed with other Trumpists. A follow-up December 12 rally was marked by more clashes with anti-fascists and vandalism at two Black churches, plus four stabbings and a shooting. The Proud Boys’ leader called for his members to violently disrupt Joe Biden’s inauguration. And on December 21, members of a protest, which included armed members of groups like the Proud Boys, attempted to break into the statehouse in Salem, Oregon.
However, the decline of U.S. fascists, which began in 2018, continued in 2020. The largest “alt-right” fascist group, Patriot Front, held three pop-up marches, each of which showed a decline in attendance from previous years. The American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Evropa) disbanded, as did the Atomwaffen Division, although some observers say it just rebranded as the National Socialist Order. The fascist National Justice Party also formed this year, and Kyle Chapman (aka “Based Stickman”) left the Proud Boys to form the openly white nationalist and anti-Semitic Proud Goys. But the most important movement that fascists took part in was the Groypers, whose goal is to turn Trump’s base further right by working inside that movement. This strategy is opposed to those explicit white nationalist groups who either work separately from the larger Trumpist movement or, in the case of Patriot Front, reject Trump altogether.
Numerous members of Atomwaffen Division, including former leader John Denton, were arrested on weapons charges, threatening journalists, or “swatting” (attempting to get SWAT teams to raid a residence under false pretenses). Seven members of The Base, a similar fascist group that also promotes terrorism, were arrested for crimes including planning to murder anti-fascists and attack a gun rights rally. The group’s leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, was revealed to be living in Moscow; his past as a Pentagon contractor led New York Magazine to muse that he could be either an FBI agent creating a neo-Nazi honeypot, or a Russian asset.
Just as the coronavirus situation was escalating in March, NSM (National Socialist Movement) member Timothy Wilson was killed by police as he was heading to bomb a hospital. Jeremy Christian, who murdered two people in Portland in 2017 for intervening against his Islamophobic harassment of two women, was sentenced to life in prison. An army private in the pro-Nazi Satanist group, the Order of Nine Angles, was arrested for plotting to ambush his own unit. And Christopher Cantwell, who in 2017 was slated to speak at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, was convicted in late September of extortion for making a rape threat.
There were high-profile arrests of other far right militants as well. In October, 13 militia members were busted, including six who were plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor. Numerous Boogaloo movement members were also arrested after they sought to inflame the early George Floyd protests for their own ends: Steven Carrillo was arrested for murdering both a federal security guard during the Oakland protests in May, and in June when he ambushed a police officer outside his home in Ben Lomond, California. An associate was arrested for firing a weapon during the initial Minneapolis protests, while three others received terrorism charges for plotting attacks in Las Vegas.
Social media platforms also cracked down on the far right, although belatedly. Twitter started labeling many of Trump’s posts as “disputed.” Numerous far right accounts were removed from different platforms, though sometimes for coronavirus denial — not fascism or violence. Twitter suspended both former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (who had been arrested earlier in 2020) and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who had spent over a decade on the platform. Different platforms suspended conspiracy theorist David Icke, Ammon Bundy and the Oath Keepers, as well as the Proud Boys plus their allies, American Guard. In August, a large Facebook purge was focused on QAnon and militias, but also included some anti-fascists and anarchists. This deplatforming spurred a far right migration to the politically sympathetic platform Parler.
The election brought on more far right action. The right-wing conspiracy theory surrounding QAnon became very influential in the fall, and the president embraced it. Trump also declared that antifa was “virtually part of” Biden’s campaign, who he called a “Servant of the Globalists.” (Accusations of “globalism” are a long-time anti-Semitic dog whistle.) After losing the election, Trump has continuously claimed it was rigged and that he won, fueling aggressive protests by his followers. He even turned on his beloved Fox News, instead promoting the more extreme OANN (One American News Network) and disposing of his sycophant Attorney General William Barr.
Trump brought the far right to a new level of popularity, and it remains to be seen what will happen after his departure. Undoubtedly, some groups will immediately shift to opposing incoming president Joe Biden, and others will continue to maintain that the election was stolen. It’s uncertain if Trump will continue to be involved in stoking this movement, however, or if he’ll retire from politics. It’s possible that after a year or so, without a president to inspire them, the far right will fade to pre-Trump levels (although even those levels were more substantial than many people realize). Some watchers, however, think such a cooling off might take years.
While the openly fascist wing of the “alt-right” continued to implode over the past year, some on the far right picked up steam: the Boogaloo movement — a new grouping of younger activists with militia-style politics, but the look and feel of the alt-right; Gropyers — white nationalists and their allies who are trying to influence the Trumpist movement from inside; and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory, who believe Trump is always about to arrest a cabal of liberal, deep state, satanic pedophiles. Moreover, aggressive street demonstrations led by the Proud Boys reached a fever pitch, inspired by comments from Donald Trump, and renewed opposition to the revived Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to new ground for the far right. Cities started implementing shutdowns in March, but even beforehand, conspiracy theories circulated that the virus was a hoax, a Chinese bioweapon or a plot to enslave Americans. By April, the “reopen” demonstrations were in full swing. These protests were driven by “alt-lite” members (the more moderate wing of the alt-right, which allows people of color, Jews and gay men to join), militias and Trumpists, but white nationalists also participated. One of the most aggressive actions was on April 30, when armed protesters pushed their way into the Michigan legislature.
This movement was soon overtaken by another starting on May 25, when a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, launching a new wave of the BLM movement. It took on an almost revolutionary furor; a police precinct was burned and militant demonstrations broke out across the country. Eventually, they spread even to small towns, and by July, up to 26 million had joined protests in support of this multiracial movement for Black liberation. The far right responded with increasingly aggressive counter-protests, especially as BLM rallies lost their initial intensity.
These counter-protests were driven in part by Trump’s accusation that anti-fascists (also known as antifa) and anarchists were responsible for the protests’ militancy, a rehash of 1950s accusations that Communists controlled the civil rights movement. These conspiracies reached their height on May 31 when Trump tweeted: “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” (Antifa is neither a single organization, nor does such a designation exist domestically.) When wildfires swept Western states in September, a bizarre rumor, sometimes spread by law enforcement, claimed that members of antifa were intentionally setting them. Armed vigilantes set up roadblocks intended to function as “checkpoints” to identify “antifa arsonists.”
Things turned deadly in the spring. There were a large number of murders and car attacks at BLM demonstrations. The most infamous of these was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, during an August 26 demonstration, 17-year-old militia member Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people.
Days later, far right activist Aaron Danielson was killed after he allegedly attacked random people in the aftermath of a violent far right protest in Portland, Oregon. He was shot by self-identified anti-fascist Michael Forest Reinoehl, who in turn was killed by law enforcement on September 3 — without any warning, witnesses said. Trump even gloated that law enforcement gunned him down because “they didn’t want to arrest him.” In October, far right activist Lee Keltner was killed by a security guard as he threatened a TV crew in Denver.
The killings of Danielson, Reinoehl and Keltner were all connected to very aggressive demonstrations, mostly led by the Proud Boys. These had morphed into joint anti-antifa/anti-BLM- themed events, the two movements now joined in the far right’s feverish imagination. Although found in various cities, until the election they continued to be largely centered in Portland.
The Proud Boys became the undisputed far right street force of the year, and were even mentioned in the presidential debate, with Trump telling them to “stand back and stand by.” In Portland — where BLM demonstrations have gone on for over 200 days — the Proud Boys held a series of violent demonstrations. On August 22, Proud Boy Alan Swinney pointed a handgun in the middle of a melee while police stood by. The next week, a vehicle caravan attacked bystanders with paintballs and mace, and the day ended with Danielson’s death. On September 26, the Proud Boys held an aggressive, drunken demonstration at a North Portland park while the counter-demonstration was held elsewhere. Post-election rallies included the November 14 “Million MAGA March” in Washington, D.C., where — for the first time since Charlottesville — well-known white nationalists openly mixed with other Trumpists. A follow-up December 12 rally was marked by more clashes with anti-fascists and vandalism at two Black churches, plus four stabbings and a shooting. The Proud Boys’ leader called for his members to violently disrupt Joe Biden’s inauguration. And on December 21, members of a protest, which included armed members of groups like the Proud Boys, attempted to break into the statehouse in Salem, Oregon.
However, the decline of U.S. fascists, which began in 2018, continued in 2020. The largest “alt-right” fascist group, Patriot Front, held three pop-up marches, each of which showed a decline in attendance from previous years. The American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Evropa) disbanded, as did the Atomwaffen Division, although some observers say it just rebranded as the National Socialist Order. The fascist National Justice Party also formed this year, and Kyle Chapman (aka “Based Stickman”) left the Proud Boys to form the openly white nationalist and anti-Semitic Proud Goys. But the most important movement that fascists took part in was the Groypers, whose goal is to turn Trump’s base further right by working inside that movement. This strategy is opposed to those explicit white nationalist groups who either work separately from the larger Trumpist movement or, in the case of Patriot Front, reject Trump altogether.
Numerous members of Atomwaffen Division, including former leader John Denton, were arrested on weapons charges, threatening journalists, or “swatting” (attempting to get SWAT teams to raid a residence under false pretenses). Seven members of The Base, a similar fascist group that also promotes terrorism, were arrested for crimes including planning to murder anti-fascists and attack a gun rights rally. The group’s leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, was revealed to be living in Moscow; his past as a Pentagon contractor led New York Magazine to muse that he could be either an FBI agent creating a neo-Nazi honeypot, or a Russian asset.
Just as the coronavirus situation was escalating in March, NSM (National Socialist Movement) member Timothy Wilson was killed by police as he was heading to bomb a hospital. Jeremy Christian, who murdered two people in Portland in 2017 for intervening against his Islamophobic harassment of two women, was sentenced to life in prison. An army private in the pro-Nazi Satanist group, the Order of Nine Angles, was arrested for plotting to ambush his own unit. And Christopher Cantwell, who in 2017 was slated to speak at the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, was convicted in late September of extortion for making a rape threat.
There were high-profile arrests of other far right militants as well. In October, 13 militia members were busted, including six who were plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor. Numerous Boogaloo movement members were also arrested after they sought to inflame the early George Floyd protests for their own ends: Steven Carrillo was arrested for murdering both a federal security guard during the Oakland protests in May, and in June when he ambushed a police officer outside his home in Ben Lomond, California. An associate was arrested for firing a weapon during the initial Minneapolis protests, while three others received terrorism charges for plotting attacks in Las Vegas.
Social media platforms also cracked down on the far right, although belatedly. Twitter started labeling many of Trump’s posts as “disputed.” Numerous far right accounts were removed from different platforms, though sometimes for coronavirus denial — not fascism or violence. Twitter suspended both former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon (who had been arrested earlier in 2020) and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who had spent over a decade on the platform. Different platforms suspended conspiracy theorist David Icke, Ammon Bundy and the Oath Keepers, as well as the Proud Boys plus their allies, American Guard. In August, a large Facebook purge was focused on QAnon and militias, but also included some anti-fascists and anarchists. This deplatforming spurred a far right migration to the politically sympathetic platform Parler.
The election brought on more far right action. The right-wing conspiracy theory surrounding QAnon became very influential in the fall, and the president embraced it. Trump also declared that antifa was “virtually part of” Biden’s campaign, who he called a “Servant of the Globalists.” (Accusations of “globalism” are a long-time anti-Semitic dog whistle.) After losing the election, Trump has continuously claimed it was rigged and that he won, fueling aggressive protests by his followers. He even turned on his beloved Fox News, instead promoting the more extreme OANN (One American News Network) and disposing of his sycophant Attorney General William Barr.
Trump brought the far right to a new level of popularity, and it remains to be seen what will happen after his departure. Undoubtedly, some groups will immediately shift to opposing incoming president Joe Biden, and others will continue to maintain that the election was stolen. It’s uncertain if Trump will continue to be involved in stoking this movement, however, or if he’ll retire from politics. It’s possible that after a year or so, without a president to inspire them, the far right will fade to pre-Trump levels (although even those levels were more substantial than many people realize). Some watchers, however, think such a cooling off might take years.
RECRUITING THE STUPID!!!
QAnon functions ‘like a video game’ to ‘hook’ converts — and some of them include former Navy SEALs: reports
Alex Henderson - ALTERNET
August 18, 2020
More than likely, a full-fledged supporter of the QAnon conspiracy cult will be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2021: Marjorie Taylor Greene, on August 11, won a GOP primary in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District — and given how overwhelmingly Republican that district is, she is going into the general election with a major advantage. QAnon is showing no signs of slowing down, and according to the Daily Beast’s Kelly Weill, the cult is attracting some well-trained military veterans.
QAnon believes that President Donald Trump was sent to the White House to combat an international pedophile ring that has infiltrated the United States’ federal government and practices Satanism. Cult members also believe that an anonymous figure named “Q” is giving them updates on Trump’s battle against the satanic pedophiles.
FBI agents have warned that QAnon followers are quite capable of violence. And Weill, in an article published in the Beast on August 18, warns that some well-trained military veterans are embracing the cult.
“In particular, some ex-(U.S. Navy) SEALs are promoting belief in QAnon or related theories that falsely accuse many of President Donald Trump’s opponents of being involved in satanic pedophilia and cannibalism,” Weill reports. And according to Marc-André Argentino of the Global Network on Extremism & Technology, the potential for QAnon-related violence should not be ignored.
Argentino told the Beast, “The violence we’ve seen has been by people without acumen and physical training. Where it could get scary is with people who do have training.”
Weill cites Louis Garrick Fernbaugh, a former Navy SEAL, as an example of someone who has been promoting far-right conspiracy theories — and he is obsessed with billionaire George Soros and Antifa. Another former SEAL Weill discusses is Stephen Ralston: on Instagram, according to Weill, Ralston “frequently uses QAnon hashtags, promotes Q videos, and posts about his interest in killing pedophiles. Although opposition to pedophilia is an overwhelmingly popular sentiment across political parties, QAnon turns the concern into a bogus call to arms against Trump’s foes.”
According to Argentino, “QAnon is rooted in this war narrative, in the sense that they’re in an information war against the ‘Deep State.’ Information wars are typically combined with a more physical element…. (Veterans) may want to be called upon to free the children from the pedophiles.”
One of the things that QAnon is doing to attract converts, Kyle Daly reports in Axios, is “working like a video game.”
“Game designer Adrian Hon has argued that QAnon is a lot like an alternate-reality game, in which players follow a trail of clues online and off, to solve mysteries or just discover more clues to chase,” Daly explains. “But QAnon also echoes other game genres, mashing them together to become an all-encompassing, highly addictive experience. Intentionally or not, it has rolled up gameplay components from the past several decades of game design.”
QAnon, according to Daly, also has elements of an “adventure game.”
“Adventure games are built around puzzle solving, with players using exploration and trial and error to discover secrets and backstory and progress through the game,” Daly notes. “Many classics of the genre have the player unravel a sinister conspiracy. At the center of QAnon are cryptic messages posted online by ‘Q,’ who claims to be a Trump Administration official with high-level clearance. QAnon adherents pore over these posts, often written in phony spy jargon, to divine clues and secret messages and make fresh links in the grand conspiracy aligned against Trump.”
QAnon believes that President Donald Trump was sent to the White House to combat an international pedophile ring that has infiltrated the United States’ federal government and practices Satanism. Cult members also believe that an anonymous figure named “Q” is giving them updates on Trump’s battle against the satanic pedophiles.
FBI agents have warned that QAnon followers are quite capable of violence. And Weill, in an article published in the Beast on August 18, warns that some well-trained military veterans are embracing the cult.
“In particular, some ex-(U.S. Navy) SEALs are promoting belief in QAnon or related theories that falsely accuse many of President Donald Trump’s opponents of being involved in satanic pedophilia and cannibalism,” Weill reports. And according to Marc-André Argentino of the Global Network on Extremism & Technology, the potential for QAnon-related violence should not be ignored.
Argentino told the Beast, “The violence we’ve seen has been by people without acumen and physical training. Where it could get scary is with people who do have training.”
Weill cites Louis Garrick Fernbaugh, a former Navy SEAL, as an example of someone who has been promoting far-right conspiracy theories — and he is obsessed with billionaire George Soros and Antifa. Another former SEAL Weill discusses is Stephen Ralston: on Instagram, according to Weill, Ralston “frequently uses QAnon hashtags, promotes Q videos, and posts about his interest in killing pedophiles. Although opposition to pedophilia is an overwhelmingly popular sentiment across political parties, QAnon turns the concern into a bogus call to arms against Trump’s foes.”
According to Argentino, “QAnon is rooted in this war narrative, in the sense that they’re in an information war against the ‘Deep State.’ Information wars are typically combined with a more physical element…. (Veterans) may want to be called upon to free the children from the pedophiles.”
One of the things that QAnon is doing to attract converts, Kyle Daly reports in Axios, is “working like a video game.”
“Game designer Adrian Hon has argued that QAnon is a lot like an alternate-reality game, in which players follow a trail of clues online and off, to solve mysteries or just discover more clues to chase,” Daly explains. “But QAnon also echoes other game genres, mashing them together to become an all-encompassing, highly addictive experience. Intentionally or not, it has rolled up gameplay components from the past several decades of game design.”
QAnon, according to Daly, also has elements of an “adventure game.”
“Adventure games are built around puzzle solving, with players using exploration and trial and error to discover secrets and backstory and progress through the game,” Daly notes. “Many classics of the genre have the player unravel a sinister conspiracy. At the center of QAnon are cryptic messages posted online by ‘Q,’ who claims to be a Trump Administration official with high-level clearance. QAnon adherents pore over these posts, often written in phony spy jargon, to divine clues and secret messages and make fresh links in the grand conspiracy aligned against Trump.”
over 20% of latinos vote republican!!
Conservative think tank leader says schools should reopen since most Texans dying from COVID-19 are elderly or Hispanic
July 29, 2020
By Texas Tribune - raw story
In an interview, Vance Ginn said the intention of his Twitter thread was to outline the more thorough data provided by the state. He also said his tweet with a GIF was “woefully taken out of context out of bad faith.”
Vance Ginn, the chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is facing fierce backlash for a recent racist tweet that said schools should open since most of the people dying from the coronavirus in Texas are elderly or Hispanic.
Before Monday, the state’s racial and ethnic breakdown of deaths had large gaps, with up to 18% of deaths last month recorded as “unknown.” A revised count of the data released Monday by the Department of State Health Services, however, shows that Hispanic Texans are overrepresented in the state’s updated fatality count.
Citing the revised data, Ginn tweeted that the people most likely to perish from the deadly virus are people older than 50 and Hispanics, whose death rate increased from 24.8% on May 27 to 47.4% on July 27. Hispanics make up about 40% of the state’s population.
Meanwhile, about 180 deaths, or 3% of the total, occurred among Texans younger than 40. About 2,000 people who died were 80 or older, making up the largest age bracket of COVID-19 deaths.
“Why not #openschools, end universal mandates, target vulnerable & check those from #Mexico?” Ginn wrote in a since-deleted tweet. He juxtaposed his tweet with a GIF of Prince Harry of Wales miming a mic drop.
He later apologized for tweeting the GIF. “It’s been brought to my attention that the gif may have been perceived as insensitive. I apologize as that was not my intention,” he tweeted.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Ginn said the intention of his Twitter thread was to outline the more thorough data provided by the state. He also said his tweet with the GIF was “woefully taken out of context out of bad faith.”
“What we’re really focused in on is, ‘How can we best make sure that Texans are taken care of during this time?’” he said. Given the revised data that shows demographic breakdowns, he questioned whether state and local officials should take a more “targeted approach” to combatting the virus, rather than passing blanket policies.
Ginn later removed the tweet and apologized. “I believe strongly based on my deep faith that every life is precious,” he wrote. “My intent was to highlight the positive development of more data available to make better policy decisions and help the vulnerable.”
Almost 53% of public school students were Hispanic in 2018-19 and more than 60% are economically disadvantaged, according to Texas Education Agency data. Public health experts have said schools that reopen in areas with high and fast-rising rates of community spread are likely to exacerbate the effects of the virus. That means staff and students could bring the virus home to their families.
“This is my grandfather Albert. He was an Hispanic citizen of the U.S. & passed from #Covid,” tweeted former state Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas. “His grandchildren (born in Dallas) lived with him and also got #Covid. They survived. W/ great respect, the death of elderly Hispanics does not necessarily make the schools safe to open.”
Ginn, who previously served in the White House under President Donald Trump’s administration as associate director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, also served as senior economist for the think tank.
While children may not be the most vulnerable to contracting the virus, fear of community spread has prompted some large school districts to delay the start of the fall semester for in-person instruction.
In mid-July, Texas education officials said school districts could delay on-campus instructions for at least four weeks and ask for waivers to continue remote instruction for up to four additional weeks in areas hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. During that time, districts must educate at least a small percentage of students in person and give the state information on what public health conditions would allow them to bring more kids into classrooms.
In recent months, the Republican Party has faced criticisms for appearing to prioritize the economy over public health, while research shows that COVID-19 disproportionally affects Black and Hispanic people.
Gov. Greg Abbott, too, has faced pushback from Democrats on his coronavirus response efforts. Although he implemented a statewide mask mandate earlier this summer, he’s been chided for a speedy phased reopening of the economy to which public health experts attribute a record number of coronavirus deaths in the state.
Vance Ginn, the chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is facing fierce backlash for a recent racist tweet that said schools should open since most of the people dying from the coronavirus in Texas are elderly or Hispanic.
Before Monday, the state’s racial and ethnic breakdown of deaths had large gaps, with up to 18% of deaths last month recorded as “unknown.” A revised count of the data released Monday by the Department of State Health Services, however, shows that Hispanic Texans are overrepresented in the state’s updated fatality count.
Citing the revised data, Ginn tweeted that the people most likely to perish from the deadly virus are people older than 50 and Hispanics, whose death rate increased from 24.8% on May 27 to 47.4% on July 27. Hispanics make up about 40% of the state’s population.
Meanwhile, about 180 deaths, or 3% of the total, occurred among Texans younger than 40. About 2,000 people who died were 80 or older, making up the largest age bracket of COVID-19 deaths.
“Why not #openschools, end universal mandates, target vulnerable & check those from #Mexico?” Ginn wrote in a since-deleted tweet. He juxtaposed his tweet with a GIF of Prince Harry of Wales miming a mic drop.
He later apologized for tweeting the GIF. “It’s been brought to my attention that the gif may have been perceived as insensitive. I apologize as that was not my intention,” he tweeted.
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Ginn said the intention of his Twitter thread was to outline the more thorough data provided by the state. He also said his tweet with the GIF was “woefully taken out of context out of bad faith.”
“What we’re really focused in on is, ‘How can we best make sure that Texans are taken care of during this time?’” he said. Given the revised data that shows demographic breakdowns, he questioned whether state and local officials should take a more “targeted approach” to combatting the virus, rather than passing blanket policies.
Ginn later removed the tweet and apologized. “I believe strongly based on my deep faith that every life is precious,” he wrote. “My intent was to highlight the positive development of more data available to make better policy decisions and help the vulnerable.”
Almost 53% of public school students were Hispanic in 2018-19 and more than 60% are economically disadvantaged, according to Texas Education Agency data. Public health experts have said schools that reopen in areas with high and fast-rising rates of community spread are likely to exacerbate the effects of the virus. That means staff and students could bring the virus home to their families.
“This is my grandfather Albert. He was an Hispanic citizen of the U.S. & passed from #Covid,” tweeted former state Rep. Jason Villalba, R-Dallas. “His grandchildren (born in Dallas) lived with him and also got #Covid. They survived. W/ great respect, the death of elderly Hispanics does not necessarily make the schools safe to open.”
Ginn, who previously served in the White House under President Donald Trump’s administration as associate director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget, also served as senior economist for the think tank.
While children may not be the most vulnerable to contracting the virus, fear of community spread has prompted some large school districts to delay the start of the fall semester for in-person instruction.
In mid-July, Texas education officials said school districts could delay on-campus instructions for at least four weeks and ask for waivers to continue remote instruction for up to four additional weeks in areas hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. During that time, districts must educate at least a small percentage of students in person and give the state information on what public health conditions would allow them to bring more kids into classrooms.
In recent months, the Republican Party has faced criticisms for appearing to prioritize the economy over public health, while research shows that COVID-19 disproportionally affects Black and Hispanic people.
Gov. Greg Abbott, too, has faced pushback from Democrats on his coronavirus response efforts. Although he implemented a statewide mask mandate earlier this summer, he’s been chided for a speedy phased reopening of the economy to which public health experts attribute a record number of coronavirus deaths in the state.
“New Right” Leaders Are Co-opting Progressive Language to Mislead Voters
BY David Forrest, Truthout
PUBLISHED July 10, 2020
Over the past two years, a growing and somewhat unconventional faction of leaders on the American right have caught the attention of the press. This faction — who often refer to themselves as either the “new populist right” or “national conservatives” — includes, most notably, Tucker Carlson at Fox News and Senators Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. It also features several lower-profile but increasingly prominent journalists and authors, such as Julius Krein (founder and editor of American Affairs), Oren Cass (founder and executive director of American Compass) and Saagar Enjeti (host of “Rising” at The Hill).
In general, this faction holds true to the extreme cultural stances that have long united most American conservatives. But they distinguish themselves by rebuking the mainstream right’s cozy relationship with financial elites, a relationship they (correctly) see as both politically unwise — because it alienates working- and middle-class voters — and societally disastrous — because it promotes and reproduces extreme inequality. They oppose asset stripping, stock buybacks, and other economic practices that further empower and enrich financial elites; and they support redirecting wealth toward the growth of American industry.
Add it all up, this faction argues, and you have the ideological blueprint for a new and more democratic political order. This new order, they tell us, would abolish the elitism of contemporary U.S. politics, replacing it with a populism that respects the values of the “great American middle” and provides “dignified work” to the majority. In recent months, they have also framed their worldview as the basis for developing a more democratic and pro-worker response to the coronavirus pandemic.
At least a handful of journalists and progressive commentators have taken this anti-elitist posturing quite seriously. However, in reality, it is grossly misleading. Far from pioneering a democratic political transformation — or, really, any political transformation — the leaders of the “new populist right” are refurbishing the very conservative and elite order they claim to oppose.
The elitism of this group — who I will, for brevity’s sake, simply call the new right — can be easy to miss. In addition to opposing the empowerment of financiers, they frequently imitate the rhetoric of well-known progressive leaders, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Media figures like Tucker Carlson and Saagar Enjeti speak in sweeping and often vitriolic terms about “the exploitation of Americans” and “neoliberals in Washington.” Even the faction’s most mainstream members engage in this imitation. For example, in a speech touted by new right intellectuals, Sen. Marco Rubio spoke eloquently about American capitalism’s betrayal of the “common good” and business’s “obligations” toward workers.
Yet, if you push beyond the rhetoric and focus on what the new right actually proposes, the truth becomes clear: their agenda is, at its core, mostly a revamped version of the one that has dominated conservative politics for the last 40 years. The cultural or social side of this agenda is, of course, by their own admission, similar to what the mainstream right has long embraced. If anything, it is perhaps more extreme. Many of them, for instance, support further tightening already conservative and draconian immigration controls and eliminating almost all abortion rights.
More to the point, even the new right’s apparently unorthodox and progressive-leaning economic agenda is broadly similar to that of mainstream conservatives. For example, they typically oppose universal entitlements like Medicare for All and favor creating a welfare state centered on tax credits and work promotion — a standard conservative position. In addition, their support for the labor movement is tepid at best; and, in many cases, they have opposed it, campaigning for right-to-work legislation and contesting increases to the minimum wage. Their one major difference with mainstream conservatives is, of course, that they advocate redistributing wealth away from affluent financiers and toward domestic industrial expansion. They go to significant lengths to construe this stance as proof of their greater allegiance to workers. Yet, in the absence of support for universal entitlements and a strong labor movement, all it really indicates is their greater allegiance to American industrial, rather than financial, economic elites.
Lacking any truly groundbreaking positions, the new right’s revamped conservatism has no more capacity to transform and democratize U.S. politics than the “free market” conservatism they criticize. For starters, as others have already pointed out, their claim to respect the values of the “American middle” is laughable. By any reasonable measure, their cultural stances disregard most Americans’ core beliefs in favor of propping up a fringe minority. Record-high majorities support many of the ideals and policies they oppose, including abortion rights, the legalization of marijuana, legal immigration and affirmative action. In contrast, only a radical few back the positions advocated by leaders on the new right, such as banning abortion or reducing legal immigration.
Furthermore, contrary to their proclamations, the new right has no plan for expanding what most Americans would call “dignified work.” They hide this fact by equating “dignified work” with industrial employment. But while most Americans agree that growing domestic industry is an important goal, they do not associate industrial employment per se with feelings of dignity. What they do consider dignified is employment that comes with generous compensation and power in the workplace. Unfortunately, most industrial work in the United States currently lacks these traits; and, as I already stated, the new right opposes the expansive welfare state and powerful labor movement that experts say are needed to improve the situation.
At the end of the day, the new right’s conservatism would push ordinary Americans into unsatisfactory jobs while forcing them to adhere to the cultural beliefs of a radical minority. Sound familiar? It should, because it is the same outcome that mainstream conservatism has already helped to produce, the reality most Americans already experience. The true function of the new right is not to transform this reality, but rather to make a revised version of it seem more palatable than it is.
For progressives, the emergence of the new right can seem like a promising development. The rhetorical attacks that people like Josh Hawley and Tucker Carlson level on big finance make them sound like kindred spirits in the struggle to build what Bernie Sanders calls “an economy that works for all of us.” Moreover, as progressive author Matt Stoller points out, to the extent that these new right leaders are willing to legislate against asset stripping, stock buybacks and the like, there is indeed some room to work with them.
Ultimately, however, in the fight for equality and democracy, the new right is at most a group of unwitting accomplices. They are stoking popular, bipartisan opposition to the U.S.’s corrupt and neoliberal political economy, but failing to offer a coherent and convincing plan for how to achieve a better future. The contradiction between their populist rhetoric and elitist, minoritarian worldview leaves a huge gap between themselves and the disaffected working- and middle-class voters they claim to represent. This gap begs to be filled by a more legitimately majoritarian movement against concentrated power. Progressives should stay focused on building that movement and avoid wasting too much time trying to figure out the “new populist right.” They’re just conservatives.
In general, this faction holds true to the extreme cultural stances that have long united most American conservatives. But they distinguish themselves by rebuking the mainstream right’s cozy relationship with financial elites, a relationship they (correctly) see as both politically unwise — because it alienates working- and middle-class voters — and societally disastrous — because it promotes and reproduces extreme inequality. They oppose asset stripping, stock buybacks, and other economic practices that further empower and enrich financial elites; and they support redirecting wealth toward the growth of American industry.
Add it all up, this faction argues, and you have the ideological blueprint for a new and more democratic political order. This new order, they tell us, would abolish the elitism of contemporary U.S. politics, replacing it with a populism that respects the values of the “great American middle” and provides “dignified work” to the majority. In recent months, they have also framed their worldview as the basis for developing a more democratic and pro-worker response to the coronavirus pandemic.
At least a handful of journalists and progressive commentators have taken this anti-elitist posturing quite seriously. However, in reality, it is grossly misleading. Far from pioneering a democratic political transformation — or, really, any political transformation — the leaders of the “new populist right” are refurbishing the very conservative and elite order they claim to oppose.
The elitism of this group — who I will, for brevity’s sake, simply call the new right — can be easy to miss. In addition to opposing the empowerment of financiers, they frequently imitate the rhetoric of well-known progressive leaders, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Media figures like Tucker Carlson and Saagar Enjeti speak in sweeping and often vitriolic terms about “the exploitation of Americans” and “neoliberals in Washington.” Even the faction’s most mainstream members engage in this imitation. For example, in a speech touted by new right intellectuals, Sen. Marco Rubio spoke eloquently about American capitalism’s betrayal of the “common good” and business’s “obligations” toward workers.
Yet, if you push beyond the rhetoric and focus on what the new right actually proposes, the truth becomes clear: their agenda is, at its core, mostly a revamped version of the one that has dominated conservative politics for the last 40 years. The cultural or social side of this agenda is, of course, by their own admission, similar to what the mainstream right has long embraced. If anything, it is perhaps more extreme. Many of them, for instance, support further tightening already conservative and draconian immigration controls and eliminating almost all abortion rights.
More to the point, even the new right’s apparently unorthodox and progressive-leaning economic agenda is broadly similar to that of mainstream conservatives. For example, they typically oppose universal entitlements like Medicare for All and favor creating a welfare state centered on tax credits and work promotion — a standard conservative position. In addition, their support for the labor movement is tepid at best; and, in many cases, they have opposed it, campaigning for right-to-work legislation and contesting increases to the minimum wage. Their one major difference with mainstream conservatives is, of course, that they advocate redistributing wealth away from affluent financiers and toward domestic industrial expansion. They go to significant lengths to construe this stance as proof of their greater allegiance to workers. Yet, in the absence of support for universal entitlements and a strong labor movement, all it really indicates is their greater allegiance to American industrial, rather than financial, economic elites.
Lacking any truly groundbreaking positions, the new right’s revamped conservatism has no more capacity to transform and democratize U.S. politics than the “free market” conservatism they criticize. For starters, as others have already pointed out, their claim to respect the values of the “American middle” is laughable. By any reasonable measure, their cultural stances disregard most Americans’ core beliefs in favor of propping up a fringe minority. Record-high majorities support many of the ideals and policies they oppose, including abortion rights, the legalization of marijuana, legal immigration and affirmative action. In contrast, only a radical few back the positions advocated by leaders on the new right, such as banning abortion or reducing legal immigration.
Furthermore, contrary to their proclamations, the new right has no plan for expanding what most Americans would call “dignified work.” They hide this fact by equating “dignified work” with industrial employment. But while most Americans agree that growing domestic industry is an important goal, they do not associate industrial employment per se with feelings of dignity. What they do consider dignified is employment that comes with generous compensation and power in the workplace. Unfortunately, most industrial work in the United States currently lacks these traits; and, as I already stated, the new right opposes the expansive welfare state and powerful labor movement that experts say are needed to improve the situation.
At the end of the day, the new right’s conservatism would push ordinary Americans into unsatisfactory jobs while forcing them to adhere to the cultural beliefs of a radical minority. Sound familiar? It should, because it is the same outcome that mainstream conservatism has already helped to produce, the reality most Americans already experience. The true function of the new right is not to transform this reality, but rather to make a revised version of it seem more palatable than it is.
For progressives, the emergence of the new right can seem like a promising development. The rhetorical attacks that people like Josh Hawley and Tucker Carlson level on big finance make them sound like kindred spirits in the struggle to build what Bernie Sanders calls “an economy that works for all of us.” Moreover, as progressive author Matt Stoller points out, to the extent that these new right leaders are willing to legislate against asset stripping, stock buybacks and the like, there is indeed some room to work with them.
Ultimately, however, in the fight for equality and democracy, the new right is at most a group of unwitting accomplices. They are stoking popular, bipartisan opposition to the U.S.’s corrupt and neoliberal political economy, but failing to offer a coherent and convincing plan for how to achieve a better future. The contradiction between their populist rhetoric and elitist, minoritarian worldview leaves a huge gap between themselves and the disaffected working- and middle-class voters they claim to represent. This gap begs to be filled by a more legitimately majoritarian movement against concentrated power. Progressives should stay focused on building that movement and avoid wasting too much time trying to figure out the “new populist right.” They’re just conservatives.
Hate groups cashed in on pandemic relief before millions of Americans protested for social change
One anti-LGBTQ group, which took as much as $1 million, appears to have no income or employees, per tax records
ROGER SOLLENBERGER - salin
JULY 10, 2020 5:00PM (UTC)
Organizations listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) received millions of dollars in government-backed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, according to data from the Small Business Administration.
The Center for Media and Democracy was the first to report on the loans, which went to six nonprofits for a total of somewhere between $2,350,000 and $5,700,000. (The SBA has only disclosed loan amounts in ranges -- not exact sums.) The groups will not need to repay the government if they put the money towards payroll and other operational expenses. (Disclosure: Salon received a PPP loan to keep our staff and independent journalism at 100%.)
The loans, which came through in early to mid April, predate the recent nationwide social justice upwelling by several weeks. Since receiving the funds, a number of the organizations have advanced their policy and ideological interests, lobbying the federal government and writing and publishing articles.
The organizations include the anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy; two anti-immigrant hate groups, the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation for American Immigration Reform; and three organizations designated as anti-LGBTQ hate groups, the American Family Association (AFA), Liberty Counsel and the Pacific Justice Institute.
The largest loan went to the American Family Association, which was allotted between $1 million and $2 million to support 124 jobs.
In an April 27 interview with Fox News' Ed Henry, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said PPP funds were intended to support companies with 10 employees or fewer.
"The vast majority — as I noted, 1 million of the 1.6 million loans that went out — were companies with 10 or fewer employees," she said. "That is what this program is designed to do. That is who it is helping."
In its 2017 tax filing, which is the latest available, the AFA reported revenues exceeding $18.4 million, net assets of about $30 million and compensation expenses of about $8 million. Between 2013 and 2017, the group reported combined revenues in excess of $105 million.
"Many of these groups that traffic in hate are already well-resourced, with a constant injection of funding from far-right mega-donors and dark money foundations," Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of the Arizona branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the Center for Media and Democracy. "This just highlights more cases of vital funding getting into the hands of those who didn't need it, while many small businesses in our communities came up empty and are having to fold."
The SPLC listed AFA as a hate group in 2010 after former top official Bryan Fischer blamed gay men for the Holocaust. In 2015, two days before Republican National Committee members went on an AFA-sponsored trip to Israel, the group sent SPLC a letter disavowing Fischer's remarks. However, the organization did not fire Fischer from his radio broadcast.
Right-wing activist David Lane posted an article Tuesday on the AFA website calling antifa and Black Lives Matter an "alliance between the two devils of Nazism and communism." Lane blamed this on their acceptance of "transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion."
In another post, Lane claimed that the "duplicity and subterfuge" of antifa and Black Lives Matter could "come close to or may even top the heinous terror outfit ISIS, which ransacked northern Iraq's historic Christian and Muslim shrines."
The two other anti-LGBTQ nonprofits which received taxpayer-backed relief are the Liberty Counsel (between $350,000 and $1 million, reportedly retaining no jobs) and the Pacific Justice Institute (between $150,000 and $350,000 to support 17 jobs).
The Liberty Counsel's 2018 tax filing, the latest available, appears to indicate zero income or expenses, and it also does not list any employees. The group had apparently been operating at a loss for years, and claimed a small deduction. Its affiliate, Liberty Counsel Action, filed the same year for less than $50,000 in receipts.
It is unclear what Liberty Counsel was planning to do with its hundreds of thousands in government loans. A group spokesperson did not answer Salon's request for comment.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) was founded by white nationalist John Tanton and has ties to senior White House adviser and noted white nationalist Stephen Miller. CIS received a loan worth somewhere between $350,000 and $1 million in support of 15 jobs.
CIS has spent the spring blaming undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America for spreading the coronavirus. The group claimed "border crossers" were responsible for the recent surge in cases -- not the state's botched reopening strategy under the leadership of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Another Tanton anti-immigrant hate group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), was approved for a loan of up to $1 million, reportedly for 35 jobs.
FAIR's most recently available IRS filing shows that the group pulled in $12 million in 2018 and more than double that the year before. It spent $3.7 million on salaries and other employee benefits in 2018, with $33.8 million in total net assets.
Per the SPLC, FAIR is "America's most influential anti-immigrant organization." This spring, FAIR lobbied the Trump administration on immigration issues. On June 22, President Donald Trump signed an executive order postponing most new work visas for the rest of the year.
The Washington-based Center for Security Policy locked in between $150,000 and $350,000 to put towards 13 employees. The group, which in 2018 reported revenues of $4.2 million and compensation expenses half of that amount, promotes such abominable conspiracy theories about Muslims that it got banned by the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Most recently, the Center for Security Policy has labeled COVID-19 as "China's propaganda pandemic," claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping "weaponized" the virus in an effort "to attack the United States and divide its leaders."
China is said to have imprisoned around one million of its Uyghur Muslim population in concentration camps, and has reportedly put about three million Uyghurs through "deprogramming." Former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his White House tell-all that Trump told President Xi to "go ahead with building the camps."
RELATED: Charter schools may have double-dipped as much as $1 billion in PPP small business loans
The Center for Media and Democracy was the first to report on the loans, which went to six nonprofits for a total of somewhere between $2,350,000 and $5,700,000. (The SBA has only disclosed loan amounts in ranges -- not exact sums.) The groups will not need to repay the government if they put the money towards payroll and other operational expenses. (Disclosure: Salon received a PPP loan to keep our staff and independent journalism at 100%.)
The loans, which came through in early to mid April, predate the recent nationwide social justice upwelling by several weeks. Since receiving the funds, a number of the organizations have advanced their policy and ideological interests, lobbying the federal government and writing and publishing articles.
The organizations include the anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy; two anti-immigrant hate groups, the Center for Immigration Studies and the Federation for American Immigration Reform; and three organizations designated as anti-LGBTQ hate groups, the American Family Association (AFA), Liberty Counsel and the Pacific Justice Institute.
The largest loan went to the American Family Association, which was allotted between $1 million and $2 million to support 124 jobs.
In an April 27 interview with Fox News' Ed Henry, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said PPP funds were intended to support companies with 10 employees or fewer.
"The vast majority — as I noted, 1 million of the 1.6 million loans that went out — were companies with 10 or fewer employees," she said. "That is what this program is designed to do. That is who it is helping."
In its 2017 tax filing, which is the latest available, the AFA reported revenues exceeding $18.4 million, net assets of about $30 million and compensation expenses of about $8 million. Between 2013 and 2017, the group reported combined revenues in excess of $105 million.
"Many of these groups that traffic in hate are already well-resourced, with a constant injection of funding from far-right mega-donors and dark money foundations," Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of the Arizona branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the Center for Media and Democracy. "This just highlights more cases of vital funding getting into the hands of those who didn't need it, while many small businesses in our communities came up empty and are having to fold."
The SPLC listed AFA as a hate group in 2010 after former top official Bryan Fischer blamed gay men for the Holocaust. In 2015, two days before Republican National Committee members went on an AFA-sponsored trip to Israel, the group sent SPLC a letter disavowing Fischer's remarks. However, the organization did not fire Fischer from his radio broadcast.
Right-wing activist David Lane posted an article Tuesday on the AFA website calling antifa and Black Lives Matter an "alliance between the two devils of Nazism and communism." Lane blamed this on their acceptance of "transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion."
In another post, Lane claimed that the "duplicity and subterfuge" of antifa and Black Lives Matter could "come close to or may even top the heinous terror outfit ISIS, which ransacked northern Iraq's historic Christian and Muslim shrines."
The two other anti-LGBTQ nonprofits which received taxpayer-backed relief are the Liberty Counsel (between $350,000 and $1 million, reportedly retaining no jobs) and the Pacific Justice Institute (between $150,000 and $350,000 to support 17 jobs).
The Liberty Counsel's 2018 tax filing, the latest available, appears to indicate zero income or expenses, and it also does not list any employees. The group had apparently been operating at a loss for years, and claimed a small deduction. Its affiliate, Liberty Counsel Action, filed the same year for less than $50,000 in receipts.
It is unclear what Liberty Counsel was planning to do with its hundreds of thousands in government loans. A group spokesperson did not answer Salon's request for comment.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) was founded by white nationalist John Tanton and has ties to senior White House adviser and noted white nationalist Stephen Miller. CIS received a loan worth somewhere between $350,000 and $1 million in support of 15 jobs.
CIS has spent the spring blaming undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America for spreading the coronavirus. The group claimed "border crossers" were responsible for the recent surge in cases -- not the state's botched reopening strategy under the leadership of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Another Tanton anti-immigrant hate group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), was approved for a loan of up to $1 million, reportedly for 35 jobs.
FAIR's most recently available IRS filing shows that the group pulled in $12 million in 2018 and more than double that the year before. It spent $3.7 million on salaries and other employee benefits in 2018, with $33.8 million in total net assets.
Per the SPLC, FAIR is "America's most influential anti-immigrant organization." This spring, FAIR lobbied the Trump administration on immigration issues. On June 22, President Donald Trump signed an executive order postponing most new work visas for the rest of the year.
The Washington-based Center for Security Policy locked in between $150,000 and $350,000 to put towards 13 employees. The group, which in 2018 reported revenues of $4.2 million and compensation expenses half of that amount, promotes such abominable conspiracy theories about Muslims that it got banned by the right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Most recently, the Center for Security Policy has labeled COVID-19 as "China's propaganda pandemic," claiming that Chinese President Xi Jinping "weaponized" the virus in an effort "to attack the United States and divide its leaders."
China is said to have imprisoned around one million of its Uyghur Muslim population in concentration camps, and has reportedly put about three million Uyghurs through "deprogramming." Former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his White House tell-all that Trump told President Xi to "go ahead with building the camps."
RELATED: Charter schools may have double-dipped as much as $1 billion in PPP small business loans
Conservative Elites Are Fighting for “Values” Invented to Justify Slavery
BY Peter Montague, Truthout
PUBLISHED July 9, 2020
Throughout its history the U.S. has had two very different ruling elites, motivated by very different definitions of liberty. Let’s call them the New England Yankees vs. the Old South Planters. Their radically different definitions of “liberty” still divide liberals and conservatives today.
Wealthy elites are not all alike, and the differences between them are crucial. As the New England Yankee elite saw it, people with money and power must temper their predatory instincts with a code of conduct that has been called noblesse oblige. In this view, the liberty of the monied elite is restrained by a moral duty to use wealth and power at least partly for the betterment of society. (“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” said President John Kennedy in 1961.) Individuals are expected to balance their personal freedom and desires against the greater good of the larger society. Everyone is part of a community and therefore must pay taxes, educate the youth, care for the sick and provide for the needy.
In the Yankee view, the community (acting through government) should make available to everyone the freedom that comes from a stable and prosperous life. As President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1944, “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” This Yankee view of ordered liberty lies at the root of liberal values today.
Opposite the Yankee view of liberty, we have the Old South Planter’s view. As we learn from Colin Woodard’s American Nations, the plantation elite of the old South were the sons and grandsons of the colonizers of Barbados, which they turned into “the richest and most horrifying society in the English-speaking world.” The plantation culture they created from South Carolina across to Texas “was a near carbon copy of the West Indian slave state these Barbadians had left behind, a place notorious even then for its inhumanity…. From the outset, Deep Southern culture was based on radical disparities in wealth and power, with a tiny elite commanding total obedience and enforcing it with state-sponsored terror,” Woodward writes.
Following Michael Lind’s important little book, Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, Sara Robinson explored this subject in 2012. Robinson summarized the Old South Planter’s view of liberty:
In the old South…. The higher your status, the more authority you had, and the more “liberty” you could exercise – which meant, in practical terms, that you had the right to take more “liberties” with the lives, rights and property of other people…. In this model, that’s what liberty is. If you don’t have the freedom to rape, beat, torture, kill, enslave, or exploit your underlings (including your wife and children) with impunity … then you can’t really call yourself a free man.
The history of elite political dynamics in the United States can be viewed as a struggle for dominance between these two views of liberty – liberty limited by obligations to community vs. the liberty to exploit humans and nature for personal gain with minimal or no restraint.
Starting in the 1950s, the Old South view of liberty took hold with movement conservatives, who then set out to take control of the Republican Party and, through voter suppression, gain permanent political dominance.
According to George Lakoff, a linguist now retired from the University of California at Berkeley, movement conservatives believe that,
The basic idea in terms of economics is that democracy gives people the liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else. Therefore they say everybody has individual responsibility, not social responsibility, therefore you’re on your own. If you make it that’s wonderful. That’s what the market is about. If you don’t make it, that’s your problem.
In her indispensable history, Democracy in Chains, Duke University historian Nancy MacLean documents “the radical right’s stealth plan for America” – a plan hatched in Virginia in the 1950s to return the U.S. to the Old South view of liberty, or, as we might say today, to “Make America Great Again.” As we learn from Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by the 1970s, a small cadre of hard-right super-rich conservatives was building the political and cultural machinery to take control.
In her illuminating new book, How the South Won the Civil War, Heather Cox Richardson details how, after the Civil War, the philosophy of the Old South slavers spread Westward, snuffing out the idea that the government should protect the nation’s most vulnerable citizens and regulate the economy. “Convinced they alone should rule,” the philosophical descendants of the Old South elite “set out to destroy democracy,” Richardson writes.
The Old South view of “liberty” became personified in the image of the violent, independent, quick-draw cowboy. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush all campaigned for president wearing Stetson cowboy hats. Now, once again, we find ourselves in the grip of the Old South plantation mentality extended nationwide. Cowboys don’t wear “sissy” masks to protect their neighbors from a novel coronavirus, and so the deadly virus spreads.
The elite conservative view of liberty helps explain modern Republican hostility toward public education, publicly funded science, climate change, the natural world, one-person-one-vote democracy, universal health care, racial, gender and economic equality, accountability for war crimes and police violence, and government itself.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. If progressives mobilize to get big money out of politics and aggressively protect and enforce “one person, one vote, no exceptions,” the true progressive will of the people can prevail.
Wealthy elites are not all alike, and the differences between them are crucial. As the New England Yankee elite saw it, people with money and power must temper their predatory instincts with a code of conduct that has been called noblesse oblige. In this view, the liberty of the monied elite is restrained by a moral duty to use wealth and power at least partly for the betterment of society. (“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” said President John Kennedy in 1961.) Individuals are expected to balance their personal freedom and desires against the greater good of the larger society. Everyone is part of a community and therefore must pay taxes, educate the youth, care for the sick and provide for the needy.
In the Yankee view, the community (acting through government) should make available to everyone the freedom that comes from a stable and prosperous life. As President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1944, “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” This Yankee view of ordered liberty lies at the root of liberal values today.
Opposite the Yankee view of liberty, we have the Old South Planter’s view. As we learn from Colin Woodard’s American Nations, the plantation elite of the old South were the sons and grandsons of the colonizers of Barbados, which they turned into “the richest and most horrifying society in the English-speaking world.” The plantation culture they created from South Carolina across to Texas “was a near carbon copy of the West Indian slave state these Barbadians had left behind, a place notorious even then for its inhumanity…. From the outset, Deep Southern culture was based on radical disparities in wealth and power, with a tiny elite commanding total obedience and enforcing it with state-sponsored terror,” Woodward writes.
Following Michael Lind’s important little book, Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, Sara Robinson explored this subject in 2012. Robinson summarized the Old South Planter’s view of liberty:
In the old South…. The higher your status, the more authority you had, and the more “liberty” you could exercise – which meant, in practical terms, that you had the right to take more “liberties” with the lives, rights and property of other people…. In this model, that’s what liberty is. If you don’t have the freedom to rape, beat, torture, kill, enslave, or exploit your underlings (including your wife and children) with impunity … then you can’t really call yourself a free man.
The history of elite political dynamics in the United States can be viewed as a struggle for dominance between these two views of liberty – liberty limited by obligations to community vs. the liberty to exploit humans and nature for personal gain with minimal or no restraint.
Starting in the 1950s, the Old South view of liberty took hold with movement conservatives, who then set out to take control of the Republican Party and, through voter suppression, gain permanent political dominance.
According to George Lakoff, a linguist now retired from the University of California at Berkeley, movement conservatives believe that,
The basic idea in terms of economics is that democracy gives people the liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else. Therefore they say everybody has individual responsibility, not social responsibility, therefore you’re on your own. If you make it that’s wonderful. That’s what the market is about. If you don’t make it, that’s your problem.
In her indispensable history, Democracy in Chains, Duke University historian Nancy MacLean documents “the radical right’s stealth plan for America” – a plan hatched in Virginia in the 1950s to return the U.S. to the Old South view of liberty, or, as we might say today, to “Make America Great Again.” As we learn from Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by the 1970s, a small cadre of hard-right super-rich conservatives was building the political and cultural machinery to take control.
In her illuminating new book, How the South Won the Civil War, Heather Cox Richardson details how, after the Civil War, the philosophy of the Old South slavers spread Westward, snuffing out the idea that the government should protect the nation’s most vulnerable citizens and regulate the economy. “Convinced they alone should rule,” the philosophical descendants of the Old South elite “set out to destroy democracy,” Richardson writes.
The Old South view of “liberty” became personified in the image of the violent, independent, quick-draw cowboy. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush all campaigned for president wearing Stetson cowboy hats. Now, once again, we find ourselves in the grip of the Old South plantation mentality extended nationwide. Cowboys don’t wear “sissy” masks to protect their neighbors from a novel coronavirus, and so the deadly virus spreads.
The elite conservative view of liberty helps explain modern Republican hostility toward public education, publicly funded science, climate change, the natural world, one-person-one-vote democracy, universal health care, racial, gender and economic equality, accountability for war crimes and police violence, and government itself.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. If progressives mobilize to get big money out of politics and aggressively protect and enforce “one person, one vote, no exceptions,” the true progressive will of the people can prevail.
The far right
Violence by far-right is among US’s most dangerous terrorist threats, study finds
Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis of domestic terrorist incidents found majority have come from far right
Jason Wilson
THE GUARDIAN
Sat 27 Jun 2020 05.00 EDT
Violence by far-right groups and individuals has emerged as one of the most dangerous terrorist threats faced by US law enforcement and triggered a wave of warnings and arrests of people associated with those extremist movements.
The most recent in-depth analysis of far-right terrorism comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
In a report released last week, the Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States, CSIS analyses 25 years of domestic terrorism incidents and finds that the majority of attacks and plots have come from the far right.
The report says “the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of rightwing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years”, with the far right launching two-thirds of attacks and plots in 2019, and 90% of those in 2020.
The report adds: “Far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators.” The second most significant source of attacks and plots in the US has been “religious extremists”, almost all “Salafi jihadists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaida”.
The report shows the far left has been an increasingly negligible source of attacks since the mid 2000s. At that time the FBI defined arsons and other forms of property damage as domestic terrorism during a period some have called the “Green Scare”.
The CSIS study came during a new wave of terror attacks and plots from white supremacist and anti-government extremists.
Last Monday, the Department of Justice announced that it had brought an array of charges, including terrorism related offenses, against a US army soldier who subscribed to a mix of white supremacist and satanist beliefs which are characteristic of so-called “accelerationist” neo-nazis like Atomwaffen Division.
Last week, federal charges were brought on Steven Carillo for the murder of a federal security officer and a sheriff’s deputy. Like the three men arrested for an alleged terror plot in Nevada earlier this month, the FBI says Carillo identified with the extreme anti-government “boogaloo” movement, which is principally concerned with removing government regulation of firearms.
But critics question the timing and motivations of the intelligence community’s pivot to combatting rightwing extremism as it comes at a time when some are arguing the legal and institutional counterterrorism apparatus developed to combat overseas terror groups should now be adapted to domestic extremists.
For some that has deep implications for civil liberties and constitutional rights, especially when it comes to suggestions that new laws should be drafted to certify such groups as domestic terrorist organizations.
Eric Ward, executive director of the civil rights nonprofit the Western States Center, said: “We are deeply concerned by the idea of any type of law that creates a legal definition around domestic terrorism. There are significant laws already on the books that meet the challenges of this moment.”
Ward said that rather than new laws, “we need a responsible leadership that is actually willing to use the tools that are already on hand”.
Ward added: “Too often we have to respond to political crisis with criminalization. And I think that is a mistake”.
But the push for new laws is an ongoing one.
In April, a joint report from George Washington University’s Program on extremism (GWU PoE) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) included a proposal for a “rights protecting domestic terrorism statute”. They said the law could provide “more tools for the investigation and prosecution of groups and individuals” associated with rightwing extremism.
The report did acknowledge “significant constitutional questions” would be raised by such a statute, and the possibility of “unintended consequences, particularly for members of minorities”.
There are also concerns around the creation of a surveillance state.
The GWU/ADL proposal called for increased information sharing between law enforcement agencies, increased data collection and increased resourcing.
Similar arguments have been made by influential legal and national security academics, national security nonprofits and policy shops.
Congressman Max Rose, a New York Democrat, has gone further in calling for the formal designation of US-based groups with international connections as Foreign Terror Organizations.
The FBI, meanwhile, is increasingly prepared to make comparisons between right wing extremists and Islamist terror groups.
Seth Jones, the lead author of the CSIS report, offered qualified support for the formal designation of terror groups, saying: “I still think it’s important to think through the first amendment implications and other pros and cons. But I do support taking a serious look at designation.”
Designation could open the way, he said, to also investigating people who support such groups without having formal membership in any.
But critics are alarmed by what they see as the application of ideas derived from the “war on terror” to domestic extremists.
Mike German, Brennan Center fellow, is a former FBI agent who investigated rightwing extremists but is now focused on law enforcement and intelligence oversight and reform. He sees arguments for domestic terror statutes as part of a broader reorientation of the “national security establishment” away from conflicts in the Middle East.
German attributes this move to a realization “that Isis and al-Qaida were were not as threatening to Americans as they had been, and that foreign counter-terrorism in general was sort of running out of steam”.
German said: “It’s a way of expanding the target realm that gives the counterterrorism enterprise targets that they can use to to get statistical accomplishments, rather than looking at whether or not the violence itself is reduced.”
German has argued federal authorities should prioritize the investigation of the violent crimes of far right extremists, and call them terrorist acts where appropriate, but that they should be prosecuted using existing laws, with a consideration of alternative responses like restorative justice.
He added: “When I worked these cases in the 1990s, no one suggested that we didn’t have sufficient legal authority.”
The most recent in-depth analysis of far-right terrorism comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
In a report released last week, the Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States, CSIS analyses 25 years of domestic terrorism incidents and finds that the majority of attacks and plots have come from the far right.
The report says “the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of rightwing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years”, with the far right launching two-thirds of attacks and plots in 2019, and 90% of those in 2020.
The report adds: “Far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators.” The second most significant source of attacks and plots in the US has been “religious extremists”, almost all “Salafi jihadists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaida”.
The report shows the far left has been an increasingly negligible source of attacks since the mid 2000s. At that time the FBI defined arsons and other forms of property damage as domestic terrorism during a period some have called the “Green Scare”.
The CSIS study came during a new wave of terror attacks and plots from white supremacist and anti-government extremists.
Last Monday, the Department of Justice announced that it had brought an array of charges, including terrorism related offenses, against a US army soldier who subscribed to a mix of white supremacist and satanist beliefs which are characteristic of so-called “accelerationist” neo-nazis like Atomwaffen Division.
Last week, federal charges were brought on Steven Carillo for the murder of a federal security officer and a sheriff’s deputy. Like the three men arrested for an alleged terror plot in Nevada earlier this month, the FBI says Carillo identified with the extreme anti-government “boogaloo” movement, which is principally concerned with removing government regulation of firearms.
But critics question the timing and motivations of the intelligence community’s pivot to combatting rightwing extremism as it comes at a time when some are arguing the legal and institutional counterterrorism apparatus developed to combat overseas terror groups should now be adapted to domestic extremists.
For some that has deep implications for civil liberties and constitutional rights, especially when it comes to suggestions that new laws should be drafted to certify such groups as domestic terrorist organizations.
Eric Ward, executive director of the civil rights nonprofit the Western States Center, said: “We are deeply concerned by the idea of any type of law that creates a legal definition around domestic terrorism. There are significant laws already on the books that meet the challenges of this moment.”
Ward said that rather than new laws, “we need a responsible leadership that is actually willing to use the tools that are already on hand”.
Ward added: “Too often we have to respond to political crisis with criminalization. And I think that is a mistake”.
But the push for new laws is an ongoing one.
In April, a joint report from George Washington University’s Program on extremism (GWU PoE) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) included a proposal for a “rights protecting domestic terrorism statute”. They said the law could provide “more tools for the investigation and prosecution of groups and individuals” associated with rightwing extremism.
The report did acknowledge “significant constitutional questions” would be raised by such a statute, and the possibility of “unintended consequences, particularly for members of minorities”.
There are also concerns around the creation of a surveillance state.
The GWU/ADL proposal called for increased information sharing between law enforcement agencies, increased data collection and increased resourcing.
Similar arguments have been made by influential legal and national security academics, national security nonprofits and policy shops.
Congressman Max Rose, a New York Democrat, has gone further in calling for the formal designation of US-based groups with international connections as Foreign Terror Organizations.
The FBI, meanwhile, is increasingly prepared to make comparisons between right wing extremists and Islamist terror groups.
Seth Jones, the lead author of the CSIS report, offered qualified support for the formal designation of terror groups, saying: “I still think it’s important to think through the first amendment implications and other pros and cons. But I do support taking a serious look at designation.”
Designation could open the way, he said, to also investigating people who support such groups without having formal membership in any.
But critics are alarmed by what they see as the application of ideas derived from the “war on terror” to domestic extremists.
Mike German, Brennan Center fellow, is a former FBI agent who investigated rightwing extremists but is now focused on law enforcement and intelligence oversight and reform. He sees arguments for domestic terror statutes as part of a broader reorientation of the “national security establishment” away from conflicts in the Middle East.
German attributes this move to a realization “that Isis and al-Qaida were were not as threatening to Americans as they had been, and that foreign counter-terrorism in general was sort of running out of steam”.
German said: “It’s a way of expanding the target realm that gives the counterterrorism enterprise targets that they can use to to get statistical accomplishments, rather than looking at whether or not the violence itself is reduced.”
German has argued federal authorities should prioritize the investigation of the violent crimes of far right extremists, and call them terrorist acts where appropriate, but that they should be prosecuted using existing laws, with a consideration of alternative responses like restorative justice.
He added: “When I worked these cases in the 1990s, no one suggested that we didn’t have sufficient legal authority.”
"Law and order": A debased concept used to cover up right-wing crime and depravity
Donald Trump and his followers want "order," but they have zero respect for the law. Maybe America sees that now
DAVID MASCIOTRA - salon
JUNE 13, 2020 4:00PM (UTC)
Mark Twain's instruction to curious residents of Freedom Central is, by now, familiar: "If you want to see the dregs of society, go down to the jail and watch the changing of the guard." There is little doubt that the corrections officer who beats and torments the inmates under his supervision would use the phrase "law and order" as a defense for his own lawlessness. Almost any usage of that loaded term in American civic discourse serves as qualification for membership in a diner's club of hell.
Donald Trump, the latest political demagogue to employ the term as a rhetorical bludgeon against peaceful protesters, can look forward to sitting alongside Sen. Joseph McCarthy, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who ordered police to attack political demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention, Richard Nixon and many foreign dictators in the annals of history — and if there is an afterlife, in the middle of the inferno
Beyond the term's dark history and utility, there is also the rarely discussed fiction it is meant to disguise. In fact, the United States is one of the least lawful societies in the developed world, and that the bulletproof bullies who scream about "law and order" are typically society's most committed enablers of criminality and corruption.
The police lynching of George Floyd provoked widespread denunciation, with even ghouls like Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell condemning the individual officers responsible for the death. What they do not want to acknowledge is the continuation of not only systemic racism within criminal justice, but also a culture of crime. Pundits on the American right delight in reciting the bromide, "a few bad apples," as if they coined it, but they have seemingly forgotten the full cliché: "One bad apple spoils the bunch."
One need look no further than Buffalo, New York, to observe how the mold of a single fruit will soon spread to the rest. When two sadists in uniform shoved an elderly man to the ground for the crime of approaching them, causing him a critical head injury, their fellow cops made no attempt to help the victim. After the city of Buffalo suspended the perpetrators and charged them with assault, 57 officers resigned from the Emergency Response Team in support of their "brothers" whose version of "law and order" includes inflicting random violence on unarmed senior citizens.
The "thin blue line" code of policing that requires silence from police who witness acts of cruelty and illegality from their fellow officers is, among other things, an anti-democratic violation of the U.S. Constitution.
If the press could think beyond the narrow assumptions of political debate, and if the Democratic Party had more rhetorical daring, they might make it clear that Black Lives Matter, a formidable coalition of civil rights organizations, and tens of thousands of outraged citizens filling the streets in protest of police brutality, are on the side of the law. It is their opponents and critics who support and defend mutinous and dangerous breaches of constitutional order. John Adams famously declared that "we are a nation of laws, not men." Police officers, no matter the self-pitying cries of their union captains and the sputtering of their unofficial PR specialists on Fox News, are supposed to be subject to American law just as much as the citizens they purportedly protect.
It is not only cops who are often able to live outside the law. It is also the wealthy and well-connected sociopaths who poison the environment, exploit the poor and manipulate unprincipled political officials.
After the murder of George Floyd provoked civil unrest, Donald Trump and the Republican leaders of Congress bloviated extensively about "law and order." They would prefer their constituents to forget that it was only weeks earlier that they declared any future coronavirus relief package must include the innovative concept known as "corporate immunity."
Paul Bland, the executive director of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm, explains that the Republican plan "would free corporations of any responsibility — even when a corporation's unreasonable and dangerous actions hurt people." Under the system of corporate immunity, big business can violate the rights of its workers and consumers, endanger public safety and increase the risk of sickness and death for anyone in their facilities, without fear of legal penalty. So much for "law and order."
The Trump administration took advantage of the pandemic and mass protests to betray the law and threaten Americans, under the cover of a distracted press. The National Resources Defense Council reported on June 4 that Trump signed an "unprecedented" executive order that "allows industry to skirt foundational environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, in order to rubber-stamp polluting projects."
The NRDC warns that enabling corporations to bypass review requirements of NEPA will not only have "catastrophic consequences for wildlife," but also, in the words of the organization's president, Gina McCarthy, "harm our health and our communities."
Tinpot tyrant Trump and his demented circle of enablers shout for "law and order," and feigning concern for the damage or injury that might result from unruly protests. Circumvention of environmental regulations that could cause the sickness or death of thousands of people is of no concern.
The First Amendment is also not a priority for the right, for all its whimpering about "freedom of speech." Since the Black Lives Matter demonstrations began, activists have catalogued more than 600 incidents of police beating and harassing protesters without provocation, and almost 300 police attacks against journalists. Trump facilitated one of the most egregious violations of constitutional liberties when he and Attorney General Bill Barr ordered police and National Guard to use tear gas to drive peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so the president could take a prom photo, Bible in hand like a bouquet, outside of St. John's Episcopal Church.
In his defense, Trump and his supporters have claimed that not all the protesters were peaceful, and that there were criminals among them. They've offered no evidence for this accusation, but their own record indicates that even when there is sufficient evidence for criminal charges, they are willing to look the other way, at least when the offenders are wealthy and friendly to the Trump administration.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University reports that Justice Department prosecutions of white-collar crime have fallen to their lowest point in 33 years.
David Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and a former prosecutor, called the Syracuse study "disturbing," and suggested that the decline reflects political priorities more than a drop in the crime rate in corporate boardrooms.
This code of silence around the current free-for-all for white-collar criminals exposes the insincerity of right-wing panic over looting. As Don Henley once put it, "A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun."
As Trump has attempted to create chaos in the streets and encouraged a culture of criminality in corporate America, he has also presided over unprecedented corruption in the executive branch of the federal government. The president has personally fired four inspectors general, removing the most effective assurance against misuse of governmental authority and funds in the White House. Far from "draining the swamp," as he promised in his campaign, and in direct contradiction of his "law and order" bluster, Trump has created a sewer of deception, corruption and criminality.
Conservatives display no compunction over their consistent violations of the law. Legal protections of free speech and assembly, the natural environment and worker safety are meaningless to the criminal element of American government. Their flagrant disregard for the Constitution is familiar to the victims of infamous FBI programs like Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO. The only novelty in America's current days of fury is the widespread popularity of a movement to struggle for true equality under the law.
"We have one beautiful law," Trump recently said in his characteristically bizarre syntax and diction, repeating the word "beautiful." He went on to imply that the "one law and order" serves everyone. His actions, however, have shown that he and his supporters are consistently opposed to law but do indeed insist on order. The don't mean an order under the rule of law, but a social order that maintains their class at the top of the hierarchy, and those they would deem undesirable — the majority of the American people, but especially those who are black, Latino or Native American — fighting for scraps at the bottom. Tax cuts for the wealthy, the elimination of regulatory limits on corporate impulses of avarice and the destruction of all protections for citizens of average means have followed, according to a predictable script of economic control.
If Trump were even remotely sincere about "one beautiful law," he would be out marching in the street alongside Black Lives Matter, rather than threatening its activists and protesters with "vicious dogs." Because the movement now in the streets is the most powerful force in American society currently demanding equal and fair enforcement of the law.
Donald Trump, the latest political demagogue to employ the term as a rhetorical bludgeon against peaceful protesters, can look forward to sitting alongside Sen. Joseph McCarthy, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who ordered police to attack political demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic convention, Richard Nixon and many foreign dictators in the annals of history — and if there is an afterlife, in the middle of the inferno
Beyond the term's dark history and utility, there is also the rarely discussed fiction it is meant to disguise. In fact, the United States is one of the least lawful societies in the developed world, and that the bulletproof bullies who scream about "law and order" are typically society's most committed enablers of criminality and corruption.
The police lynching of George Floyd provoked widespread denunciation, with even ghouls like Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell condemning the individual officers responsible for the death. What they do not want to acknowledge is the continuation of not only systemic racism within criminal justice, but also a culture of crime. Pundits on the American right delight in reciting the bromide, "a few bad apples," as if they coined it, but they have seemingly forgotten the full cliché: "One bad apple spoils the bunch."
One need look no further than Buffalo, New York, to observe how the mold of a single fruit will soon spread to the rest. When two sadists in uniform shoved an elderly man to the ground for the crime of approaching them, causing him a critical head injury, their fellow cops made no attempt to help the victim. After the city of Buffalo suspended the perpetrators and charged them with assault, 57 officers resigned from the Emergency Response Team in support of their "brothers" whose version of "law and order" includes inflicting random violence on unarmed senior citizens.
The "thin blue line" code of policing that requires silence from police who witness acts of cruelty and illegality from their fellow officers is, among other things, an anti-democratic violation of the U.S. Constitution.
If the press could think beyond the narrow assumptions of political debate, and if the Democratic Party had more rhetorical daring, they might make it clear that Black Lives Matter, a formidable coalition of civil rights organizations, and tens of thousands of outraged citizens filling the streets in protest of police brutality, are on the side of the law. It is their opponents and critics who support and defend mutinous and dangerous breaches of constitutional order. John Adams famously declared that "we are a nation of laws, not men." Police officers, no matter the self-pitying cries of their union captains and the sputtering of their unofficial PR specialists on Fox News, are supposed to be subject to American law just as much as the citizens they purportedly protect.
It is not only cops who are often able to live outside the law. It is also the wealthy and well-connected sociopaths who poison the environment, exploit the poor and manipulate unprincipled political officials.
After the murder of George Floyd provoked civil unrest, Donald Trump and the Republican leaders of Congress bloviated extensively about "law and order." They would prefer their constituents to forget that it was only weeks earlier that they declared any future coronavirus relief package must include the innovative concept known as "corporate immunity."
Paul Bland, the executive director of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm, explains that the Republican plan "would free corporations of any responsibility — even when a corporation's unreasonable and dangerous actions hurt people." Under the system of corporate immunity, big business can violate the rights of its workers and consumers, endanger public safety and increase the risk of sickness and death for anyone in their facilities, without fear of legal penalty. So much for "law and order."
The Trump administration took advantage of the pandemic and mass protests to betray the law and threaten Americans, under the cover of a distracted press. The National Resources Defense Council reported on June 4 that Trump signed an "unprecedented" executive order that "allows industry to skirt foundational environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, in order to rubber-stamp polluting projects."
The NRDC warns that enabling corporations to bypass review requirements of NEPA will not only have "catastrophic consequences for wildlife," but also, in the words of the organization's president, Gina McCarthy, "harm our health and our communities."
Tinpot tyrant Trump and his demented circle of enablers shout for "law and order," and feigning concern for the damage or injury that might result from unruly protests. Circumvention of environmental regulations that could cause the sickness or death of thousands of people is of no concern.
The First Amendment is also not a priority for the right, for all its whimpering about "freedom of speech." Since the Black Lives Matter demonstrations began, activists have catalogued more than 600 incidents of police beating and harassing protesters without provocation, and almost 300 police attacks against journalists. Trump facilitated one of the most egregious violations of constitutional liberties when he and Attorney General Bill Barr ordered police and National Guard to use tear gas to drive peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so the president could take a prom photo, Bible in hand like a bouquet, outside of St. John's Episcopal Church.
In his defense, Trump and his supporters have claimed that not all the protesters were peaceful, and that there were criminals among them. They've offered no evidence for this accusation, but their own record indicates that even when there is sufficient evidence for criminal charges, they are willing to look the other way, at least when the offenders are wealthy and friendly to the Trump administration.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University reports that Justice Department prosecutions of white-collar crime have fallen to their lowest point in 33 years.
David Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and a former prosecutor, called the Syracuse study "disturbing," and suggested that the decline reflects political priorities more than a drop in the crime rate in corporate boardrooms.
This code of silence around the current free-for-all for white-collar criminals exposes the insincerity of right-wing panic over looting. As Don Henley once put it, "A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun."
As Trump has attempted to create chaos in the streets and encouraged a culture of criminality in corporate America, he has also presided over unprecedented corruption in the executive branch of the federal government. The president has personally fired four inspectors general, removing the most effective assurance against misuse of governmental authority and funds in the White House. Far from "draining the swamp," as he promised in his campaign, and in direct contradiction of his "law and order" bluster, Trump has created a sewer of deception, corruption and criminality.
Conservatives display no compunction over their consistent violations of the law. Legal protections of free speech and assembly, the natural environment and worker safety are meaningless to the criminal element of American government. Their flagrant disregard for the Constitution is familiar to the victims of infamous FBI programs like Operation CHAOS and COINTELPRO. The only novelty in America's current days of fury is the widespread popularity of a movement to struggle for true equality under the law.
"We have one beautiful law," Trump recently said in his characteristically bizarre syntax and diction, repeating the word "beautiful." He went on to imply that the "one law and order" serves everyone. His actions, however, have shown that he and his supporters are consistently opposed to law but do indeed insist on order. The don't mean an order under the rule of law, but a social order that maintains their class at the top of the hierarchy, and those they would deem undesirable — the majority of the American people, but especially those who are black, Latino or Native American — fighting for scraps at the bottom. Tax cuts for the wealthy, the elimination of regulatory limits on corporate impulses of avarice and the destruction of all protections for citizens of average means have followed, according to a predictable script of economic control.
If Trump were even remotely sincere about "one beautiful law," he would be out marching in the street alongside Black Lives Matter, rather than threatening its activists and protesters with "vicious dogs." Because the movement now in the streets is the most powerful force in American society currently demanding equal and fair enforcement of the law.
New Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory: Pandemic Contact Tracers Are 'Gestapo' Coming For Your Children
Mother Jones brings a good overview of the latest far-right conspiracy topic: pandemic contact tracing.
By HunterDK - crooks & liars
6/06/20 8:39am
Mother Jones brings a good overview of the latest far-right conspiracy topic: pandemic contact tracing. Yes, because absolutely everything is awful and because, once again, there is absolutely no aspect of human civilization that is impossible for a group of determined stupid people to f--k up, the latest conspiracy afoot is that contract tracing—the effort to warn Americans who have been in contact with someone who afterwards is identified as carrying a contagious and potentially deadly disease—is a secret plot by [person or group conservatives currently don't like] to do [bad thing].
Yes, the pandemic is still raging on. And efforts to ensure the pandemic gets worse are blossoming across the land. And airwaves. And internet.
The general theme is that contact tracing is not just an invasion of privacy, and not just a violation of freedoms—which it might well be, if there were not a clear and present risk to human life involved—but a plot. It always has to be a plot.
The Mother Jones examples include a far-right radio host convinced that pandemic orders allowing restaurants to serve people indoors if customers give their names and contact information is The Hill We Must Die On, "Reopen" groups calling contract tracers "the Gestapo," and theories that people "like" antifa groups will be doing the tracing. But the big one would have to be the theories that the contact tracers, hired on to warn you that you might have a deadly disease, you thundering morons, are a government plan to take you away to "quarantine" (no) or take your children from you.
Listen, Pandemic Karen, the "government" can barely be spurred into encouraging you to get tested if someone in your social circle has ended up on a ventilator after attending your potluck. The likelihood of a military Humvee showing up at your door to take anyone away is exactly zero, and not just because all the Humvees are reserved for intimidating crowds that don't have the foresight to bring AR-15 rifles and wave the flags of failed rebellions behind them.
As per usual, there's a strong Fox News connection to all of this. There seems to be no far-right conspiracy theory that is not an embellishment on an embellishment of whatever some arch-right Fox News babbler was feigning new outrage on or—and this one seems to be the more common—something that is elevated to Fox News in "just asking questions" form after it has been lifted from far-right and white nationalist conspiracy sites.
Fox News has been roundly attacking testing and contact tracing efforts during the pandemic, primarily as a defense of Donald Trump after Trump showed not a damn bit of interest in getting any of it done. America needs to reopen quickly, has been the Fox News argument, and even testing for the virus is "impossible" and "ridiculous," "a purple unicorn" and "emerging groupthink."
Fox host Steve Hilton has been very vocal on this one, saying that the idea you can "test them all trace their contacts, isolate everyone who has the virus is totally ridiculous."
Instead, suggests Fox, the demands for widespread testing and tracing as has been done in numerous other nations to successfully bring their own pandemics under control are merely a ruse intended to make Donald Trump, glorious and resplendent in his non-markedness, look bad. And you know this because it's Democrats and "experts" who are demanding them.
There's probably something pithy to be said here, but we are all very tired and the world is extremely stupid right now ...
... so the pithiness is probably going to have to wait until we have all had at least ONE DAMN DAY WITHOUT F--KING IDIOTS TRYING TO KILL THEMSELVES, EACH OTHER, AND THE REST OF US in their latest spasms of lead-paint-drinking gasoline-huffing look-what-I-found twitching stupidity.
In the meantime, there are two things to know:
One: We will be seeing a new pandemic wave. This is not a question; the only uncertainty is when it will arrive.
Two: There are a great many people around us who will be doing their absolute damnedest to make sure that wave is worse. Avoid those people. Avoid their friends. And for f--ks sake, avoid people who watch Fox News like your life depends on it.
Yes, the pandemic is still raging on. And efforts to ensure the pandemic gets worse are blossoming across the land. And airwaves. And internet.
The general theme is that contact tracing is not just an invasion of privacy, and not just a violation of freedoms—which it might well be, if there were not a clear and present risk to human life involved—but a plot. It always has to be a plot.
The Mother Jones examples include a far-right radio host convinced that pandemic orders allowing restaurants to serve people indoors if customers give their names and contact information is The Hill We Must Die On, "Reopen" groups calling contract tracers "the Gestapo," and theories that people "like" antifa groups will be doing the tracing. But the big one would have to be the theories that the contact tracers, hired on to warn you that you might have a deadly disease, you thundering morons, are a government plan to take you away to "quarantine" (no) or take your children from you.
Listen, Pandemic Karen, the "government" can barely be spurred into encouraging you to get tested if someone in your social circle has ended up on a ventilator after attending your potluck. The likelihood of a military Humvee showing up at your door to take anyone away is exactly zero, and not just because all the Humvees are reserved for intimidating crowds that don't have the foresight to bring AR-15 rifles and wave the flags of failed rebellions behind them.
As per usual, there's a strong Fox News connection to all of this. There seems to be no far-right conspiracy theory that is not an embellishment on an embellishment of whatever some arch-right Fox News babbler was feigning new outrage on or—and this one seems to be the more common—something that is elevated to Fox News in "just asking questions" form after it has been lifted from far-right and white nationalist conspiracy sites.
Fox News has been roundly attacking testing and contact tracing efforts during the pandemic, primarily as a defense of Donald Trump after Trump showed not a damn bit of interest in getting any of it done. America needs to reopen quickly, has been the Fox News argument, and even testing for the virus is "impossible" and "ridiculous," "a purple unicorn" and "emerging groupthink."
Fox host Steve Hilton has been very vocal on this one, saying that the idea you can "test them all trace their contacts, isolate everyone who has the virus is totally ridiculous."
Instead, suggests Fox, the demands for widespread testing and tracing as has been done in numerous other nations to successfully bring their own pandemics under control are merely a ruse intended to make Donald Trump, glorious and resplendent in his non-markedness, look bad. And you know this because it's Democrats and "experts" who are demanding them.
There's probably something pithy to be said here, but we are all very tired and the world is extremely stupid right now ...
... so the pithiness is probably going to have to wait until we have all had at least ONE DAMN DAY WITHOUT F--KING IDIOTS TRYING TO KILL THEMSELVES, EACH OTHER, AND THE REST OF US in their latest spasms of lead-paint-drinking gasoline-huffing look-what-I-found twitching stupidity.
In the meantime, there are two things to know:
One: We will be seeing a new pandemic wave. This is not a question; the only uncertainty is when it will arrive.
Two: There are a great many people around us who will be doing their absolute damnedest to make sure that wave is worse. Avoid those people. Avoid their friends. And for f--ks sake, avoid people who watch Fox News like your life depends on it.
Revealed: conservative group fighting to restrict voting tied to powerful dark money network
Sam Levine and Anna Massoglia
the guardian
Wed 27 May 2020 07.00 EDT
Honest Elections Project, part of network that pushed supreme court pick Brett Kavanaugh, is now focusing on voting restrictions
A powerful new conservative organization fighting to restrict voting in the 2020 presidential election is really just a rebranded group that is part of a dark money network already helping Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to remake the US federal judiciary, the Guardian and OpenSecrets reveal.
The organization, which calls itself the Honest Elections Project, seemed to emerge out of nowhere a few months ago and started stoking fears about voter fraud. Backed by a dark money group funded by rightwing stalwarts like the Koch brothers and Betsy DeVos’ family, the Honest Elections Project is part of the network that pushed the US supreme court picks Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, and is quickly becoming a juggernaut in the escalating fight over voting rights.
The project announced it was spending $250,000 in advertisements in April, warning against voting by mail and accusing Democrats of cheating. It facilitated letters to election officials in Colorado, Florida and Michigan, using misleading data to accuse jurisdictions of having bloated voter rolls and threatening legal action.
Calling voter suppression a “myth”, it has also been extremely active in the courts, filing briefs in favor of voting restrictions in Nevada, Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota, among other places, at times represented by lawyers from the same firm that represents Trump. By having a hand in both voting litigation and the judges on the federal bench, this network could create a system where conservative donors have an avenue to both oppose voting rights and appoint judges to back that effort.
Despite appearing to be a free-standing new operation, the Honest Elections Project is just a legal alias for the Judicial Education Project, a well-financed nonprofit connected to a powerful network of dark money conservative groups, according to business records reviewed by the Guardian and OpenSecrets.
“These are really well-funded groups that in the context of judicial nominations have been systematically, over the long term but also the short term, kind of pushing an agenda to pack the courts with pretty extreme right wing nominees,” said Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The infrastructure that they’ve built over the years has been a really important vehicle for them to do this.”
For nearly a decade, the organization has been almost entirely funded by DonorsTrust, known as a “dark money ATM” backed by the Koch network and other prominent conservative donors, according to data tracked by OpenSecrets. In 2018, more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project’s funding came from a single $7.8m donation from DonorsTrust.
The Judicial Education Project is also closely linked to Leonard Leo, one of the most powerful people in Washington who has shaped Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to remake the federal judiciary with conservative judges.
The organization has deftly hidden the changes to its name from public view. In December, the Judicial Education Project formally changed its legal name to The 85 Fund, a group Leo backed to funnel “tens of millions” of dollars into conservative causes, according to Axios. The Honest Elections Project is merely a fictitious name – an alias – the fund legally adopted in February. The change was nearly indiscernible because The 85 Fund registered two other legal aliases on the same day, including the Judicial Education Project, its old name. The legal maneuver allows it to operate under four different names with little public disclosure that it is the same group.
The Judicial Education Project is closely aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network, a group with unmatched influence in recent years in shaping the federal judiciary. The Judicial Crisis Network spearheaded the campaigns to get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmed to the US supreme court, spending millions of dollars in each instance. It has also spent significantly on critical state supreme court races across the country.
There is a lot of overlap between the Honest Elections Project and the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups share personnel, including Carrie Severino, the influential president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups have been funded by The Wellspring Committee, a group Leo raised money for until it shut down in 2018. Both have also paid money to BH Group, an LLC Leo once disclosed as his employer, that made a $1m mystery donation to Trump’s inauguration.
“This is a small community that is really trying to push forward these more suppressive tactics that will be challenged in court and having those judges on the bench, they’re really hoping it’s going to continue to rig the system in their favor,” said Lena Zwarensteyn, who closely follows judicial nominations at the Leadership Conference. “By changing the rules of the game and who the referees are, they’re trying to change the landscape.”
Neither the Honest Elections Project nor the Judicial Crisis Network responded to requests for an interview.
The Honest Elections Project has become active as Republicans are scaling up their efforts to fight to keep voting restrictions in place ahead of the election. The Republican National Committee will spend at least $20m on litigation over voting rights and wants to recruit up to 50,000 people to help monitor the polls and other election activities.
Gupta said seeing a group that has been extremely successful in pushing judicial confirmations turn its attention to voting rights was alarming.
“It isn’t any surprise to those of us that do work in both of these spaces that our opponents [who] want to constrict access to voting, access to the courts, who are seeking an anti-inclusive, anti-civil rights agenda are one in the same,” she said.
A powerful new conservative organization fighting to restrict voting in the 2020 presidential election is really just a rebranded group that is part of a dark money network already helping Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to remake the US federal judiciary, the Guardian and OpenSecrets reveal.
The organization, which calls itself the Honest Elections Project, seemed to emerge out of nowhere a few months ago and started stoking fears about voter fraud. Backed by a dark money group funded by rightwing stalwarts like the Koch brothers and Betsy DeVos’ family, the Honest Elections Project is part of the network that pushed the US supreme court picks Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, and is quickly becoming a juggernaut in the escalating fight over voting rights.
The project announced it was spending $250,000 in advertisements in April, warning against voting by mail and accusing Democrats of cheating. It facilitated letters to election officials in Colorado, Florida and Michigan, using misleading data to accuse jurisdictions of having bloated voter rolls and threatening legal action.
Calling voter suppression a “myth”, it has also been extremely active in the courts, filing briefs in favor of voting restrictions in Nevada, Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota, among other places, at times represented by lawyers from the same firm that represents Trump. By having a hand in both voting litigation and the judges on the federal bench, this network could create a system where conservative donors have an avenue to both oppose voting rights and appoint judges to back that effort.
Despite appearing to be a free-standing new operation, the Honest Elections Project is just a legal alias for the Judicial Education Project, a well-financed nonprofit connected to a powerful network of dark money conservative groups, according to business records reviewed by the Guardian and OpenSecrets.
“These are really well-funded groups that in the context of judicial nominations have been systematically, over the long term but also the short term, kind of pushing an agenda to pack the courts with pretty extreme right wing nominees,” said Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The infrastructure that they’ve built over the years has been a really important vehicle for them to do this.”
For nearly a decade, the organization has been almost entirely funded by DonorsTrust, known as a “dark money ATM” backed by the Koch network and other prominent conservative donors, according to data tracked by OpenSecrets. In 2018, more than 99% of the Judicial Education Project’s funding came from a single $7.8m donation from DonorsTrust.
The Judicial Education Project is also closely linked to Leonard Leo, one of the most powerful people in Washington who has shaped Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to remake the federal judiciary with conservative judges.
The organization has deftly hidden the changes to its name from public view. In December, the Judicial Education Project formally changed its legal name to The 85 Fund, a group Leo backed to funnel “tens of millions” of dollars into conservative causes, according to Axios. The Honest Elections Project is merely a fictitious name – an alias – the fund legally adopted in February. The change was nearly indiscernible because The 85 Fund registered two other legal aliases on the same day, including the Judicial Education Project, its old name. The legal maneuver allows it to operate under four different names with little public disclosure that it is the same group.
The Judicial Education Project is closely aligned with the Judicial Crisis Network, a group with unmatched influence in recent years in shaping the federal judiciary. The Judicial Crisis Network spearheaded the campaigns to get Gorsuch and Kavanaugh confirmed to the US supreme court, spending millions of dollars in each instance. It has also spent significantly on critical state supreme court races across the country.
There is a lot of overlap between the Honest Elections Project and the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups share personnel, including Carrie Severino, the influential president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Both groups have been funded by The Wellspring Committee, a group Leo raised money for until it shut down in 2018. Both have also paid money to BH Group, an LLC Leo once disclosed as his employer, that made a $1m mystery donation to Trump’s inauguration.
“This is a small community that is really trying to push forward these more suppressive tactics that will be challenged in court and having those judges on the bench, they’re really hoping it’s going to continue to rig the system in their favor,” said Lena Zwarensteyn, who closely follows judicial nominations at the Leadership Conference. “By changing the rules of the game and who the referees are, they’re trying to change the landscape.”
Neither the Honest Elections Project nor the Judicial Crisis Network responded to requests for an interview.
The Honest Elections Project has become active as Republicans are scaling up their efforts to fight to keep voting restrictions in place ahead of the election. The Republican National Committee will spend at least $20m on litigation over voting rights and wants to recruit up to 50,000 people to help monitor the polls and other election activities.
Gupta said seeing a group that has been extremely successful in pushing judicial confirmations turn its attention to voting rights was alarming.
“It isn’t any surprise to those of us that do work in both of these spaces that our opponents [who] want to constrict access to voting, access to the courts, who are seeking an anti-inclusive, anti-civil rights agenda are one in the same,” she said.
A completely absurd conspiracy theory about Bill Gates is shockingly popular on the right wing
Alex Henderson - alternet
May 22, 2020
Along with Dr. Anthony Fauci and prominent Democrats such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been a frequent target at far-right anti-shutdown protests. Extremists have accused him not only of using the coronavirus pandemic to hurt President Donald Trump but of designing some vast plot aimed at societal control.
And according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted on May 20 and 21, these preposterous beliefs are surprisingly popular on the right wing.
Yahoo News’ Andrew Romano reports that 44% of Republicans “believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements — a widely debunked conspiracy theory with no basis in fact…. In contrast, just 19% of Democrats believe the same spurious narrative about the Microsoft founder and public health philanthropist.”
The poll also found a connection between the media outlets that respondents were consuming and whether or not they believed that anti-Gates conspiracy theory. Naturally, whether one voted for Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a factor as well.
“Take the Gates example,” Romano explains. “Half of all Americans, 50%, who name Fox News as their primary television news source believe the disproven conspiracy theory, and 44% of voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2016 do as well — even though neither Fox nor Trump has promoted it. At the same time, just 15% of MSNBC viewers and 12% of Clinton voters say the story is true.”
The fact that 2016 Trump voters, Republicans and Fox News viewers were more likely to believe an outrageous conspiracy theory involving Gates, according to Romano, reflects “a growing problem: the dangerous, destabilizing tendency to ignore fundamental facts about the deadly pathogen in favor of misinformation peddled by partisans, including President Trump, and spread on social media.”
And according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted on May 20 and 21, these preposterous beliefs are surprisingly popular on the right wing.
Yahoo News’ Andrew Romano reports that 44% of Republicans “believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements — a widely debunked conspiracy theory with no basis in fact…. In contrast, just 19% of Democrats believe the same spurious narrative about the Microsoft founder and public health philanthropist.”
The poll also found a connection between the media outlets that respondents were consuming and whether or not they believed that anti-Gates conspiracy theory. Naturally, whether one voted for Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a factor as well.
“Take the Gates example,” Romano explains. “Half of all Americans, 50%, who name Fox News as their primary television news source believe the disproven conspiracy theory, and 44% of voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2016 do as well — even though neither Fox nor Trump has promoted it. At the same time, just 15% of MSNBC viewers and 12% of Clinton voters say the story is true.”
The fact that 2016 Trump voters, Republicans and Fox News viewers were more likely to believe an outrageous conspiracy theory involving Gates, according to Romano, reflects “a growing problem: the dangerous, destabilizing tendency to ignore fundamental facts about the deadly pathogen in favor of misinformation peddled by partisans, including President Trump, and spread on social media.”
Soldiers of the boogaloo: David Neiwert on the far right's plans for a new civil war
Author of "Alt-America": What happens this year will be a "key turning point" on the path from democracy to fascism
CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
MAY 18, 2020 11:00AM (UTC)
...Is Trump actively encouraging right-wing violence through stochastic terrorism? And if so, why aren't the American people mobilizing against such anti-democratic behavior?
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 is also the author of several books, including the recent "Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump," "Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right" and the forthcoming "Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us."
The anti-lockdown "protests" in Michigan and elsewhere appear to be staged events. In essence they are fake protests which are sponsored and created — just like the Tea Party "movement" from several years ago — by rich conservatives or corporate oligarchs. In a series of recent essays, you have suggested that these events are more complicated than that. Can you explain?
They are astroturf 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 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.
The Tea Party initially was backed by right-wing corporations, interest groups and private money, 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 closely associated with the later iterations of the Tea Party.
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.
How do you interpreting the symbols and codes being displayed and shared at these rallies?
Confederate flags were ubiquitous. There was also the Gadsden flag. 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 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.
You have talked to people involved in these various right-wing extremist and paramilitary groups and broader movements. How do the people at these rallies make sense of their claims that they are not "racist" or "violent" while they are carrying guns, waving Confederate flags, wearing other fascist insignia and in several cases displaying signs with Nazi slogans?
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 that they have wanted to kill for a very long time.
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." Also notice the "boogaloo" flag, which is blue and has an igloo and a palm tree on it.
These are references to the "boogaloo," a term meaning the 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.
This organizing is being done online on Facebook and elsewhere. Facebook thinks this is 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.
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.
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.[...]
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 is also the author of several books, including the recent "Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump," "Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right" and the forthcoming "Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us."
The anti-lockdown "protests" in Michigan and elsewhere appear to be staged events. In essence they are fake protests which are sponsored and created — just like the Tea Party "movement" from several years ago — by rich conservatives or corporate oligarchs. In a series of recent essays, you have suggested that these events are more complicated than that. Can you explain?
They are astroturf 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 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.
The Tea Party initially was backed by right-wing corporations, interest groups and private money, 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 closely associated with the later iterations of the Tea Party.
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.
How do you interpreting the symbols and codes being displayed and shared at these rallies?
Confederate flags were ubiquitous. There was also the Gadsden flag. 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 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.
You have talked to people involved in these various right-wing extremist and paramilitary groups and broader movements. How do the people at these rallies make sense of their claims that they are not "racist" or "violent" while they are carrying guns, waving Confederate flags, wearing other fascist insignia and in several cases displaying signs with Nazi slogans?
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 that they have wanted to kill for a very long time.
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." Also notice the "boogaloo" flag, which is blue and has an igloo and a palm tree on it.
These are references to the "boogaloo," a term meaning the 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.
This organizing is being done online on Facebook and elsewhere. Facebook thinks this is 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.
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.
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.[...]
Faced with an appalling US coronavirus death toll, the right denies the figures
Fox News is foremost in promoting the idea that official figures are inflated, whereas experts believe more people have died
Adam Gabbatt
the guardian
Fri 15 May 2020 07.00 EDT
As Donald Trump agitates for the US to reopen, the American right appears to have found a novel way to deal with the rising coronavirus death toll: deny it altogether.
Top Trump officials, huddled in the White House, itself the subject of a coronavirus outbreak, have according to reports begun questioning the number of deaths – and the president is among the skeptics.
It’s a handy thought process for an administration desperate to send Americans back to work even as deaths from the virus rise each day, with marked surges in some traditionally Republican states.
Trump is said to be coming round to the idea, pushed in the rightwing media for weeks, that hospitals, coroners and medical professionals across the US have been mislabelling deaths.
As far back as early April, Fox News personalities were casting doubt on the number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19. Senior political analyst Brit Hume led the charge, suggesting fatalities in New York City – the worst-hit area in the country – were “inflated” because the city did not “distinguish between those who die with the disease and those who die from it”. Hume retweeted a chart showing that many people who died had pre-existing conditions.
Hume repeated the claim on Tucker Carlson’s show. He appeared to convince Carlson, who suggested “there may be reasons that people seek an inaccurate death count” and added: “When journalists work with numbers, there sometimes is an agenda, unfortunately.”
Trump is said to be questioning whether the death toll is lower than officially stated. He has stopped short of saying so in public, but in April he retweeted a man who mused of Democrats: “Do you really think these lunatics wouldn’t inflate the mortality rates by underreporting the infection rates in an attempt to steal the election?”
Trump has consistently under-predicted how many people will die from the virus. In February he said there would soon be “close to zero” cases. On 20 April, he suggested “50 to 60,000” could die. The US passed that figure nine days later. More than 85,000 have now died.
In fact, epidemiologists including Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top public health expert, say more people have died from coronavirus than has been reported.
But it’s a struggle to find similar perspectives in the rightwing media upon which many Americans rely.
At the start of May, the Fox News host Laura Ingraham criticized the addition of presumptive coronavirus deaths to the official tolls. “Ahh, retrospectively adding deaths to the Covid count,” she said. “No issues there, I’m sure. No issues with accuracy.”
More than 3,000 deaths were added to the record in New York City in April, as the official figures had not included people who died at home or those who exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus but were not tested for it. Testing kits were particularly difficult to come by in March and early April.
The list of people pushing the death toll non-scandal reads like a who’s who of conspiracy theorists. Alex Jones, the InfoWars host, is a keen proponent of the concept, as are Diamond and Silk, Trump sycophants recently axed by Fox Nation.
One common claim is that hospitals receive more money from Medicare if they are treating a patient with the coronavirus compared with other illnesses, and so are inflating their numbers. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota state senator and family physician, began hawking this theory in early April, leading to an appearance on Ingraham’s show.
“Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a Covid-19 admission to the hospital, you’ll get paid $13,000,” Jensen said.
“If that Covid-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things [don’t] impact on what we do.”
Jensen appeared to be accusing hospitals of fraud – something he later denied – but the idea stuck.
Factcheckers have found no evidence to support Jensen’s claims – in fact, some hospital revenues are expected to be down, due to the cancellation of non-elective procedures – but the idea of labeling illnesses as coronavirus for cash became a talking point on rightwing Facebook groups and beyond.
Worryingly, the disinformation push seems to be working. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that the death toll has become a political issue, 40% of Republicans believing fewer Americans are dying from coronavirus than the official toll says.
A separate study, published at the end of April, revealed the stark consequences of prominent figures underplaying the impact of Covid-19. A group of researchers tracked the spread of coronavirus among viewers of Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, after Hannity spent weeks downplaying the threat.
“Greater exposure to Hannity,” the researchers wrote, “leads to a greater number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.”
Top Trump officials, huddled in the White House, itself the subject of a coronavirus outbreak, have according to reports begun questioning the number of deaths – and the president is among the skeptics.
It’s a handy thought process for an administration desperate to send Americans back to work even as deaths from the virus rise each day, with marked surges in some traditionally Republican states.
Trump is said to be coming round to the idea, pushed in the rightwing media for weeks, that hospitals, coroners and medical professionals across the US have been mislabelling deaths.
As far back as early April, Fox News personalities were casting doubt on the number of people who had succumbed to Covid-19. Senior political analyst Brit Hume led the charge, suggesting fatalities in New York City – the worst-hit area in the country – were “inflated” because the city did not “distinguish between those who die with the disease and those who die from it”. Hume retweeted a chart showing that many people who died had pre-existing conditions.
Hume repeated the claim on Tucker Carlson’s show. He appeared to convince Carlson, who suggested “there may be reasons that people seek an inaccurate death count” and added: “When journalists work with numbers, there sometimes is an agenda, unfortunately.”
Trump is said to be questioning whether the death toll is lower than officially stated. He has stopped short of saying so in public, but in April he retweeted a man who mused of Democrats: “Do you really think these lunatics wouldn’t inflate the mortality rates by underreporting the infection rates in an attempt to steal the election?”
Trump has consistently under-predicted how many people will die from the virus. In February he said there would soon be “close to zero” cases. On 20 April, he suggested “50 to 60,000” could die. The US passed that figure nine days later. More than 85,000 have now died.
In fact, epidemiologists including Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top public health expert, say more people have died from coronavirus than has been reported.
But it’s a struggle to find similar perspectives in the rightwing media upon which many Americans rely.
At the start of May, the Fox News host Laura Ingraham criticized the addition of presumptive coronavirus deaths to the official tolls. “Ahh, retrospectively adding deaths to the Covid count,” she said. “No issues there, I’m sure. No issues with accuracy.”
More than 3,000 deaths were added to the record in New York City in April, as the official figures had not included people who died at home or those who exhibited symptoms of the coronavirus but were not tested for it. Testing kits were particularly difficult to come by in March and early April.
The list of people pushing the death toll non-scandal reads like a who’s who of conspiracy theorists. Alex Jones, the InfoWars host, is a keen proponent of the concept, as are Diamond and Silk, Trump sycophants recently axed by Fox Nation.
One common claim is that hospitals receive more money from Medicare if they are treating a patient with the coronavirus compared with other illnesses, and so are inflating their numbers. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota state senator and family physician, began hawking this theory in early April, leading to an appearance on Ingraham’s show.
“Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a Covid-19 admission to the hospital, you’ll get paid $13,000,” Jensen said.
“If that Covid-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things [don’t] impact on what we do.”
Jensen appeared to be accusing hospitals of fraud – something he later denied – but the idea stuck.
Factcheckers have found no evidence to support Jensen’s claims – in fact, some hospital revenues are expected to be down, due to the cancellation of non-elective procedures – but the idea of labeling illnesses as coronavirus for cash became a talking point on rightwing Facebook groups and beyond.
Worryingly, the disinformation push seems to be working. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that the death toll has become a political issue, 40% of Republicans believing fewer Americans are dying from coronavirus than the official toll says.
A separate study, published at the end of April, revealed the stark consequences of prominent figures underplaying the impact of Covid-19. A group of researchers tracked the spread of coronavirus among viewers of Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, after Hannity spent weeks downplaying the threat.
“Greater exposure to Hannity,” the researchers wrote, “leads to a greater number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.”
preying on the stupid and the ignorant!!!
The 1918 pandemic was linked to a rise in Nazi support. Will this pandemic be similar?
As with coronavirus, the 1918 flu led to a rise in xenophobia and budget cuts. Then it helped usher in Nazi rule
IGOR DERYSH - salon
MAY 10, 2020 11:30PM (UTC)
A new study by an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York linked the 1918 flu pandemic to the rise in Nazi support in Germany, a finding that could have significant relevance as the United States and the world grapples with the health and economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus.
Experts have frequently compared the current health crisis to the 1918 pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. A new report by Kristian Blickle, an economist at the New York Fed, suggests that along with high death tolls and an economic downturn, the 1918 flu also correlated with the rise in support for extremist right-wing parties, particularly the Nazis, in regions with the highest death rates.
Though historians have often pointed to Germany's defeat in World War I and dissatisfaction with the post-war Weimar Republic as paving the way for the rise of the Nazis, the Fed study found that "influenza deaths are correlated with the share of votes received by extremist parties in 1932 and 1933."
The trend particularly favored right-wing extremist parties, Blickle noted. While extreme left parties, like the Communist Party, saw their vote share decline, the Nazi Party, the "clear party of the extreme right," saw gains in support in regions with the highest death rates.
The study looked at vote shares in different regions of Germany in the wake of the pandemic, which killed an estimated 287,000 people in Germany alone.
"The particular strain of influenza that raged in 1918 to 1920 largely affected younger people and thereby reshaped demographics," the report said. "Regions most heavily affected lost a relatively larger share of their youth, which compounded the effects of the war. This may have changed the development of societal attitudes going forward."
The age groups affected seems to be the major difference between the 1918 flu pandemic and the current pandemic, which is more likely to be deadly to seniors.
In the case of the 1918 pandemic, these trends were evident even when controlling for various other factors.
"This holds even when we control for a city's ethnic and religious makeup, regional unemployment, past right-wing voting, and other local characteristics assumed to drive the extremist vote share," Blickle wrote. "The deaths brought about by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920 profoundly shaped German society."
The pandemic was unique, and other illnesses were not linked to similar trends.
"Tuberculosis was still rampant and a cause of death for many people during and immediately following the first world war," Blickle said. "In fact, it killed a similar number of people as influenza in 1918. However, mortality from tuberculosis was a well-established part of life in the early twentieth century."
The virus, frequently referred to as the "Spanish flu" even though it likely originated at a military base in the United States, also gave rise to xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners.
"Given the virus' perceived foreign origins, it may have fostered a resentment of foreigners who were seen as responsible for the pandemic," Blickle wrote, adding that the vote share for right-wing extremists particularly increased in "regions that had historically blamed minorities, particularly Jews, for medieval plagues."
The study also found that reduced spending following the outbreak contributed to the rise in extremist voting.
"Clearly, austerity has an influence on extremism even in the face of the influenza pandemic," the report argued. "However, it is also evident that changes in regional spending are not the only channel through which influenza mortality affects voting behavior."
The report did not argue that the pandemic led to Nazism, since many other countries that suffered high flu deaths did not move rightward. However, Germany was particularly affected because it "suffered a high number of influenza deaths."
"Given a number of econometric challenges, we are cautious about the interpretation of our results," Blickle acknowledged. "Nevertheless, the study offers a novel contribution to the discussion surrounding the long-term effects of pandemics."
Though the study looked at effects in the years following the pandemic, there are already signs that the United States and other countries could experience a period not unlike the one that followed the 1918 pandemic.
The US has by far the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, reporting more than 1.25 million cases and more than 76,000 deaths as of Thursday.
The pandemic has led to an increase in xenophobia toward Asian Americans. Roughly one in three Americans, and about 60% of Asian Americans, said they have witnessed people blaming Asians for the health crisis in a recent Ipsos survey.
There have been increasing reports of attacks targeting Asian Americans across the country and colleges have reported a rise in attacks on Asian and Asian American students.
President Donald Trump and his administration have contributed to the rhetoric, labeling the current illness the "Chinese virus," the "Wuhan virus," and reportedly even the "Kung Flu."
Trump has pushed a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan despite intelligence agencies pushing back on the claim. Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser who was recently appointed as the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, tweeted that "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters" among a number of racist tweets he has since deleted. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued that Chinese students should be banned from studying science at American colleges.
Trump has also used the crisis to advance his anti-immigration agenda and undermine global agencies.
The Royal United Service Institute, a British-based independent think tank, reported last week that far-right groups have attempted to exploit the current crisis by "promoting disinformation and conspiracy theories to enhance their anti-immigrant or anti-government agendas and attract a new range of followers."
The US could also face a period of austerity on the local, state, and federal levels. Republicans are already pushing to cut unemployment benefits to the more than 30 million people who have lost their jobs amid the crisis. Trump and Republican leaders have also come out against providing aid to states and local governments to alleviate their massive budget shortfalls.
"If we don't get federal assistance, you're looking at education cuts of close to 50 percent in the state of New York," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned last month, adding that cuts would also hit police, firefighters, and health workers. "How ludicrous would it be to now cut hospital funding from state governments?"
As the country deals with a rise in xenophobia and possible austerity measures, the current pandemic has also helped far-right groups ramp up recruitment, particularly among young people.
The lockdowns across the country create a "perfect storm for recruitment and radicalization" by far-right groups, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor who heads the extremism research lab PERIL, told NPR. "For extremists, this is an ideal time to exploit youth grievances about their lack of agency, their families' economic distress, and their intense sense of disorientation, confusion, fear and anxiety."
Brad Galloway of the anti-extremist group Life After Hate agreed that it was important to combat the explosion in far-right recruitment efforts amid the pandemic.
"They prey upon any kind of societal or community division," he told Time. "Right now people are pretty fragile, and this is the time that they will try to take advantage."
Experts have frequently compared the current health crisis to the 1918 pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. A new report by Kristian Blickle, an economist at the New York Fed, suggests that along with high death tolls and an economic downturn, the 1918 flu also correlated with the rise in support for extremist right-wing parties, particularly the Nazis, in regions with the highest death rates.
Though historians have often pointed to Germany's defeat in World War I and dissatisfaction with the post-war Weimar Republic as paving the way for the rise of the Nazis, the Fed study found that "influenza deaths are correlated with the share of votes received by extremist parties in 1932 and 1933."
The trend particularly favored right-wing extremist parties, Blickle noted. While extreme left parties, like the Communist Party, saw their vote share decline, the Nazi Party, the "clear party of the extreme right," saw gains in support in regions with the highest death rates.
The study looked at vote shares in different regions of Germany in the wake of the pandemic, which killed an estimated 287,000 people in Germany alone.
"The particular strain of influenza that raged in 1918 to 1920 largely affected younger people and thereby reshaped demographics," the report said. "Regions most heavily affected lost a relatively larger share of their youth, which compounded the effects of the war. This may have changed the development of societal attitudes going forward."
The age groups affected seems to be the major difference between the 1918 flu pandemic and the current pandemic, which is more likely to be deadly to seniors.
In the case of the 1918 pandemic, these trends were evident even when controlling for various other factors.
"This holds even when we control for a city's ethnic and religious makeup, regional unemployment, past right-wing voting, and other local characteristics assumed to drive the extremist vote share," Blickle wrote. "The deaths brought about by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920 profoundly shaped German society."
The pandemic was unique, and other illnesses were not linked to similar trends.
"Tuberculosis was still rampant and a cause of death for many people during and immediately following the first world war," Blickle said. "In fact, it killed a similar number of people as influenza in 1918. However, mortality from tuberculosis was a well-established part of life in the early twentieth century."
The virus, frequently referred to as the "Spanish flu" even though it likely originated at a military base in the United States, also gave rise to xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners.
"Given the virus' perceived foreign origins, it may have fostered a resentment of foreigners who were seen as responsible for the pandemic," Blickle wrote, adding that the vote share for right-wing extremists particularly increased in "regions that had historically blamed minorities, particularly Jews, for medieval plagues."
The study also found that reduced spending following the outbreak contributed to the rise in extremist voting.
"Clearly, austerity has an influence on extremism even in the face of the influenza pandemic," the report argued. "However, it is also evident that changes in regional spending are not the only channel through which influenza mortality affects voting behavior."
The report did not argue that the pandemic led to Nazism, since many other countries that suffered high flu deaths did not move rightward. However, Germany was particularly affected because it "suffered a high number of influenza deaths."
"Given a number of econometric challenges, we are cautious about the interpretation of our results," Blickle acknowledged. "Nevertheless, the study offers a novel contribution to the discussion surrounding the long-term effects of pandemics."
Though the study looked at effects in the years following the pandemic, there are already signs that the United States and other countries could experience a period not unlike the one that followed the 1918 pandemic.
The US has by far the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, reporting more than 1.25 million cases and more than 76,000 deaths as of Thursday.
The pandemic has led to an increase in xenophobia toward Asian Americans. Roughly one in three Americans, and about 60% of Asian Americans, said they have witnessed people blaming Asians for the health crisis in a recent Ipsos survey.
There have been increasing reports of attacks targeting Asian Americans across the country and colleges have reported a rise in attacks on Asian and Asian American students.
President Donald Trump and his administration have contributed to the rhetoric, labeling the current illness the "Chinese virus," the "Wuhan virus," and reportedly even the "Kung Flu."
Trump has pushed a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a lab in Wuhan despite intelligence agencies pushing back on the claim. Michael Caputo, a longtime Trump adviser who was recently appointed as the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, tweeted that "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters" among a number of racist tweets he has since deleted. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., argued that Chinese students should be banned from studying science at American colleges.
Trump has also used the crisis to advance his anti-immigration agenda and undermine global agencies.
The Royal United Service Institute, a British-based independent think tank, reported last week that far-right groups have attempted to exploit the current crisis by "promoting disinformation and conspiracy theories to enhance their anti-immigrant or anti-government agendas and attract a new range of followers."
The US could also face a period of austerity on the local, state, and federal levels. Republicans are already pushing to cut unemployment benefits to the more than 30 million people who have lost their jobs amid the crisis. Trump and Republican leaders have also come out against providing aid to states and local governments to alleviate their massive budget shortfalls.
"If we don't get federal assistance, you're looking at education cuts of close to 50 percent in the state of New York," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned last month, adding that cuts would also hit police, firefighters, and health workers. "How ludicrous would it be to now cut hospital funding from state governments?"
As the country deals with a rise in xenophobia and possible austerity measures, the current pandemic has also helped far-right groups ramp up recruitment, particularly among young people.
The lockdowns across the country create a "perfect storm for recruitment and radicalization" by far-right groups, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor who heads the extremism research lab PERIL, told NPR. "For extremists, this is an ideal time to exploit youth grievances about their lack of agency, their families' economic distress, and their intense sense of disorientation, confusion, fear and anxiety."
Brad Galloway of the anti-extremist group Life After Hate agreed that it was important to combat the explosion in far-right recruitment efforts amid the pandemic.
"They prey upon any kind of societal or community division," he told Time. "Right now people are pretty fragile, and this is the time that they will try to take advantage."
What, Exactly, Do The COVID Protesters Want?
An Open Letter to the Unmasked Men and Women Marching on State Capitols
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor
5/5/2020
Dear State House Protesters,
Usually, I’m all in favor of protest. Far be it from me to suggest that you are fodder for some strictly rightist political campaigning, but perhaps you can set down your semi-automatic weapons for a moment. Let’s talk about what exactly you want in these continuing attempts to flaunt public health rules and rush us into re-opening all public activities, forgoing protective masks and forgetting physical distance measures.
It was a beautiful weekend here in New York City, just the kind of weather that you seem to see as demanding that people flock to beaches, golf courses or parks to re-start ball games Right Now. Or visit the beauty salon – today.
We sat alone on our sunny Harlem apartment building roof, perhaps occasionally changing the horizon to something greener or beachier than the cityscape before us. The only thing to interrupt our warm musings was the background noise of another dozen ambulances regularly racing towards Harlem Hospital.
You see, that piercing sound of the ambulance is evidence of a continuing problem, a necessary nod to the reality that coronavirus has not left, no matter how much you want to wish it away magically. We’re down from more than 800 people a day dying in the city to under 300 – but that is still a lot.
When we walked to the local market, all but one person we passed accepted the idea that a mask might help protect others – and that guy wasn’t much part of the real world altogether. In the market, there was no pushing or shoving, but rather an upbeat acceptance of our circumstances. We checked on family and friends, did work and volunteered from home, read books to the grandkids by Zoom.
Would we rather be together, or ensuring that all were at work. Of course. But there is this nagging contagion problem, and we’re adapting.
In other words, we are living our lives – without endangering your health or anyone else’s.
The Message from Protests
What we’re hearing and seeing from your grandstanding protests at various statehouses are attempts to intimidate state legislators and governors towards, well, speeding up the re-opening efforts that are already underway.
We find that set of messages a little confusing because there seem to be several protests being lumped together in media images.
In any event, we don’t get the point of the guns, swastikas and anti-Semitic memes (how did we get there?), confederate flags, and mask-less yelling. Those don’t make the disease go away – or apparently change whether there should be statewide health guidance.
Jobs. There is a group that is genuinely worried about getting back to work, pushing back against the terrible effects of an economic shutdown. We’re right with you. So are governors, by the way, which is why they already are moving to re-open stores and jobs, though they may be more interested in reducing unemployment claims than opening manufacturing lines. This is to say nothing of the problem of persuading enough consumers through the doors to keep businesses alive.
What we cannot understand about these statehouse protests is why they are not demanding that employers establish safety regulations to re-open with lessened health risks. The meat-packing example is evidence aplenty that profit motives do not necessarily protect workers. Just for nothing, there are suddenly oodles of jobs available for those willing to go outside and, rather than protest, deliver, warehouse, clean and trace medical contacts.
Recreation. Then there is a group that seems most worried about when to get back to surfing and sunning on the beach, golf and sports, the individual right to pursue happiness. They want all physical distancing rules suspended to allow them to have summer fun. These folks confuse me because their choices seem to come with little responsibility, either towards restoring the economy or towards keeping my health intact. Is it unfair that the image of that woman demanding the right to her haircut keeps coming to mind or the protester with a surfboard under his arm?
Freedom-fighters. These are the folks who are showing up to complain about rules altogether, who draw a straight line from health guidance to anti-gun legislation or envision some kind of public intimidation court where coronavirus is an acceptable outcome for individual decision-making. Now we can start adding anti-vaxxers in anticipation of getting to an actual anti-coronavirus vaccine, a step that would allow us to re-open fully as a society – except that some object to vaccines altogether.
These people seem to deny that there is such a thing as a contagious disease, but they accept the idea that they drive on the right side of the road, or can collect state benefits. Some are organized by pro-Donald Trump groups and believe in disruption as an end in itself. Whatever.
What to Do
Just for the sake of their own personal protection, it seems reasonable that even the most extreme of the protesters would wear face masks. For sure, I wish they’d see the logic of covering their mouth or protesting from a few feet from one another just so they would be less likely to get the disease.
What I think we all should be protesting is a federal government that does not want to deal with the hard work of lessening health dangers rather than state governors who will do in a week or two what most protesters want today.
These protests don’t seem to acknowledge that jobs are going to be a problem whether the distancing rules are lifted or not. Companies are going to be wary about bringing everyone back to hiring rolls, and even if they do, consumers are not necessarily going to flock to malls and stores to buy goods in the numbers that will underwrite advertising, transportation, even utility costs in the same manner as six months ago.
Protests would be better focused on demanding job training and continuing unemployment benefits – on programs that actually expand government programs rather than on demands for government to butt out.
Let me know, I’ll be on the roof – where we can still hear the ambulance sirens.
Usually, I’m all in favor of protest. Far be it from me to suggest that you are fodder for some strictly rightist political campaigning, but perhaps you can set down your semi-automatic weapons for a moment. Let’s talk about what exactly you want in these continuing attempts to flaunt public health rules and rush us into re-opening all public activities, forgoing protective masks and forgetting physical distance measures.
It was a beautiful weekend here in New York City, just the kind of weather that you seem to see as demanding that people flock to beaches, golf courses or parks to re-start ball games Right Now. Or visit the beauty salon – today.
We sat alone on our sunny Harlem apartment building roof, perhaps occasionally changing the horizon to something greener or beachier than the cityscape before us. The only thing to interrupt our warm musings was the background noise of another dozen ambulances regularly racing towards Harlem Hospital.
You see, that piercing sound of the ambulance is evidence of a continuing problem, a necessary nod to the reality that coronavirus has not left, no matter how much you want to wish it away magically. We’re down from more than 800 people a day dying in the city to under 300 – but that is still a lot.
When we walked to the local market, all but one person we passed accepted the idea that a mask might help protect others – and that guy wasn’t much part of the real world altogether. In the market, there was no pushing or shoving, but rather an upbeat acceptance of our circumstances. We checked on family and friends, did work and volunteered from home, read books to the grandkids by Zoom.
Would we rather be together, or ensuring that all were at work. Of course. But there is this nagging contagion problem, and we’re adapting.
In other words, we are living our lives – without endangering your health or anyone else’s.
The Message from Protests
What we’re hearing and seeing from your grandstanding protests at various statehouses are attempts to intimidate state legislators and governors towards, well, speeding up the re-opening efforts that are already underway.
We find that set of messages a little confusing because there seem to be several protests being lumped together in media images.
In any event, we don’t get the point of the guns, swastikas and anti-Semitic memes (how did we get there?), confederate flags, and mask-less yelling. Those don’t make the disease go away – or apparently change whether there should be statewide health guidance.
Jobs. There is a group that is genuinely worried about getting back to work, pushing back against the terrible effects of an economic shutdown. We’re right with you. So are governors, by the way, which is why they already are moving to re-open stores and jobs, though they may be more interested in reducing unemployment claims than opening manufacturing lines. This is to say nothing of the problem of persuading enough consumers through the doors to keep businesses alive.
What we cannot understand about these statehouse protests is why they are not demanding that employers establish safety regulations to re-open with lessened health risks. The meat-packing example is evidence aplenty that profit motives do not necessarily protect workers. Just for nothing, there are suddenly oodles of jobs available for those willing to go outside and, rather than protest, deliver, warehouse, clean and trace medical contacts.
Recreation. Then there is a group that seems most worried about when to get back to surfing and sunning on the beach, golf and sports, the individual right to pursue happiness. They want all physical distancing rules suspended to allow them to have summer fun. These folks confuse me because their choices seem to come with little responsibility, either towards restoring the economy or towards keeping my health intact. Is it unfair that the image of that woman demanding the right to her haircut keeps coming to mind or the protester with a surfboard under his arm?
Freedom-fighters. These are the folks who are showing up to complain about rules altogether, who draw a straight line from health guidance to anti-gun legislation or envision some kind of public intimidation court where coronavirus is an acceptable outcome for individual decision-making. Now we can start adding anti-vaxxers in anticipation of getting to an actual anti-coronavirus vaccine, a step that would allow us to re-open fully as a society – except that some object to vaccines altogether.
These people seem to deny that there is such a thing as a contagious disease, but they accept the idea that they drive on the right side of the road, or can collect state benefits. Some are organized by pro-Donald Trump groups and believe in disruption as an end in itself. Whatever.
What to Do
Just for the sake of their own personal protection, it seems reasonable that even the most extreme of the protesters would wear face masks. For sure, I wish they’d see the logic of covering their mouth or protesting from a few feet from one another just so they would be less likely to get the disease.
What I think we all should be protesting is a federal government that does not want to deal with the hard work of lessening health dangers rather than state governors who will do in a week or two what most protesters want today.
These protests don’t seem to acknowledge that jobs are going to be a problem whether the distancing rules are lifted or not. Companies are going to be wary about bringing everyone back to hiring rolls, and even if they do, consumers are not necessarily going to flock to malls and stores to buy goods in the numbers that will underwrite advertising, transportation, even utility costs in the same manner as six months ago.
Protests would be better focused on demanding job training and continuing unemployment benefits – on programs that actually expand government programs rather than on demands for government to butt out.
Let me know, I’ll be on the roof – where we can still hear the ambulance sirens.
op - ed: Far Right Group Behind Boston’s “Straight Pride” Also Organized “Reopen” Protest
BY William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED May 5, 2020
In March of 1770, a group of British troops found themselves accosted by a mob of angry colonists in Boston. The soldiers were pelted with rocks, snowballs, and struck with clubs. Finally, one soldier fired his weapon in self-defense, and the other troops followed suit. When the smoke cleared, three colonists lay dead. Eight others were wounded, and two of those would later succumb to their injuries.
The event became known as the Boston Massacre, and was initially a public opinion coup for Patriot activists like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, who held up the shooting as another bloody example of cruel British rule. At trial, the soldiers were successfully defended by future U.S. president John Adams, who highlighted the difference between the actual events and the propaganda that followed by saying, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Yesterday, 250 years and two months removed from that shooting on King Street, a second Boston Massacre may well have taken place on Beacon Street, in the shadow of the gold-domed Massachusetts State House. Nobody got shot, everyone walked away, but if COVID-19 was there, the massacre that may ensue will put the events on King Street so long ago in deep historical shade.
Around 2,000 “Reopen” protesters gathered at the State House in Boston yesterday to demand the lifting of the stay-at-home orders and social distancing strictures. Openly defiant, they crowded together shoulder to shoulder and back to front in a tight space outside the gate from the State House steps, and almost none of them were wearing masks.
If COVID-19 was in that crowd — a distinct probability given the burden of infections Boston is enduring –it probably made a whole bunch of new friends, people who will bring their unmasked defiance home to spouses, elderly parents or immunocompromised neighbors, and the disease will spread further, and the pandemic will grow worse.
Those protesters may believe they can run through the COVID-19 raindrops without getting wet. If they do, it will be the first time such an escape has happened anywhere in the world since this thing began.
The event, labeled “The Liberty Rally,” was organized by the far right organization Super Happy Fun America and promoted by local conservative radio host Jeffrey Kuhner, who used his WRKO radio show and Twitter account to encourage attendance. Kuhner is little more than a boilerplate far right agitator who got his big media break promoting anti-Muslim hate and wants to be Rush Limbaugh when he grows up.
Super Fun Happy America, however, is another matter entirely. They came to public notice when they organized a “Straight Pride” parade in Boston in 2019. The “parade” came off limply, and the attendees were vastly outnumbered by counterdemonstrators. The organizers attempted to paint the “parade” as a lighthearted attempt to claim “Straight Lives Matter,” but the intentions of this organization are deadly serious. Super Fun Happy America is an appendage of the far right organization Resist Marxism, whose leaders and associates are among the most violent fascist and white supremacist activists in the country.
“While the idea of a few dozen angry straight people marching might be funny, the actual origins of Straight Pride Parade are not. The event is a front for a far right group founded by notorious right-wing brawler Kyle ‘Based Stickman’ Chapman,” wrote Daily Beast journalist Will Sommer last year. “At least one Resist Marxism event had security provided by Patriot Front, a white nationalist hate group.”
These are the people who were behind the Boston protest on Monday, and their presence as the motivator for the event is telling. For one thing, the crowd was festooned with every kind of pro-Trump sign and gear you can imagine. After the Charlottesville debacle, the White House got mostly out of the business of openly endorsing fascists, but I don’t believe all that Trump gear at the protest fell conveniently out of the sky.
This is hardly the first instance of far right Trump-supporting groups conjuring “Reopen” protests out of a U.S. population that massively supports the stay-at-home/social distancing protocols. In Michigan last month, a cohort of gun rights agitators organized a small but heavily armed group of protesters to menace the Capitol building in Lansing.
“On the ground, pro-Trump figures — including some who act as surrogates for his campaign — as well as groups affiliated with prominent conservative donors have helped organize and promote the demonstrations,” reported The Washington Post on April 19.
It is worth noting that Trump himself tweeted his block-letter support for those Michigan protesters, as well as for similar gun-heavy protests in Virginia and Minnesota. The White House is mostly out of the business of openly endorsing fascists … unless Trump is on Twitter, that is.
Jeffrey Kuhner, the main speaker in Boston, made it clear that the organizers of “The Liberty Rally” were deeply aligned with Trump’s view of the COVID threat. “It’s not a pandemic!” he cried as the crowd chanted, “It’s a hoax!” in the same cadence as “Lock her up!” Kuhner wasn’t finished. “The reason why they’re doing this,” he said, “[is] to turn the United States of America into the United Socialist States of America.”
Thus, the hand is tipped. Trump and his allies are pushing hard to reopen the economy, even if it comes to cause 200,000 infections and 3,000 deaths a day by June, a projection touted in a report produced by Trump’s own government. The protesters may have an array of motives, but Trump and his allies appear to be primarily motivated by a drive to save capitalism, even from itself.
If the federal government actually starts helping people — by way of assistance funding to states and individuals, as well as a mass testing regimen to properly track the pandemic — Trump and his allies fear that capitalism will lose its stranglehold on the nation. People will see that government can work, and in their increasing desperation, will seek that deeply needed help.
Kuhner explicitly explained why Trump and his allies are refusing to do everything they can do to suppress this pandemic, and are in fact willing to accept a new wave of massive death: A fear of “the United Socialist States of America.” The dreaded s-word, resurrected once again, as a bugaboo to frighten people away from the idea that government can be a force for good in a time of crisis.
If that idea is allowed to take root, all the terrible gains made by the capitalists — slowly but surely sought and secured since the days of Franklin Roosevelt — will fall to dust. They will sacrifice you to keep that from happening.
The organizations and their backers who are promoting these protest gatherings are putting Trump’s own supporters in grave danger. COVID-19 has begun a hot burn through the states that helped carry Trump to the White House. “Since March 29, Michigan gained an additional 31 high-covid counties overall; Florida gained an additional 28; Pennsylvania gained 31; North Carolina gained 40; Wisconsin gained eight; and Arizona gained five,” reports The Washington Post.
By now, it is abundantly clear to most folks that Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about people who do not support him with slavish adoration. Trump’s personal promotion of these far-right “Reopen” protests, along with the heavy presence of his campaign at the actual rallies, and the fact that the so-called “battleground states” that carried him home in ‘16 are being overtaken by the virus, makes it clear that he does not care about his own people, either.
This is about the money, and what Trump must do to make it happy. If that gathering in Boston on Monday becomes yet another vector in a state that saw 1,000 new COVID cases and 86 COVID deaths on the same day, that second Boston Massacre will be on Trump’s head.
There is the act, and there is the propaganda that follows. It was the same 250 years ago as it is today. Yet facts remain stubborn things. Stubborn as COVID-19.
The event became known as the Boston Massacre, and was initially a public opinion coup for Patriot activists like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, who held up the shooting as another bloody example of cruel British rule. At trial, the soldiers were successfully defended by future U.S. president John Adams, who highlighted the difference between the actual events and the propaganda that followed by saying, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Yesterday, 250 years and two months removed from that shooting on King Street, a second Boston Massacre may well have taken place on Beacon Street, in the shadow of the gold-domed Massachusetts State House. Nobody got shot, everyone walked away, but if COVID-19 was there, the massacre that may ensue will put the events on King Street so long ago in deep historical shade.
Around 2,000 “Reopen” protesters gathered at the State House in Boston yesterday to demand the lifting of the stay-at-home orders and social distancing strictures. Openly defiant, they crowded together shoulder to shoulder and back to front in a tight space outside the gate from the State House steps, and almost none of them were wearing masks.
If COVID-19 was in that crowd — a distinct probability given the burden of infections Boston is enduring –it probably made a whole bunch of new friends, people who will bring their unmasked defiance home to spouses, elderly parents or immunocompromised neighbors, and the disease will spread further, and the pandemic will grow worse.
Those protesters may believe they can run through the COVID-19 raindrops without getting wet. If they do, it will be the first time such an escape has happened anywhere in the world since this thing began.
The event, labeled “The Liberty Rally,” was organized by the far right organization Super Happy Fun America and promoted by local conservative radio host Jeffrey Kuhner, who used his WRKO radio show and Twitter account to encourage attendance. Kuhner is little more than a boilerplate far right agitator who got his big media break promoting anti-Muslim hate and wants to be Rush Limbaugh when he grows up.
Super Fun Happy America, however, is another matter entirely. They came to public notice when they organized a “Straight Pride” parade in Boston in 2019. The “parade” came off limply, and the attendees were vastly outnumbered by counterdemonstrators. The organizers attempted to paint the “parade” as a lighthearted attempt to claim “Straight Lives Matter,” but the intentions of this organization are deadly serious. Super Fun Happy America is an appendage of the far right organization Resist Marxism, whose leaders and associates are among the most violent fascist and white supremacist activists in the country.
“While the idea of a few dozen angry straight people marching might be funny, the actual origins of Straight Pride Parade are not. The event is a front for a far right group founded by notorious right-wing brawler Kyle ‘Based Stickman’ Chapman,” wrote Daily Beast journalist Will Sommer last year. “At least one Resist Marxism event had security provided by Patriot Front, a white nationalist hate group.”
These are the people who were behind the Boston protest on Monday, and their presence as the motivator for the event is telling. For one thing, the crowd was festooned with every kind of pro-Trump sign and gear you can imagine. After the Charlottesville debacle, the White House got mostly out of the business of openly endorsing fascists, but I don’t believe all that Trump gear at the protest fell conveniently out of the sky.
This is hardly the first instance of far right Trump-supporting groups conjuring “Reopen” protests out of a U.S. population that massively supports the stay-at-home/social distancing protocols. In Michigan last month, a cohort of gun rights agitators organized a small but heavily armed group of protesters to menace the Capitol building in Lansing.
“On the ground, pro-Trump figures — including some who act as surrogates for his campaign — as well as groups affiliated with prominent conservative donors have helped organize and promote the demonstrations,” reported The Washington Post on April 19.
It is worth noting that Trump himself tweeted his block-letter support for those Michigan protesters, as well as for similar gun-heavy protests in Virginia and Minnesota. The White House is mostly out of the business of openly endorsing fascists … unless Trump is on Twitter, that is.
Jeffrey Kuhner, the main speaker in Boston, made it clear that the organizers of “The Liberty Rally” were deeply aligned with Trump’s view of the COVID threat. “It’s not a pandemic!” he cried as the crowd chanted, “It’s a hoax!” in the same cadence as “Lock her up!” Kuhner wasn’t finished. “The reason why they’re doing this,” he said, “[is] to turn the United States of America into the United Socialist States of America.”
Thus, the hand is tipped. Trump and his allies are pushing hard to reopen the economy, even if it comes to cause 200,000 infections and 3,000 deaths a day by June, a projection touted in a report produced by Trump’s own government. The protesters may have an array of motives, but Trump and his allies appear to be primarily motivated by a drive to save capitalism, even from itself.
If the federal government actually starts helping people — by way of assistance funding to states and individuals, as well as a mass testing regimen to properly track the pandemic — Trump and his allies fear that capitalism will lose its stranglehold on the nation. People will see that government can work, and in their increasing desperation, will seek that deeply needed help.
Kuhner explicitly explained why Trump and his allies are refusing to do everything they can do to suppress this pandemic, and are in fact willing to accept a new wave of massive death: A fear of “the United Socialist States of America.” The dreaded s-word, resurrected once again, as a bugaboo to frighten people away from the idea that government can be a force for good in a time of crisis.
If that idea is allowed to take root, all the terrible gains made by the capitalists — slowly but surely sought and secured since the days of Franklin Roosevelt — will fall to dust. They will sacrifice you to keep that from happening.
The organizations and their backers who are promoting these protest gatherings are putting Trump’s own supporters in grave danger. COVID-19 has begun a hot burn through the states that helped carry Trump to the White House. “Since March 29, Michigan gained an additional 31 high-covid counties overall; Florida gained an additional 28; Pennsylvania gained 31; North Carolina gained 40; Wisconsin gained eight; and Arizona gained five,” reports The Washington Post.
By now, it is abundantly clear to most folks that Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about people who do not support him with slavish adoration. Trump’s personal promotion of these far-right “Reopen” protests, along with the heavy presence of his campaign at the actual rallies, and the fact that the so-called “battleground states” that carried him home in ‘16 are being overtaken by the virus, makes it clear that he does not care about his own people, either.
This is about the money, and what Trump must do to make it happy. If that gathering in Boston on Monday becomes yet another vector in a state that saw 1,000 new COVID cases and 86 COVID deaths on the same day, that second Boston Massacre will be on Trump’s head.
There is the act, and there is the propaganda that follows. It was the same 250 years ago as it is today. Yet facts remain stubborn things. Stubborn as COVID-19.
the first astro-turf group was the kkk, a 150 years later we have the tea party and these chumps!!!
GOP donors pay to bus protesters to cities to demand governors ease coronavirus restrictions: report
As it turns out, many of the protests across the country praised by Trump are far from grassroots movements
IGOR DERYSH - salon
APRIL 24, 2020 5:10PM (UTC)
Major Republican donors are paying staffers to organize anti-lockdown protests, with plans to bus demonstrators to big cities to demand governors to let their businesses re-open and send their employees back to work.
President Donald Trump has so far praised protesters, saying the demonstrations show Americans want to go back to work.
"Look, people – they want to get back to work," Trump said Tuesday. "They got to make a living. They have to take care of their family."
But many of the protests across the country are far from grassroots movements, especially since a majority of Americans say they are more worried that coronavirus restrictions will be eased too soon than about reopening the economy,
A number of Trump-allied groups, including Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks, law firms with ties to Trump and state-based conservative groups are paying to organize the protests and even bring in individuals from outside of the cities where demonstrations take place, according to The New York Times.
"As was the case with the Tea Party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls," the outlet reported.
FreedomWorks, for example, is paying most of its 40 employees to organize the protests, and it is considering investments in digital ads to boost turnout, according to the report.
Organizers of recent demonstrations in Oklahoma admitted that the group helped arrange the event, saying they hoped to "help" Trump "politically."
Stephen Moore, an economist who Trump tapped for an advisory group for reopening the economy after his nomination to the Federal Reserve went bust, has also been coordinating with the group, as well as the Tea Party Patriots, to push for a faster re-opening of the economy.
Moore bragged in a recent interview that "one big donor in Wisconsin" pledged to "pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested."
Several former Trump administration staffers are also working with the group ReOpenNC, which told members that a "generous" donor arranged to pay for buses to bring protesters from outside the city to Raleigh. Despite local media reports that the plan was scrapped, the donor, former defense contractor Tim D'Annunzio, said he was still planning to bus in protesters.
Groups linked to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also paid to promote protests in Michigan. Many on the left have pointed to the deep-pocketed groups to argue that the protests were an example of "astroturf," or movements manufactured by groups to look like grassroots protests.
Few of the donors behind the efforts have been as outspoken as billionaire Liz Uihlein, one of the biggest Republican donors in the country. Uihlein and her husband, Richard, have contributed more to Republican causes than anyone except casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The patronage earned Uihlein a spot on Trump's economic advisory council during his 2016 campaign, and she was among the executives invited to discuss the coronavirus response with the White House last month.
"The Media is Overblowing COVID-19," she complained in an email to dozens of Illinois lawmakers in March. "At what point do we go back to our normal lives? This has been a huge disruption."
Uihlein, whose packaging company remains open because it supplies essential businesses, later sent an email to her employees urging them to sign a petition to recall Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers over allegations that the Democrat violated their constitutional right to work, Bloomberg News reported.
The email sparked tension among the staff, according to the report, after four of the company's locations reported coronavirus infections. Though some office employees have been able to work from home since March, they questioned why the company was still forcing call-center staffers to keep coming in to work.
"I want to see America get back to work," she told the outlet. "We love our customers, and we love our employees. We think about our employees and their families. We need a strong economy and a healthy business to support them."
While Trump-allied Republicans are pushing to reopen states even though they do not meet the criteria in the White House's own reopening guidelines, many traditional conservative groups like the Koch network-funded Americans for Prosperity have urged caution.
"The question is: What is the best way to get people back to work?" Emily Seidel, who heads the group, told The Times. "We don't see protests as the best way to do that . . . the choice between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice."
President Donald Trump has so far praised protesters, saying the demonstrations show Americans want to go back to work.
"Look, people – they want to get back to work," Trump said Tuesday. "They got to make a living. They have to take care of their family."
But many of the protests across the country are far from grassroots movements, especially since a majority of Americans say they are more worried that coronavirus restrictions will be eased too soon than about reopening the economy,
A number of Trump-allied groups, including Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks, law firms with ties to Trump and state-based conservative groups are paying to organize the protests and even bring in individuals from outside of the cities where demonstrations take place, according to The New York Times.
"As was the case with the Tea Party movement, established national groups that generally align with the Republican Party have sought to fuel the protests, harnessing their energy in a manner that can increase their profiles and build their membership base and donor rolls," the outlet reported.
FreedomWorks, for example, is paying most of its 40 employees to organize the protests, and it is considering investments in digital ads to boost turnout, according to the report.
Organizers of recent demonstrations in Oklahoma admitted that the group helped arrange the event, saying they hoped to "help" Trump "politically."
Stephen Moore, an economist who Trump tapped for an advisory group for reopening the economy after his nomination to the Federal Reserve went bust, has also been coordinating with the group, as well as the Tea Party Patriots, to push for a faster re-opening of the economy.
Moore bragged in a recent interview that "one big donor in Wisconsin" pledged to "pay the bail and legal fees of anyone who gets arrested."
Several former Trump administration staffers are also working with the group ReOpenNC, which told members that a "generous" donor arranged to pay for buses to bring protesters from outside the city to Raleigh. Despite local media reports that the plan was scrapped, the donor, former defense contractor Tim D'Annunzio, said he was still planning to bus in protesters.
Groups linked to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also paid to promote protests in Michigan. Many on the left have pointed to the deep-pocketed groups to argue that the protests were an example of "astroturf," or movements manufactured by groups to look like grassroots protests.
Few of the donors behind the efforts have been as outspoken as billionaire Liz Uihlein, one of the biggest Republican donors in the country. Uihlein and her husband, Richard, have contributed more to Republican causes than anyone except casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The patronage earned Uihlein a spot on Trump's economic advisory council during his 2016 campaign, and she was among the executives invited to discuss the coronavirus response with the White House last month.
"The Media is Overblowing COVID-19," she complained in an email to dozens of Illinois lawmakers in March. "At what point do we go back to our normal lives? This has been a huge disruption."
Uihlein, whose packaging company remains open because it supplies essential businesses, later sent an email to her employees urging them to sign a petition to recall Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers over allegations that the Democrat violated their constitutional right to work, Bloomberg News reported.
The email sparked tension among the staff, according to the report, after four of the company's locations reported coronavirus infections. Though some office employees have been able to work from home since March, they questioned why the company was still forcing call-center staffers to keep coming in to work.
"I want to see America get back to work," she told the outlet. "We love our customers, and we love our employees. We think about our employees and their families. We need a strong economy and a healthy business to support them."
While Trump-allied Republicans are pushing to reopen states even though they do not meet the criteria in the White House's own reopening guidelines, many traditional conservative groups like the Koch network-funded Americans for Prosperity have urged caution.
"The question is: What is the best way to get people back to work?" Emily Seidel, who heads the group, told The Times. "We don't see protests as the best way to do that . . . the choice between full shutdown and immediately opening everything is a false choice."
Christians facing social distancing rules is like Nazis persecuting Jews: religious right lawyer
April 23, 2020
By Right Wing Watch - raw story
On Todd Starnes’ radio show Wednesday, Mat Staver, founder and chairman of religious-right legal group Liberty Counsel, compared the plight of Christians in America facing enforcement of social distancing restrictions to the kinds of treatment faced by Jews in Nazi Germany.
Liberty Counsel is making the most of the COVID-19 pandemic to portray itself as a defender of embattled religious liberty and push the group’s narrative that Christians in America are facing unprecedented persecution—a narrative that also happens to be one of President Donald Trump’s main tactics for motivating and turning out conservative evangelical voters for his reelection campaign.
Starnes is himself one of the primary promoters of Christian persecution stories, and he and Staver talked about cases in which local officials have taken action against pastors and churchgoers for violating public health restrictions on group gatherings. Liberty Counsel is representing Tampa, Florida-based evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne, who was arrested for defying a local stay-at-home order, and others who have run into that kind of trouble.
Staver told Starnes about people who lost their jobs or were told they were unwelcome in a drug store when people realized they attended churches that had drawn media attention for continuing to gather. “It is unbelievable the harassment, the targeting of these churches all over the country,” Staver said. And he said a Virginia pastor Liberty Counsel is representing faces a year in prison for having “six people over the governor’s magic number of 10 in a 293-seat sanctuary.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this ever before, anything come close to this,” Staver said. “This is the most outrageous and, frankly, unbelievable situation I’ve ever seen with regards to the absolute disregard of the Constitution.”
And Staver made what certainly seems to be a comparison to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews, though he did not use those exact words:
So, it is absolutely—I mean, it’s a targeting. It is, you know, I don’t want to be too melodramatic, but I’m telling you what. You know, this happened before in history. We’ve seen people being targeted, that you are being targeted with a particular symbol that you have to wear. And then so you get targeted with your business, you get terminated from your job, and eventually you get ghettoized. And what we’re seeing here is the absolute targeting of Christians in churches to a level I’ve never even imagined would happen in America.
Staver may have said he’s never seen anything like this, but he has frequently compared Christiansin the United States today to Jews in Nazi Germany.
On Monday, Liberty Counsel launched its “ReOpen Church” campaign, “calling on the churches to open and believers to start meeting again on Sunday, May 3.” It is clear that in some parts of the country, restrictions on public gatherings will still be in place on May 3, suggesting that Liberty Counsel may be hoping to provoke additional incidents that they can portray as anti-Christian persecution.
Staver told Starnes:
Look, they said that we had to close for two weeks. Most people were fine with that. The two weeks went to four weeks, then the four weeks went to six weeks, and it continues to go on. So, then they said [gatherings should be limited to] 250, then 100, 50, 10—in New Mexico, it’s five people. And it goes on and on and on. When are we going to say enough is enough? Look, nobody wants to put their people in jeopardy. I don’t know of any pastor that wants to harm anyone. But we can take reasonable efforts. If the liquor stores can be open and all the other things that are open out there, the commercial operations that are open. Churches have a constitutional right to exist; those others do not. They don’t have the right to exist. But the First Amendment guarantee the church’s right to exist. The Greek word for church is ekklesia; where we get the word synagogue is from a Greek word synagoge. They both mean ‘assembly,’ places of assembly. So, let’s begin that process. Because the churches are more essential now than ever.
The website promoting Liberty Counsel’s “ReOpen Church Sunday” encourages churches to “include appropriate measures of sanitization and appropriate social distancing between families” and consider a range of options, including seating outside the building and online access for higher risk individuals.
Liberty Counsel is making the most of the COVID-19 pandemic to portray itself as a defender of embattled religious liberty and push the group’s narrative that Christians in America are facing unprecedented persecution—a narrative that also happens to be one of President Donald Trump’s main tactics for motivating and turning out conservative evangelical voters for his reelection campaign.
Starnes is himself one of the primary promoters of Christian persecution stories, and he and Staver talked about cases in which local officials have taken action against pastors and churchgoers for violating public health restrictions on group gatherings. Liberty Counsel is representing Tampa, Florida-based evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne, who was arrested for defying a local stay-at-home order, and others who have run into that kind of trouble.
Staver told Starnes about people who lost their jobs or were told they were unwelcome in a drug store when people realized they attended churches that had drawn media attention for continuing to gather. “It is unbelievable the harassment, the targeting of these churches all over the country,” Staver said. And he said a Virginia pastor Liberty Counsel is representing faces a year in prison for having “six people over the governor’s magic number of 10 in a 293-seat sanctuary.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this ever before, anything come close to this,” Staver said. “This is the most outrageous and, frankly, unbelievable situation I’ve ever seen with regards to the absolute disregard of the Constitution.”
And Staver made what certainly seems to be a comparison to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews, though he did not use those exact words:
So, it is absolutely—I mean, it’s a targeting. It is, you know, I don’t want to be too melodramatic, but I’m telling you what. You know, this happened before in history. We’ve seen people being targeted, that you are being targeted with a particular symbol that you have to wear. And then so you get targeted with your business, you get terminated from your job, and eventually you get ghettoized. And what we’re seeing here is the absolute targeting of Christians in churches to a level I’ve never even imagined would happen in America.
Staver may have said he’s never seen anything like this, but he has frequently compared Christiansin the United States today to Jews in Nazi Germany.
On Monday, Liberty Counsel launched its “ReOpen Church” campaign, “calling on the churches to open and believers to start meeting again on Sunday, May 3.” It is clear that in some parts of the country, restrictions on public gatherings will still be in place on May 3, suggesting that Liberty Counsel may be hoping to provoke additional incidents that they can portray as anti-Christian persecution.
Staver told Starnes:
Look, they said that we had to close for two weeks. Most people were fine with that. The two weeks went to four weeks, then the four weeks went to six weeks, and it continues to go on. So, then they said [gatherings should be limited to] 250, then 100, 50, 10—in New Mexico, it’s five people. And it goes on and on and on. When are we going to say enough is enough? Look, nobody wants to put their people in jeopardy. I don’t know of any pastor that wants to harm anyone. But we can take reasonable efforts. If the liquor stores can be open and all the other things that are open out there, the commercial operations that are open. Churches have a constitutional right to exist; those others do not. They don’t have the right to exist. But the First Amendment guarantee the church’s right to exist. The Greek word for church is ekklesia; where we get the word synagogue is from a Greek word synagoge. They both mean ‘assembly,’ places of assembly. So, let’s begin that process. Because the churches are more essential now than ever.
The website promoting Liberty Counsel’s “ReOpen Church Sunday” encourages churches to “include appropriate measures of sanitization and appropriate social distancing between families” and consider a range of options, including seating outside the building and online access for higher risk individuals.
White Nationalist Activist and Father Both Arrested for Crimes Against Women
By Jared Holt | right wing watch
April 21, 2020 3:29 pm
White nationalist activist Augustus sol Invictus, whose birth name is Austin Gillespie, and his father John Gillespie were both arrested on separate charges last weekend.
Invictus was arrested earlier this year on charges of kidnapping, “high and aggravated” domestic violence, and possession of a firearm while committing a violent crime after he allegedly choked his wife, held a gun to her head, and forced her to accompany him to Florida with him. According to The Informant, a South Carolina judge threw out the kidnapping charge and allowed Invictus to leave jail with a $10,000 bond despite Invictus’ wife begging that he stay behind bars for her and her children’s safety. The judge’s order required Invictus to not contact his wife.
Invictus was arrested after violating both the no-contact condition for his release and a protection order forbidding Augustus from contacting his wife until February 2021, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant provided to Right Wing Watch. The affidavit states that Invictus’ wife swore in a written statement that Invictus made contact with her at a park and made “daily third party contact” with her demanding to see their children. In one instance, according to the affidavit, Invictus sent a text message to their daughter instructing his wife to bring their children to the park “or else,” and in another, he told their children that their mother was a “whore” because she had a conversation with a stranger.
The affidavit states that Invictus’ wife estimated that he contacted her “20 plus times” through their daughter since his release from jail in attempts to harass her. Additionally, officials obtained messages from Invictus’ phone in which he sent photos of his wife’s vehicle and license plate to others in an effort to locate her and was “tracked driving in circles,” likely searching for his wife’s residence.
Right Wing Watch has sent a records request to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and will follow this story as we receive more information.
Invictus’s arrest was proceeded by his father’s. The elder Gillespie, who worked as a criminal defense attorney in Central Florida, was arrested Saturday after agreeing to pay for sex with a law enforcement agent posing as a 16-year-old girl, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. Investigators claimed that Gillespie was “using his law firm to recruit women into prostitution” for as long as 20 years, according to the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation.
According to an arrest affidavit provided to Right Wing Watch, authorities wiretapped several of Gillespie’s phones and intercepted several calls that “led Agents to believe John Gillespie was in fact prostituting out several females from his residence.” When an undercover officer posing as a 16-year-old girl was introduced to him, Gillespie agreed to feature the her in “adult web-camming and prostituting her out” and to pay $100 to have sex with her. Orlando Sentinel reported:
“Evidence demonstrates Gillespie would initiate women he represented on criminal charges into prostitution or exchange sex acts for legal fees,” the agency said. “Gillespie provided the women with illegal drugs, posted them on-line as escorts, arranged the prostitution dates and allowed them to use his Melbourne home for the acts of prostitution.”
John Gillespie was arrested Saturday in Orange Country, Florida, on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device. He is being held without bond.
Invictus was arrested earlier this year on charges of kidnapping, “high and aggravated” domestic violence, and possession of a firearm while committing a violent crime after he allegedly choked his wife, held a gun to her head, and forced her to accompany him to Florida with him. According to The Informant, a South Carolina judge threw out the kidnapping charge and allowed Invictus to leave jail with a $10,000 bond despite Invictus’ wife begging that he stay behind bars for her and her children’s safety. The judge’s order required Invictus to not contact his wife.
Invictus was arrested after violating both the no-contact condition for his release and a protection order forbidding Augustus from contacting his wife until February 2021, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant provided to Right Wing Watch. The affidavit states that Invictus’ wife swore in a written statement that Invictus made contact with her at a park and made “daily third party contact” with her demanding to see their children. In one instance, according to the affidavit, Invictus sent a text message to their daughter instructing his wife to bring their children to the park “or else,” and in another, he told their children that their mother was a “whore” because she had a conversation with a stranger.
The affidavit states that Invictus’ wife estimated that he contacted her “20 plus times” through their daughter since his release from jail in attempts to harass her. Additionally, officials obtained messages from Invictus’ phone in which he sent photos of his wife’s vehicle and license plate to others in an effort to locate her and was “tracked driving in circles,” likely searching for his wife’s residence.
Right Wing Watch has sent a records request to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and will follow this story as we receive more information.
Invictus’s arrest was proceeded by his father’s. The elder Gillespie, who worked as a criminal defense attorney in Central Florida, was arrested Saturday after agreeing to pay for sex with a law enforcement agent posing as a 16-year-old girl, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. Investigators claimed that Gillespie was “using his law firm to recruit women into prostitution” for as long as 20 years, according to the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation.
According to an arrest affidavit provided to Right Wing Watch, authorities wiretapped several of Gillespie’s phones and intercepted several calls that “led Agents to believe John Gillespie was in fact prostituting out several females from his residence.” When an undercover officer posing as a 16-year-old girl was introduced to him, Gillespie agreed to feature the her in “adult web-camming and prostituting her out” and to pay $100 to have sex with her. Orlando Sentinel reported:
“Evidence demonstrates Gillespie would initiate women he represented on criminal charges into prostitution or exchange sex acts for legal fees,” the agency said. “Gillespie provided the women with illegal drugs, posted them on-line as escorts, arranged the prostitution dates and allowed them to use his Melbourne home for the acts of prostitution.”
John Gillespie was arrested Saturday in Orange Country, Florida, on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device. He is being held without bond.
Koch-Funded Think Tanks Are Lobbying to Send Workers to Their Deaths
BY SARAH LAZARE - in these times
MONDAY, APR 20, 2020, 12:55 PM
It’s no mystery what will happen if we rush to reopen the economy and send people back to work before epidemiologists say it is safe to do so. A model produced in consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March projected a worst-case scenario of 1.7 million Americans killed. Another estimate by the Imperial College London put this number at 2.2 million. We know that COVID-19, which has already taken more than 40,000 U.S. lives, is disproportionately killing African Americans. Poor people are already bearing the brunt of this crisis—and will die in even larger numbers if they are prematurely sent back to wait tables and crowd together in warehouses and factories.
Amid this climate, a small army of right-wing think tanks and conservative organizations is cynically invoking the plight of the downtrodden to make the case for swiftly reopening the economy and sending workers into deadly conditions. Some of the organizations beating this drum the loudest—the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—are behind the most anti-worker measures of our times, from the anti-union Janus Supreme Court ruling to the Trump administration’s work requirements for food stamps. As Trump, the GOP, CEOs and now billionaire-backed “protesters” call for the economy to reopen, these think tanks are working fervently behind the scenes, crafting talking points, speaking with legislators and building coalitions aimed at boosting Wall Street’s profits, at the expense of ordinary people.
“The people running these organizations are going to remain safely ensconced in gated mansions with little danger of getting infected themselves, while they make millions of Americans go back to work standing shoulder to shoulder,” Carl Rosen, general president for the UE union (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America), told In These Times.
On April 16, Kay Coles James, the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, praised President Trump for issuing guidelines for states to reopen their economies in three phases. “The administration is rightly working to restore livelihoods in the midst of catastrophic job losses while also taking care to balance Americans’ health and safety,” said James. “The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission is also working quickly to deliver additional recommendations to governments at every level, the private sector, and churches, charities, and other parts of civil society on a pathway to reopen America.”
James was listed as a thought leader on Trump’s dubious “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups”—likely at least partially a P.R. stunt, but nonetheless, a measure of influence and power. For the Heritage Foundation, it’s a sign that the organization’s campaign to reopen the economy might be paying off. The group announced a “National Coronavirus Recovery Commission'' on April 6 and, soon after, issued a five-phase plan for reopening America. According to the Washington Post, the Heritage Foundation is working with other conservative groups including FreedomWorks and ALEC as part of an informal “Save Our Country” coalition aimed at reopening the economy. With funding from the Koch Foundation, ExxonMobile and a bevy of wealthy donors, the Heritage Foundation is at the center of political efforts to prematurely restart the economy.
Remarkably, the organization is citing the well-being of the poor people it wants to send into treacherous conditions when issuing this call. On April 13, James declared, “Keeping the American people at work and prosperous is what will produce better health outcomes for our citizens. A growing economy has the money for research and development into new medical innovations and cures; has more resources to better educate and train medical personnel; and creates greater capacities of beds, equipment, medicines, and personnel to handle the sick. It’s also an economy where abundance allows us to have the resources to help poorer citizens get the medical help that they need.” In other words, she is arguing that reopening the economy will make people sick, but market forces will somehow offset this catastrophe by providing the things we need to treat them—a claim made without evidence, and against the advice of epidemiological experts.
This insistence on sending workers into treacherous conditions “for their own good” stems directly from the organization’s history. The Heritage Foundation was heavily influential in the Reagan administration and right-wing Tea Party movement, and was a major influencer in the Trump administration’s transition team. It is vehemently anti-union, a fierce opponent of a $15 minimum wage, a fervent supporter of the 2018 Janus ruling, which pummelled public-sector unions, and a proponent of so-called right-to-work laws, which say workers don’t have to pay dues to the unions that represent them. Heritage has made gutting public programs for the poor a central focus throughout its existence, and opposes expanding healthcare access.
The organization saw one of its cruelest agenda items come to fruition in December of 2019, when the Trump administration placed further restrictions on who can receive assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps, declaring that able-bodied adults without children in places that have an unemployment rate below 10% have to work 20 hours a week to qualify. This rule was approved by Trump despite warnings that 700,000 people would lose their food stamps. Maggie Dickinson, a researcher who studied SNAP in New York City from 2011 to 2013, wrote that “work requirements have been shown to not help unemployed people find work and to make it more difficult for them to feed themselves. But taking people who are unemployed off SNAP often does harm to more than just those who directly receive food assistance.” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the rule change “appears to base its intellectual underpinning on policy developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation, experts say.” The Heritage Foundation, for its part, claimed credit in an article titled “Heritage Research Influences Food Stamp Eligibility Rule.”
According to Rosen of UE, "The only thing these corporations want to achieve is corporate profits as usual. That's their real goal—not making sure working people have an income, not to make sure health and economic needs were taken care of. If those were their goals, they would support much more robust policies right now that make sure everyone has a full income and full healthcare through Medicare for All. These are the steps that have been taken in many european countries.”
“People need to be paid to stay home right now—that's the only way we can recover as a country,” Rosen added. “Attempts to force people to go back to work when it's not safe for them to do so is a horrendous, murderous policy."
When it comes to the push to reopen the U.S. economy, the Heritage Foundation is not going it alone. As the Associated Press notes, the Koch-backed AFP was “one early shutdown opponent,” making the case that business should be allowed to “adapt and innovate.” Intercept reporter Lee Fang noted on March 26 that AFP, which calls itself a political advocacy group, “wants employees to return to work despite desperate pleas from public health officials that people should stay home as much as possible to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.” State chapters of AFP have also joined in the effort.
Like the Heritage Foundation, the AFP cites the hardships of poor people when pushing for the economy to reopen. “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” the organization said on March 20. “If businesses are shut down, where will people who are most in need get the things they need to care for themselves and others? Rather than blanket shutdowns, the government should allow businesses to continue to adapt and innovate to produce the goods and services Americans need, while continuing to do everything they can to protect the public health.”
Yet AFP, described by In These Times writer Mary Bottari as “the Kochs’ ‘grassroots’ lobbying arm,” has played a tremendous role in gutting public programs aimed at protecting ordinary people, including the CDC, and social welfare programs, particularly Medicaid. In recent years, the organization has gone on a blitz trying to pass right-to-work laws, seeing some success.
Before the COVID-19 crisis began, AFP was mobilizing against the PRO Act, which passed the House in February. This legislation would strengthen the right to strike, override “right-to-work” laws, and punish bosses who retaliate against workers for attempting to form a union. While the legislation is not perfect, it would “go a long way toward reversing decades of GOP-backed efforts to grind unions into dust,” Jeremy Gantz wrote in February for In These Times. AFP is presently circulating a letter which declares, “This legislation would turn back the clock on workers’ rights by undermining many pro-worker successes of recent years, just one year after the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision that affirmed union membership is a choice for all government workers nationwide.” AFP is not only pushing to send workers into dangerous conditions: It also wants to erode their right to collectively fight back.
But perhaps the biggest villain of all is ALEC, the Koch-backed “nonprofit” model-legislation shop that has devoted its nearly half-century of existence to eroding workers’ rights. ALEC has been active in efforts to reopen the economy. Its CEO Lisa B. Nelson told Newt Gingrich on March 27, “We believe preparations need to be made for a clarion call to get Americans back to work, and so the economy can start its rebound.” ALEC hosted a March 21 conference call featuring ALEC Board of Scholar Member Art Laffer, a right-wing economist and key figure behind the Reagan-era tax cuts for the rich. “We need to get production back—period,” declared Laffer, who was awarded the presidential medal of freedom by Trump last year.
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ALEC’s current advocacy emanates from a long history. As Mary Battari noted in a February 2018 story for In These Times, “ALEC was founded in 1973 as a venue for politicians and corporate lobbyists to meet behind closed doors and draft cookie-cutter legislation, known as ‘model bills,’ that promote corporate interests.” Today it boasts a massive network of 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members, according to The Center for Media and Democracy, which says, “ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that.” Aided by funding from corporations, corporate trade groups and the Koch Foundation, its bills have aimed to undermine unions, criminalize protests and privatize public goods. Over the past 15 years it has worked closely with conservatie advocacy groups, including AFP, to undermine unions.
According to Rosen, groups like ALEC are a big reason why we are so ill-prepared to meet the COVID-19 crises. “Over the last 50 years,” he says, “we’ve allowed corporate forces to systematically destroy the social safety net. There was no preparation done for a pandemic like this, even though it was clear that something like this could happen. The groups demanding we reopen are the ones that destroyed the social safety net, thereby creating the pressures making some people want to start up again.”
These three think tanks are pillars of a much broader effort to “reopen the economy,” which is another way of saying “treat workers as disposable widgets in service of corporate profits.” The oversized role of wealthy people in pushing this effort calls into question any claims that local protests for reopening constitute an organic, working-class movement. As the Guardian reports, “The Michigan Freedom Fund, which said it was a co-host of a recent Michigan rally against stay-at-home orders, has received more than $500,000 from the DeVos family, regular donors to rightwing groups.” The DeVos family is one of the richest in Michigan.
Joining in the cacophony are individual CEOs, who occasionally put conservative organizations’ talking points in cruder and more honest terms. Billionaire Tom Golisano, founder and chairman of Paychex Inc., told Bloomberg in late March, “The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people. I have a very large concern that if businesses keep going along the way they’re going then so many of them will have to fold.” He added, “You have to weigh the pros and cons.”
Of course, for him, the “pro” is that he will not be the one serving tables, stocking warehouses or struggling to get healthcare once the economy reopens: When he talks about the costs, he’s talking about other people. The same can be said about the leaders of the conservative think tanks and organizations that are leading the push to send workers into danger: It will cost them nothing. The price for ordinary people will be immeasurable.
Amid this climate, a small army of right-wing think tanks and conservative organizations is cynically invoking the plight of the downtrodden to make the case for swiftly reopening the economy and sending workers into deadly conditions. Some of the organizations beating this drum the loudest—the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—are behind the most anti-worker measures of our times, from the anti-union Janus Supreme Court ruling to the Trump administration’s work requirements for food stamps. As Trump, the GOP, CEOs and now billionaire-backed “protesters” call for the economy to reopen, these think tanks are working fervently behind the scenes, crafting talking points, speaking with legislators and building coalitions aimed at boosting Wall Street’s profits, at the expense of ordinary people.
“The people running these organizations are going to remain safely ensconced in gated mansions with little danger of getting infected themselves, while they make millions of Americans go back to work standing shoulder to shoulder,” Carl Rosen, general president for the UE union (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America), told In These Times.
On April 16, Kay Coles James, the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, praised President Trump for issuing guidelines for states to reopen their economies in three phases. “The administration is rightly working to restore livelihoods in the midst of catastrophic job losses while also taking care to balance Americans’ health and safety,” said James. “The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission is also working quickly to deliver additional recommendations to governments at every level, the private sector, and churches, charities, and other parts of civil society on a pathway to reopen America.”
James was listed as a thought leader on Trump’s dubious “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups”—likely at least partially a P.R. stunt, but nonetheless, a measure of influence and power. For the Heritage Foundation, it’s a sign that the organization’s campaign to reopen the economy might be paying off. The group announced a “National Coronavirus Recovery Commission'' on April 6 and, soon after, issued a five-phase plan for reopening America. According to the Washington Post, the Heritage Foundation is working with other conservative groups including FreedomWorks and ALEC as part of an informal “Save Our Country” coalition aimed at reopening the economy. With funding from the Koch Foundation, ExxonMobile and a bevy of wealthy donors, the Heritage Foundation is at the center of political efforts to prematurely restart the economy.
Remarkably, the organization is citing the well-being of the poor people it wants to send into treacherous conditions when issuing this call. On April 13, James declared, “Keeping the American people at work and prosperous is what will produce better health outcomes for our citizens. A growing economy has the money for research and development into new medical innovations and cures; has more resources to better educate and train medical personnel; and creates greater capacities of beds, equipment, medicines, and personnel to handle the sick. It’s also an economy where abundance allows us to have the resources to help poorer citizens get the medical help that they need.” In other words, she is arguing that reopening the economy will make people sick, but market forces will somehow offset this catastrophe by providing the things we need to treat them—a claim made without evidence, and against the advice of epidemiological experts.
This insistence on sending workers into treacherous conditions “for their own good” stems directly from the organization’s history. The Heritage Foundation was heavily influential in the Reagan administration and right-wing Tea Party movement, and was a major influencer in the Trump administration’s transition team. It is vehemently anti-union, a fierce opponent of a $15 minimum wage, a fervent supporter of the 2018 Janus ruling, which pummelled public-sector unions, and a proponent of so-called right-to-work laws, which say workers don’t have to pay dues to the unions that represent them. Heritage has made gutting public programs for the poor a central focus throughout its existence, and opposes expanding healthcare access.
The organization saw one of its cruelest agenda items come to fruition in December of 2019, when the Trump administration placed further restrictions on who can receive assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps, declaring that able-bodied adults without children in places that have an unemployment rate below 10% have to work 20 hours a week to qualify. This rule was approved by Trump despite warnings that 700,000 people would lose their food stamps. Maggie Dickinson, a researcher who studied SNAP in New York City from 2011 to 2013, wrote that “work requirements have been shown to not help unemployed people find work and to make it more difficult for them to feed themselves. But taking people who are unemployed off SNAP often does harm to more than just those who directly receive food assistance.” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the rule change “appears to base its intellectual underpinning on policy developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation, experts say.” The Heritage Foundation, for its part, claimed credit in an article titled “Heritage Research Influences Food Stamp Eligibility Rule.”
According to Rosen of UE, "The only thing these corporations want to achieve is corporate profits as usual. That's their real goal—not making sure working people have an income, not to make sure health and economic needs were taken care of. If those were their goals, they would support much more robust policies right now that make sure everyone has a full income and full healthcare through Medicare for All. These are the steps that have been taken in many european countries.”
“People need to be paid to stay home right now—that's the only way we can recover as a country,” Rosen added. “Attempts to force people to go back to work when it's not safe for them to do so is a horrendous, murderous policy."
When it comes to the push to reopen the U.S. economy, the Heritage Foundation is not going it alone. As the Associated Press notes, the Koch-backed AFP was “one early shutdown opponent,” making the case that business should be allowed to “adapt and innovate.” Intercept reporter Lee Fang noted on March 26 that AFP, which calls itself a political advocacy group, “wants employees to return to work despite desperate pleas from public health officials that people should stay home as much as possible to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.” State chapters of AFP have also joined in the effort.
Like the Heritage Foundation, the AFP cites the hardships of poor people when pushing for the economy to reopen. “We can achieve public health without depriving the people most in need of the products and services provided by businesses across the country,” the organization said on March 20. “If businesses are shut down, where will people who are most in need get the things they need to care for themselves and others? Rather than blanket shutdowns, the government should allow businesses to continue to adapt and innovate to produce the goods and services Americans need, while continuing to do everything they can to protect the public health.”
Yet AFP, described by In These Times writer Mary Bottari as “the Kochs’ ‘grassroots’ lobbying arm,” has played a tremendous role in gutting public programs aimed at protecting ordinary people, including the CDC, and social welfare programs, particularly Medicaid. In recent years, the organization has gone on a blitz trying to pass right-to-work laws, seeing some success.
Before the COVID-19 crisis began, AFP was mobilizing against the PRO Act, which passed the House in February. This legislation would strengthen the right to strike, override “right-to-work” laws, and punish bosses who retaliate against workers for attempting to form a union. While the legislation is not perfect, it would “go a long way toward reversing decades of GOP-backed efforts to grind unions into dust,” Jeremy Gantz wrote in February for In These Times. AFP is presently circulating a letter which declares, “This legislation would turn back the clock on workers’ rights by undermining many pro-worker successes of recent years, just one year after the Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision that affirmed union membership is a choice for all government workers nationwide.” AFP is not only pushing to send workers into dangerous conditions: It also wants to erode their right to collectively fight back.
But perhaps the biggest villain of all is ALEC, the Koch-backed “nonprofit” model-legislation shop that has devoted its nearly half-century of existence to eroding workers’ rights. ALEC has been active in efforts to reopen the economy. Its CEO Lisa B. Nelson told Newt Gingrich on March 27, “We believe preparations need to be made for a clarion call to get Americans back to work, and so the economy can start its rebound.” ALEC hosted a March 21 conference call featuring ALEC Board of Scholar Member Art Laffer, a right-wing economist and key figure behind the Reagan-era tax cuts for the rich. “We need to get production back—period,” declared Laffer, who was awarded the presidential medal of freedom by Trump last year.
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ALEC’s current advocacy emanates from a long history. As Mary Battari noted in a February 2018 story for In These Times, “ALEC was founded in 1973 as a venue for politicians and corporate lobbyists to meet behind closed doors and draft cookie-cutter legislation, known as ‘model bills,’ that promote corporate interests.” Today it boasts a massive network of 2,000 legislative members and 300 or more corporate members, according to The Center for Media and Democracy, which says, “ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that.” Aided by funding from corporations, corporate trade groups and the Koch Foundation, its bills have aimed to undermine unions, criminalize protests and privatize public goods. Over the past 15 years it has worked closely with conservatie advocacy groups, including AFP, to undermine unions.
According to Rosen, groups like ALEC are a big reason why we are so ill-prepared to meet the COVID-19 crises. “Over the last 50 years,” he says, “we’ve allowed corporate forces to systematically destroy the social safety net. There was no preparation done for a pandemic like this, even though it was clear that something like this could happen. The groups demanding we reopen are the ones that destroyed the social safety net, thereby creating the pressures making some people want to start up again.”
These three think tanks are pillars of a much broader effort to “reopen the economy,” which is another way of saying “treat workers as disposable widgets in service of corporate profits.” The oversized role of wealthy people in pushing this effort calls into question any claims that local protests for reopening constitute an organic, working-class movement. As the Guardian reports, “The Michigan Freedom Fund, which said it was a co-host of a recent Michigan rally against stay-at-home orders, has received more than $500,000 from the DeVos family, regular donors to rightwing groups.” The DeVos family is one of the richest in Michigan.
Joining in the cacophony are individual CEOs, who occasionally put conservative organizations’ talking points in cruder and more honest terms. Billionaire Tom Golisano, founder and chairman of Paychex Inc., told Bloomberg in late March, “The damages of keeping the economy closed as it is could be worse than losing a few more people. I have a very large concern that if businesses keep going along the way they’re going then so many of them will have to fold.” He added, “You have to weigh the pros and cons.”
Of course, for him, the “pro” is that he will not be the one serving tables, stocking warehouses or struggling to get healthcare once the economy reopens: When he talks about the costs, he’s talking about other people. The same can be said about the leaders of the conservative think tanks and organizations that are leading the push to send workers into danger: It will cost them nothing. The price for ordinary people will be immeasurable.
CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK
THE GATHERINGS OF IDIOTS, RACISTS AND SUCKERS!!!
Conservative group linked to DeVos family organizes protest of coronavirus restrictions in Michigan
April 17, 2020
By Igor Derysh, Salon
Protesters rallied around the country this week against stay-at-home orders forcing nonessential businesses to shut down, but Michigan’s governor warned that they may have backfired by creating “a need to lengthen” the lockdowns.
Protesters in at least six states planned to protest restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus this week. In Michigan, a conservative group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family organized “Operation Gridlock” to protest restrictions on nonessential businesses and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent order barring travel between homes. The state is among the hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, reporting more than 27,000 confirmed cases and 1,909 deaths.
Some protesters, several of whom wore pro-Trump gear, gathered on the capitol steps as many remained in their cars. Demonstrators chanted “recall Whitmer” and “lock her up,” a chant normally usually used by Trump supporters in reference to his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Whitmer, who has feuded with President Donald Trump over the delayed federal response to the crisis, argued that “it wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all.”
“It was essentially a political rally — a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science and all of the best practices from the stay-at-home order that was issued,” the Democrat told MSNBC on Wednesday.
Whitmer said the cars “were blocking one of our hospitals, so an ambulance literally wasn’t able to get into the bay for ten minutes.”
“We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people’s health,” she said. “The sad irony of the protest is that they don’t like to be in this stay-at-home order, but they might have just created a need to lengthen it.”
Other states saw smaller protests against the coronavirus restrictions.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, had his news briefing interrupted Wednesday by dozens of protesters. The small group chanted, blew horns and shouted into a megaphone to drown out the governor’s comments. The protesters chanted “we want to work” and “facts over fear.”
Scientists and business executives alike have repeatedly argued that the economy cannot simply reopen if the risk of infection remains high.
“We do have some folks up in here in Kentucky today – and everybody should be able to express their opinion – that believe we should reopen Kentucky immediately, right now,” Beshear said at the briefing. “Folks, that would kill people. That would absolutely kill people.”
Dozens of protesters also gathered outside of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s Monday news briefing to call for an end to the state’s stay-at-home order. DeWine, a Republican, has also received criticism from his own party for issuing a stay-at-home order, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
DeWine told MSNBC that he would not reopen the economy until medical experts deem it safe to do so.
“Whenever we open up, however we do it, if people aren’t confident, if they don’t think they’re safe, they’re not going to go to restaurants,” he said. “They’re not going to go to bars. They’re not going to really get back into society.”
Dozens of individuals also gathered in Utah to protest the business closures, carrying signs like “Resist like it’s 1776” and “America will never be a socialist country,” according to KSL-TV.
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Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor argued that the protests’ ties to conservative groups like the DeVos-linked Michigan Freedom Fund show that the demonstrations are just “astroturf” efforts “paid for by billionaires.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel slammed the protesters for defying guidelines intended to protect the public.
“Using your right to peaceably protest in such a manner as to spread a virus which may endanger your life, the lives of your friends, family and neighbors, and the lives of countless food service, law enforcement and healthcare workers does not make you a patriot,” she said. “A ‘patriot’ is defined as a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against its enemies. The enemy here is the virus-not each other.”
Protesters in at least six states planned to protest restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the new coronavirus this week. In Michigan, a conservative group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family organized “Operation Gridlock” to protest restrictions on nonessential businesses and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent order barring travel between homes. The state is among the hardest-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, reporting more than 27,000 confirmed cases and 1,909 deaths.
Some protesters, several of whom wore pro-Trump gear, gathered on the capitol steps as many remained in their cars. Demonstrators chanted “recall Whitmer” and “lock her up,” a chant normally usually used by Trump supporters in reference to his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Whitmer, who has feuded with President Donald Trump over the delayed federal response to the crisis, argued that “it wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all.”
“It was essentially a political rally — a political statement that flies in the face of all of the science and all of the best practices from the stay-at-home order that was issued,” the Democrat told MSNBC on Wednesday.
Whitmer said the cars “were blocking one of our hospitals, so an ambulance literally wasn’t able to get into the bay for ten minutes.”
“We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people’s health,” she said. “The sad irony of the protest is that they don’t like to be in this stay-at-home order, but they might have just created a need to lengthen it.”
Other states saw smaller protests against the coronavirus restrictions.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, had his news briefing interrupted Wednesday by dozens of protesters. The small group chanted, blew horns and shouted into a megaphone to drown out the governor’s comments. The protesters chanted “we want to work” and “facts over fear.”
Scientists and business executives alike have repeatedly argued that the economy cannot simply reopen if the risk of infection remains high.
“We do have some folks up in here in Kentucky today – and everybody should be able to express their opinion – that believe we should reopen Kentucky immediately, right now,” Beshear said at the briefing. “Folks, that would kill people. That would absolutely kill people.”
Dozens of protesters also gathered outside of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s Monday news briefing to call for an end to the state’s stay-at-home order. DeWine, a Republican, has also received criticism from his own party for issuing a stay-at-home order, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
DeWine told MSNBC that he would not reopen the economy until medical experts deem it safe to do so.
“Whenever we open up, however we do it, if people aren’t confident, if they don’t think they’re safe, they’re not going to go to restaurants,” he said. “They’re not going to go to bars. They’re not going to really get back into society.”
Dozens of individuals also gathered in Utah to protest the business closures, carrying signs like “Resist like it’s 1776” and “America will never be a socialist country,” according to KSL-TV.
---
Former Obama aide Tommy Vietor argued that the protests’ ties to conservative groups like the DeVos-linked Michigan Freedom Fund show that the demonstrations are just “astroturf” efforts “paid for by billionaires.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel slammed the protesters for defying guidelines intended to protect the public.
“Using your right to peaceably protest in such a manner as to spread a virus which may endanger your life, the lives of your friends, family and neighbors, and the lives of countless food service, law enforcement and healthcare workers does not make you a patriot,” she said. “A ‘patriot’ is defined as a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against its enemies. The enemy here is the virus-not each other.”
Pathetic right-wing crybabies rally in Michigan after coronavirus lockdown causes them a slight inconvenience
April 16, 2020
By Amanda Marcotte, Salon- Commentary
On Wednesday, a crowd of right-wing nuts — complete with their oversized but underworked utility vehicles, Confederate flags, guns and other such overcompensation accoutrements — descended on the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, to whine about the temporary pause to dinners at Applebee’s and accidental brushfires at gender-reveal parties. The deep fear of emasculation driving the protest was not particularly subtle at this protest, as the crowd chanted “Lock her up” at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who is accused of no other crime other than making deeply insecure men fuss about a woman in power.The ostensible purpose of the protests was to pressure Whitmer to relax some of the restrictions on businesses and movement under the coronavirus lockdown. In reality, of course, this is happening because a bunch of Fox News-loving Trump supporters have been poisoned by propaganda that has convinced them the coronavirus is overblown or a hoax, all being spread by the libs to destroy Trump’s chances at re-election.
Well, that, and the fact that they’re a bunch of sexists who hate having a female governor, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Michigan protest was bigger than others in Ohio or North Carolina, whose governors are male.
The immense Trump propaganda infrastructure is marshaling these folks for one simple reason: This crisis is Trump’s fault, and he desperately needs someone to blame for his failures, which have led to the spread of the virus and the collapse of the economy. So these numbskulls are being organized to protest the governors who are trying to clean up Trump’s mess, which is a little like protesting the doctors who are treating patients who got sick because Trump refused to do anything serious to limit the spread of the virus.
Oh wait — they did that, too, by blocking ambulances trying to take patients to the hospital.
The protest is incoherent. Everyone wants to reopen the economy, but the main reason we can’t is because Trump, in his incompetence and malice, has persistently refused to take steps to institute the widespread testing that’s necessary before lockdowns can be eased. If these conservatives want the economy to restart, they should stay home, stop watching Fox News and give money to any Democrats running for anything, because the only way this country can survive this is with competent leadership that’s willing to do what needs doing.
That incoherence goes even deeper than the immediate idiocy of blaming the people who are trying to fix the problem instead of the orange menace in the White House who caused it. These protests also lay bare the larger incoherence of the right-wing mythology that conservatives are rugged individualists who are tougher and better prepared than those supposedly soft, effete liberals in the big cities.
Right-wingers love to talk a big game about how tough they are, compared to the avocado-toast-eating class, but what Wednesday’s protest revealed was a bunch of spoiled brats ready to fall apart in the face of even the slightest inconvenience.
Rosanne Ponkowski, one of the protest’s organizers, complained to the Daily Beast, “We can’t take our boats on the water if they have an engine” and added, “We can’t buy paint and go paint our house.”
Other massive infringements on liberty: The inability to buy patio furniture, Legos or bug spray. It’s not easy to hire somebody to mow the lawn. You literally can’t make this stuff up.
What is immediately clear is that these “rugged individuals” fall apart completely at the first sign of even the slightest hardship. For all the History Channel documentaries about World War II they might consume, they aren’t exactly the hard-bitten warriors they dream themselves to be. Instead, they’re a bunch of whiny babies who have spent their entire lives in the consumer bubble, and react to the prospect of giving up fishing for a few months as if their legs were being forcibly amputated.
Turns out that these individuals are, in fact, highly dependent on the communities they live in, so much so that a few weeks of needing to curtail shopping and socializing has led to a total meltdown.
The obvious truth here is that times are hard on everyone. That’s especially true for the 22 million Americans who’ve filed for unemployment, the more than 600,000 who are sick, and the families of the nearly 30,000 people who have died from this virus. But there’s plenty of room to feel compassion for the rest of us who are going stir-crazy, who are fighting with family members or who are suffering from social isolation.
Hell, there’s nothing wrong with being grumpy that you can’t get your garden planted in time this year or that you can’t go fishing. People deserve pleasure, especially during a crisis when the small things are often what keep us going. State governments should certainly strive to write quarantine regulations that strike a balance between public heath needs and ordinary people’s desire to find joy in their daily lives.
But it’s really rich for the self-proclaimed “rugged individuals” of America to be such big, whiny babies in the face of this.
We’re forever hearing from right wingers how the rest of us need to toughen up a little. People on food stamps just need to “get a job,” even though most food assistance recipients already have one. If millennials can’t afford to buy houses, it’s because they’re over-indulged hipsters who eat too much avocado toast. (Reality: They’re trapped by soaring housing costs and saddled with too much student debt.) A woman who doesn’t want to be forced into childbirth should have just kept her legs shut.
Right-wing America have little sympathy for millions of their fellow citizens who face real hardship, but an endless amount of self-pity because they have to skip a fishing trip. No wonder they love Trump, a man who can’t be bothered to care about Americans dying, but is in full-blown panic mode because he might not get re-elected.
In reality, this pandemic has exposed how we’re all in this together and none of us are “rugged individuals.” We need those health care workers and grocery store employees and teachers. We are all dependent on each other, not just for the basic necessities of life, but the luxuries like boating and gardening. Right wingers have spent decades denying this fact, clinging to their Ayn Rand fantasies that they’re not dependent on the rest of us and are under no obligation to pay their taxes or by treating others with decency and compassion.
But it turns out that conservatives are more dependent on the system that all the people they deplore as weak, so much so that a minor interruption in their daily life causes a full-blown temper tantrum like the one we witnessed in Michigan this week. More are coming, we can be sure of that.
Well, that, and the fact that they’re a bunch of sexists who hate having a female governor, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Michigan protest was bigger than others in Ohio or North Carolina, whose governors are male.
The immense Trump propaganda infrastructure is marshaling these folks for one simple reason: This crisis is Trump’s fault, and he desperately needs someone to blame for his failures, which have led to the spread of the virus and the collapse of the economy. So these numbskulls are being organized to protest the governors who are trying to clean up Trump’s mess, which is a little like protesting the doctors who are treating patients who got sick because Trump refused to do anything serious to limit the spread of the virus.
Oh wait — they did that, too, by blocking ambulances trying to take patients to the hospital.
The protest is incoherent. Everyone wants to reopen the economy, but the main reason we can’t is because Trump, in his incompetence and malice, has persistently refused to take steps to institute the widespread testing that’s necessary before lockdowns can be eased. If these conservatives want the economy to restart, they should stay home, stop watching Fox News and give money to any Democrats running for anything, because the only way this country can survive this is with competent leadership that’s willing to do what needs doing.
That incoherence goes even deeper than the immediate idiocy of blaming the people who are trying to fix the problem instead of the orange menace in the White House who caused it. These protests also lay bare the larger incoherence of the right-wing mythology that conservatives are rugged individualists who are tougher and better prepared than those supposedly soft, effete liberals in the big cities.
Right-wingers love to talk a big game about how tough they are, compared to the avocado-toast-eating class, but what Wednesday’s protest revealed was a bunch of spoiled brats ready to fall apart in the face of even the slightest inconvenience.
Rosanne Ponkowski, one of the protest’s organizers, complained to the Daily Beast, “We can’t take our boats on the water if they have an engine” and added, “We can’t buy paint and go paint our house.”
Other massive infringements on liberty: The inability to buy patio furniture, Legos or bug spray. It’s not easy to hire somebody to mow the lawn. You literally can’t make this stuff up.
What is immediately clear is that these “rugged individuals” fall apart completely at the first sign of even the slightest hardship. For all the History Channel documentaries about World War II they might consume, they aren’t exactly the hard-bitten warriors they dream themselves to be. Instead, they’re a bunch of whiny babies who have spent their entire lives in the consumer bubble, and react to the prospect of giving up fishing for a few months as if their legs were being forcibly amputated.
Turns out that these individuals are, in fact, highly dependent on the communities they live in, so much so that a few weeks of needing to curtail shopping and socializing has led to a total meltdown.
The obvious truth here is that times are hard on everyone. That’s especially true for the 22 million Americans who’ve filed for unemployment, the more than 600,000 who are sick, and the families of the nearly 30,000 people who have died from this virus. But there’s plenty of room to feel compassion for the rest of us who are going stir-crazy, who are fighting with family members or who are suffering from social isolation.
Hell, there’s nothing wrong with being grumpy that you can’t get your garden planted in time this year or that you can’t go fishing. People deserve pleasure, especially during a crisis when the small things are often what keep us going. State governments should certainly strive to write quarantine regulations that strike a balance between public heath needs and ordinary people’s desire to find joy in their daily lives.
But it’s really rich for the self-proclaimed “rugged individuals” of America to be such big, whiny babies in the face of this.
We’re forever hearing from right wingers how the rest of us need to toughen up a little. People on food stamps just need to “get a job,” even though most food assistance recipients already have one. If millennials can’t afford to buy houses, it’s because they’re over-indulged hipsters who eat too much avocado toast. (Reality: They’re trapped by soaring housing costs and saddled with too much student debt.) A woman who doesn’t want to be forced into childbirth should have just kept her legs shut.
Right-wing America have little sympathy for millions of their fellow citizens who face real hardship, but an endless amount of self-pity because they have to skip a fishing trip. No wonder they love Trump, a man who can’t be bothered to care about Americans dying, but is in full-blown panic mode because he might not get re-elected.
In reality, this pandemic has exposed how we’re all in this together and none of us are “rugged individuals.” We need those health care workers and grocery store employees and teachers. We are all dependent on each other, not just for the basic necessities of life, but the luxuries like boating and gardening. Right wingers have spent decades denying this fact, clinging to their Ayn Rand fantasies that they’re not dependent on the rest of us and are under no obligation to pay their taxes or by treating others with decency and compassion.
But it turns out that conservatives are more dependent on the system that all the people they deplore as weak, so much so that a minor interruption in their daily life causes a full-blown temper tantrum like the one we witnessed in Michigan this week. More are coming, we can be sure of that.
For Some on the Right, No Rumor Is Too Outlandish About Michigan Gov. Gretcher Whitmer
One right-wing site said, incorrectly, that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had banned the sale of American flags.
Scott Bixby - National Reporter - daily beast
Apr. 14, 2020 10:27AM ET
As governors across the country face mounting criticism from economy-minded conservatives for enacting stringent stay-at-home orders to prevent the further spread of the novel coronavirus, one governor in particular is drawing disproportionate fire from high-ranking Republicans, conservative media outlets, and talking heads—in part, some allies fear, because she has been increasingly floated as a potential running mate for former Vice President Joe Biden.
On March 23, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the first-term governor of Michigan, issued one of the most stringent executive orders in the country to combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the state harder than any other outside of the Northeast. The order, which Whitmer last week extended through the end of April, banned public and private gatherings outside of a family home and closed businesses deemed non-essential to functioning during a state of emergency; it was later strengthened to restrict purchases at big-box stores for non-essential items.
That last provision, as well as bans on boating, the closure of public golf courses, and restrictions on interstate travel, has proven deeply unpopular with some Michiganders, for the same reason that this entire experience is unpopular with everyone—it is lame to be stuck at home and unable to buy things you like, hang out with friends, or, if the option is available, ride on a boat.
“People always say: ‘Conservatives never protest because they are too busy working.’ Well, guess what, you’re not working—so it’s time to PROTEST,” reads an invitation to “Operation Gridlock,” an auto-based protest scheduled for April 15 at the Michigan Capitol Building that urges conservatives outraged over the executive order to circle the complex in their cars, horns honking and lights flashing.
“Come prepared for a traffic jam in Lansing!” the invitation for the event, organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, an anti-Whitmer nonprofit backed by the wealthy DeVos family. “We WANT gridlock.”
Conservative frustrations with the perceived overreach of state and local governments that have enacted social-distancing measures are not new—on Monday, President Donald Trump erroneously declared that he can supersede stay-at-home orders in order to “reopen” the country whenever he chooses. But an online misinformation campaign targeting Whitmer’s order has scattered increasingly deranged theories to the wind, with senior Republican officials and right-wing commentators amplifying the message.
On Sunday, conservative columnist Andrew Malcolm tweeted an image of Whitmer that, he said, showed her signing the executive order—which orders fines of up to $1,000 for violations of social-distancing orders—while surrounded by nearly a dozen people. The tweet went viral, despite the image in question being a file photo of an unrelated signing ceremony in January 2019.
Among those who retweeted the image was Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who concluded from the group’s size that “that’s $11k right there....” Cruz later deleted the tweet, blaming it on an “MSM error.”
Fellow Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said in a Monday appearance on Fox & Friends that Whitmer’s “ignorance and her hatred of Donald Trump” was her motivation for a since-reversed warning in a letter from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs that threatened “administrative action” against doctors who prescribed experimental antimalarial drugs to COVID-19 patients.
Meghan McCain, the token right-wing panelist on The View, retweeted another viral image—this one posted by the former campaign manager for 2018 Republican Senate candidate John James—claiming that Michiganders were forbidden from buying car seats for infants.
“Guess it’s good I don’t live in Michigan—otherwise how would I transport my child home from the hospital @GovWhitmer?” tweeted McCain. “Are you going to ban cribs next? Being pregnant during this time is insanely stressful—we are all doing our best. Shame on you for doing this @GovWhitmer.”
Far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit went a step further Monday, accusing Whitmer of banning the sale of American flags and alleging that limitations on selling gardening supplies meant that the governor intended to starve constituents.
On March 23, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the first-term governor of Michigan, issued one of the most stringent executive orders in the country to combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the state harder than any other outside of the Northeast. The order, which Whitmer last week extended through the end of April, banned public and private gatherings outside of a family home and closed businesses deemed non-essential to functioning during a state of emergency; it was later strengthened to restrict purchases at big-box stores for non-essential items.
That last provision, as well as bans on boating, the closure of public golf courses, and restrictions on interstate travel, has proven deeply unpopular with some Michiganders, for the same reason that this entire experience is unpopular with everyone—it is lame to be stuck at home and unable to buy things you like, hang out with friends, or, if the option is available, ride on a boat.
“People always say: ‘Conservatives never protest because they are too busy working.’ Well, guess what, you’re not working—so it’s time to PROTEST,” reads an invitation to “Operation Gridlock,” an auto-based protest scheduled for April 15 at the Michigan Capitol Building that urges conservatives outraged over the executive order to circle the complex in their cars, horns honking and lights flashing.
“Come prepared for a traffic jam in Lansing!” the invitation for the event, organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, an anti-Whitmer nonprofit backed by the wealthy DeVos family. “We WANT gridlock.”
Conservative frustrations with the perceived overreach of state and local governments that have enacted social-distancing measures are not new—on Monday, President Donald Trump erroneously declared that he can supersede stay-at-home orders in order to “reopen” the country whenever he chooses. But an online misinformation campaign targeting Whitmer’s order has scattered increasingly deranged theories to the wind, with senior Republican officials and right-wing commentators amplifying the message.
On Sunday, conservative columnist Andrew Malcolm tweeted an image of Whitmer that, he said, showed her signing the executive order—which orders fines of up to $1,000 for violations of social-distancing orders—while surrounded by nearly a dozen people. The tweet went viral, despite the image in question being a file photo of an unrelated signing ceremony in January 2019.
Among those who retweeted the image was Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who concluded from the group’s size that “that’s $11k right there....” Cruz later deleted the tweet, blaming it on an “MSM error.”
Fellow Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said in a Monday appearance on Fox & Friends that Whitmer’s “ignorance and her hatred of Donald Trump” was her motivation for a since-reversed warning in a letter from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs that threatened “administrative action” against doctors who prescribed experimental antimalarial drugs to COVID-19 patients.
Meghan McCain, the token right-wing panelist on The View, retweeted another viral image—this one posted by the former campaign manager for 2018 Republican Senate candidate John James—claiming that Michiganders were forbidden from buying car seats for infants.
“Guess it’s good I don’t live in Michigan—otherwise how would I transport my child home from the hospital @GovWhitmer?” tweeted McCain. “Are you going to ban cribs next? Being pregnant during this time is insanely stressful—we are all doing our best. Shame on you for doing this @GovWhitmer.”
Far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit went a step further Monday, accusing Whitmer of banning the sale of American flags and alleging that limitations on selling gardening supplies meant that the governor intended to starve constituents.
Anti-science Christians who went ‘all in’ for Trump bear responsibility for COVID-19 crisis: religious extremism expert
April 3, 2020
By Tom Boggioni - raw story
...Speaking with the host, Katherine Stewart, who is also the author of the book “The Power Worshipers,” explained that years of anti-science rhetoric from the predominately rightwing evangelical movement is a contributing factor as to why the country is in the throes of a deadly pandemic that may lead to over 250,000 deaths.
“You have a New York Times op-ed titled ‘The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling our Coronavirus Response,'” the host began. “Walk us through your thinking a little bit. What do you mean by that?”
“My concern here is not with any particular religious creed, but with a political movement that often cloaks itself in religious rhetoric,” Stewart began. “There are a number of ways where the religious right bears responsibility for the incompetence in our national response. First and foremost, the anti-science culture that rejects the evidence of science, rejects expertise and critical thinking, and that has obviously contributed to our ability to address this issue and this crisis in an evidence-based fashion.”
“Misinformation is rife in these sort of hyper-conservative and also highly politicized religious communities that were all in for Trump,” she added. “Secondly, and this is becoming unfortunately incredibly obvious right now, we have a poorly developed collective infrastructure, the kind of infrastructure you need, the path to a collective response to a collective crisis. That is a consequence of far right-wing economic policies and religious nationalism bears some implication — is implicated in that, too.”
“The movement has allied itself completely with a kind of libertarian far-right economic wing of the Republican Party,” she elaborated. “So it shares some of the blame that falls on that group. Religious nationalists have also supported politicians and policies that have led to the privatization of health care and the hollowing out of the social safety net.”
“You have a New York Times op-ed titled ‘The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling our Coronavirus Response,'” the host began. “Walk us through your thinking a little bit. What do you mean by that?”
“My concern here is not with any particular religious creed, but with a political movement that often cloaks itself in religious rhetoric,” Stewart began. “There are a number of ways where the religious right bears responsibility for the incompetence in our national response. First and foremost, the anti-science culture that rejects the evidence of science, rejects expertise and critical thinking, and that has obviously contributed to our ability to address this issue and this crisis in an evidence-based fashion.”
“Misinformation is rife in these sort of hyper-conservative and also highly politicized religious communities that were all in for Trump,” she added. “Secondly, and this is becoming unfortunately incredibly obvious right now, we have a poorly developed collective infrastructure, the kind of infrastructure you need, the path to a collective response to a collective crisis. That is a consequence of far right-wing economic policies and religious nationalism bears some implication — is implicated in that, too.”
“The movement has allied itself completely with a kind of libertarian far-right economic wing of the Republican Party,” she elaborated. “So it shares some of the blame that falls on that group. Religious nationalists have also supported politicians and policies that have led to the privatization of health care and the hollowing out of the social safety net.”
Market patriotism returns — and asks workers for a blood sacrifice
Just like after 9/11, the Right is telling Americans that patriotism and economic activity are synonymous
TIMOTHY RECUBER - salon
APRIL 1, 2020 11:00PM (UTC)
In the days after the September 11th attacks, President Bush, Mayor Giuliani and a variety of other politicians sought to soothe the ailing American psyche. They spoke publicly with a mixture of mourning and resolve. "Even grief recedes with time and grace," Bush told the nation in his State of the Union speech.
Shortly thereafter, the nation's leaders turned their efforts toward soothing the ailing American stock market. In a September 23, 2001 Washington Post column, former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich noted the peculiarity of Vice President Dick Cheney's plea for Americans to "stick their thumb in the eye of the terrorists and… not let what's happened here in any way throw off their normal level of economic activity." Reich dubbed this ideology "market patriotism": the notion that "we demonstrate our resolve to the rest of the world by investing and consuming at least as much as we did before." He noted the irony that during World War II, Americans had been asked to curb their consumption habits, but in 2001, "our patriotic duty seems to be to buy more and save less."
Today, with the stock market once again devastated by a disaster, market patriotism is back. The social distancing rules prompted by the coronavirus pandemic have brought our economy to a standstill for two weeks now, and so the American consumer is once again being drafted into a rescue mission. President Trump briefly wanted the country "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," despite the fact that lifting shelter-in-place and other social distancing measures would almost certainly contribute to hundreds of thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Though Trump has more recently come to grips with the need to continue social distancing through April, it remains clear that the Right is still gearing up to send workers and consumers back into the fray before it is safe to do so.
Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman of Goldman Sachs, tweeted that although efforts to flatten the curve are sensible "for a time," "crushing the economy, jobs, and morale is also a health issue." Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said on FOX News that "as a senior citizen," he was "willing to take a chance" on his own survival in exchange for getting Americans back to work and saving the economy for his children and grandchildren. And Glen Beck said that he "would rather die than kill the country."
It is worth noting, of course, that Trump on his own cannot order anyone back to work—state governments, civil society, and business owners are the ones making most of these decisions. Nonetheless, if Trump and his ilk have their way, we'll all go back to work — and back to shopping and spending and pumping dollars into an economy that badly needs the revenue, or at least, badly needs enough revenue to convince investors to pump up stock prices again. If that happens, millions of Americans will die, and the GOP appears increasingly to be okay with that.
The September 11th attacks killed 2,605 Americans. Since that day, we've been told again and again that avoiding another 9/11 justifies almost any expense. No military misadventure or domestic security scheme has been too extreme or too costly. One study from Brown University put the cost of our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan at over $6 trillion since 2001. All of this has been enacted in the name of 2,605 lives lost, and to resounding cries of "never again."
As of April 1st, more Americans have already been lost to COVID-19 than died in the September 11th attacks. Yet many on the right Right have been cavalierly suggesting that the coronavirus has been overhyped because only two percent of those infected die from it. This was the claim made recently by Rush Limbaugh, though he did not acknowledge that such fatality rates would leave millions of Americans dead. After months of downplaying the threat posed by the virus, Trump himself is now saying that keeping the death toll below 100,000 would be "a very good job." It seems unfathomable that the same country that so radically revamped its domestic security systems and that embarked on a doctrine of "preemptive war" around the world as a response to 2,605 American deaths could suddenly fail to care about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of American deaths (or more).
The simple answer is that our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were never about protecting Americans, as millions of protestors knew from the start. They were about oil. They were about a wounded sense of American innocence. They were about a kind of vengeance for America's failure in Vietnam. They were about profiteering — disaster capitalism, as Naomi Klein has aptly diagnosed it. But they were not about protecting anyone.
The enormous stimulus bill, signed into law last week with the near-unanimous support of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, further illustrated these principles. Despite the fact that most reporting lists its price tag at a whopping $2 trillion, the real cost is likely to be closer to 6 trillion — the Federal Reserve is going to be able to lend an additional $4 trillion to major corporations, on top of the $500 billion or so in direct bailout funds that has been more widely reported on.
The effects of the bill will be devastating for workers, the middle class, and small businesses. According to critics like Matthew Stoller, this bill gives Wall Street the ability "to go shopping for businesses in trouble. We could see the mother of all roll-ups, as small and medium sized businesses desperately try to get whatever they can from deep-pocketed private equity investors and monopolists. If that happens, America could look like a very different country after this pandemic is over."
And as David Dayen put it in The American Prospect, "this is a rubber-stamp on an unequal system that has brought terrible hardship to the majority of America. The people get a $1,200 means-tested payment and a little wage insurance for four months. Corporations get a transformative amount of play money to sustain their system and wipe out the competition."
Market patriotism used to mean that average citizens were urged to keep spending during periods of uncertainty. Now it demands blood sacrifice. Our leaders want us back to work, getting sick, and if need be, dying to please the market. They want to throw us crumbs while further enabling the consolidation of the economy in the hands of an ever-smaller group of ever-larger corporations. Though the outsized influence of billionaires and big corporations was a source of heated discussion during the Democratic primaries, this bill is a triumph for the ultra-wealthy financiers who already control so much of American life.
In the end, Americans all know that we have suffered and sacrificed too much for the market already. It doesn't have to be this way. Those who can continue to stay home must do so. But we must also stand in solidarity with those who don't have a choice — we must refuse to order from Instacart and Amazon, whose workers are now on strike for better wages and working conditions, and support other labor actions in the future. We must do what we can to help each other, and to protect ourselves. Our leaders, and the market they serve, will certainly not protect us now. They never really have.
Shortly thereafter, the nation's leaders turned their efforts toward soothing the ailing American stock market. In a September 23, 2001 Washington Post column, former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich noted the peculiarity of Vice President Dick Cheney's plea for Americans to "stick their thumb in the eye of the terrorists and… not let what's happened here in any way throw off their normal level of economic activity." Reich dubbed this ideology "market patriotism": the notion that "we demonstrate our resolve to the rest of the world by investing and consuming at least as much as we did before." He noted the irony that during World War II, Americans had been asked to curb their consumption habits, but in 2001, "our patriotic duty seems to be to buy more and save less."
Today, with the stock market once again devastated by a disaster, market patriotism is back. The social distancing rules prompted by the coronavirus pandemic have brought our economy to a standstill for two weeks now, and so the American consumer is once again being drafted into a rescue mission. President Trump briefly wanted the country "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," despite the fact that lifting shelter-in-place and other social distancing measures would almost certainly contribute to hundreds of thousands of otherwise preventable deaths. Though Trump has more recently come to grips with the need to continue social distancing through April, it remains clear that the Right is still gearing up to send workers and consumers back into the fray before it is safe to do so.
Lloyd Blankfein, senior chairman of Goldman Sachs, tweeted that although efforts to flatten the curve are sensible "for a time," "crushing the economy, jobs, and morale is also a health issue." Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said on FOX News that "as a senior citizen," he was "willing to take a chance" on his own survival in exchange for getting Americans back to work and saving the economy for his children and grandchildren. And Glen Beck said that he "would rather die than kill the country."
It is worth noting, of course, that Trump on his own cannot order anyone back to work—state governments, civil society, and business owners are the ones making most of these decisions. Nonetheless, if Trump and his ilk have their way, we'll all go back to work — and back to shopping and spending and pumping dollars into an economy that badly needs the revenue, or at least, badly needs enough revenue to convince investors to pump up stock prices again. If that happens, millions of Americans will die, and the GOP appears increasingly to be okay with that.
The September 11th attacks killed 2,605 Americans. Since that day, we've been told again and again that avoiding another 9/11 justifies almost any expense. No military misadventure or domestic security scheme has been too extreme or too costly. One study from Brown University put the cost of our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan at over $6 trillion since 2001. All of this has been enacted in the name of 2,605 lives lost, and to resounding cries of "never again."
As of April 1st, more Americans have already been lost to COVID-19 than died in the September 11th attacks. Yet many on the right Right have been cavalierly suggesting that the coronavirus has been overhyped because only two percent of those infected die from it. This was the claim made recently by Rush Limbaugh, though he did not acknowledge that such fatality rates would leave millions of Americans dead. After months of downplaying the threat posed by the virus, Trump himself is now saying that keeping the death toll below 100,000 would be "a very good job." It seems unfathomable that the same country that so radically revamped its domestic security systems and that embarked on a doctrine of "preemptive war" around the world as a response to 2,605 American deaths could suddenly fail to care about the prospect of hundreds of thousands of American deaths (or more).
The simple answer is that our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were never about protecting Americans, as millions of protestors knew from the start. They were about oil. They were about a wounded sense of American innocence. They were about a kind of vengeance for America's failure in Vietnam. They were about profiteering — disaster capitalism, as Naomi Klein has aptly diagnosed it. But they were not about protecting anyone.
The enormous stimulus bill, signed into law last week with the near-unanimous support of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, further illustrated these principles. Despite the fact that most reporting lists its price tag at a whopping $2 trillion, the real cost is likely to be closer to 6 trillion — the Federal Reserve is going to be able to lend an additional $4 trillion to major corporations, on top of the $500 billion or so in direct bailout funds that has been more widely reported on.
The effects of the bill will be devastating for workers, the middle class, and small businesses. According to critics like Matthew Stoller, this bill gives Wall Street the ability "to go shopping for businesses in trouble. We could see the mother of all roll-ups, as small and medium sized businesses desperately try to get whatever they can from deep-pocketed private equity investors and monopolists. If that happens, America could look like a very different country after this pandemic is over."
And as David Dayen put it in The American Prospect, "this is a rubber-stamp on an unequal system that has brought terrible hardship to the majority of America. The people get a $1,200 means-tested payment and a little wage insurance for four months. Corporations get a transformative amount of play money to sustain their system and wipe out the competition."
Market patriotism used to mean that average citizens were urged to keep spending during periods of uncertainty. Now it demands blood sacrifice. Our leaders want us back to work, getting sick, and if need be, dying to please the market. They want to throw us crumbs while further enabling the consolidation of the economy in the hands of an ever-smaller group of ever-larger corporations. Though the outsized influence of billionaires and big corporations was a source of heated discussion during the Democratic primaries, this bill is a triumph for the ultra-wealthy financiers who already control so much of American life.
In the end, Americans all know that we have suffered and sacrificed too much for the market already. It doesn't have to be this way. Those who can continue to stay home must do so. But we must also stand in solidarity with those who don't have a choice — we must refuse to order from Instacart and Amazon, whose workers are now on strike for better wages and working conditions, and support other labor actions in the future. We must do what we can to help each other, and to protect ourselves. Our leaders, and the market they serve, will certainly not protect us now. They never really have.
THE ENEMY WITHIN!!!
Coronavirus outbreak
Disinformation and blame: how America's far right is capitalizing on coronavirus
The pandemic, a situation in which people are panic-buying supplies, is ideal for a movement powered by fear and lies
Jason Wilson
the guardian
Thu 19 Mar 2020 02.00 EDT
The far right in America has received the coronavirus pandemic in much the same manner as any other event: with disinformation, conspiracies and scapegoating. Many seem to see it as a significant opportunity, whether it is for financial gain, recruiting new followers, or both.
The delayed and much criticized response to coronavirus by the Trump administration has helped them, leaving many Americans confused, bereft of information and looking for answers. A situation in which people are panic-buying supplies is ideal for a movement powered by fear and lies.
Apocalyptic narratives – whether of societal collapse, biblical rapture, or race war – are the central way that the a spectrum of far-right movements draw in followers and resources. These narratives use fear to draw followers closer, allowing leaders to direct their followers’ actions, and maybe fleece them blind.
For the survivalist elements of the far right, the coronavirus provides an opportunity to say that they told us so, win hearts and minds and make money. If they’re lucky, they might even get a hearing by the mainstream media.
The conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, for example, who has been warning of imminent cataclysms for more than 20 years, has used the outbreak to step up his aggressive pitching for bulk food products and other survival goods sold on his website.
Others have been assisted by mainstream media outlets in making the case that they are reasonable people who have been making reasonable preparations all along.
James Wesley Rawles, the reclusive founder of the separatist and survivalist American Redoubt movement, was interviewed by Dow Jones website, MarketWatch, about his approach to prepping.
They asked him about food storage and the pandemic. They did not ask Rawles about his position as the ideological godfather of a movement which promotes “political migration” by rightwing Christians to the interior of the Pacific north-west.
In a time of crisis, far-right figures are hoping for exactly this kind of wider exposure.
Farther out on the neo-Nazi right, in the Telegram channels where “accelerationists” – who seek to hasten the end of liberal democracy in order to build a white ethnostate – overlap with “ecofascists” – who propose genocidal solutions to ecological problems – groups are openly talking about how to use the crisis to recruit people to terroristic white supremacy.
One group posted a text that suggested “narratives that should be pushed”, including that “our current system is inadequate for modern issues”, and “everything that is bad that is happening is the fault of the system and its failings, not pandemics or markets.”
They also suggest forming “civil support groups” to fill the gaps left by the state, but only for recruitment purposes. They have no interest in restoring calm. “The more things destabilize the easier they are to continue to keep in flux”, the post continues, “now is the time to push when things are already teetering on the edge”.
Like many on the far right, these groups gleefully anticipate societal collapse, and what they might gain from it.
The other way in which various far-right groups and believers hope to gain ground is by proposing conspiracy theories about the causes and origins of the virus, and to use these narratives to scapegoat groups like immigrants, or minorities or liberals.
However, some are still following the lead set by Donald Trump in the earlier part of the crisis, and remain in denial. On Telegram, the has-been alt-right internet personality Milo Yiannopoulos asked his followers in a poll which was the “biggest hoax of our lifetime: Acid Rain, Climate Change, Satanic Ritual Abuse, Coronavirus”.
Others have more elaborate theories with which to focus their followers’ rage.
Along with his cash-in supplies, Jones has managed to slot coronavirus into his overarching conspiracy theories. Jones – an unwavering Trump supporter – has a neat solution to the problem of taking advantage of the commercial opportunities presented by virus without criticizing Trump’s lackadaisical response. He claims that Covid-19 is a human-made bioweapon, produced by the Chinese government to bring Trump down.
A similar conspiracy theory has made its way into the brains of more mainstream figures. This posits the idea that software mogul Bill Gates and financier and philanthropist George Soros were involved in concocting the virus with the Chinese Communist party.
In a now-deleted tweet on 27 February, the Republican California congressional candidate Joanne Wright wrote: “The Corona virus is a man made virus created in a Wuhan laboratory. Ask @BillGates who financed it.” In another disappeared tweet, she added: “Doesn’t @BillGates finance research at the Wuhan lab where the Corona virus was being created? Isn’t @georgesoros a good friend of Gates?”
As Trump has gradually moved towards an acknowledgment that the virus exists, he has also been leading the charge in scapegoating immigrants and foreigners for spreading the illness. He has repeatedly tweeted throughout early March that the US epidemic would be worse were it not for his administration’s border policies, and called it a “foreign virus”.
Trump sought to apportion blame, then, in a way that furthered his political agenda and has been amplified by his rightwing allies. In that spirit, the Liberty University president and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr – a high-profile backer of Trump – last week aired the theory that coronavirus was a North Korean bioweapon.
The delayed and much criticized response to coronavirus by the Trump administration has helped them, leaving many Americans confused, bereft of information and looking for answers. A situation in which people are panic-buying supplies is ideal for a movement powered by fear and lies.
Apocalyptic narratives – whether of societal collapse, biblical rapture, or race war – are the central way that the a spectrum of far-right movements draw in followers and resources. These narratives use fear to draw followers closer, allowing leaders to direct their followers’ actions, and maybe fleece them blind.
For the survivalist elements of the far right, the coronavirus provides an opportunity to say that they told us so, win hearts and minds and make money. If they’re lucky, they might even get a hearing by the mainstream media.
The conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones, for example, who has been warning of imminent cataclysms for more than 20 years, has used the outbreak to step up his aggressive pitching for bulk food products and other survival goods sold on his website.
Others have been assisted by mainstream media outlets in making the case that they are reasonable people who have been making reasonable preparations all along.
James Wesley Rawles, the reclusive founder of the separatist and survivalist American Redoubt movement, was interviewed by Dow Jones website, MarketWatch, about his approach to prepping.
They asked him about food storage and the pandemic. They did not ask Rawles about his position as the ideological godfather of a movement which promotes “political migration” by rightwing Christians to the interior of the Pacific north-west.
In a time of crisis, far-right figures are hoping for exactly this kind of wider exposure.
Farther out on the neo-Nazi right, in the Telegram channels where “accelerationists” – who seek to hasten the end of liberal democracy in order to build a white ethnostate – overlap with “ecofascists” – who propose genocidal solutions to ecological problems – groups are openly talking about how to use the crisis to recruit people to terroristic white supremacy.
One group posted a text that suggested “narratives that should be pushed”, including that “our current system is inadequate for modern issues”, and “everything that is bad that is happening is the fault of the system and its failings, not pandemics or markets.”
They also suggest forming “civil support groups” to fill the gaps left by the state, but only for recruitment purposes. They have no interest in restoring calm. “The more things destabilize the easier they are to continue to keep in flux”, the post continues, “now is the time to push when things are already teetering on the edge”.
Like many on the far right, these groups gleefully anticipate societal collapse, and what they might gain from it.
The other way in which various far-right groups and believers hope to gain ground is by proposing conspiracy theories about the causes and origins of the virus, and to use these narratives to scapegoat groups like immigrants, or minorities or liberals.
However, some are still following the lead set by Donald Trump in the earlier part of the crisis, and remain in denial. On Telegram, the has-been alt-right internet personality Milo Yiannopoulos asked his followers in a poll which was the “biggest hoax of our lifetime: Acid Rain, Climate Change, Satanic Ritual Abuse, Coronavirus”.
Others have more elaborate theories with which to focus their followers’ rage.
Along with his cash-in supplies, Jones has managed to slot coronavirus into his overarching conspiracy theories. Jones – an unwavering Trump supporter – has a neat solution to the problem of taking advantage of the commercial opportunities presented by virus without criticizing Trump’s lackadaisical response. He claims that Covid-19 is a human-made bioweapon, produced by the Chinese government to bring Trump down.
A similar conspiracy theory has made its way into the brains of more mainstream figures. This posits the idea that software mogul Bill Gates and financier and philanthropist George Soros were involved in concocting the virus with the Chinese Communist party.
In a now-deleted tweet on 27 February, the Republican California congressional candidate Joanne Wright wrote: “The Corona virus is a man made virus created in a Wuhan laboratory. Ask @BillGates who financed it.” In another disappeared tweet, she added: “Doesn’t @BillGates finance research at the Wuhan lab where the Corona virus was being created? Isn’t @georgesoros a good friend of Gates?”
As Trump has gradually moved towards an acknowledgment that the virus exists, he has also been leading the charge in scapegoating immigrants and foreigners for spreading the illness. He has repeatedly tweeted throughout early March that the US epidemic would be worse were it not for his administration’s border policies, and called it a “foreign virus”.
Trump sought to apportion blame, then, in a way that furthered his political agenda and has been amplified by his rightwing allies. In that spirit, the Liberty University president and evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr – a high-profile backer of Trump – last week aired the theory that coronavirus was a North Korean bioweapon.
CONSERVATISM: a fraudulent, oppressive movement!!!
Jerry Falwell Jr. pushes a xenophobic conspiracy theory and unmasks the conservative movement
John Stoehr, The Editorial Board - alternet
March 13, 2020
I suppose we owe Jerry Falwell Jr. a debt of gratitude. I’m serious.
Falwell is the son of the late Jerry Falwell, the man most responsible for bringing fundamentalist Christianity out of the political wilderness during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Junior, along with Franklin Graham, himself a scion of a religious dynasty, is perhaps the president’s greatest champion among white evangelical Christians.
He appeared on “Fox & Friends” today. Among other things, he accused Donald Trump’s enemies, including the press, of hyping COVID-19, the new strain of the coronavirus spreading around the world, panicking global markets and closing down entertainment and cultural events here and elsewhere. He, like Tom Cotton, the fascist senator from Arkansas, believes the disease outbreak can be blamed on totalitarian regimes in the east. For Cotton, that’s China. For Falwell, that’s North Korea. (While Falwell was on air, the president announced a state of national emergency related to the outbreak, undermining his and Cotton’s search for a scapegoat for his sake.)
Falwell’s demagoguery isn’t what we should be thankful for. What we should be thankful for is his confessing without appearing to know it that a pillar of “principled conservatism” in the United States is no pillar at all. Not in practice. Once you see that this pillar rests on a bed of sand, rather than constitutional bedrock, you start seeing other “conservative principles” do, too. “State’s rights,” “gun rights,” “the right to life” and even “religious freedom” are nearly always about something other than what they seem to be. Falwell and his ideological confederates can’t be honest about it, though. If they were, they’d lose. Dishonesty, fraudulence and bad faith are central to their aims.
What would Jesus do? Not that.
Here’s some context, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor: “As in many states, residents in parts of rural, conservative Virginia say they seem to inhabit an increasingly different daily reality than that of urban and suburban districts. That feeling of separation was compounded by last November’s Democratic sweep of the state’s elected offices. Now residents in Frederick County are mulling a radical proposal: seceding from Virginia and joining neighboring West Virginia” (my italics).
Apparently Falwell is part of the effort. He’s the head of something called “Vaxit,” according to “Fox & Friends.” Whether that’s a real organization I have no idea, but that’s not what I’m most interested in. I’m most interested in expressing gratitude to the good reverend for admitting “state’s rights” have nothing to do with conservatism.
Think about it.
If the principle of “state’s rights” meant what conservatives have said it meant to them, not one of them, not Jerry Falwell Jr. nor anyone calling him or herself a “principled conservative,” would dare suggest that a county secede from a state. If states are sovereign, as conservatives have alleged since Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat in 1948, calling for a county to secede from a state is traitorous. If “state’s rights” are as sacred as conservatives have said they are, the idea of secession is an abomination.
In saying counties should leave the state as casually as ordering unsweet tea with his burger and fries, the Rev. Falwell told us without knowing he was telling us that conservatism in theory is authoritarianism in practice. It cannot and will not tolerate democratic change, despite change coming with the blessing of the majority. If the majority rules, Falwell and his confederates will abandon commitments to democracy.
Once you abandon democracy—once you open the door to treason—there’s no end in sight. Once it seceded, “the Confederacy began to deny states’ rights,” wrote James W. Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me. “Jefferson Davis denounced states’ rights as destructive to the Confederacy. The mountainous counties in western Virginia bolted to the Union. Confederate troops had to occupy east Tennessee to keep it from emulating West Virginia. Winn Parish, Louisiana, refused to secede from the Union. Winston County, Alabama, declared itself the Free State of Winston. Unionist farmers and woodsmen in Jones County, Mississippi, declared the Free State of Jones.”
By February 1864, Davis despaired: “Public meetings of treasonable character, in the name of state sovereignty, are being held.” Thus states’ rights as an ideology was contradictory and could not mobilize the white South for the long haul.
What mobilized the white South was the defense of slavery. Falwell and his new breed of confederate aren’t doing that, of course, but the spirit of treason, if not the act of treason, is the same. Conservatives tell us they prefer slow and gradual change, and stand united against radical attempts to bring it swiftly. But that’s not their true face. Conservatism in practice is a radical ideology reserving the right to betray its stated principles, and to betray community and brotherhood, if it doesn’t get what it wants.
Thanks to Jerry Falwell Jr., that’s now easy to see.
Falwell is the son of the late Jerry Falwell, the man most responsible for bringing fundamentalist Christianity out of the political wilderness during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Junior, along with Franklin Graham, himself a scion of a religious dynasty, is perhaps the president’s greatest champion among white evangelical Christians.
He appeared on “Fox & Friends” today. Among other things, he accused Donald Trump’s enemies, including the press, of hyping COVID-19, the new strain of the coronavirus spreading around the world, panicking global markets and closing down entertainment and cultural events here and elsewhere. He, like Tom Cotton, the fascist senator from Arkansas, believes the disease outbreak can be blamed on totalitarian regimes in the east. For Cotton, that’s China. For Falwell, that’s North Korea. (While Falwell was on air, the president announced a state of national emergency related to the outbreak, undermining his and Cotton’s search for a scapegoat for his sake.)
Falwell’s demagoguery isn’t what we should be thankful for. What we should be thankful for is his confessing without appearing to know it that a pillar of “principled conservatism” in the United States is no pillar at all. Not in practice. Once you see that this pillar rests on a bed of sand, rather than constitutional bedrock, you start seeing other “conservative principles” do, too. “State’s rights,” “gun rights,” “the right to life” and even “religious freedom” are nearly always about something other than what they seem to be. Falwell and his ideological confederates can’t be honest about it, though. If they were, they’d lose. Dishonesty, fraudulence and bad faith are central to their aims.
What would Jesus do? Not that.
Here’s some context, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor: “As in many states, residents in parts of rural, conservative Virginia say they seem to inhabit an increasingly different daily reality than that of urban and suburban districts. That feeling of separation was compounded by last November’s Democratic sweep of the state’s elected offices. Now residents in Frederick County are mulling a radical proposal: seceding from Virginia and joining neighboring West Virginia” (my italics).
Apparently Falwell is part of the effort. He’s the head of something called “Vaxit,” according to “Fox & Friends.” Whether that’s a real organization I have no idea, but that’s not what I’m most interested in. I’m most interested in expressing gratitude to the good reverend for admitting “state’s rights” have nothing to do with conservatism.
Think about it.
If the principle of “state’s rights” meant what conservatives have said it meant to them, not one of them, not Jerry Falwell Jr. nor anyone calling him or herself a “principled conservative,” would dare suggest that a county secede from a state. If states are sovereign, as conservatives have alleged since Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat in 1948, calling for a county to secede from a state is traitorous. If “state’s rights” are as sacred as conservatives have said they are, the idea of secession is an abomination.
In saying counties should leave the state as casually as ordering unsweet tea with his burger and fries, the Rev. Falwell told us without knowing he was telling us that conservatism in theory is authoritarianism in practice. It cannot and will not tolerate democratic change, despite change coming with the blessing of the majority. If the majority rules, Falwell and his confederates will abandon commitments to democracy.
Once you abandon democracy—once you open the door to treason—there’s no end in sight. Once it seceded, “the Confederacy began to deny states’ rights,” wrote James W. Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me. “Jefferson Davis denounced states’ rights as destructive to the Confederacy. The mountainous counties in western Virginia bolted to the Union. Confederate troops had to occupy east Tennessee to keep it from emulating West Virginia. Winn Parish, Louisiana, refused to secede from the Union. Winston County, Alabama, declared itself the Free State of Winston. Unionist farmers and woodsmen in Jones County, Mississippi, declared the Free State of Jones.”
By February 1864, Davis despaired: “Public meetings of treasonable character, in the name of state sovereignty, are being held.” Thus states’ rights as an ideology was contradictory and could not mobilize the white South for the long haul.
What mobilized the white South was the defense of slavery. Falwell and his new breed of confederate aren’t doing that, of course, but the spirit of treason, if not the act of treason, is the same. Conservatives tell us they prefer slow and gradual change, and stand united against radical attempts to bring it swiftly. But that’s not their true face. Conservatism in practice is a radical ideology reserving the right to betray its stated principles, and to betray community and brotherhood, if it doesn’t get what it wants.
Thanks to Jerry Falwell Jr., that’s now easy to see.
How the coronavirus has exposed the religious right’s racism
By Samel L. Perry, Andrew L. Whitehead and Joseph O. Baker - raw story
March 13, 2020
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On March 10, President Trump retweeted a post from conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, who referred to the coronavirus (COVID-19) as the “China Virus.“ Kirk also exclaimed in his tweet, “Now, more than ever, we need the wall…the US stands a chance if we can get control of our borders.” Trump retweeted this and added the comment, “Going up fast. We need the wall more than ever!”
At first blush, this exchange might seem like the garden-variety white nationalist xenophobia characteristic of Trump or many of his influential supporters. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and GOP House Representative Kevin McCarthy, in fact, have both insisted on continuing to call the disease the “Chinese Coronavirus.” But Trump’s retweet, and where it originates, helps shed light not only on the Right’s brazen xenophobia, but on the link between America’s supposed religious heritage and fears of ethnic pollution.
Charlie Kirk is co-founder of Liberty University’s Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty. The Falkirk Center is described by Liberty’s newspaper as a “modern think tank set to renew and defend God-given freedoms and Christian principles throughout American politics and culture.”
That an ambassador of Christian nationalism like Kirk would hold xenophobic attitudes should be no surprise. In Taking America Back for God, we show that such views are fundamental to the Christian nationalist framework. One of the most consistent findings in research on Christian nationalism over the past decade is that Americans who more strongly subscribe to this ideology are more likely to be staunchly anti-immigrant―especially if those immigrants are non-white and/or non-Christian.
But Kirk’s repeated “China Virus” tweets, and Trump’s powerful retweet, both connecting the spread of disease with the need to keep immigrants out, are a clear reminder that white Christian nationalism has always connected non-white immigrants with social and biological contamination. Immigration is framed as an issue of purity or contamination; a righteous body politic or pathological disease.
Chinese immigrants have long been the target of such attacks. The Immigration Act of 1882 included the Chinese Exclusion Act, which all but banned immigrants from anywhere in Asia, who were perceived to be plagued with “the social and political diseases of the Old World.” Asians in particular, and to a lesser extent Eastern Europeans, were deemed less worthy than immigrants from parts of Europe populated by those more likely to be “White” and “Protestant,” which have often been historically been understood to mean the same thing.
Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, which was successful due in no small part to his appeals to white Christian nationalism, drew on similar “contamination” rhetoric to shore up support for the Mexican border wall. He insisted that not only are Mexicans supposedly bringing violent crime and drugs into the country, but they are responsible for “tremendous infectious disease…pouring across the border.”
Survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans collected within the past year allows us to see the explicit connection between White Christian nationalism and Americans’ perceptions that immigrants are disease-ridden. The 2019 Chapman University Survey of American Fears asked respondents to indicate how much they agreed with five statements, including: “The federal government should declare the US a Christian nation,” and “The federal government should advocate Christian values.” Responses ranged from zero (“strongly disagree”) to three (“strongly agree”). We added the responses together to make a Christian nationalism index, with values ranging from 0 to 15. The survey also asked Americans about their agreement with a range of statements about perceived xenophobic threats, including: “Immigrants bring diseases into the United States.”
To the left (graph, above) we see the percentage of Americans who agree that immigrants bring diseases across scores on the Christian nationalism index. The trend is striking. Not only are those who affirm Christian nationalism more likely to believe immigrants transport disease into the U.S., at the highest levels of Christian nationalism, nearly all (98%) believe this to be.
But is this perhaps just a function of political conservatism, or age, or being a fundamentalist Christian, all of which are associated with both Christian nationalism and xenophobic fears?
Not at all. When we account for various factors such as age, political party and ideology, religious practice and belief, education, gender, and so on, we see the same pattern. In fact, as the figure to the right shows, this trend shows up across political party. While numbers aren’t quite as pronounced for Democrats and Independents as Republicans, clearly, as adherence to Christian nationalist ideology increases, the likelihood that someone associates immigration with disease increases greatly. (graph)
What all this shows is that xenophobic responses to the coronavirus by Christian nationalists like Charlie Kirk, or their champions like Donald Trump, are entirely predictable. It has been this way for centuries. For those who believe the nation rightly belongs to “people like us” (read: White, native-born, Christians), anyone who falls into the category of “them” is polluting―both culturally and biologically.
At first blush, this exchange might seem like the garden-variety white nationalist xenophobia characteristic of Trump or many of his influential supporters. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and GOP House Representative Kevin McCarthy, in fact, have both insisted on continuing to call the disease the “Chinese Coronavirus.” But Trump’s retweet, and where it originates, helps shed light not only on the Right’s brazen xenophobia, but on the link between America’s supposed religious heritage and fears of ethnic pollution.
Charlie Kirk is co-founder of Liberty University’s Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty. The Falkirk Center is described by Liberty’s newspaper as a “modern think tank set to renew and defend God-given freedoms and Christian principles throughout American politics and culture.”
That an ambassador of Christian nationalism like Kirk would hold xenophobic attitudes should be no surprise. In Taking America Back for God, we show that such views are fundamental to the Christian nationalist framework. One of the most consistent findings in research on Christian nationalism over the past decade is that Americans who more strongly subscribe to this ideology are more likely to be staunchly anti-immigrant―especially if those immigrants are non-white and/or non-Christian.
But Kirk’s repeated “China Virus” tweets, and Trump’s powerful retweet, both connecting the spread of disease with the need to keep immigrants out, are a clear reminder that white Christian nationalism has always connected non-white immigrants with social and biological contamination. Immigration is framed as an issue of purity or contamination; a righteous body politic or pathological disease.
Chinese immigrants have long been the target of such attacks. The Immigration Act of 1882 included the Chinese Exclusion Act, which all but banned immigrants from anywhere in Asia, who were perceived to be plagued with “the social and political diseases of the Old World.” Asians in particular, and to a lesser extent Eastern Europeans, were deemed less worthy than immigrants from parts of Europe populated by those more likely to be “White” and “Protestant,” which have often been historically been understood to mean the same thing.
Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign, which was successful due in no small part to his appeals to white Christian nationalism, drew on similar “contamination” rhetoric to shore up support for the Mexican border wall. He insisted that not only are Mexicans supposedly bringing violent crime and drugs into the country, but they are responsible for “tremendous infectious disease…pouring across the border.”
Survey data from a nationally representative sample of Americans collected within the past year allows us to see the explicit connection between White Christian nationalism and Americans’ perceptions that immigrants are disease-ridden. The 2019 Chapman University Survey of American Fears asked respondents to indicate how much they agreed with five statements, including: “The federal government should declare the US a Christian nation,” and “The federal government should advocate Christian values.” Responses ranged from zero (“strongly disagree”) to three (“strongly agree”). We added the responses together to make a Christian nationalism index, with values ranging from 0 to 15. The survey also asked Americans about their agreement with a range of statements about perceived xenophobic threats, including: “Immigrants bring diseases into the United States.”
To the left (graph, above) we see the percentage of Americans who agree that immigrants bring diseases across scores on the Christian nationalism index. The trend is striking. Not only are those who affirm Christian nationalism more likely to believe immigrants transport disease into the U.S., at the highest levels of Christian nationalism, nearly all (98%) believe this to be.
But is this perhaps just a function of political conservatism, or age, or being a fundamentalist Christian, all of which are associated with both Christian nationalism and xenophobic fears?
Not at all. When we account for various factors such as age, political party and ideology, religious practice and belief, education, gender, and so on, we see the same pattern. In fact, as the figure to the right shows, this trend shows up across political party. While numbers aren’t quite as pronounced for Democrats and Independents as Republicans, clearly, as adherence to Christian nationalist ideology increases, the likelihood that someone associates immigration with disease increases greatly. (graph)
What all this shows is that xenophobic responses to the coronavirus by Christian nationalists like Charlie Kirk, or their champions like Donald Trump, are entirely predictable. It has been this way for centuries. For those who believe the nation rightly belongs to “people like us” (read: White, native-born, Christians), anyone who falls into the category of “them” is polluting―both culturally and biologically.
Is the Christian right now in charge of public health inside the Trump administration?
CDC director Robert Redfield and other important public health officials are Pence-approved evangelical Christians
HEATHER DIGBY PARTON - salon
MARCH 9, 2020 12:30PM (UTC)
If you've been following the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak, you probably saw at least some snippets of President Trump's visit to the CDC last Friday. It will stand as one of the most astonishing appearances by this or any other president — and that's saying something. When asked if he regretted firing the entire staff of the Office of Pandemic Preparation, Trump said, "This is something that you can never really think is going to happen." He said that everyone who wants to be tested for this virus can get tested, which is not even close to true. He called Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state, who is on the front lines dealing with this epidemic, a "snake."
He made it clear that he wants to cook the numbers so it doesn't look as if the nation is in the midst of an epidemic. This has been obvious from the outset, but for the president to come out and say it is something else again:
Mostly, however, he patted himself on the back:
You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT. He taught at MIT for, I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, "How do you know so much about this?" Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.
As Wired science reporter Adam Rogers wrote:
As a reporter, in general I'm not supposed to say something like this, but: The president's statements to the press were terrifying. That press availability was a repudiation of good science and good crisis management from inside one of the world's most respected scientific institutions.
Let's put that another way: The CDC was considered one of the world's most respected scientific institutions. It has not been covering itself in glory during this crisis.
The most unnerving aspect of the government response so far has not been Trump's gibberish. He's in over his head and it shows, as usual. And we know from his response to Hurricane Maria and other natural disasters that his only concern in a crisis is for his own political well-being. But I wouldn't have expected to hear the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, laud Trump like a Fox News pundit:
Aaron Rupar✔
@atrupar
"First I want to thank you, for your decisive leadership ... I also want to thank you for coming here today ... I think that's the most important thing I want to say" --CDC Director Redfield slathers Dear Leader-style praise on Trump during his tour of CDC headquarters
2:53 PM - Mar 6, 2020
It's a full-blown ritual at this point for members of the Trump cabinet and Republicans in Congress to genuflect to the president as if he were a 15th-century pope. And we know that public health experts have had to tread very softly in order not to upset him.
Still, it was surprising to hear such a slavering tribute from a scientist in the midst of a global health crisis. Likewise, it was strange to hear the highly esteemed U.S. global AIDS coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, make similar comments when she was introduced as part of the coronavirus task force back on March 2:
It is clear the early work of the president over travel restrictions and the ability quarantine has bought us the time and space to have this task force be very effective. I have never worked with such incredible scientists and thoughtful policy leaders...
It seemed just a bit over the top. But these two weren't the only ones:
Aaron Rupar✔
@atrupar
Here's Surgeon General Jerome Adams telling Jake Tapper that President Trump "sleeps less than I do and he's healthier than what I am." 😳
8:07 AM - Mar 8, 2020
There's something important happening under the surface here. It may not simply be that these health policy professionals are trying to keep the kooky president happy so they can do their work on behalf of the country. They may be Trump true believers.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, for instance, is a Mike Pence crony who previously served as the Indiana state health commissioner. He was intimately involved in the horrific HIV outbreak in that state, where Pence refused to authorize a needle exchange program until a number of people had died unnecessarily. Naturally, Trump appointed him surgeon general.
Redfield and Birx are both evangelical Christians who have been associated with HIV research for many years, going back to the 1980s. Birx runs PEPFAR, George W. Bush's global AIDS initiative, and both she and Redfield have been involved with Children's AIDS Fund International, which lobbies for abstinence-only sex education around the world.
The Washington Post reported back in 2018 that they belong to a network run by an important power broker in the evangelical world:
Evangelical activist Shepherd Smith has spent more than three decades cultivating relationships with leading AIDS researchers and policymakers to promote abstinence-only sex education and other programs. Those connections now could influence government programs and funding within the Trump administration. Among the most prominent: Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...
[His wife] Anita Smith is now a consultant within PEPFAR to Deborah Birx, a physician and ambassador at large who oversees the program's estimated $5 billion annual budget. Birx is also a former board member of Children's AIDS Fund International and served until she was hired by the CDC in 2005, a PEPFAR spokesman said.
Anita Smith was hired by Birx to "improve prevention programs aimed at preteen girls." I'm pretty sure we know what she recommended.
Redfield and Birx both served in the military doing AIDS research in the mid-1980s. Redfield is well-known for recommending measures that were considered extreme even within the Reagan administration, including the forced quarantine of AIDS patients. He later had a financial interest in an HIV vaccine that didn't work, but which he continued to push. Birx, on the other hand, has maintained a stellar reputation.
To be clear, none of this means that these people aren't qualified for the jobs they hold. They both have medical degrees and relevant experience. But they seem to be part of a conservative subculture of evangelical Christians who have found a foothold in the Trump administration clustered around Mike Pence's office. Along millions of other evangelicals, it appears they really believe in Donald Trump.
Setting ideology aside, however, what Trump wants these people to do — cover up his own ignorance and incompetence — is totally at odds with what they must know is best for the health of the American public. Is their worshipful admiration for this man blinding them to the need to communicate honestly with the American people about this crisis? Because that would explain a lot.
He made it clear that he wants to cook the numbers so it doesn't look as if the nation is in the midst of an epidemic. This has been obvious from the outset, but for the president to come out and say it is something else again:
Mostly, however, he patted himself on the back:
You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT. He taught at MIT for, I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, "How do you know so much about this?" Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.
As Wired science reporter Adam Rogers wrote:
As a reporter, in general I'm not supposed to say something like this, but: The president's statements to the press were terrifying. That press availability was a repudiation of good science and good crisis management from inside one of the world's most respected scientific institutions.
Let's put that another way: The CDC was considered one of the world's most respected scientific institutions. It has not been covering itself in glory during this crisis.
The most unnerving aspect of the government response so far has not been Trump's gibberish. He's in over his head and it shows, as usual. And we know from his response to Hurricane Maria and other natural disasters that his only concern in a crisis is for his own political well-being. But I wouldn't have expected to hear the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, laud Trump like a Fox News pundit:
Aaron Rupar✔
@atrupar
"First I want to thank you, for your decisive leadership ... I also want to thank you for coming here today ... I think that's the most important thing I want to say" --CDC Director Redfield slathers Dear Leader-style praise on Trump during his tour of CDC headquarters
2:53 PM - Mar 6, 2020
It's a full-blown ritual at this point for members of the Trump cabinet and Republicans in Congress to genuflect to the president as if he were a 15th-century pope. And we know that public health experts have had to tread very softly in order not to upset him.
Still, it was surprising to hear such a slavering tribute from a scientist in the midst of a global health crisis. Likewise, it was strange to hear the highly esteemed U.S. global AIDS coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, make similar comments when she was introduced as part of the coronavirus task force back on March 2:
It is clear the early work of the president over travel restrictions and the ability quarantine has bought us the time and space to have this task force be very effective. I have never worked with such incredible scientists and thoughtful policy leaders...
It seemed just a bit over the top. But these two weren't the only ones:
Aaron Rupar✔
@atrupar
Here's Surgeon General Jerome Adams telling Jake Tapper that President Trump "sleeps less than I do and he's healthier than what I am." 😳
8:07 AM - Mar 8, 2020
There's something important happening under the surface here. It may not simply be that these health policy professionals are trying to keep the kooky president happy so they can do their work on behalf of the country. They may be Trump true believers.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, for instance, is a Mike Pence crony who previously served as the Indiana state health commissioner. He was intimately involved in the horrific HIV outbreak in that state, where Pence refused to authorize a needle exchange program until a number of people had died unnecessarily. Naturally, Trump appointed him surgeon general.
Redfield and Birx are both evangelical Christians who have been associated with HIV research for many years, going back to the 1980s. Birx runs PEPFAR, George W. Bush's global AIDS initiative, and both she and Redfield have been involved with Children's AIDS Fund International, which lobbies for abstinence-only sex education around the world.
The Washington Post reported back in 2018 that they belong to a network run by an important power broker in the evangelical world:
Evangelical activist Shepherd Smith has spent more than three decades cultivating relationships with leading AIDS researchers and policymakers to promote abstinence-only sex education and other programs. Those connections now could influence government programs and funding within the Trump administration. Among the most prominent: Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...
[His wife] Anita Smith is now a consultant within PEPFAR to Deborah Birx, a physician and ambassador at large who oversees the program's estimated $5 billion annual budget. Birx is also a former board member of Children's AIDS Fund International and served until she was hired by the CDC in 2005, a PEPFAR spokesman said.
Anita Smith was hired by Birx to "improve prevention programs aimed at preteen girls." I'm pretty sure we know what she recommended.
Redfield and Birx both served in the military doing AIDS research in the mid-1980s. Redfield is well-known for recommending measures that were considered extreme even within the Reagan administration, including the forced quarantine of AIDS patients. He later had a financial interest in an HIV vaccine that didn't work, but which he continued to push. Birx, on the other hand, has maintained a stellar reputation.
To be clear, none of this means that these people aren't qualified for the jobs they hold. They both have medical degrees and relevant experience. But they seem to be part of a conservative subculture of evangelical Christians who have found a foothold in the Trump administration clustered around Mike Pence's office. Along millions of other evangelicals, it appears they really believe in Donald Trump.
Setting ideology aside, however, what Trump wants these people to do — cover up his own ignorance and incompetence — is totally at odds with what they must know is best for the health of the American public. Is their worshipful admiration for this man blinding them to the need to communicate honestly with the American people about this crisis? Because that would explain a lot.
CPAC speaker terrifies audience about medicare for all: ‘Socialized medicine killed Princess Diana’
February 27, 2020
By David Edwards - raw story
A panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday alleged that socialized medicine — not a car accident — killed Princess Diana.
The remarks came during a panel on the alleged dangers of socialized medicine.
“Socialized medicine killed Princess Diana,” the announcer revealed before asking one of the panelists to explain why.
“Princess Diana was in the car accident in France,” Dr. David Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon, told the crowd. “They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France.”
“For the first hour after that accident, she was still in that tunnel,” he continued. “And after an hour, they took her to a nearby hospital and she was alive for another three hours and they couldn’t control the bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”
According to Schneider, “there were no trauma trained people there.”
“I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America,” he concluded.
The remarks came during a panel on the alleged dangers of socialized medicine.
“Socialized medicine killed Princess Diana,” the announcer revealed before asking one of the panelists to explain why.
“Princess Diana was in the car accident in France,” Dr. David Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon, told the crowd. “They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France.”
“For the first hour after that accident, she was still in that tunnel,” he continued. “And after an hour, they took her to a nearby hospital and she was alive for another three hours and they couldn’t control the bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”
According to Schneider, “there were no trauma trained people there.”
“I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America,” he concluded.
Kris Kobach: ‘Being American Means Being Assimilated’
By Jared Holt | right wing watch
February 21, 2020 4:06 pm
Former Kansas Secretary of State and immigration hardliner Kris Kobach, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year, argued Friday that being American requires assimilation into the country’s culture.
Kobach appeared on SiriusXM Patriot’s “Breitbart News Daily” with Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow Friday to share his criticisms of the New Way Forward Act proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been blasted by prominent anti-immigrant voices and organizations like Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Center for Immigration Studies. Pro-immigration advocates claim the bill will lessen legal injustices for undocumented immigrants and break the prison-to-deportation pipeline. Marlow called the bill one of “the most insane” pieces of legislation he had ever heard about and proof that the Democratic Party “hates the country” and wants to “undo America.”
Agreeing with Marlow, Kobach criticized pro-immigrant Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden, who took heat from conservatives earlier this year after he said that most undocumented immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are “more American than most Americans.” Kobach said that Democrats believe “America is just a place on a map” and that people become Americans by simply coming to the United States.
“That undoes the entire notion of what it is to be an American,” Kobach said. “Being an American means being assimilated and adopting what the scholar Samuel Huntington called the ‘American creed.’ It was a series of values that you are assimilated into, you adopt it, things like the rule of law, constitutionalism, individualism.”
Anti-immigrant activists such as Kobach often argue that the United States should restrict immigration because immigrants fail to fully assimilate—a process that is hindered by denying immigrants legal status.
Anti-immigrant and white nationalist activists have supported Kobach, who they see giving voice to their extreme agenda.
Kobach appeared on SiriusXM Patriot’s “Breitbart News Daily” with Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow Friday to share his criticisms of the New Way Forward Act proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives, which has been blasted by prominent anti-immigrant voices and organizations like Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the Center for Immigration Studies. Pro-immigration advocates claim the bill will lessen legal injustices for undocumented immigrants and break the prison-to-deportation pipeline. Marlow called the bill one of “the most insane” pieces of legislation he had ever heard about and proof that the Democratic Party “hates the country” and wants to “undo America.”
Agreeing with Marlow, Kobach criticized pro-immigrant Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden, who took heat from conservatives earlier this year after he said that most undocumented immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are “more American than most Americans.” Kobach said that Democrats believe “America is just a place on a map” and that people become Americans by simply coming to the United States.
“That undoes the entire notion of what it is to be an American,” Kobach said. “Being an American means being assimilated and adopting what the scholar Samuel Huntington called the ‘American creed.’ It was a series of values that you are assimilated into, you adopt it, things like the rule of law, constitutionalism, individualism.”
Anti-immigrant activists such as Kobach often argue that the United States should restrict immigration because immigrants fail to fully assimilate—a process that is hindered by denying immigrants legal status.
Anti-immigrant and white nationalist activists have supported Kobach, who they see giving voice to their extreme agenda.
Right-wing extremists using Facebook to recruit for ‘boogaloo’ attacks on liberals and cops: report
February 19, 2020
By Travis Gettys - raw story
A right-wing extremist movement is recruiting on social media to target liberals and law enforcement in a violent uprising called the “boogaloo.”
The loosely organized movement is trolling for members on mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and Twitter, in addition to 4chan and other fringe sites, to promote a second Civil War, reported NBC News.
“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 Paul Goldenberg, of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Hate groups have pushed for anti-government violence in the past, but the “boogaloo” movement appears to be new development in the spread of far-right extremism.
The nonprofit Network Contagion Research Institute has been tracking social media posts, memes and comments and found examples of the “boogaloo” phenomenon spreading online and showing up at real-world events.
Researchers began noticing the boogaloo movement last year, when gun militias and white supremacists started using a reference from the breakdancing movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” to refer to an impending violent conflict that originated on the 4chan message board.
Use of the term has jumped nearly 50 percent on Reddit and Twitter in recent months, and spiked during a November standoff between an Army veteran and New York police during a domestic dispute, and then spiked again around the House’s impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Boogaloo-themed public groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram have garnered tens of thousands of members and followers, the report found.
Membership in some of those Facebook groups have nearly doubled since last week, when NCRI’s report “went viral” among law enforcement and intelligence communities.
Faecbook has shut down two of the most popular boogaloo groups were no longer available after the report’s release, and a spokesperson for the tech giant said the company monitored groups that call for violence.
“We’ve been studying trends around this and related terms on Facebook and Instagram,” the spokesperson told NBC News. “We don’t allow speech used to incite hate or violence, and will remove any content that violates our policies. We’ll continue to monitor this across our platform.”
The loosely organized movement is trolling for members on mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and Twitter, in addition to 4chan and other fringe sites, to promote a second Civil War, reported NBC News.
“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 Paul Goldenberg, of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Hate groups have pushed for anti-government violence in the past, but the “boogaloo” movement appears to be new development in the spread of far-right extremism.
The nonprofit Network Contagion Research Institute has been tracking social media posts, memes and comments and found examples of the “boogaloo” phenomenon spreading online and showing up at real-world events.
Researchers began noticing the boogaloo movement last year, when gun militias and white supremacists started using a reference from the breakdancing movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” to refer to an impending violent conflict that originated on the 4chan message board.
Use of the term has jumped nearly 50 percent on Reddit and Twitter in recent months, and spiked during a November standoff between an Army veteran and New York police during a domestic dispute, and then spiked again around the House’s impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Boogaloo-themed public groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram have garnered tens of thousands of members and followers, the report found.
Membership in some of those Facebook groups have nearly doubled since last week, when NCRI’s report “went viral” among law enforcement and intelligence communities.
Faecbook has shut down two of the most popular boogaloo groups were no longer available after the report’s release, and a spokesperson for the tech giant said the company monitored groups that call for violence.
“We’ve been studying trends around this and related terms on Facebook and Instagram,” the spokesperson told NBC News. “We don’t allow speech used to incite hate or violence, and will remove any content that violates our policies. We’ll continue to monitor this across our platform.”
Master of false news gives right-wing Americans headlines they believe
February 15, 2020
By Agence France-Presse - raw story
Christopher Blair produces false stories he insists are easily identifiable as satire rather than news. His pages can rack up millions of views, and at least part of that audience believes the material is true.
Blair, 48, runs eight websites and five Facebook pages from his home in the northeastern US state of Maine. He says the claims his articles make are “ridiculous,” such as that President Donald Trump’s current term could be extended by three years.
But his content is widely shared by people who take it as fact, contributing to the spread of false information online.
Blair — a self-described “liberal troll” and political activist — says he knows what to write for his right-wing “target audience” through years of “being embedded in their world.”
He does not hold that audience in high regard.
“They live on… fear and hate and misinformation and very specific storylines that everybody knows aren’t true except for them,” he told AFP.
His content is rife with disclaimers: Satire. Fake news fact-check. Nothing on this page is real.
If someone clicks through to Blair’s articles, instead of instantly sharing them based on a headline, the warnings are visible.
But often, it appears that people do not.
Asked why people believe and share the articles, Blair answers: “Confirmation bias.”
“These people are told that they’re sharing satire, and it doesn’t matter,” he says. “The truth is no longer important to them. All they care about is holding on to their hate and fear.”
The spread of false information is a significant problem in the run-up to the 2020 US elections, but Blair says his readers’ minds are already made up, and that his content is “not going to impact the vote.”
‘Hate-filled lies’
Blair says he previously tried to debate conservatives online, with little success.
“You just get called names and told that you hate America,” he says.
So he turned to his current approach. It started out as “trolling for a good laugh,” but evolved into an effort to “to teach the truth to those who are otherwise unteachable.”
“The people who share our content don’t care about the truth. They share 500 things a day, most of which are hate-filled lies. When they share something of ours, there’s a chance at accountability,” he says.
According to Blair, this takes the form of “a group of a couple hundred trolls” who “patrol the pages,” make sure there is “accountability for the people commenting” and tell people they are sharing satire.
“These people, they absolutely do not respond to logic and reason, but they do respond to shame if they’re embarrassed by what they’ve done, by the fact that they’ve shared” it, he says.
Not everyone agrees that approach is helpful, or harmless.
“This type of content has a pervasive and eroding effect on our shared set of facts, and without that, it’s hard to remain a society that can come together and make collective decisions,” says Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which focuses on identifying and exposing disinformation.
Of Blair’s tactics, Brookie says: “It is a pretty big assumption and risk when much of the audience shares based on headlines and even a highly engaged minority of his audience starts to believe him.”
‘I sleep just fine’
Blair started “America’s Last Line of Defense” — which now has two regular contributors in addition to him — in 2016. He was a political blogger at the time, after previously working in home remodeling.
He earns ad revenue from what has become a network of sites — which he says had 26 million pages views in 2019 — but declined to specify how much.
“Do I make money from it? Sure,” he says. “Am I getting rich and making $300,000 a year? No.”
“It’s a full-time job.”
Enough sites steal and repost Blair’s articles without the original satire disclaimers that he now has a system set up with a fact-checker to identify and report them — another opportunity for accountability, he says.
The process can eventually lead to those copying the content losing their ability to go viral.
Despite the contentious nature of the product, he says there are lines he will not cross, such as saying that the day of an election was changed.
Blair — who has been dubbed the “godfather of fake news” — has pulled several articles, including one that said the brother of Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim, was a “9/11 terrorist, or something like that.”
“That was a bridge too far,” he says.
But other fake claims — including Omar walking out of a 9/11 memorial service, or former president Barack Obama fleeing to Kenya to avoid prosecution — are fair game.
Blair’s message to critics of his work appears in the “About US” section on his websites.
“If you can seriously read this stuff and think it can be passed off as real to reasonable people, you need to go out, right now, and buy a sense of humor and a clue,” it says.
“Keep your poutrage to yourself,” it adds, employing a portmanteau of “pouting” and “outrage.”
“I sleep just fine.”
Blair, 48, runs eight websites and five Facebook pages from his home in the northeastern US state of Maine. He says the claims his articles make are “ridiculous,” such as that President Donald Trump’s current term could be extended by three years.
But his content is widely shared by people who take it as fact, contributing to the spread of false information online.
Blair — a self-described “liberal troll” and political activist — says he knows what to write for his right-wing “target audience” through years of “being embedded in their world.”
He does not hold that audience in high regard.
“They live on… fear and hate and misinformation and very specific storylines that everybody knows aren’t true except for them,” he told AFP.
His content is rife with disclaimers: Satire. Fake news fact-check. Nothing on this page is real.
If someone clicks through to Blair’s articles, instead of instantly sharing them based on a headline, the warnings are visible.
But often, it appears that people do not.
Asked why people believe and share the articles, Blair answers: “Confirmation bias.”
“These people are told that they’re sharing satire, and it doesn’t matter,” he says. “The truth is no longer important to them. All they care about is holding on to their hate and fear.”
The spread of false information is a significant problem in the run-up to the 2020 US elections, but Blair says his readers’ minds are already made up, and that his content is “not going to impact the vote.”
‘Hate-filled lies’
Blair says he previously tried to debate conservatives online, with little success.
“You just get called names and told that you hate America,” he says.
So he turned to his current approach. It started out as “trolling for a good laugh,” but evolved into an effort to “to teach the truth to those who are otherwise unteachable.”
“The people who share our content don’t care about the truth. They share 500 things a day, most of which are hate-filled lies. When they share something of ours, there’s a chance at accountability,” he says.
According to Blair, this takes the form of “a group of a couple hundred trolls” who “patrol the pages,” make sure there is “accountability for the people commenting” and tell people they are sharing satire.
“These people, they absolutely do not respond to logic and reason, but they do respond to shame if they’re embarrassed by what they’ve done, by the fact that they’ve shared” it, he says.
Not everyone agrees that approach is helpful, or harmless.
“This type of content has a pervasive and eroding effect on our shared set of facts, and without that, it’s hard to remain a society that can come together and make collective decisions,” says Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which focuses on identifying and exposing disinformation.
Of Blair’s tactics, Brookie says: “It is a pretty big assumption and risk when much of the audience shares based on headlines and even a highly engaged minority of his audience starts to believe him.”
‘I sleep just fine’
Blair started “America’s Last Line of Defense” — which now has two regular contributors in addition to him — in 2016. He was a political blogger at the time, after previously working in home remodeling.
He earns ad revenue from what has become a network of sites — which he says had 26 million pages views in 2019 — but declined to specify how much.
“Do I make money from it? Sure,” he says. “Am I getting rich and making $300,000 a year? No.”
“It’s a full-time job.”
Enough sites steal and repost Blair’s articles without the original satire disclaimers that he now has a system set up with a fact-checker to identify and report them — another opportunity for accountability, he says.
The process can eventually lead to those copying the content losing their ability to go viral.
Despite the contentious nature of the product, he says there are lines he will not cross, such as saying that the day of an election was changed.
Blair — who has been dubbed the “godfather of fake news” — has pulled several articles, including one that said the brother of Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim, was a “9/11 terrorist, or something like that.”
“That was a bridge too far,” he says.
But other fake claims — including Omar walking out of a 9/11 memorial service, or former president Barack Obama fleeing to Kenya to avoid prosecution — are fair game.
Blair’s message to critics of his work appears in the “About US” section on his websites.
“If you can seriously read this stuff and think it can be passed off as real to reasonable people, you need to go out, right now, and buy a sense of humor and a clue,” it says.
“Keep your poutrage to yourself,” it adds, employing a portmanteau of “pouting” and “outrage.”
“I sleep just fine.”
Antonia Lee Donnelly
@DonnellyAntonia
Now I've seen everything.
The far right
White nationalist has long worked at conservative outlets under real name
Guardian findings support watchdog’s report that ‘Paul Kersey’, a prominent author and activist, is actually Michael J Thompson
Jason Wilson
the guardian
Mon 3 Feb 2020 09.00 EST
A new report has revealed that a prominent white nationalist author, activist and podcaster known as “Paul Kersey” has in fact worked for more than a decade at mainstream conservative institutions and media outlets under his real name.
According to an investigation by the not-for-profit media outlet Right Wing Watch (RWW), the man who has worked under the Kersey pseudonym is in fact Michael J Thompson.
The Guardian has uncovered additional material that supports reporting by RWW, and further indicates Thompson’s role in moulding rightwing activists from a position near the heart of America’s most influential conservative institutions.
The RWW investigation, published on Monday, reveals the work of “Paul Kersey”, whom it calls a “barely underground member of the white nationalist movement” and a fixture on the roster of racist media outlets and campaign groups.
But it also shows that Thompson worked under his own name at institutions like the Leadership Institute, its media arm Campus Reform, and WND, formerly World Net Daily, a once-popular conspiracy-minded conservative outlet, as late as November 2018.
It also shows how his WND position allowed him to move in professional circles that included white nationalists, writers from Breitbart and the Daily Caller and prominent Donald Trump supporters including Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec.
RWW determined Thompson’s identity partly through a forensic voice test on audio recordings and partly through emails and testimony provided by Katie McHugh, a former far-right insider and Breitbart writer.
Evidence from McHugh underpinned reporting by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that showed how Trump’s close aide Stephen Miller attempted to insert white nationalist themes into Breitbart’s coverage of the 2016 presidential election.
Using the “Paul Kersey” pseudonym in online columns for outlets like VDare and American Renaissance, Thompson has for years whipped up racist fears about black crime; promoted racial paranoia about a demographic “Great Replacement” of white Americans; and spread falsehoods about the genetic inferiority of non-whites.
According to RWW, he has run an influential far-right blog, Stuff Black People Don’t Like, since 2009. The blog is focused on promoting false white nationalist ideas about race and crime.
He has also regularly appeared as a guest on white nationalist podcasts including Red Ice, The Political Cesspool and Richard Spencer’s AltRight Radio and is currently the co-host of a podcast produced by a prominent SPLC-designated hate group, American Renaissance.
But in 2010, RWW reports, he was named in a press release from the Leadership Institute as working in their campus services program. The Guardian was able to confirm this by accessing an archived staff page for Campus Reform, the Leadership Institute’s online vehicle for the prosecution of on-campus culture wars.
The Leadership Institute is one of the longest-standing institutions in the US conservative movement, focused on training young activists. It claims to have trained 200,000 such young conservatives over 40 years, in skills including public speaking, campaigning and fundraising.
In a series of archived snapshots from the Campus Reform staff page from September 2009 to July 2010, Thompson was listed as campus services coordinator for the western region. This suggests he began his pseudonymous white nationalist blog while employed by the Leadership Institute and its media arm.
Campus Reform’s website was established at the beginning of 2009, according to Domain Name System records. It has typically targeted so-called political correctness and professors it deems to be leftists.
Using internet archiving services, the Guardian was able to access the full text of previously unreported Campus Reform articles by Thompson. In the bylines for those articles, written in 2009 and 2010, he is described as a “Campus Reform reporter”.
In the articles that were archived and accessible, Thompson does not openly use the vocabulary of white nationalism but does explore themes such as race and immigration.
One May 2010 article criticizes Colorado State students for staging a walkout in protest against a hardline immigration law passed in Arizona in 2010 and highlights the involvement of some students with an immigrant rights group, La Raza.
Another bemoans the decision of a Washington state public college, Evergreen State, to fund a visit by the academic and civil rights activist Angela Davis, calling her a “Marxist agitator”.
Many more articles offer instructions, guidance and assistance to conservative student activists.
Thompson leads with complaints about political correctness; news of anti-abortion, pro-gun and media activism by conservative students; and exhortations to run for student government.
In each case, he appeals to students to reach out to Campus Reform for information, training and organizing assistance.
The Guardian has discovered evidence that Thompson was able to make connections between students and members of the conservative movement.
A February 2011 guest post on the Campus Reform website by a senior at Utah State University describes that student’s experiences as a sponsored attendee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which remains the principal annual gathering of the conservative movement.
The author writes: “Michael Thompson, my regional field coordinator … worked diligently to put me in contact with individuals and organizations willing to help me with future activism efforts on my campus.”
RWW reports that Thompson worked at WND from at least January 2012 to November 2018.
Thompson, American Renaissance leader Jared Taylor and Joseph Farah of WND did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to an investigation by the not-for-profit media outlet Right Wing Watch (RWW), the man who has worked under the Kersey pseudonym is in fact Michael J Thompson.
The Guardian has uncovered additional material that supports reporting by RWW, and further indicates Thompson’s role in moulding rightwing activists from a position near the heart of America’s most influential conservative institutions.
The RWW investigation, published on Monday, reveals the work of “Paul Kersey”, whom it calls a “barely underground member of the white nationalist movement” and a fixture on the roster of racist media outlets and campaign groups.
But it also shows that Thompson worked under his own name at institutions like the Leadership Institute, its media arm Campus Reform, and WND, formerly World Net Daily, a once-popular conspiracy-minded conservative outlet, as late as November 2018.
It also shows how his WND position allowed him to move in professional circles that included white nationalists, writers from Breitbart and the Daily Caller and prominent Donald Trump supporters including Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec.
RWW determined Thompson’s identity partly through a forensic voice test on audio recordings and partly through emails and testimony provided by Katie McHugh, a former far-right insider and Breitbart writer.
Evidence from McHugh underpinned reporting by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that showed how Trump’s close aide Stephen Miller attempted to insert white nationalist themes into Breitbart’s coverage of the 2016 presidential election.
Using the “Paul Kersey” pseudonym in online columns for outlets like VDare and American Renaissance, Thompson has for years whipped up racist fears about black crime; promoted racial paranoia about a demographic “Great Replacement” of white Americans; and spread falsehoods about the genetic inferiority of non-whites.
According to RWW, he has run an influential far-right blog, Stuff Black People Don’t Like, since 2009. The blog is focused on promoting false white nationalist ideas about race and crime.
He has also regularly appeared as a guest on white nationalist podcasts including Red Ice, The Political Cesspool and Richard Spencer’s AltRight Radio and is currently the co-host of a podcast produced by a prominent SPLC-designated hate group, American Renaissance.
But in 2010, RWW reports, he was named in a press release from the Leadership Institute as working in their campus services program. The Guardian was able to confirm this by accessing an archived staff page for Campus Reform, the Leadership Institute’s online vehicle for the prosecution of on-campus culture wars.
The Leadership Institute is one of the longest-standing institutions in the US conservative movement, focused on training young activists. It claims to have trained 200,000 such young conservatives over 40 years, in skills including public speaking, campaigning and fundraising.
In a series of archived snapshots from the Campus Reform staff page from September 2009 to July 2010, Thompson was listed as campus services coordinator for the western region. This suggests he began his pseudonymous white nationalist blog while employed by the Leadership Institute and its media arm.
Campus Reform’s website was established at the beginning of 2009, according to Domain Name System records. It has typically targeted so-called political correctness and professors it deems to be leftists.
Using internet archiving services, the Guardian was able to access the full text of previously unreported Campus Reform articles by Thompson. In the bylines for those articles, written in 2009 and 2010, he is described as a “Campus Reform reporter”.
In the articles that were archived and accessible, Thompson does not openly use the vocabulary of white nationalism but does explore themes such as race and immigration.
One May 2010 article criticizes Colorado State students for staging a walkout in protest against a hardline immigration law passed in Arizona in 2010 and highlights the involvement of some students with an immigrant rights group, La Raza.
Another bemoans the decision of a Washington state public college, Evergreen State, to fund a visit by the academic and civil rights activist Angela Davis, calling her a “Marxist agitator”.
Many more articles offer instructions, guidance and assistance to conservative student activists.
Thompson leads with complaints about political correctness; news of anti-abortion, pro-gun and media activism by conservative students; and exhortations to run for student government.
In each case, he appeals to students to reach out to Campus Reform for information, training and organizing assistance.
The Guardian has discovered evidence that Thompson was able to make connections between students and members of the conservative movement.
A February 2011 guest post on the Campus Reform website by a senior at Utah State University describes that student’s experiences as a sponsored attendee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which remains the principal annual gathering of the conservative movement.
The author writes: “Michael Thompson, my regional field coordinator … worked diligently to put me in contact with individuals and organizations willing to help me with future activism efforts on my campus.”
RWW reports that Thompson worked at WND from at least January 2012 to November 2018.
Thompson, American Renaissance leader Jared Taylor and Joseph Farah of WND did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
