Welcome to post-constitutional America. As the train-wreck known as the Trump administration fends off charges of collusion, corruption, nepotism and despotism, they have backed themselves into a corner. Rearing back, they stand baring tooth and claw – like the wounded beast that they are. This makes them desperate and dangerous.
Historically, fascist movements have had their street-level enforcers – in Nazi Germany it was the SA, or “Sturmabteilung”. Here is a brief description of the SA from Wikipedia:
“The future SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer hall brawlers who were to protect gatherings of the Nazi Party from disruptions from Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD) and to disrupt meetings of the other political parties. By September 1921 the name Sturmabteilung was being used informally for the group.[8] Hitler was the official head of the Nazi Party by this time.[9]
On 4 November 1921 the Nazi Party held a large public meeting in the Munich Hofbräuhaus, which also attracted many Reds and other enemies of the Nazis. After Hitler had spoken for some time, the meeting erupted into a melee in which a small company of SA thrashed the opposition. The Nazis called this event the Saalschlacht (“meeting hall battle”), and it assumed legendary proportions in SA lore with the passage of time. Thereafter, the group was officially known as the Sturmabteilung.[8]”
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In early 1900’s America, public violence was generally committed by the right (think KKK), and the enforcers for mining and steel industries, which literally shot workers down in the street. For a brief window during the 1960’s the left rose to commit bombings (Weather Underground and such) and Kidnappings such as that of Patty Hurst by the SLA. Years later, researchers found these left-activist organizations to have been infiltrated by the FBI and other authoritarian agencies, often guiding their progress and path of destruction. The same goes for the FBI setting up wanna-be terrorist dupes today.
I have written in previous articles (see “Warning From A Former Secret Service Agent”) that a former Secret Service agent has warned that he believes that Trump loyalists will use young, brawling men to mix it up in street demonstrations with groups on the left, particularly the “Black Block, or “Antifa”. These groups have been a presence since the WTO protests in Seattle, and are known to inflict property damage. Now, the Alt-Right is creating it’s own movement to counter Antifa, but the roots of the brewing conflict are much deeper.
In April, Heather Digby Parton wrote in Salon and Alternet “Could the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre Talk Trump into a Violent War on the Left? . Here’s an excerpt:
“A couple of months later, LaPierre spoke to the CPAC convention and in a long, passionate stemwinder he explained to the excited crowd that the central threat facing America today is “the violent left.” He put the anti-Trump protest movement on notice that they had better watch themselves or some God-fearing Real Americans might take matters into their own hands:
The left’s message is absolutely clear. They want revenge. You have to be punished. They say you are what is wrong with America. And now, you have to be purged. … Make no mistake, if the violent left brings their terror to our communities, our neighborhoods or into our home they will be met with the resolve, and the strength, and the full force of American freedom in the hands of the American people and we will win because we are the majority in this country. … We are still here and we’ve got President Trump’s back — for the next eight years.”
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What underlies the rhetoric of the NRA in the paragraph above? We turn to Rick Perlstein, in a very, very important piece in Newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/rick-perlstein-alt-right-gunning-anti-trump-protesters-590732
(Excerpt)
Rick Perlstein: The Alt-Right Is Gunning for Anti-Trump Protesters
By Rick Perlstein On 4/30/17
“A friend writes, “For basically the past six months or so I’ve been trying to tell my lefty friends in so many words, ‘Hey, there are a bunch of people on the Internet who are waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay to start shooting at you.’”
He became concerned when a thread at the non-political firearms-enthusiasts website he regularly follows became filled with comments in all caps referring to liberals as enemies who must be shot.
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“Oleg Volk is an advertising professional and Second Amendment activist based in Nashville. He wrote on a Facebook wall about the Berkeley events: “Rioting? That’s how you get Freikorps reenacting the demise of the Bavarian Republic with full approval of the majority of the population.”
The Freikorps were volunteer paramilitaries set up by German World War I veterans that violently put down Communist uprisings, piling up bodies by the thousands; the movement officially came to a close in 1933 when Freikorps leaders surrendered their battle flags in loyalty to the Nazi command.”
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“A Morgoth commenter who calls himself Gentleman Jim Crow praised the “virile young Alt-Rights clashing with clapped out retrograde commies. The future belongs to us.” Another commenter responded to that, “They will still escalate.” Morgoth himself wrote,
“While looking for footage of the Austin march to accompany this post I came across this footage of the violence at the March 4 Trump in Berkeley, California. . . the Trump supporters seem to be more physically capable, but the weaker leftists are prepared to up the ante by introducing cowardly devices like tasers and pepper spray.”
Students of fascism will recognize the fantastical confusion of tropes: the enemy as a terrifying horde, raising the stakes ruthlessly beyond all civil bounds, but also the enemy as pitiful (“glass jawed”) weaklings—sometimes both within the same utterance. Such language is how students of fascism know that they are in its presence.”
“Bob Owens’s post about the March 4 Trump in Berkeley is entitled “Can Trump Supporters Legally Shoot Left-wing ‘Antifa’ Attackers?” He wrote it in response to a Tweet directed to him, noting a moment where three antifas got in three light kicks at a downed Trump supporter, asking, “Looks like lethal self-defense could be justified. Opinions?”
Owens assured his readers this was indubitably not so. He reviewed California’s statute on the use of deadly force, which requires a shooter to “reasonably believe” he or she “was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury,” then to use “no more force than was reasonably necessary to defend against that danger,” and that “belief in future harm is not sufficient, no matter how greatly or how likely the harm is believed to be.”
He concluded, “Both sides acted childishly and violently, but there was no violence that came close to justifying the use of firearms to stop a deadly force attack,” Introducing firearms, he wrote, would have been “frankly stupid, as you’re much more likely to hit innocent bystanders downrange than you are likely to hit the person you’re shooting at in such dense crowds.”
To which his commenters replied: to hell with that, we’re shooting anyway. They’re not ashamed. They use their real names, and sometimes list their hometown; and, in one case (a firefighter in a small Florida town), their employment, which I confirmed.”
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Let’s face it; if the right wing begins arming themselves, using open carry laws to brandish weapons and start shooting left-leaning protesters and whoever else is in the way, things will go very, very bad.
With that brief exception of the radical 1960’s, the so-called “left” has never been prepared for battle with the “right”. The right wing, which spectrum covers everything from Harley-riding dentists to preppers, Nazis, survivalists and brawling bigots, will walk all over antifa and the peaceniks that fill the ranks of modern protests – including those against Trump.
The problem could escalate if, as suspected, the police allow a certain amount of this to happen. The result will be further authoritarian beat-downs, the possibility of internment for perceived radicals and a tightening of anti-protest laws, many of which are proposed in numerous States across America today.
We can only speculate how the Trump disaster will play out, but the angry white-right is not going down without a fight.
