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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhite Supremacists Are Invading American Cities To Incite a Civil War
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/white-supremacists-are-invading-american-cities-to-incite-a-civil-war/. . .
At the same time, however, political structures designed to empower the minority of conservatives in America to rule over its liberal majority are maintaining an apartheid-style government. The electoral college has put a conservative in the White House twice in the last two decades despite losing the popular vote, and threatens to do so again. The Senate majority belongs to conservatives who nonetheless control mostly rural states with a minority of the U.S. population, and the presence of the filibuster makes real change all but impossible even if Democrats were to retake the chamber. Gerrymandering ensures that the House of Representatives and state legislatures are stacked in favor of exurban dwellers and conservatives, with the result that even when Democrats do attain victory, those legislators are perforce more moderate than the majority of the Democratic base. And, of course, widespread voter suppression maximizes the disenfranchisement of urban progressives. Protected by these structures and with Donald Trump as president, conservatives feel that they are empowered to rule regardless of what majoritarian democracy would suggest.
The protests against police violence are reflective of this broader trend. Most police do not live in the cities they serve. They tend to be extremely culturally conservative and out of touch with the values of the taxpayers who fund them. In New York City, one of the nations most progressive enclaves where the president no longer dares to tread, the police union defiantly endorsed Donald Trump. Police violence against racial minorities has been a longstanding problem for decades, and one that has started to receive national attention through the diligent efforts of activists and through the presence of ubiquitous video technology to capture actions that in years past would have been sanitized in one-sided police reports. But its also the reality that in the age of rightwing radicalization, a large segment of the police have come more than ever to see themselves as occupying warrior forces in cities whose culture is threatening and alien to them. And the citizens of those cities know it and feel it as psychological torment, legal harassment, financial hardship from court costs, and as scars on their bodies.
Protests in this context are inevitable. And why not? The people of Americas cities have a right to demand action from their city leaders. Its a problem for Americas cities to sort out, as citizens demand that their representatives fear their political power as much as they do that of the police organizations.
But conservative white supremacist extremists are not content to allow that to play out. An empowered urban citizenry is a direct threat to their power, an acceleration of their loss of control. The Boogaloo movement wants to instigate a civil war along largely racial lines precisely to settle accounts before they suffer any further cultural or demographic declines.
So a few days ago a radicalized Trump-supporting teenager drove across state lines armed for a violent confrontation against protests, and murdered two people and injured a third. He did so after being welcomed by local police, given water, and ignored when he attempted to surrender. He is being celebrated in right-wing circles for doing so, and so-called Christian groups are funding his legal defense.
Yesterday, convoys of out-of-town trucks and SUVs bearing Trump flags stormed into Portland with the intent of creating confrontation. They allegedly rolled through groups of protesters in their vehicles, shooting projectiles and pepper spray into the crowds. In the ensuing violence, one of the far-right Trump supporters was shot and killed.
The Portland murderer should, of course, be brought to justice. There is no excuse for deadly violence. But all of this is happening because white supremacists are invading American cities with the express intent of starting a civil war. President Trump sees them as very fine people who are on his side. He sees the violence as politically beneficial, a useful cudgel against Democratic nominee Joe Bideneven though the violence is happening while Trump himself is president, not Biden.
Trumps election theme is that Americans wont be safe in a Biden presidency. The opposite is true. Americans wont be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.
At the same time, however, political structures designed to empower the minority of conservatives in America to rule over its liberal majority are maintaining an apartheid-style government. The electoral college has put a conservative in the White House twice in the last two decades despite losing the popular vote, and threatens to do so again. The Senate majority belongs to conservatives who nonetheless control mostly rural states with a minority of the U.S. population, and the presence of the filibuster makes real change all but impossible even if Democrats were to retake the chamber. Gerrymandering ensures that the House of Representatives and state legislatures are stacked in favor of exurban dwellers and conservatives, with the result that even when Democrats do attain victory, those legislators are perforce more moderate than the majority of the Democratic base. And, of course, widespread voter suppression maximizes the disenfranchisement of urban progressives. Protected by these structures and with Donald Trump as president, conservatives feel that they are empowered to rule regardless of what majoritarian democracy would suggest.
The protests against police violence are reflective of this broader trend. Most police do not live in the cities they serve. They tend to be extremely culturally conservative and out of touch with the values of the taxpayers who fund them. In New York City, one of the nations most progressive enclaves where the president no longer dares to tread, the police union defiantly endorsed Donald Trump. Police violence against racial minorities has been a longstanding problem for decades, and one that has started to receive national attention through the diligent efforts of activists and through the presence of ubiquitous video technology to capture actions that in years past would have been sanitized in one-sided police reports. But its also the reality that in the age of rightwing radicalization, a large segment of the police have come more than ever to see themselves as occupying warrior forces in cities whose culture is threatening and alien to them. And the citizens of those cities know it and feel it as psychological torment, legal harassment, financial hardship from court costs, and as scars on their bodies.
Protests in this context are inevitable. And why not? The people of Americas cities have a right to demand action from their city leaders. Its a problem for Americas cities to sort out, as citizens demand that their representatives fear their political power as much as they do that of the police organizations.
But conservative white supremacist extremists are not content to allow that to play out. An empowered urban citizenry is a direct threat to their power, an acceleration of their loss of control. The Boogaloo movement wants to instigate a civil war along largely racial lines precisely to settle accounts before they suffer any further cultural or demographic declines.
So a few days ago a radicalized Trump-supporting teenager drove across state lines armed for a violent confrontation against protests, and murdered two people and injured a third. He did so after being welcomed by local police, given water, and ignored when he attempted to surrender. He is being celebrated in right-wing circles for doing so, and so-called Christian groups are funding his legal defense.
Yesterday, convoys of out-of-town trucks and SUVs bearing Trump flags stormed into Portland with the intent of creating confrontation. They allegedly rolled through groups of protesters in their vehicles, shooting projectiles and pepper spray into the crowds. In the ensuing violence, one of the far-right Trump supporters was shot and killed.
The Portland murderer should, of course, be brought to justice. There is no excuse for deadly violence. But all of this is happening because white supremacists are invading American cities with the express intent of starting a civil war. President Trump sees them as very fine people who are on his side. He sees the violence as politically beneficial, a useful cudgel against Democratic nominee Joe Bideneven though the violence is happening while Trump himself is president, not Biden.
Trumps election theme is that Americans wont be safe in a Biden presidency. The opposite is true. Americans wont be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.
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White Supremacists Are Invading American Cities To Incite a Civil War (Original Post)
CousinIT
Sep 2020
OP
Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)1. Race riots have been part of the far right's mythos for decades...
Turbineguy
(37,359 posts)2. If we keep trump
we'll have right wing death squads.
Cosmo Blues
(2,490 posts)3. Count them
Most of these armed infantiles come from far and wide, groupings in the hundreds are rare, if anything goes down watch them scatter like roaches. Except slower, at least from the ones I see on TV in Kentucky. Republicans use scare tactics we shouldn't
marlakay
(11,480 posts)4. With the police all in for Trump
They will just let it happen.
uponit7771
(90,348 posts)5. We know what the police are up to but what about the rest of the 88ers 😜
Initech
(100,090 posts)6. Trump and the cons keep harping on the "radical left".
It's the radical right they should be worried about. You know - the Proud Boys. The III%ers. The Bundy bunch. The KKK. I can go on and on.
mnmoderatedem
(3,728 posts)7. so I guess we can count on President Law and Order to denounce this
or not