An Ugly Far Right Response to Losing
The much ballyhooed Red Wave didn’t happen in the midterm elections. Republican losers are filing lawsuits that even their own party won’t support. Dear Leader is losing court cases right and left. The January 6 committee is about to name names. And the squabbling inside the political tent (the GOP) housing many extremists threatens to nullify the meager gains made in Congress.
For some folks, these challenges are a clarion call for extra-legal action.
As security experts have been warning for many months, far right players have been upping the ante, either as an expression of vanguardism (provoke reaction) or a misguided sense of a silent majority that will support their cause.
Today I’ll examine three aspects of this phenomena; a low level campaign to destabilize the economy, the further radicalization of ‘respectable’ activists, and an effort to legitimize extremist rhetoric online.
One characteristic about these actions is that they are not necessarily coordinated, but are being cheered on as individuals take the hint* and engage in stochastic violence.
(*Become a hero by breaking the law. See Kyle Rittenhouse –domestic shooter found not guilty,-- and accused war criminal –Navy Seal Edward Gallagher –pardoned by Trump)
Forty thousand-plus North Carolina residents were without power for days after unknown parties disabled substations with gun fire. Law enforcement agencies told reporters that the perpetrators knew what they were doing.
The sheriff sent to investigate a (January 6th) right wing activist who claimed the attacks were a response to a midnight drag show, prayed with her and pronounced her innocent. The FBI has now joined the investigation and has not made an official determination as to motive.
Not-withstanding the reasoning in the North Carolina attack, there has been an unprecedented upswing in similar gunfire attacks on power substations, from Florida to the Pacific Northwest.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning earlier this year saying that American extremists had begun exhibiting an unhealthy interest in attacking the power grid—at first regionally, then nationally—as a means of disrupting the country. Far-right domestic extremists “have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors,” according to the DHS report.
After the latest attack, Jon Wellinghoff, former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), said he couldn’t recall another month with as many physical threats to the US electric grid.
Via David Neiwert’s reporting at Daily Kos:
Rita Katz, founder and executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, told Newsweek that the Moore County attack is consistent with recent online neo-Nazi messaging.
"The sabotage against the North Carolina substation aligns perfectly with directives and methods seen in accelerationist neo-Nazi communities," Katz said. "If this was indeed a far-right terrorist attack, my worry is that it will serve as a proof of concept for other far-right extremists.”
Katz also says they see plans to do the same against power stations near prominent news and media companies they consider enemies. Targeting infrastructure, she explained, is "a key objective for accelerationist neo-Nazis, who care less about any distinct outcome and far more about sowing any kind of chaos."
A widely shared post published this summer by a neo-Nazi publication included "a detailed manual" that called power grids "the main satiating tool the system uses to keep the masses from rioting" and advised on ways to inflict maximum damage, including what to target when shooting at substations.
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This past weekend’s New York Young Republicans Club’s (NYYRC) annual gala included notable radical right figures including white nationalists and ultranationalist European leaders who cheered the group’s president as he declared “total war” on perceived enemies.
“We want to cross the Rubicon. We want total war. We must be prepared to do battle in every arena. In the media. In the courtroom. At the ballot box. And in the streets,” NYYRC president Gavin Wax declared to a room full of supporters at 583 Park Ave., an event venue on New York’s Upper East side.
“This is the only language the left understands. The language of pure and unadulterated power,” Wax added.
The Southern Poverty Law Center had two reporters at the event, which included Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene closing out the evening with the assertion that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol would have succeeded if she had planned it and that the insurrectionists would have been armed.
Speakers including Trump Jr. and Greene sought to downplay the Republicans’ failure to secure a so-called “red wave” victory in the 2022 midterms by attacking such familiar right-wing targets as Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and LGBTQ+ people.
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Speaking of crossing the Rubicon, chief Twit Elon Musk had quite a weekend, endorsing the QAnon crusade to have scientist Anthony Fauci prosecuted for “causing” the COVID 19 pandemic, and insinuating that people who’d quit his organization’s safety advisory panel were pro-pedophilia.
It’s amazing to see reporters in the mainstream media trying to “debate” Musk’s motivations. A five minute conversation with any of the techies the man has screwed over the years would answer any questions reporters might have.
Now that he’s bought a social media platform some folks are having a hard time shaking the myth of a benevolent Silicon Valley billionaire with a few quirks. The warning signs have been there all along, from the racism on domestic assembly lines, to refusing to abide by COVID protocols, to the politics of those he chooses to associate with socially.
Charlie Warzel at The Atlantic isn’t fooled:
The hypocrisy at the center of Musk’s Twitter tenure is crucial to the understanding of Musk’s political activism. He has championed ideals of free-speech maximalism and amnesty to those who’ve offended his rules. Twitter, under his management, has let back on organizers of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; neo-Nazis such as Andrew Anglin; and January 6–investigation personalities such as Roger Stone. At the same time, Twitter has suspended accounts that have mocked Musk or expressed left-leaning views.
Whether intentionally or not, Musk has, in effect, been governing Twitter using the classic Frank Wilhoit maxim: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Put differently, the billionaire has been advancing a long-running right-wing political project described recently by my colleague Adam Serwer as a “belief in a new constitutional right. Most important, this new right supersedes the free-speech rights of everyone else: the conservative right to post.”
Comedian Dave Chappell, always willing the cross the lines of good taste, decided to invite Elon Musk on stage at a show in San Francisco this weekend. The Twit in chief was met with a ten-minute long (mostly) booing audience. From the expression on his face, I’m guessing that wasn’t the reaction he expected.
The low quality embedded Tweet above is all I could find this morning, since Twitter accounts with video of the event are being banned from the platform. And still, Musk doesn’t get it.
The danger here is that feeding his ego will encourage the posting of even more extremist content.
Like many right wingers these days, Musk doesn’t care as long as he makes liberals angry… i.e., Angertainment. It is his business to ruin. I’ve established accounts on wannabe replacements (I’ll report on them in a few weeks) and I'm sticking around to watch a train wreck in progress.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com