Right-wing extremists saying they've crossed the Rubicon aren't kidding. More violence is coming

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/9/2115570/-Right-wing-extremists-saying-they-ve-crossed-the-Rubicon-aren-t-kidding-More-violence-is-coming

Back in 2007, several bloggers raised the matter of rightwing violence should the Democrats—and therefore a Black man named Barack Obama—win the November 2008 election. Among them were digby, Rick Perlstein, and David Neiwert, an expert on militias and right-wing extremists who now writes for Daily Kos. A good deal of the reception to these assertions was … skeptical. Some critics ridiculed these three and the others of us raising the issue. Accusations were made about “stirring the pot.”

Here’s an excerpt from Neiwert, then writing as Orcinus in May of 2007:

Certainly the trend of the past couple of decades has been that the right-wing extremists tend to ease up more when Republicans rule the roost, and become much more virulently active when Democrats are in charge. This fits in with a much longer pattern, dating back to the 19th century and even before, of the extremist right acting as a kind of cultural and political wedge to separate working-class people from the progressives whose interests they actually share, especially in terms of curbing the effects of corporate and rampant capitalist behavior. […]

And in recent months, especially as the prospect of the voting public giving movement conservatives the boot loomed larger, we've seen cases like Chad Castagana, in which formerly mainstream conservatives -- self-admittedly inspired by the hateful rhetoric of people like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin -- have crossed over into actual domestic terrorism, inspired not just by hatred of the government but hatred of liberals. ...

So it's going to be up to progressives to seize this bull by the horns. They're going to have to anticipate an increasingly violent political environment, and understand that their most effective strategies in defusing it lie in turning the violence into a moral victory (particularly when it's demonstrated that far-right factions are the instigators) and in undermining their appeal by working hard to champion the interest of the same working-class people the extremists depend upon for recruitment.

*snip*

[C_U_L8R]

1. There's good reason they used to hang insurrectionists

They just won't stop treasoning and traitoring without serious measures and deterrents

[PortTack]

2. I find it hilarious that a group of ppl who don't read, don't know history use terms like this

If you walked into a crowd of magats, I doubt anyone would be able to tell you the hx or the meaning behind the saying.

[drmeow]

4. I don't think they know the history

but I think they get the gist of the meaning. They just think that they are starting a revolution that they can win. They haven't learned the lesson from 1/6 that they are the minority and they will pay for these crimes.

[roamer65]

3. ...and the rest of us law-abiding Americans have the absolute right to self defense.

[wcmagumba]

5. Who will they be targeting, just random people?

[Initech]

6. Rush Limbaugh should have been contained and confined.

Instead his virus spread and it infected the entire GOP. Now we're seeing the end result of 40 years of his bullshit coming to a head. I am truly scared of what could happen in the next 4 years. They've gone full Hitler and aren't coming back anytime soon.

[vercetti2021]

7. Then they can die believing those ideals

Best believe they underestimate us on the left who are responsible gun owners and actually know how to handle weapons.