First, a little relevant personal history:
I will share a 1994 odd experience. I moved to a western right wing awesome skiing state after a freeze on lending tanked my businesses in New England.
A friend gave me a name of a friend who I contacted and met. Imagine my surprise when the friend invited me to a John Birch Society meeting. No joke. True story 1994!
It was then that this naive McGovern Democrat realized that extremism was alive and well.
A couple of years later I was invited to a “special meeting” by a former US Army Green Beret co-worker to something militia.
Admittedly out of citizen journalist curiosity, I attended. In 1996 in this red western almost 100% Caucasian society was a racist, intolerant, fear frenzied movement organizing more than one militia group.
No contact thereafter. I never wanted to experience the toxicity that filled that room.
Fast forward 2020. That same toxicity now permeates the air waves. Domestic terrorist sympathizers hold office in the US Congress!
When Democrats gain control, these already fearful, well-armed right wing militias are manipulated into a fearful blood-lust frenzy.
This article offers a concise, well-linked history of the rise of white, right wing, white supremacy militias morphing into serial terrorists.
From the article:
“According to a 2006 Southern Poverty Law Center report, by the 1990s far-right extremist leaders were pushing younger members of their groups to join the military in order to develop skills with weapons and explosives — skills the service member would then use to train their fellow extremists, as well as commit attacks. The Department of Defense has long maintained that it has zero tolerance for white supremacy or anti-government extremists in its ranks, but history suggests many white supremacists have joined nonetheless.”
https://theweek.com/articles/833960/american-militarys-extremist-problem
