Confederate "Heritage" Month 2021, April 8: Real-time violent neo-Confederacy

The neo-Confederate/Lost Cause ideology is sadly a significant part of the radicalization of the Republican Party that led to the murderous lynch mob directly incited by Trump on January 6 to block Congress from certifying the results of the Presidential election. Even if Trump supporters weren't embracing major elements of the neo-Confederate/Lost Cause white supremacist ideology, the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by a murderous lynch mob directly incited by Donald Trump's speech beforehand, emphasizes the continuing relevance of the history of the Civil War, the events leading up to it, and the efforts during Reconstruction to cope with the aftermaths.

Dave Neiwert reports in Unlike the Guy Before, Biden is taking far-right terrorism seriously, and it’s making a difference (Daily Kos 04/06/2021). the Biden-Harris Administration is proceeding to treat the crimes involved as what they are:

Quietly and with little fanfare, the Biden administration has been taking all the right steps early in its tenure in confronting the threat of right-wing extremist violence and its spread—a mandate handed to Biden by the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Rather than take a high-profile approach that might backfire, Biden’s Justice Department and FBI, and to a lesser extent its Department of Homeland Security, has wisely taken a low-key route that emphasizes competence and effectiveness, as a New York Times piece explored this weekend.

But make no mistake, it is taking the problem seriously. Indictments from the insurrection now number more than 300, prosecutors are establishing evidence of a clear chain of conspiracy leading to the attack focusing on Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and arrests for criminal behavior by far-right extremists unrelated to the attack are occurring as well. It’s a welcome change from the malign neglect of the matter paid by Donald Trump and his administration.

As we have argued consistently since the insurrection, an effective approach to right-wing domestic terrorism necessarily will eschew the trappings of the post-9/11 “war on terror”—that is, instead of creating new laws and giving law enforcement unneeded new powers, the phenomenon can most effectively be attacked by smartly deploying law enforcement to enforce the many laws already on the books. [my emphasis]

One of the biggest mistakes the Obama-Biden Administration made was to cave in to Republican criticism that was directed against the federal government taking seriously actual threats from violent far-right groups.

See, for instance, the testimony of Daryl Johnson before a Senate Subcommittee, Hate Crimes and the Threat of Domestic Extremism 09/19/2012. See also Spencer Ackerman's report on Johnson, DHS Crushed This Analyst for Warning About Far-Right Terror Wired 08.07.2012 and Johnson's own op-ed, I warned of right-wing violence in 2009. Republicans objected. I was right. Washington Post 087/21/2017.

As Neiwert's current report notes, "A mid-March intelligence assessment commissioned by Biden concluded that far-right extremists—particularly those animated by racial and ethnic grievances—pose the most lethal domestic-terrorism threat to Americans for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, militia-like organizations pose an ongoing threat primarily to government and law-enforcement personnel." (my emphasis)

This is one of many ironies of the current far right in the US with its neo-Confederate type of seditious mentality.

Of course, this makes the sympathies and overlap between the violent radical right and police departments more complicated and more dangerous. Too many law-enforcement agencies are not only "blind in the right eye" when it come to such extremists. Some of them actively sympathize with and support such groups.

The US left, the January 6 Capitol riot, and the threat from far-right terrorists (2 of 2)

This is second of two posts on the far right threat in the aftermath of the Capitol riot of January 6.

Daryl Johnson has been sounding the alarm about violent rightwing terrorism from within the government and in the public.

He talks about his own experience and how he view the current threat in this interview with Michael Moore, Ep. 154: How To Stop The Coup Klux Klan (feat. Daryl Johnson) | Rumble 01/14/2021

In this interview, Johnson also addresses the problem He Saw the Storm Coming Slate 01/14/2021 (Podcast) Transcript here.

The interviewer, Mary Harris, gives a quick roundup of Johnson's experience at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama-Biden Administration:

I wanted to talk to Daryl about what took place [on Wednesday, January 6], because in some ways he predicted this, not the details, but the coming wave of anti-government sentiment and where it could lead. Back in 2009, a report he wrote about the risks of right wing extremism got leaked to conservative media. It was the beginning of the end for his career at Homeland Security. But with each passing year, Darrell’s work seems more prescient. Since leaving the federal government. Darrell has tried to avoid the darker corners of the Internet. He knows what’s lurking in there. But this week he’s gone back just a little to see what the groups he used to monitor are saying. It turns out they are already creating their own narrative about what went down on Wednesday.

Jonathan Stevenson looks at Trump’s Lingering Menace New York Review of Books 01/09/2021, making this observation on Trump's position during the Capitol invasion:

Trump’s tactical forbearance does not absolve him. Quickly calling in the National Guard to aid the undermanned police and prevent the siege would have been a legitimate, non-political use of military force designed to preclude illegal interference with the political process. Instead, the administration appears to have ensured that the Pentagon was disposed to be non-responsive, leaving the pro-Trump protesters greater freedom of action.

In less that 24 hours from when I am writing this, Joe Biden will be inaugurated President, so these following two article about the danger that Trump as a lame-duck President has posed will (hopefully!) be out of date: Susan Matthews, It’s Almost Over. That’s the Problem. Slate 01/09/2021; Abigail Esman and Dahlia Lithwick, from three weeks before the January 6 invasion of the Capitol, America Is Attempting to Exit an Abusive Relationship Slate 12/15/2020

Dahlia Lithwick also has a good piece on Republican diversionary whining in connection with the Capitol attack,(Republicans Still Don’t Get It Slate 01/13/2021):

It is, quite frankly, beyond belief that the very same people who could have died in the United States Capitol just last week have somehow persuaded themselves that they’ve in fact experienced a more acute First Amendment injury than even insurrection itself—and that any effort to impose liability for the property destruction, terror, and death that resulted from the storming of the government is a monstrous encroachment on their right to talk. [emphasis in original]

Video series on rightwing extremism, featuring David Neiwert, Daryl Johnson, and Heidi Beirich

Aljaeera's AJ+ YouTube channel has done a three-part series on far-right extremism in the United States. The second and third installments feature an interview with an interview with David Neiwert, a leading journalistic authority on far-right extremism. The first and second include an interview with Daryl Johnson, a former terrorism analyst with the Department of Homeland Security. Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is featured in the first episode.

What’s Fueling Far-Right Hate in America? 02/19/2019:

How One Act Of Violence Forever Changed The U.S. 02/26/2019:

Why People Become Neo-Nazis 03/05/2019:

See also: 2018 saw most killings linked to US far right since 1995: ADL Aljazeera 01/24/2019; David Neiwert, White supremacist propaganda is surging, along with everything else hate-related Daily Kos 03/08/2019.