Morning Briefing: The Far Right's Weekend in the Motor City
This weekend an assortment of right-wing MAGA personalities, far right fringe characters, and White Nationalist extremists, will gather in Detroit, Michigan.
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Morning Briefing: This weekend, Turning Point USA will be hosting the “The People’s Convention” at the Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan, and the featured speakers at the will include an assortment of right-wing MAGA personalities including Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Jack Posobiec, Benny Johnson, Scott Pressler, Mike Lindell, James Lindsay, and James O’Keefe.
The America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), the annual gathering of far right White Nationalist, will also be taking place this weekend in Detroit, Michigan. The conference, organized by Nick Fuentes, will be attended by an assortment of far right fringe characters including Elijah Schaffer, Jake Shields, Jared Taylor, Morgan Ariel, Paul Town, Karlyn Borysenko, Anastasia Loupis, and Drew Hernandez.
Ryan Sánchez, the neo-Nazi White Supremacist head of the Nationalist Network, is actively soliciting donations on Gab to attend AFPAC, and suggested during a recent livestream that members of Patriot Front, neo-fascist White Nationalist group, and members of Active Clubs, neo-Nazi fight clubs, may be attending AFPAC.
Must Reads
Jeff Sharlet writes that “when Trump ran in 2016, the political press didn’t get his religion. It was the prosperity gospel, ‘health and wealth,’ kick some cash up to the preacher so he can drive a Rolls and prepare to receive God’s blessings. In 2020 it was the bastardized American gnostic gospel, secrets within secrets, Deep State conspiracies like the ‘waterless canals’ spoken of in the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, a metaphor for the sterile corruption of the powers-that-be, the establishment that only pretends to virtue. But even then he was moving toward martyrdom, reciting at his rallies roll calls of ‘Americans’—a pretty blonde, a promising football player—murdered by ‘illegals.’ But it wasn’t until January 6 and the death of Ashli Babbitt in his name—Trump’s—that MAGA’s age of martyrs began in earnest. Babbitt was always a placeholder, just as were the January 6 ‘political prisoners,’ their role in this passion play merely to keep the cross warm until Trump was ready. He’s ready. He’s coming.” [Religion Dispatches]
Mike Rothschild writes that “the entire anti-science response to the pandemic was one of contradiction and cognitive dissonance. Many influencers earnestly believed COVID was just a minor bug no worse than the sniffles – while also being a Chinese-created bioweapon. They took it seriously at first, but then as the vaccine become more widely used and many aspects of society began opening up, they demanded a return to the status quo with no COVID measures – while also claiming the vaccine that many any reopening possible was a genocidal took of genetic modification and transhumanism. The response to Fauci during the Trump years was much the same. They loathed and distrusted Fauci, but Trump kept him on, and they loved Trump, so he couldn’t be that bad. All of that changed in 2021 when Joe Biden took office and kept Fauci on as his chief pandemic advisor. With Trump gone, there was nothing holding back the flood of Fauci hate, conspiracy theories, and derangement. It had simply become too lucrative and too popular on social media to stop centering him in an endless series of increasingly convoluted and hyperbolic theories – which were having drastic consequences for Fauci and his family.” [Conspiracy Watch]
Elie Mystal writes that the “Mandate for Leadership, the Project 2025 blueprint for an eventual authoritarian takeover of the federal government, contains a lot of dangerous proposals for how Trump and his ruling conservatives can remake the executive branch. The authors’ ideas for the Department of Justice reflect not only their lust for unchallenged power, but also a deep fear of the DOJ’s independence—and, more particularly, the way that independence might be used against them if the DOJ is not brought to heel. Put simply: The conservatives hope to use the DOJ to make their darkest desires legal, while at the same time taking away the best legal means to stop them. As a first step, the Project 2025 Mandate recommends hollowing out the FBI. Why the FBI? Think of it this way: If Project 2025 is basically a conservative heist plot, then the chapter on the DOJ is the part where the plotters explain how they plan to take out the security cameras and floodlights so they can proceed under the cover of darkness.” [The Nation]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
This is f#$@^ing depressing. One step away from disaster…
Thanks for compiling all of this info!