Morning Briefing: White Supremacist Send Racists Mailers to Democratic State Lawmakers
Morning Briefing: White Supremacist Send Racists Mailers to Democratic State Lawmakers
White Supremacists groups targeted Democratic state lawmakers in Maine with racists mailers, which come in the wake of several recent incidents involving White Supremacists groups in the state.
Morning Briefing: Democratic state lawmakers of both Maine State Senate and State House of Representatives received mailers from White Supremacist groups, which “follows several public incidents in Maine, most recently in Portland, involving people affiliated with white nationalist groups.”
The mailers included the logos of White Supremist groups including Way of the World, Anti-White Watch, Solidarity Europa, and Klaus Arminius.*
White Supremacist activity in New England has increased significantly in recent years, during 2022 “Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Maine saw a collective 96% increase in white supremacist propaganda.”
Anti-LGBTIQ protesters, including far right extremists groups such as White Lives Matter and the Proud Boys, forced local law enforcement in Sacramento, California to “temporarily shut down an entire intersection at Franklin Boulevard and 4th because of an event known as Drag Queen Story Time.”
Logan James Barnhart, a former romance novel cover model, was sentenced to “three years in prison for assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”
*Way of the World, Anti-White Watch, Solidarity Europa, and Klaus Arminius will be the subject of a Radical Reports Extremists Explainer later this week.
Must Reads
Adam Nagourney and Jeremy Peters report that “for now, the legislation has advanced almost exclusively in Republican-controlled states: Those same policies have drawn strong opposition from Democrats who have applauded the increased visibility of transgender people — in government, corporations and Hollywood — and policies protecting transgender youths. The 2024 presidential election appears poised to provide a national test of the reach of this issue. The two leading Republican presidential contenders, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not officially declared a bid, have aggressively supported measures curtailing transgender rights. It may prove easier for Republicans like Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis to talk about transgender issues than about abortion, an issue that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement. The Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion created a backlash among Democrats and independents that has left many Republicans unsure of how — or whether — to address the issue.” [The New York Times]
Sarah Posner interviews Jeff Sharlet: “They’re looking for the language that expresses something about their lives, and they often come to believe it. At the house of that Wisconsin militia leader, Rob Brumm, all the windows are blacked out with fascist flags, there are AR-15s, and his little three-year-old running around, who’s already learned how to shoot an assault rifle. In the corner of his arsenal he had a big TV that was looping footage that he filmed on January 6. And yet here’s this guy saying it was a false flag and that it’s just bullshit what they say about people carrying weapons at the Capitol. Where we get stuck is if we say, well, that’s not true. We think we’ve won the argument. But it keeps growing, it keeps metastasizing. There are variants. That’s what fascism is; it’s not monolithic. It’s all these different ideas coming into convergence. That’s why we have to understand this: where are the fault lines in this movement and how do we exploit them?” [In These Times]
Steven Monacelli reports that “RedBalloon’s explicitly ‘anti-woke’ positioning fits within a broader conservative push in recent years to create a “parallel economy” apart from progressive values. The idea has been promoted by the junior Trump and far-right pundits like Charlie Kirk of Turning Points USA. And while a parallel right-wing ecosystem of media outlets has gained some traction, other anti-woke projects haven’t fared so well. Consider the Peter Theil-funded bank that faced self-cancellation, or the fact that right-wing Twitter alternative Parler is down to around 20 employees. As NBC News reported last month, conservative tech founders at the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference “said they believe some companies that were part of the ‘parallel economy’ movement got ahead of themselves in their aspirations.’” [Wired]
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.
Teddy, how do we break through the apathy of Americans?
I've listened to interviews with Jeff Sharlet, and this quasi-religious, quasi-militia, fanatical, right-wing insanity is so widespread, it's beyond my worst fears.
American fascism is uniquely dangerous because of the prevalence of guns, and the increasingly blatant incitement to violence by right-wing pundits and politicians.
How do people fail to recognize the danger?
None of this is fixable by one election.
These ‘White Supremacy’ groups must be stopped. In the 60s-70s the KKK was the same. They cut the head off that snake and put them in prison for several lifetimes. The same thing needs to happen now, again.
We must not sit back and allow ourselves to be run over, threatened, abused, by these groups. This isn’t what America was developed for. Thus ‘fear tactic’ of these groups is just that. Trying to put ‘fear’ into someone to have them do something.
It must be stopped, NOW!