The incredible Gullibility of Trump Supporters/the Right

Idaho white vigilantes.

As I have noted many times, I continue to amazed - shocked might be a better term - at the willingness of Trump supporters, evangelical christians (lower case "c"), and the far right in general to believe every Trump lie and far fetched lie put out by extremist groups or just as likely Russian bots. Fact checking is seemingly an unknown concept to many of these people and they share falsehoods on social media and have near apoplexy over "news stories" that are not even true - often not even legitimate.  I truly do not comprehend a mindset so eager to believe the worse about others or believe any and ever inflammatory lie. Are they simply ignorant and too lazy to fact check, bigots or some mix of the two?  This gullibility and mindlessness was recently illustrated by events in a town in Idaho that were based on a social media myth that bore no relation to reality.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the manner in which armed white vigilantes/residents were played for fools while endangering the rest of the public.  Here are article excerpts:

Protesters had only begun assembling peacefully in Idaho when a Facebook page for retired police officers advised its followers to stay on high alert. “We will protect our neighborhoods,” it vowed.

So when early reports about potential violence surfaced a day later — claiming “ANTIFA agitators” were storming the state this week — scores of residents took to the streets. Armed with military-style assault rifles, they stood guard in places such as Coeur d’Alene, a resort town of 50,000 on a lake in northwest Idaho.

“Enough of us swung into action, and put the word out on social media and elsewhere, that we were able to deploy and meet any violent elements that might come here from out of state,” said Trevor Treller, a sommelier and one of the armed locals. Treller, 48, said he mobilized after hearing from trusted voices that “antifa types” were on the move.It would not prove to be true.

As vigils and protest actions unfolded in Idaho this week, local officials across the state confirmed that not a single participant was known to have defiled a home or storefront in the name of “antifa,” a loose label attributed to far-left activists. Many of the rumors about violent protests originated from dubious Facebook posts, often shared widely and rarely debunked, residents there said.

The raft of myths and misstatements that triggered visceral reactions throughout Idaho illustrates how long-standing grievances have fused with the vast reach of social media during protests that have swept through the country — in big cities and rural towns — after the killing of a black man in the custody of Minneapolis police last week.

As President Trump militarizes the government’s response to the roiling demonstrations, armed civilians across the country are taking matters into their own hands. They have engaged in preemptive acts of escalation, often in response to imaginary threats, raising tensions at demonstrations touched off by the death of 46-year-old George Floyd and intensified by the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic collapse, which have disproportionately affected black Americans.

Such actions are particularly visible in Idaho’s Treasure Valley, long a hotbed of the anti-government militia movement and a magnet for disaffected whites fleeing more-diverse and increasingly liberal enclaves, experts said. The mobilization of counterprotesters, these observers said, offers stark evidence that rising calls for racial justice are echoing across the country at the very moment that white resentment is also flaring.

“It’s combustible,” said Todd Shallat, a historian at Boise State University. “The local acts of vigilantism show how a rising population of discontented whites is reacting to the increasingly visible claims of minority groups.”

There’s so much implicit bias about black people’s criminality that some people assume there’s going to be violence or infiltration when we gather,” said Whitney Mestelle, a local activist in Boise who helped organize a peaceful vigil Tuesday. “They may even have good intentions, but it doesn’t make me feel more comfortable to see people open-carry.”

[D]iscussion about antifa has reverberated especially widely across Facebook, including on a page that bills itself as “North Idaho News.” The page acknowledges in fine print that it is “not affiliated with any real news company.” On Monday, though, it claimed to have “credible information that violent rioters, not just peaceful protesters, have plans to come to Coeur d’Alene.” Reached Wednesday via Facebook message, the unidentified operator of North Idaho News declined to comment.

The post quickly gained widespread attention, troubling the likes of Chris Dawson, a retired police officer from Santa Clarita, Calif., and the president of the ex-law-enforcement group on Facebook that put its members on high alert. His Facebook page shared the notice, and Dawson said he had been “given information that antifa would be coming in from Portland or Seattle.” Amplifying their fears was the destruction that marked some demonstrations in neighboring states.

Soon, armed members of local militia groups began patrolling the streets of cities including Coeur d’Alene, said David Hagar, a captain in the city’s police department who described the gatherings as peaceful. Asked whether antifa-affiliated individuals had targeted the city, Hagar said, “Not that we’ve identified.”
“I think a lot of it was fueled by social media,” Hagar said.

Similar rumors gripped Payette County, a rural expanse on Idaho’s western edge. One post shared widely on Facebook said antifa had dispatched a “plane load of people” arriving from Seattle, targeting Idaho’s rural regions. “The sheriff in Payette has already spotted some of them,” the notice continued.

Phone calls soon flooded the sheriff’s office, leaving local law enforcement perplexed.

The false notion continues to have traction with local paramilitary groups, including the far-right Three Percenters, who draw their name from the disputed claim that just 3 percent of American colonists were fighting at any one time during the revolt against the British crown. An Idaho branch said in a Facebook post Sunday that it had “credible intel” about plans for an antifa-induced riot in Boise. No such riot took place.

What is truly frightening is that people this ignorant and bigoted are walking around with military assault style weapons.  They would appear to be a bigger threat to public safety than mythical leftists.

Stirred by Trump Right Wing Militia Groups Head to Border

It what is a recipe for disaster, right wing militia groups - many filled with white supremacists and white nationalists - are heading to the U.S./Mexico border, answering the racist call of Der Trumpenführer who previously stated he would have U.S. military troops fire on unarmed refugees  if they wielded rocks. One can only hope that no one loses their life as a result of the dishonest, hysteria invoking rhetoric of the foul occupant of the White House.  Many landowners and U.S. military officials do not want the militias along the border and fear thefts of military gear by militia extremists, damage to private property and the endangerment of both locals and refugees.  Sadly, it is yet another example of the normalization of the reprehensible being pushed by the Trump/Pence regime. The Washington Post looks at the dangerous phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Trump’s warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They’re packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border.

McGauley and others have been roused by [Trump’s] the president’s call to restore order and defend the country against what Trump has called “an invasion,” as thousands of Central American migrants advance slowly through southern Mexico toward the U.S. border. Trump has insisted [without any evidence] that “unknown Middle Easterners,” “very tough fighters,” and large numbers of violent criminals are traveling among the women, children and families heading north on foot.

McGauley said. “My phone’s been ringing nonstop for the last seven days. You got other militias, and husbands and wives, people coming from Oregon, Indiana. We’ve even got two from Canada.”  Asked whether his group planned to deploy with weapons, McGauley laughed. “This is Texas, man,” he said.

And yet, the prospect of armed vigilantes showing up beside thousands of U.S. troops — along with Border Patrol agents, police officers and migrants — is considered serious enough that military planners have issued warnings to Army commanders.

[T]he military is concerned about the arrival of “unregulated militia members self-deploying to the border in alleged support” of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“They operate under the guise of citizen patrols,” the report said, while warning of “incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments.” The military report provided no further details about the alleged thefts.

Several landowners in the area said they do not want the militias around.

Michael Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher who lives an hour north of the border in Falfurrias, said that he will not let militia members from outside the area onto his property and that he doubts most area landowners would trust outsiders.

“I will not let militia on my land,” [Lucy] Kruse said. “They’re civilians stepping into a situation where the Border Patrol is supposed to be in control and make decisions. They could damage property or harm workers. I would guess they would be trigger-happy. If they shot someone, they might just say the person they shot was reaching for a gun.”

“The militia just needs to stay where they are,” said Metz, a Republican. “We don’t need fanatical people. We don’t need anybody here with guns. Why do they have guns? I have dealt with illegals for 30 years, and all of them have been scared, asking for help. The militias need to stay up north where they belong. We have no use for them here. They might shoot someone or hurt someone.”

The Lie That Democrats Are an "Angry Mob"

The real "angry mob" - far right militias and white supremacists.

The dishonesty of today's Republican Party and its willingness to employ dog whistle to encourage violence is both breath taking and frightening.  With the likelihood of Democrats retaking control of at least the House of Representatives, Republican fear mongering has risen to new heights as Der Trumpenführer describes Democrats as "an angry mob" and the mainline party now running ads that depict Democrats as the Antifa, an extreme and tiny faction of what some in years past might have called anarchists. In reality, the Antifa hold the Democrats in about the same contempt as Republicans.  Moreover, the Republicans ignore the much, much larger white supremacist groups, open carry gun extremists and right wing militias that rally to the Trump/Pence standard.  But sadly, the truth means nothing to today's Republicans. Indeed, if their lips are moving the best assumption - the same holds for the Christofascists - is to assume they are lying until it is proven otherwise.   What is most disturbing is the fact that Republican tactics mimick those used by past dictators as they rose to power.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at this outright, deliberate lie about Democrats.  Here are excerpts:

In the closing weeks of last year’s special election in Georgia, Republicans used footage of a riot by Antifa — a fringe sect that views the Democratic party with contempt — to characterize the moderate Democratic nominee Jon Ossoff as a dangerous loon. In the closing weeks of the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans have taken this message national. Democrats are an “angry mob,” charges President Trump. “You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry, left-wing mob. And that’s what the Democrats have become.”

Conservatives have begun repeating Trump’s message. “Yes, Democrats, It’s a Mob,” writes David Harsanyi. “Sorry, Democrats, Progressive Mob Action Is a Real Problem,” declares an almost–identically headlined David French column. Neither Harsanyi nor French is prepared to fully defend all of President Trump’s behavior in this department. What they argue, instead, is that Trump’s sins have been exaggerated and are minor in comparison with those of his opponents.

The Republican cries about mobs bring together a wide range of behavior, mostly involving screaming crowds confronting elected officials. In general, I find confrontational protest tactics to be a counterproductive tactic. I also think the behavior of such protesters is essentially the same thing we saw from Tea Party demonstrators under Barack Obama. Many of these demonstrators were specifically taught to shout down the proceedings and “rattle” members of Congress. Some of those right-wing protesters spit, screamed, shoved, and used racial epithets. At the time, the conservative line on this was that the movement was being unfairly smeared by the actions of a small fringe. Today, the two sides have basically reversed positions on the angry-protesters question, with conservatives using a handful of the angriest protests to discredit an entire movement, and liberals objecting to being defined by their most vocal minority. What actually is new to American politics is Trump’s assault on democratic norms. French dismisses the “lock her up” chants as empty rally talk. In fact, the chant, which began in the campaign, prefigured Trump’s deadly serious ambition to turn the Department of Justice into a weapon of personal control, that would harass Trump’s enemies while simultaneously quashing any wrongdoing by him and his allies. Trump has articulated this goal consistently, in public as well as in private. To the extent he has yet to succeed, it is only because the senate has prevented him from installing a sufficiently pliant attorney general — a restraint that may well disappear if the elections renew the Republican majority, which will no longer be laden with the most independent figures (John McCain, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker).

[Trump] has repeatedly attacked the news media as “the enemy of the people,” an epithet used by communist dictators, and has at least gestured at using his power to punish them. (Trump has mused about challenging licenses for television stations that report independently, and instructed the post office to raise rates on Amazon as retribution for critical coverage in the Washington Post.)

Republican member of Congress Greg Gianforte physically assaulted a reporter for asking about his health care plan; his party stood behind him, and Trump recently praised Gianforte for doing it. . . . Gianforte has come away from the incident with his reputation enhanced.

Susan Glasser, a seasoned and politically centrist reporter, observed six recent Trump rallies. She notes the cult of personality theme at the events, which feature “the kinds of tributes I have heard in places like Uzbekistan, but never before in America.” . . . “Where Trump differs starkly is in his insistence — made at an increasingly high pitch as the week went on — that Democrats not only want to legislate their way to socialism but that they are an actual clear and present danger to Americans.”

The method on display is familiar if you study any historical episode of democratic backsliding. One party, either from the far left or the far right, sets out to attack and weaken democratic norms. The small-d democrats resist, trying to maintain democratic norms. But they’re fighting at a disadvantage against a ruthless foe that does not observe their limits, and at least some of the opposition undertakes a more drastic action. Any offense becomes a pretext for the authoritarians, who exaggerate the threat of violence and chaos by their enemies to justify the antidemocratic measures they were planning all along.

Trump’s illiberalism only works because respectable conservatives cooperate with his fiction that he is more victim than aggressor. French writes, “It’s time to stop excusing, rationalizing, and minimizing [Trump/GOP] behavior that is dangerous, menacing, and threatening.” Indeed it is. 

Oregon: Eight "Militia" Members Arrested, One Dead

One did not need to be clairvoyant to know that sooner or later the illegal seizure and occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in rural Oregon would lead to violence and bloodshed. Yesterday, it happened as eight of the lunatic, sedition loving "militia" members were arrested and one other member was killed and yet another wounded.  Others remain at the refuge facilities.  Like so many right wing groups that want to subvert the government and make themselves above the law, this group had ridiculously called itself the "Citizens for Constitutional Freedom."  In fact, the group stood for lawlessness.  Sadly, few Republicans had the spines to condemn the group and its illegal actions, self-prostitution to extremists now being a hallmark of the GOP.  The New York Times has details on yesterday's long over due arrests.  Here are highlights:

Ammon Bundy, the leader of an armed seizure of a federal wildlife refuge in rural eastern Oregon, was arrested and one person was killed Tuesday afternoon in a traffic stop in rural Oregon, the F.B.I.

Seven other people, including Mr. Bundy’s brother Ryan Bundy, were arrested, the authorities said. Another person was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The authorities did not identify the man who was killed, but a member of the Nevada State Assembly, Michele Fiore, who has been a supporter of the Bundy family, said on Twitter that it was LaVoy Finicum. Mr. Finicum had become a de facto spokesman for the occupiers.

Community leaders demanded that the group leave, but several members were still occupying the refuge Tuesday night.

The F.B.I. and the Oregon State Police said that Mr. Bundy, his brother and three other people, including Shawna Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah, and Ryan Waylen Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., were arrested on a state highway, but they provided no further details. Ms. Cox and Mr. Payne were prominent in speaking for the refuge. Also arrested on the highway was Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nev.

The authorities said only that shots were fired during the course of the arrest. Two other people: Peter Santilli, 50, of Cincinnati, and Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, 45, of Cottonwood, Ariz., were arrested later in Burns, and John Eric Ritzheimer, 32, turned himself in to the police in Peoria, Ariz., the authorities said. All of the defendants face a federal felony charge of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation or threats.

Those arrested need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and the law breakers still at the refuge need to either leave immediately or be removed by force.  Watch to see if any of the GOP presidential candidates condemn the lawless behavior of the extremists who occupied the wildlife refuge.

 

Armed Extremists Vow to Continue to Occupy Federal Property

Extremists once again hiding behind the American flag

The lunacy - and some would say treason - on display in Oregon is the logical outcome of the contempt for government authority and the laws that apply to everyone that has become a hallmark of the Christofascist/Tea Party base of the Republican Party.  A mindset that has been only encouraged by the demagoguery of GOP candidates and their willingness to prostitute themselves to these ugly elements of the party base.  The good of the country seeming rarely factors into the GOP's partisanship priorities.  The irony, as noted by many on social media, is that if 150 blacks tried anything remotely comparable, the military or swat teams would have already moved in.  White extremist continue to get a pass from both the police and the media.  The New York Times looks at the unfolding saga.  Here are highlights:

The protesters arrived in this old lumber town to support a 73-year-old rancher and his son who had been sentenced to prison for setting fires that spread to federal lands. It was billed as a peaceful demonstration, but after “Amazing Grace” was sung and hugs were exchanged, a small, armed contingent declared outside a supermarket that it was taking a stand and asked who wanted to join.

So began the latest armed flare-up in a decades-long struggle between federal officials and local landowners and ranchers over how to manage the Western range. The armed anti-government group seized empty administrative buildings on a federal refuge for wildlife about 30 miles away through the snowy sagebrush, and by Sunday night, had hunkered down for what they vowed would be an indefinite standoff with the government.

“We will be here for as long as it takes,” said Ryan Payne, an Army veteran who characterized the group’s action as a liberation of public lands.

The Harney County sheriff, David M. Ward, said in a statement on Sunday, “These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers, when in reality these men had alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.”

The group was led by Ammon Bundy, a rancher whose family became a symbol of antigovernment sentiment in 2014 when his father, Cliven Bundy, inspired a standoff between armed local antigovernment activists and federal officials seeking to confiscate cattle grazing illegally on federal land in Nevada. 

Residents expressed sympathy with the underlying complaints, but elected officials criticized the armed protesters as an outsider militia group whose actions had thrown their community into a harsh national glare.

“The battle was brought to us,” said Dan Nichols, a county commissioner who is a neighbor of the Hammond family. “This county isn’t supportive of what’s being done here at all. Once again, it’s a bunch of those who live without the county telling us what we need to do, how we need to be doing it and the repercussions if we don’t.” 

The Hammonds each served sentences for the arson charges, but they were ordered to report to a prison in California on Monday after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served were not long enough under federal law. Ms. Hammond said her husband and son would surrender themselves as ordered.

The case caused a local uproar, but it also touched a nerve with far-right groups like the one headed by Mr. Bundy. The Bundys have been organizing opposition to the government case against the Hammonds on social media in recent weeks. They described the case as a tyrannical use of federal authority.

Mr. Payne, the veteran who is also at the site, said the group was not violent. But he also said members had discussed the possibility that the standoff could turn violent.

Referring to the federal government, he added, “If they think that’s worth bringing their armies in here and harming or fouling that endeavor, we’ll just have to read the Constitution and look at our Bibles and see who’s on the right side.”

Note the reference to the Bible, the cause of so much death and horrors over the centuries.   These people are dangerous and need to be prosecuted for what they are doing.