Raw Story: One of the more pessimistic warnings about a Donald Trump presidency appears to be coming true.
Right-wing militias are walking out of the anti-government shadows and standing side by side with law enforcement, and sometimes Republican Party officials, to counter demonstrations against racist police brutality.
An overnight shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, left two people dead and a third wounded during a confrontation between militia members guarding a gas station and demonstrators protesting the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake. (now believed to be an innocent bystander)
No arrests have been made in that case, but video shows a man armed with a rifle open fire and then calmly walk toward police officers who had been ordering the crowd to disperse, while another video shows officers giving the gunman water shortly before the shooting and thanking him for coming.
Armed anti-government groups have faced existential tension after Trump’s election, but they’ve resolved the dilemma by forming a “counter-resistance” to demonstrations against the president and law enforcement, and also by providing security to Republican groups.
That’s exactly the scenario that Timothy Snyder, a Yale University historian, warned against after the 2016 election.
“Watch out for the paramilitaries,” Snyder wrote on Feb. 2, 2017. “When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh.”
“When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle,” he added, “the game is over.”
The Trace found, just over three years ago, at least five instances in Michigan, Oregon and Texas where anti-government gun groups had aligned themselves with conservative elected officials and GOP causes.
That alignment seems to be accelerating amid ongoing nationwide protests against racist police violence following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Some of the earliest violence to erupt as part of those sustained demonstrations was allegedly touched off by a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who “wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors,” according to Minneapolis police.
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It’s a hopeful sign that Trump is so desperate that he’s inciting armed thugs to commit murder on the streets to distract the voters from his many failures. This and the hysterical rants at the RNC demonstrate the isolation and weakness of the far right and of the financial aristocracy that encourages them to fear a class war in which only the one percenters would be the losers. There’s no mass social base for a violent movement, but there is a huge potential for growing a nonviolent resistance, like Bernie Sanders’ (but with better leadership!), directed against those who have taken so much from us. The American people are not the mindless, fearful sheep that our rulers so desperately want to believe we are.
We have over 150 AR-15 armed ‘protectors’ here in Happy Valley and little SLC UT Drooling and Ejaculating over themselves while brown nosing the police. They are lining up to show how they will put their lives on the line to protect the community and their ‘brothers’ in Blue. The founder of Utah Citizens Alarm, said to have 20,000 followers on facebook before they were taken off for violations of policy. We have a problem, and it’s not just heroin addiction, alcohol, tobacco and firearms.
To myself as this will be taken down. You Vets, I am talking to you – who have joined the military since Vietnam, when we have absolutely no need for you, sorry to break it to you but as Donny has said in so many words 911 was a hoax. I hope you realize shock and awe was not done for US, Iran-contra, arms for hostages and most of the drugs on the streets are here compliments of you. this goes especially to the spooks. We are being torn apart, it is starting to look like the civil war that many reenact will be like childs play. All your cool games of counterintelligence, espionage or 3D chess which some believe their politicians are capable of are for naught. I’ll bet that 17 year olds Illinois parents are proud of him capping ‘niggers’ in the street!
Yea, and the ramp up has been increased formation and integration of paramilitary religious groups and corporations and churches. Right now, the only link that has not formed in that scenario mentioned is the military. I am actually seeing way more vets getting active and trying to educate people, because they know full well how it all looks when that chain of events completes. People would be wise to remember, a person does not need to be very smart to become wealthy or powerful in this country, and they sure as hell do not need to be honest.
Police maintain recidivism to make sure the ones they want occupy positions of leadership. Local politics is probably a smarter place to be active than national right now.
John,
We know its all paid for by Sheldon Adelson. You are going soft on Zionism and they stooges.
So your opinion is carriers more weight than actual facts? Why do you continually post on vt then? There are actual racist web sites available for your ilk.
Do you honestly think this rioting, looting, and burning is a good optic for democrats? Of course, not! Who benefits? People see this shit and they immediately blame democrats, and praise Trump. It’s visceral, and it’s completely calculated.
I have absolutely no doubt that were that a black man with an assault rifle approaching police in that manner, he would be dead on the ground…end of story!
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