Mastodawn

Sean May 14, 2023

It’s really hard to overstate how acutely dangerous this is: All strands of the Right - leading Republicans, the media machine, the reactionary intellectual sphere, the conservative base - are openly and aggressively embracing rightwing vigilante violence.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

Not that more evidence was really needed, but the mask has fully slipped in the reactions to the killing of Jordan Neely.

Look at this, for instance, from a rightwing “thinker”: Very difficult to construct a plausible version of who “these people” are supposed to be that’s not brutally racist.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

This sends a clear message: It encourages white militants to use whatever force they please to “fight back” against anything and anyone associated with “the Left” by protecting and glorifying those who have engaged in vigilante violence – call it the Kyle Rittenhouse dogma.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

The Right is defined by a political and social culture of white grievance, ethno-religious nationalism, gun fundamentalism, toxic masculinity, and glorified militancy - it is bound to produce many iterations of Kyle Rittenhouse. Very hard to sustain democracy under such circumstances.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

It’s crucial to emphasize how this open embrace of vigilante violence functions in the broader context of the political conflict - it serves a specific purpose as part of the reactionary counter-mobilization against multiracial, pluralistic democracy.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

The Right’s political project goes well beyond Congress and state legislatures: It’s about restoring and entrenching traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth in the local community, in the public square, in the workplace, in the family.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

The Right is fully committed to this anti-democratic, anti-pluralistic vision – which they understand is a minoritarian project: They are acutely aware that they don’t have numerical majorities, and they have a comprehensive strategy to put this vision into practice.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

The voter suppression, the gerrymandering, the efforts to subvert elections up and down the country… Those are not disparate actions, but the manifestation of what is dogma on the Right: Only white conservatives are allowed to rule in America - opposition to this vision is illegitimate.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

The Right understands that such blatant undermining of democracy might lead to a mobilization of civil society. That’s why Republicans are criminalizing protests, by defining them as “riots,” and by legally sanctioning physical attacks on “rioters.”

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

Beyond just functioning as a tool to upholding political power, white vigilante violence also serves as a way to enforce the underlying vision for a society in which some people - white men, in particular - have the absolute right to defend their place, status, and “comfort.”

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

America is built on a social order that gives some people – white men, specifically – the power to use whatever form of violence they deem necessary to “defend” themselves against all threats from “others,” real and perceived. The Right wants to preserve that order.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

This order is predicated on an extremely expansive idea of what constitutes a “threat”: Black people, for instance, are seen as inherently threatening; and there is not much of a line separating what makes white people “uncomfortable” from what is defined as an acute threat.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

According to the Right, conservative white Christians - by virtue of supposedly being the sole proponents of “real America” - shouldn’t ever have to deal with the kind of challenges and “discomfort” an egalitarian, multiracial, pluralistic society entails.

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

In this view, it is the prerogative of conservative white Christians to dominate the public square, to have their own image reflected back at them at all times, to lash out against whoever and whatever challenges their dominant status or dares to make them “uncomfortable.”

Thomas Zimmer May 14, 2023

This is what the Right’s political project has always been built on, its organizing principle, enforced through the threat of vigilante violence: The premise that some groups are worthy of protection and deserve privilege - while others are dangerous and need to be kept in check.

Zhi Zhu 🕸️May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

For the GOP,
it's rules for thee,
but not for me.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition,
to wit:

There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

~https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

#GOP #Republicans #WhiteSupremacist #Vigilantism #Violence #Racism #Sexism #Bigotry

SeaTea May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Thank you for this thread. This nails the zeitgeist as well as anything I’ve read on the current state of affairs and it’s terrifying.

Malaclypse May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history It’s always the Wilhoit quote: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

The travesty of liberalism — Crooked Timber

Galen Williams May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history meanwhile anyone in an out group is supposed to just stay uncomfortable and shut up in the face of their violence. This must be why they are so afraid of sharing power. They expect to be treated as badly as they have treated everyone else.

Badwolf303 May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history #slavepatrols evolved into #police.

Grandpa Don May 15, 2023

@tzimmer_history we should create "safe zones" for them. Maybe some of that public land they graze vattle on. Fence it in, round them up, lock them in. All white. No sunblock.

Grandpa Don May 15, 2023

@tzimmer_history
I hope we have our own "Arab Spring"

We've had a couple of massive, nationwide demonstrations, both organized & executed by women. They turned out in red states too. We need something like those but far bigger, more diverse, longer lasting. Block all the roads in and out of every city. Block nationwide interstates like I-70 and I-80. Create traffic jams that will take days to dissipate.

Yes, I know all this impedes emergency services. Collateral damage.

CJ Paloma May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

In the past few decades as wealth inequity has widened, 50 trillion has been stolen from these guys... not by POC or women or the gays, but by billionaires.

Back in reality, these billionaires look a LOT like the very demographic they then rile up and tell lies to ...about who is to blame.

For real swaths of the population: the old ruse of distract, divide and conquer STILL WORkS...like a charm.

https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent-stole-50-trillion-working-americans-what-means-2020-9

The wealthiest 1% has taken $50 trillion from working Americans and redistributed it, a new study finds. Here's what that means.

If it feels like you're working harder for less money than your parents' and grandparents' generations, that's because you are.

Business Insider

CJ Paloma May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

and yes it is immensely dangerous... AND, this danger is especially heightened with the help of so many forms of corporately owned media.

One thing I've found really disturbing among liberal leaders (since maybe about 2000 or so) is the excruciating slowness to really grasp that propaganda in the US in the 21st century is done by COMBINING good reporting with utter lies and spin.

Agenda setting has been occurring for decades in so called prestige news without most people realizing at all, but somewhere in the past few decades it got and remained sooooo much worse and malignant than it had been.

sandywb14 May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Isn’t destroying democracy their end goal?

Creative! Queer!! Autistic!!!May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history
I think about this with the Lori Vallow defense: “She was just worshipping in her own way”.

DeeplyAware May 15, 2023

@tzimmer_history I’ll wait for all the facts to come out at the trial. People have to have the right to defend themselves. This is the risk you run by harassing passengers on public transport, where there have been cases of people stabbed to death. You need to cut people some slack when they defend themselves, especially since the authorities are not doing that great a job with ensuring public safety on the subway.

mybarkingdogs May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history cw reply boost, exposing racism of rightwing commentator with image

Tim Verstynen May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

Hanania lists an affiliation at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University but he isn’t listed on their website as far as I can find. If he is affiliated with Columbia University, I wonder how the administration would feel about someone representing them advocating vigilante violence against the mentally ill?

Zhi Zhu 🕸️May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

Too many people believe that hate is a form of strength. But hate is NOT strength. Hate is just fear in disguise.

Glorifying violence against those you fear will not erase your fear. It will feed your fear, making it grow stronger.

Instead of nourishing fear-based hate, Americans need to find ways to overcome their fear, ways to achieve the true strength that is needed to love one another. Or at least to peacefully co-exist with one another.

edgeoforever 🍎May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history There were no masks to slip, at least since 2016. It’s the “secret” of the tfg support 🤷‍♀️

woofmeow May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history I respect and appreciate your ability to articulate the dire situations when they happen.

It makes me uneasy that so many conservatives are all jacked up with hate, and that they still have the amount of support that they do. A lot of people are really that cruel, that vile, that evil. A toxic mix of apathy and sadism.

woofmeow May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Broken as people. I fear the evil they're yet capable of doing. There's the uneasy feeling I have--that the only reason they're not doing some of the wickedly evil stuff I think they want to do--is because right now they don't have the numbers. But they're trying to change that. It all hurts to think about, in an emotional way.

Badwolf303 May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Poor Black men with mental illness are animals ? What are poor white men with mental illness, then?

#JordanNeely #danielpenny #RWDS

🥥 Tucker Carlson's Nuts 🥥May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history 🥥 If love is letting go of fear, hate is surely the cultivation of it. Love opens our eyes and hearts. Hate and fear shut us down and allow us to be manipulated by the toxic, divisive agenda of the political right. 🥥

Ed Dean May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history yet another Rittenhouse

Ronan May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history I could be wrong but surely it's De Santis' party that keeps getting caught doing criminal acts. And I'm fairly certain the moral of the good Samaritan story is not that racist extra-judicial killings are lauded

Dangandblast May 14, 2023

@ronanmcd @tzimmer_history new parable just dropped: a man was having a mental crisis, and who was his neighbor? The #goodsamaritan who killed him, apparently.

Ronan May 14, 2023

@Dangandblast @tzimmer_history 🔥

Petrichor ᚄᚔᚅᚐᚁᚆᚃᚒᚔᚂ May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Went to look him up; thought I read a headline saying "defends NYC subway cuckold" but alas it was "chokehold" when I looked a second time

Sam Adams May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history DeSantis is dangerous. The fact that he can operate with impunity in Florida is a statement in just how flawed our system of government is. We in the U.S. rely solely on the electorate to enforce standards of behavior among government officials, and when society is fractured into normal and aberrant segments, the aberrant thrives because it's member don't follow the rules.

Mary Ann Horn May 14, 2023

@Sameagle @tzimmer_history . Yes, he operates with impunity. The legislature has stripped away so much local power. And yes the Dems were not prepared that it would be this bad.

Pollik May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history This kind of rhetoric is terrifying. And the US doesn't seem very far (praps measured in decades) from becoming a fascist regime

10tothe22 May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

The worst part is that he’s shilling for money / political power.

DaveyComments May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Same with the #UK - It's their 1 and only mantra to rile their voting base with the aid of right wing gutter #press.

Mxhrad May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Conservatives in America are taking a playbook from the Nazi's brown shirts in the 1930's. Nazi's wouldn't have been able to take power if armed vigilantes didn't terrorize the public.

They know what they're doing. This isn't just trying appeal to a base. They want violence. #GOP #GOPterrorists #GOPbetrayedAmerica

Southern Leftist May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history
The road to fascism is paved by claims of hyperbole.

Don't think this is just mudslinging, because it is not; it is the truth.

Beto May 14, 2023

@south_lib @tzimmer_history both sides are equally hyperbolic. Both are promoting extreme ideas that must be taken down. I’m sick of the fascists in the right as well as the marxists on the left. The extreme center should become an option and stop the madness.

Southern Leftist May 14, 2023

@Bt0 @tzimmer_history
Really? A "both sides" person?

Bash this fool right now.

Also, you hate extremism, but you're proposing the radical center "solve everything". You're a walking contradiction.

Furthermore, it's the right is the one who's promoting "extreme ideas". The left is innocent and defending itself.

@tzimmer_history Ronny DeathSantis: "Sure, Danny... I can help you out... But I need a little sumthin sumthin from the cash and you need to stump for me for POTUS. Deal?"

Malaclypse May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history They are building an American Sturmabteilung, and they are building it openly.

Anvil of Truth May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Fight Back With All Might Available

SellaTheChemist May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history Maybe I've read a poor translation of the New Testament, but I don't remember the Good Samaritan doing any choke-holding. Even the priest just walked by…

Big Head Tales May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history The American fascist forces believe they need to embolden their #Republican terrorist Brownshirt squads in advance of the 2024 election if they are to end US democracy and raise their #FourthReich dictatorship.

Big Head Tales May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history The American fascist forces believe they need to embolden their #Republican terrorist Brownshirt squads in advance of the 2024 election if they are to end US democracy and raise their #FourthReich dictatorship.

shyduroff May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history… +++ …

Mr. Mustache May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history

Huey Newton and the #BlackPanthers understood the assignment. The Dems and neo-liberals have built a dichotomy where one side has the monopoly on use or force. This is a historically bad decision for those on the side with no ability to use forceful self-defense.

The cops won't save us.
The politicians won't save us.

WE must save us. #FourBoxes

La Robotica May 14, 2023

@tzimmer_history note the approval of far right demonstrations by the French courts. What is driving this global veer to the right?