One of the groups that we have been dealing with in Iraq for the past sixteen years or so is a militia or militant group that goes by the acronym JAM. JAM stands for Jaish al Mahdi, which in turn translates from Iraqi Arabic to the Mahdi Army. JAM was the name for the militant/militia wing of the Sadrist movement led by Muqtada al Sadr and named for his father who is believed to have been assassinated or extrajudicially executed by Saddam Hussein. The Sadrist movement, modeled on how Hezbollah is organized, has two parts with three separate missions. The first part – the Office of the Martyr Sadr (or whatever it is being called today)- runs candidates for office at the local, provincial, and national level in Iraq and provides what we would think of as social welfare activities. Specifically, providing housing or housing assistance, food or food assistance, some education, and other social services that the Iraqi state, both working with the Coalition Provisional Authority and ultimately on its own, could not. The second part – Jaish al Mahdi – conducted the third mission: armed resistance against Sunni insurgents, as well as the US led military coalition.
The New York Times has taken a deep dive into how the Republican Party, driven farther and farther to the right as a revanchist insurgent outlier within American politics, has basically reorganized itself into an American version of what we see with the Sadrists, Hezbollah, and other political and social movements in less stable parts of the world that also have armed wings. From the NY Times‘ reporting: (emphasis mine):
Dozens of heavily armed militiamen crowded into the Michigan Statehouse last April to protest a stay-at-home order by the Democratic governor to slow the pandemic. Chanting and stomping their feet, they halted legislative business, tried to force their way onto the floor and brandished rifles from the gallery over lawmakers below.
Initially, Republican leaders had some misgivings about their new allies. “The optics weren’t good. Next time tell them not to bring guns,” complained Mike Shirkey, the State Senate majority leader, according to one of the protest organizers. But Michigan’s highest-ranking Republican came around after the planners threatened to return with weapons and “militia guys signing autographs and passing out blow-up AR-15s to the kiddies on the Capitol lawn.”
“To his credit,” Jason Howland, the organizer, wrote in a social media post, Mr. Shirkey agreed to help the cause and “spoke at our next event.”
Following signals from President Donald J. Trump — who had tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” after an earlier show of force in Lansing — Michigan’s Republican Party last year welcomed the support of newly emboldened paramilitary groups and other vigilantes. Prominent party members formed bonds with militias or gave tacit approval to armed activists using intimidation in a series of rallies and confrontations around the state. That intrusion into the Statehouse now looks like a portent of the assault halfway across the country months later at the United States Capitol.
Six Trump supporters from Michigan have been arrested in connection with the storming of the Capitol. One, a former Marine accused of beating a Capitol Police officer with a hockey stick, had previously joined armed militiamen in a protest organized by Michigan Republicans to try to disrupt ballot counting in Detroit.
The chief organizer of that protest, Meshawn Maddock, on Saturday was elected co-chair of the state Republican Party — one of four die-hard Trump loyalists who won top posts.
Ms. Maddock helped fill 19 buses to Washington for the Jan. 6 rally and defended the April armed intrusion into the Michigan Capitol. When Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, suggested at the time that Black demonstrators would never be allowed to threaten legislators like that, Ms. Maddock
“Oh that’s right you think anyone armed is threatening,” she continued. “It’s a right for a reason and the reason is YOU.”
The lead organizer of the April 30 armed protest, Ryan Kelley, a local Republican official, last week announced a bid for governor. “Becoming too closely aligned with militias — is that a bad thing?” he said in an interview. Londa Gatt, a pro-Trump activist close to him was named last month to a leadership position in a statewide Republican women’s group. She welcomed militias and Proud Boys at protests, posting on the social media site Parler: “While BLM destroy/murder people the Proud Boys are true patriots.” Prosecutors have accused members of the Proud Boys of playing a leading role in the Jan. 6 assault.
Two weeks after the Statehouse protest, Mr. Shirkey, the Republican leader, appeared at a rally by the same organizers, onstage with a militia member who would later be accused of conspiring to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“Stand up and test that assertion of authority by the government,” Mr. Shirkey told the militiamen. “We need you now more than ever.”
After the riot in Washington, some argue such endorsements endanger the future of the party. “It is like the Republican Party has its own domestic army,” said Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan party and a vocal Trump critic.
It’s worth giving the whole thing a read, even though it focuses largely on Michigan and the Michigan Republican Party. Especially as all the reporting, as well as other indicators such as what Federal, state, and municipal Republican officials say or tweet or post themselves, over the past several months clearly indicates that this problem is not limited to Michigan. Whether it is the Wyoming state Republican Party moving to censure Congresswoman Cheney, more members of the House GOP caucus voting to remove Congresswoman Cheney from her leadership post than voted to discipline Congresswoman Greene, the Arizona state Republican Party censuring Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake, and Doug Ducey for betraying Trump, Allen West in his new role as Texas GOP Party Chair supporting both secession, to Nebraska Republicans preparing to censure Senator Sasse for betraying Trump and thereby Republicans, what the NY Times reported about the Michigan Republican Party is happening with the Republican Party throughout the US.
I’ve seen several recent attempts to make a comparison between the Republican Party and Sinn Féin, especially in the immediate aftermath of the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol. I don’t think that’s the right comparison. The Irish Troubles was inextricably tied into the Catholic/republican and Protestant/loyalist dispute in Northern Ireland. While there are some similarities, that’s not what is going on with the Republican Party right now or what the Republican Party has been building too over the past several decades that got them to where they are today.
As I wrote here back in January 2019, the real political, social, economic, and religious disputes in America and among Americans for the better part of the past decade have not really been about nominal tax rates, the Defense budget, or the size of the safety net. Rather they have been much more like the disputes between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia, Arabs and Kurds, which is an often bloody fight over who gets to actually be an Iraqi and claim the full rights and privileges that come with doing so. The American dispute is similar. It is a fight over what American really means, what America really is, and who is and can be and who is not and cannot be an American citizen. This dispute is a long simmering low intensity war for America, which has comparatively been non-violent with only occasional violent spikes. It is related to the much more violent dispute throughout America over these same issues that were institutionalized in Jim Crow and segregation where the violence was targeted against Blacks.
The Republican Party at all levels from national to municipal has decided it wants this fight. It wants to have a sharp, permanent determination and delineation over just what American means, just what America is, and just who actually gets to be an American. The Republican Party is the political wing. The conservative movement organizations, including conservative Christian and traditionalist Catholic churches and organizations, as well as some orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and some religiously conservative members and organizations of other religious and ethnic minorities* serve as the social welfare/social services wing. And the cosplay patriot (cosplatriot), militia, and other violent, armed paramilitary groups orbiting the Republican Party and the conservative movement are the militant armed wing.
schrodingers_cat
So is the Orange One, Mudqtada Al-Sadr?
dmsilev
So there’s basically a self-perpetuating cycle where an extreme primary electorate selects increasingly extreme candidates, who then turn around and fan the flames of their voting base even further, resulting in a more extreme electorate…
Where’s the exit point? When they’ve chased out enough vaguely sane people that even with gerrymandering they can’t assemble a national majority? Seems like that would take a long long time, especially once we stir all of the various wrong-people-voting suppression mechanisms into the mix.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat:
Mooky was much more effective. Also more intelligent, although totally batshit revolutionary.
Hey, I got the ear massager ad. First time.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: Biden’s approval rating is 61%, the Orange person’s highest was barely 45%. So may be the people who have the appetite for the Jan6 like events is not huge.
raven
Um, ok .
NotMax
Mindful that what initially solidified the radicalization of al Sadr against the U.S. presence was when we swooped in and unilaterally shut down his newspaper, including destruction of the equipment in its offices.
CaseyL
So, a decades-long low-intensity conflict (widespread stochastic terrorism, IOW) complicated by uninformed apathy by 40% of the country’s adult population.
Delightful.
Maybe we should just cordon off the Red States and let them rot.
Spanky
Also, no one ever saw Mooky and Orson Welles in the same room.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Sort of. There is definitely a cult of personality here. What we don’t know is whether it can survive without Trump. I expect it can. Regardless, the structural and organizational similarities to what we’re seeing and dealing with is very similar. Like all analogies, it is imperfect.
Spanky
@CaseyL: I wouldn’t classify Michigan as a Red State. Got any other ideas?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: There isn’t an exit point. Eventually you wind up with completely unreconstructed, overt racist fascists.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: Turns out that black is not slimming.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Cancel culture has long been America’s curse and downfall.//
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: There was a small but noticeable exodus from the R party after the Capitol Insurrection, also a hopeful sign. And if Biden and Congressional Democrats can get a reasonable semblance of the proposed relief bill through, I’ll be fairly hopeful about midterm prospects.
HumboldtBlue
Blaire Erskine has some support for Mr. Castor.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: A case could be made. “Christian” home schooling = madrasas. “Patriots” = insurgents.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Where we’re at at this point is not a political problem as we normally understand political problems. What I and others are observing and describing is something that is outside the bounds of how we traditionally understand political behavior.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: Actually, what if it actually is very slimming?
Ick.
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: I think there are numerous, multiple, and disturbing similarities.
eclare
@CaseyL: Those of us who live in blue cities in red states disagree
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I guess my question is, if you have an entire party consisting of Marjorie Greenes and Roy Moores, they’re going to have a lot of trouble winning general elections anywhere that’s vaguely competitive. So, what happens then?
Matt
Hot take: the solution for this was always to put the fuckers in jail for a long, long time.
Nixon’s homeboys should have all died in prison.
That would’ve cut a couple of the Iran-Contra goons out of the picture, and the rest of them should be waiting to die in prison right now.
That would’ve _certainly_ thinned the ranks of the Shrub administration, the rest of which (sing along with me) should be waiting to die in prison right now.
Now we’re facing a choice: either we do the same thing we’ve done over and over, and we lose the country – or we prosecute the criminals that are the entirety of the Republican Party and have a future. Yes, it’s going to be “partisan”; one party has purposely turned itself into a criminal conspiracy. Don’t stop with the politicians, either: folks like the Mercers won’t need their fortunes in prison.
Kent
Yes. The only real difference between arch conservative groups like the Amish and their Islamic counterparts like the Taliban are the weapons. Otherwise they are remarkably similar patriarchal controlling sects that prohibit women (and men) from getting educations, that beat their kids senseless to “break” them and so forth.
And gun culture is slowly seeping into those groups as well.
df
That’s about where I’m at. But that’s just it: of course our system can’t handle half of the players not wanting to play, because the system relies on everybody agreeing to the same rules and then participating fairly (although the cynic in me thinks that that has just been a convenient narrative, considering that we weren’t even a true, full democracy until 1965 with passage of the Voting Rights Act, and ever since, those rights have been steadily clawed away anyway).
The most frightening part is that nobody is going to save us from ourselves. Enough people (geographically distributed in the right way, unfortunately) need to give a shit to put a stop to the crazy train. We manged to pull the emergency brake a bit in November, but I’m still not convinced the arc of America bends any direction but straight down. I desperately want to be wrong. We’re adrift in a vast sea of uncertainty, and all of the Republicans and Trump insurrectionists are still in the boat with us, continuing to drill holes in the hull.
Another Scott
Great piece. I think the comparison is apt.
But I think there are other things going on. Like – we’ve been here before.
I had a sense of foreboding when the GOP blew up the economy in the Great Recession and when they strangled the recovery. We knew how to get out of the pit quickly, and we knew how to make it worse. The GOP were determined to prevent a strong recovery and new safeguards to keep it from happening again because they knew they could increase their political power as the USA swung to the right in reaction to the hard times. And authoritarians around the world knew and acted on the same instinct.
The 1930s – 1945 were a stark lesson for the world.
People who are unemployed and see everything they’ve worked for snatched away get angry. Angry people don’t think clearly. They support RWNJs who claim they know whose fault it is and will get back at those animals. When our education systems tell children that American can do no wrong and that God is on our side and all the rest, then RW politicians take advantage of those tropes to demonize and dehumanize their opponents.
The rise of Trump is just the latest chapter in the rise of the TeaParty, and BoJo’s Conservatives, and Erdogan, and Fidesz and Orban, and all the rest. The $2T tax cut was to keep the majority of us in the crab bucket, angry at “those people”, while they drink their $600 bottles of wine and lecture us about Jesus and Country.
We can beat them back, but we have to realize what we’re up against. We have to make things better for people, so that they don’t have to work 3 jobs for decades to pay for an apartment and a non-soul-crushing standard of living. That’s not to say that St. Bernard is right and that everything is about the economy, but it’s important. As important as making everyone actually equal under the law.
How to do that? Democrats have to fight like hell for it every day, not just a few weeks before an election. Fox News and FB and T and all the rest don’t take a day off. We cannot either. We must use our majorities to make things better.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL:
Yeah, because everyone in a red state is an asshole and all the people in blue states are cool liberals. What’s it like in eastern WA – liberal paradise?
debbie
Hey, Adam. What are the chances Stephan Miller is Q?
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
You have the basic problem correctly defined. The happy endpoint is they shrink their coalition so much they can’t win nationally, and the Democrats use their national majority to undo all the gerrymandering and voter suppression. The unhappy endpoint is that they keep in power by constantly upping the anti-democratic tactics until they finally feel comfortable doing away with the pretense of elections. The big question is whether the ultimate winners in that case are the oligarchs or the theocrats.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: But we don’t really have competitive elections. The House of Representatives and the state legislatures in about 25 states are heavily gerrymandered by the Republicans. The way the Senate is set up, by 2040 at the latest, 30% of Americans will be represented by 70 senators. The Electoral College is always just waiting to go kaboom. In a significant part of the US, the primary is where an election is decided, not the general election.
J R in WV
OK, here we are. A movement like those that destroyed another nation, with our help, now active here in America~!!~
What to do about it here and now? How do we put these organizations down permanently>?
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Your thoughts? I am not as pessimistic. Haven’t people like this always been with us. 150 years ago there was a war about it IIRC.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
There are Republicans who are very happy with the idea of white minority rule.
CaseyL
@Spanky:
@eclare:
I am very aware that Michigan elects Democrats more often than it does Republicans, and that many red states have blue oases.
But if what Adam says is accurate, then I’m not sure even getting bigger and better Democratic turnout in elections is going to fix this. The GQP is ready, even eager, to move toward a jihadist model. They’ll be doing their best to unleash an ethnic cleansing like what happened to Iraq, and any “blue” outposts will be their first targets.
Adam L Silverman
@df: This is correct:
I prefer the four type civic culture breakdown of Seymour Martin Lipset to Almond & Verba’s:
The US was a populist state and society through the Civil Rights period and then crept across the line into pluralist. And ever since there has been tremendous effort expended to push it back into populist if not all the way into monist.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman: This cult predates Trump, who is a Johnny-come-lately, and I expect it will have no problem finding another figurehead if/when he passes from the political scene. I’m confident he will, it just remains to be seen how long it will take.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Stephen Miller is not Q.
Spanky
@Adam L Silverman: Right. And remember that it takes 34 state legislatures to call a constitutional convention. So they’re about 3/4 of the way there.
The state legislatures are where the real subversion is happening.
Ohio Mom
I am continually gobsmacked that any of my co-religionists have no qualms about embracing the American right-wing.
Sure, they delude themselves with nonsense about Republicans being “better for Israel,” and it’s clear to me that that some I know personally are animated by very American racism, but really, it’s screamingly blatantly obvious that the right-wing is at its core, rabidly antisemetic.
And they are always the ones so hypersensitive to antisemetism in every other context or circumstance. It’s Freudian.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: So does the Hindu right in India and their chamchas in the US. They amplify white supremacists. Self delusion is a necessary to be a RWNJ no matter what religion
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: That’s my feeling. We already know some of the people who will make the play to take over that position.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: John De Lancie is Q, of course. The most awful Trek episodes are the ones with Q.
Jeffro
@Matt: co-signing this
we go after every instance of assault, conspiracy, incitement, etc while also leaning on the GQP’s funding sources, Fox sponsors, and the like. And come election time, we hammer the shut out of Q politicians for not denouncing their violent supporters
the Rule of Law, instead of “LAWN ORDER!!1!”
see how they like rotting in jail, or paying huge fines, or losing sponsors/market value, etc
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
The Republican Party has been a cult in search of a leader at least since the Reagan Administration. Trump finally filled the void. To me the big questions are:
Obviously, I’m hoping Trump loses control quickly because a herd of would-be replacements come in and cause the cult to splinter into a bunch of warring factions. The scariest case would be for another, more competently evil cult leader to wrest control of the cult from Trump before the 2024 election.
Another Scott
Lest anyone get too depressed by Adam’s diagnosis, a counterpoint has been happening for a while in Virginia. As Geminid and others remind us, the Virginia Republican Party has gone deeply, way-deeply insane in the last few years. As a consequence, they have not won a statewide race in many cycles, and the state legislature has recent Democratic majorities. And good things are happening to state laws as a result.
Yes, the VA GOP is doubling down on the Trumpism. But it’s not helping them win elections.
Winning elections breeds success. Yes, understand the dangers. But don’t be distracted by the noise on Twitter and FB. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: Did you see the stuff about Modhi something about defaming soup?
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: No argument from me.
A Ghost to Most
Or, as I call them, ex-family.
Jeffro
Fwiw, the NYT has an article up about “how Biden united the Democrats under one tent”
Ron Klain is tweeting about it saying “Democrats in array” ???
So it’s not ALL bad news…
frosty
That was Baltimore, when I was living there. It was Mississippi when my grandmother was growing up at the turn of the last century. She told us once that she didn’t know there was an election in November until she moved to Chicago in her twenties.
Jeffro
@Another Scott: ??
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
And they will have a four-year-long Most Deplorable contest to decide who gets to lead the
Republicanparty of the Deplorables.Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I’m not saying everything is bad news. But I cover security stuff, not good news stuff.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Every single one of these knuckleheads sees themself as the next figurehead. Couldn’t their having to fight each other for the prize work in our favor?
Roger Moore
@Spanky:
Not to mention the whole formal Christian educational institutions. A huge number of churches run their own schools, so that it’s possible to go all the way from pre-K through graduate school without ever having to encounter a teacher who isn’t part of your denomination.
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: I’m a big fan of unmarked $10s and $20s.//
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: My house in eastern Washington is a liberal paradise, and given Covid I don’t get out much.
Eastern Washington is absolutely red, but I don’t think is is as bug-fucking mental as a lot of places, including nearby Idaho. More Bircher, less Q. My R rep voted to impeach, and I was very happy.
df
@Adam L Silverman: That’s interesting, thank you. I’ve added some Lipset books to my list.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: I hear you. They’re crazier and more dangerous than ever. They’re also losing elections, retiring, losing sponsors, etc.
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
I hesitate to say all madrasas are bad. They were originally just schools. In a lot of places that have them, they are still the only school system there is.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Of course, most Trumpers lead pretty good lives. The lie that they have been sold is that unworthy wretches are trying to take away all that they have gained, and that the Democrats represent the unworthy and ignore the “right” people.
These people also made out pretty well with the small portion of the tax cuts that they got, and dream of hitting the big time where they too can pay zero taxes like some plutocrats.
Yep. This is the promise. The dream.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
It could, or it could turn up Trump v2.0.
Jeffro
Btw while Christian schools may be part of the problem in some places, as I think many of us know, there are plenty of public school kids who are straight up racist, potentially violent, etc.
their suburban parents have had Fox and Rush playing in in the background 24:7 for the past 30+ years. They’re all North Koreans at this point – both generations
it’s not just, or even mostly, the churches is all I’m saying
Punchy
In seemingly unrelated news, I was shocked and a bit disappointed that Mrs Punchy does not know who Joey Jo-Jo Jr. Shabadoo is. I thought everyone knew this. I guess the retraining will continue…..
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator:
Ohio Mom
schroedingers_cat:
For me, the difference is that all Jews, no matter how they define and live their Jewishness and no matter where they live in the world, carry with them the memory and knowledge of anti-semitism run amok. It is almost an organizing principle.
Ancient rulers that have turned against us are the center stories of holidays (Purim, Passover, Hannukah, Tisha B’va), and then there are the historically documented events such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust.
Yet even with all that knowledge of what has happened and could happen again, they are blind to the deep antisemitism of the right-wing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Trump is unique in some respects and other politicians will have problems filling his shoes. Before he ran for President he had a reputation as a successful businessman(he wasn’t) for over 35 years, he was really rich(he wasn’t), he had a show on the TV machine, and he was an outsider. Each of these things are probably worth 1-2% in votes. The others don’t have any of this and the only one who comes remotely close is Fucker Carlson.
As far as Trump is concerned, he’s a monarchist, and thinks another Trump should succeed him in power.
Faithful Lurker
@Spanky: As someone who spent 30 years in rural Michigan, I can testify that it is a red state. There are blue pockets but the basic mindset is racist, white supremacy red.Don’t underestimate the Dutch Reform, Devos, Eric Prince faction in Michigan politics. I grew up in the deep South, steeped in the culture of the Lost Cause but those people scared me.
Omnes Omnibus
@CarolPW: I just wanted to point out to CaseyL that, if she cordons off the red states, she still gets right wing assholes on her door step. And, further, that it is a fuckwitted idea.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m quite concerned about Carlson.
Gvg
They deny the founders really intended to separate church and state. They don’t know history, specifically that many of our earliest colonists were essentially refugees from Europe’s religious wars between new and old flavors of Christians. They have never heard of the reformation or the 30 years war. You had to be the same religion as your king, and what if he married someone from one of the other heresies? Separation of church and state was to protect the religious, not persecute them.
These fools would rue their choices if we ever let them get their way. A lot of the religious wars were also about power. Our current crop …is amazingly stupid.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Wait whut? I haven’t. He was bad mouthing tea the other day in Assam. Then he cried in the Parliament.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: then we need to destroy them before they destroy us. And infiltrate and collapse their terror cells
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: That’s what it was. Defaming tea. I just quickly caught the clip and went: whuuuht?
CaseyL
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s not an idea that I like, believe me. But I’ve been watching the prion disease take over one RW town after another.
Look, the Washington State GOP used to be fairly sane. They were bog-issue Republicans (no taxes!) and there definitely were proto-Trumps (Ellen Grasswell, Pamela Leach), but for the most part Washington State GOPsters had actual policies, and positions on issues.
When Trump was elected, it was like seeing a wave wash over the Red parts of the state. Suddenly every state rep in Olympia went MAGAt. It was like watching a time lapse movie of a bowl of fruit go rotten: very thorough, and very fast. I have not had a good opinion of the GOP since the 1990s, and even I was flabbergasted.
This is not going to be a thing where the Democrats can turn things around with good policies that help a lot of people – even if we can sustain that for 8 or 12 or 16 years.
MAGAts aren’t motivated by a need for good policies, or a desire to help lots of people. They sincerely and fervently want a white Christian patriarchal state, and are increasingly happy to use violence to get there.
If good governance isn’t the solution, then what is?
You tell me.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: I do solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
Ask me no questions…
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: I know, and I find the idea particularly offensive having lived my entire life in red areas of two blue and one red state (grew up on a farm and followed with school and then positions at Land Grant Universities). Just pointing out eastern Washington is not as barking mad as many red areas. Use Oregon next time.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: Not giving up. Continuing to do the hard work.
TKH
@Adam L Silverman: @ 64: In other words economically very anxious.
Adam L Silverman
@TKH: The most very anxious.
Omnes Omnibus
@CarolPW:
I pointed out the reason I used Washington. It is the home state of the person I was talking to. I could use WI, IL, or NY. It is the same everywhere.
VOR
@Adam L Silverman: The wife needs the “I want to talk to the manager” haircut.
Starboard Tack
I’ve forgotten the details but the chair of one of the county Republican parties in Colorado has hooked up with a militia (3%ers maybe) for security. I’m pretty sure it’s in CO3, Boebert’s district.
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus: My bad – missed the state of residence of the commenter.
ETA: And that is absurd – we had a republican majority in one of the state houses until recently. We are barely blue.
Brachiator
@Gvg:
Puritans came to America so that they could practice their intolerance in peace. The rest of Europe couldn’t stand them. Separation of church and state has some interestingly paradoxical roots. Some states had official establishments of religion. People didn’t want the federal government to shoo horn in on a sweet deal and so the Constitution prevented the federal government from playing favorites. When Jefferson said that there ought to be a wall of separation between church and state, this was a radical ideal, not accepted conventional wisdom.
LeftCoastYankee
Agreed that Sinn Fein is not a good analogy. Not to go down a rabbit hole, but the tensions in Northern Ireland were always 3-way or more: the UK government, the NI Unionists and the NI Republicans. And the fight wasn’t contained to Northern Ireland: we know about the IRA’s terrorism in England, but the Unionists also their own para-military organizations and spread some of their mischief below the border in the Republic of Ireland.
As they say across the pond, “It was a right proper mess.”
Leto
Funny story: one of our interpreters in Iraq, his brother was the #2 guy in JAM. Imagine our surprise when Army intel turned up that nugget. How this wasn’t turned up before (we’d been there 8 months already, and he’d assisted the previous two teams), I have no idea. But super happy to know one of our two political parties has turned into the the same mob that placed bounties on me and my teammates. Cool.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brachiator: When Jefferson said it, it wasn’t that radical. John Locke, Voltaire, and Diderot, among others, had advocated for it in the past. The US was really just one of the first to take a shot at it in practice.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The thing is, the Republicans had control of the entire government from 2016 to 2018 and they had to defer to the the Democratic minority in Congress to get things done. When they win, they lose. That was even repeated the 6th that they boned their own coup.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
This is true, but the anger and resentment that Trump channeled has been around for years, and was just looking for the right vessel. Trump himself just got lucky.
That anger is still out there, waiting to be stirred up again. It is not dependent on Trump or anyone exactly like him.
And although he was not nearly as bad, I clearly recall pundits and columnists mocking the insanity of California’s recall election when Gray Davis was toppled. All the smart guys and gals lectured us, laughed at as and assured the rest of the world that smart Americans in the rest of the country would never, never, ever elect an mere celebrity to public office.
Funny how that worked out.
Yep. Trump was an outsider. He had also been a Democrat, an Independent and a Republican during his political life. He was always looking for a way in. And the Republicans, like fools, gave him that path to the inside.
Calouste
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Historically, dictators-for-life don’t have a great track record with their legacy, unless they were monarchs, or somewhat surprisingly, communists. Things tend to fall apart pretty quickly after they die, and sometimes before that even.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It seems unlikely. Trump is a black swan in the sense he is a household name in the US since the ’80, spent decades build a myth he was successful businessman and had a long running TV show so at first he was seen as a political outsider to excuse his numerous fucks up and had his shows fan base to draw support from. Trump v2.0 would just only appeal to the MAGA heads and be loathsome to the majority.
Leto
@Calouste: it’s like they don’t really plan for a succession after them! You mean they aren’t grooming the next generation of leadership to succeed them? /shockedface :P
sab
They have just turned Jim Crow into a national rather than regional movement. We’ve been here before.
Another Scott
This post made me think of TNC and that I haven’t read his thoughts on recent politics. So, I found this NYMag interview from March 2019:
I think there’s a lot to that.
Similarly, we cannot let this RW insurrection stuff just fester. We have to look it in the eye and recognize its dangers. That doesn’t mean that we wall-off red states, or that we send everyone who read about Q on reddit to FEMA camps. But it does mean that we (business, citizens, governments, churches) have to stand up and say, NO that’s wrong.
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Few men today are able to walk in high heels like Trump (sort of) does.
Worth noting that Arnold was mostly meh has a governor and not a total train wreck. As Jerry Brown pointed out at the time Arnold merely needed to listen to the state civil servants on how to get things done. Trump couldn’t manage even that.
piratedan
Sounds like we need to go after these guys like LBJ went after the Klan
CaseyL
@piratedan: Can you recap how LBJ did that? I’d honestly love to know, because J Edgar Hoover would never have cooperated, and you’d need some kind of national law enforcement to make it work.
Ksmiami
@Adam L Silverman: never… do you read Nicholas Grossman? He wrote about awakening the real Deep State…
Ksmiami
@piratedan: exactly
Ivan X
@Ohio Mom: Whether or not we should be, I think Jews are as vulnerable as any group to stupidity and racism and bloodlust, and moreover, as desiring of any group (if not more so) to be fully accepted and embraced by the majority. I prefer to think that the religion and culture teaches egalitarian and just values (as well, as you note, as reminding us of who our enemies are), because of course I do. But not everyone is going to take those lessons.
I think for some, to pretend that the right wing doesn’t view Jews with suspicion and scorn (if not outright hatred) is a way of imagining that they’re safer and more welcome than they are. And I also think it’s a human thing to think that we as individuals are somehow exempt from the misfortunes of our peers (see the well-intentioned but ultimately selfish behavior of many humans during the pandemic) — that this can’t happen to me.
But for the most part, I don’t feel like politically conservative Jews are a growing contingent — it seems like the same 25% that’s always been there. So, I might not understand it, for all the same reasons you don’t, but I’m happy that it’s only 25%. It could be worse.
Danielx
@schrodingers_cat:
it ended 156 years ago and some people are still mourning the Lost Cause.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
Yes, but they’d have to win. My point is that Trump had attributes that pushed him over the line the first time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ivan X: The Sermon on the Mount is full of nice ideas about how to live and get along with others and look how well some Christians handle it.
Martin
@dmsilev: That’s basically where they are now. Trump only won in 2016 due to a constitutional anomaly. When everyone really turned out, he lost even more badly in 2020.
The plan seems to be to rewrite the rules so that their minority can win elections – gerrymandering, voter suppression, all the way to flat out claims like some in AZ have proposed that if the leg doesn’t like the result of the election, they’ll just pick the winner themselves. This is why a lot of conservatives want the repeal of the 17th amendment. They can’t gerrymander senate seats, but they can gerrymander the legislatures that would pick those seats.
There will be more minority vetos through procedures like the filibuster. While Dems have some federal control, the GOP run states are going wild right now. I mean, we’re already at the hold power by force phase of things, even if that first effort was a bit half-assed.
That’s why I said before that the Dems need to crush this. Jam through voting rights that minimize the damage the states can do. Kill the filibuster. Give DC and PR statehood. Move things far enough so that the only way the GOP can get power back is by embracing demographic change, which will force them back to democratic goals.
Amir Khalid
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No one was expecting Trump v1.0 to become a force in politics. I think Trump v2.o, whoever he/she is, will be as big a surprise.
karen marie
@Roger Moore: Except gerrymandering is done at the state level. Republicans have for many drcades put a lot of effort into organizing and finding candidates for local and state offices. The Democratic party has not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Danielx: One hundred and fifty-six years isn’t all that long to nurse a grudge. Others have done so for far longer.
Martin
@Adam L Silverman: Trump is George Wallace. I don’t think they’ll have much trouble finding another Trump, particularly if Trump skates here. There’s no shortage of white christian nationalists out there giving it a go.
cain
@Another Scott:
I also think that eventually we are going to get the upper hand in North Carolina as well. As more folks move into the state from other areas it is getting bluer.
If for each state that goes blue it prospers then that might be the kind of thing we can do to encourage others. We need good leaders to step up and run for office. We have to send the best we can and get the elected.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Depends on what lesson the GOP have learned here. It’s almost certainly the wrong one based on what’s happening at the state level with censures, removals of officials that certified elections, and so on.
The lesson they seem to have learned is that they weren’t fascist enough. I don’t think they can win national elections from where they are now, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be really damaging. If a political party turns into a terrorist group, is there anything really that can be done about it constitutionally?
cain
@Jeffro:
Reading reddit, it seems that once the spell is broken and they leave the party end up becoming more progressive since they don’t have the cultural ties they had before and look at the party differently.
Adam L Silverman
@Starboard Tack: It is.
cain
@CarolPW:
I think some parts of Oregon is like that – but I think the Oregon Republican party has gone off the rails.
Adam L Silverman
@Leto: One of the bilingual/binational advisors on the ePRT attached to our BCT had a similar problem. Though in her case it was her brother was a member of Kitab al Firkan or something.
Adam L Silverman
@Ksmiami: I probably was taking a nap.//
What?
No, I did not see that.
cain
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe it is locations – In Pakistan, it seems that they decided to bring in some folks Saudi and they ended up setting up madrassas and turning a portion of them into zealots that they would use to do suicide bombings. Pakistan had no history of suicide bombings up to that point.
In general, both India and Pakistan’s muslims are not zealots. They do have all the hallmarks of folks that live depressed neighborhoods and some portion are involved in gangs and organized crime. But that’s no different than anywhere else.
It’s when they brought in those outsiders that shit started hitting the fan – they also started building political power for themselves. Moral of the story, dont’ bring in assholes from other country and give them political power – they will take all of it.
Adam L Silverman
@Ivan X: It isn’t so much that the percentage is growing. Rather, the context they’re working with and trying to create has. I’m overdue, and have promised to get to it this week, for a post on this. So keep an eye out if you’re interested.
cain
@Punchy:
Uh.. who?
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: Unfortunately.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Trump is one problem. It is sad to see that even though the GOP has another opportunity to distance itself from him, instead a good chunk of the party is determined to cling to him no matter what.
But on a larger level, Trump has set forces in motion that go far beyond him. A significant fraction of citizens no longer want or believe in democracy. They yearn for a populist autocrat.
danielx
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
As far as I can recall, the only thing they really wanted to get done (TAX CUTS!!!) legislatively…did get done. They didn’t get rid of ACA because they really didn’t give a shit about it by that point. Everything else they so delighted in (tormenting migrant families, etc ad nauseum) they accomplished via executive policy and ignoring congressional oversight.
They don’t care about governing or trying to help any portion of the populace, they want to rule so they can impose their vision of the perfect society on everybody else. That vision doesn’t include better access to health care or any of the other nice things about which we like to talk.
Adam L Silverman
@cain: They didn’t bring in the Saudis, the Saudis fund these like missions to promote the teachings of abdul Wahhab. While Pakistan had Deobandi Islam, it was not until the Saudis started funding madrassas and mosques that Deobandism started to quickly move to the extreme.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
The danger in bringing in Saudi Arabian educators is that you risk infecting the school system with Wahabism.
Adam L Silverman
Time for me to rack out. Catch everyone on the flip!
Brachiator
@Martin:
I understand and agree with some of your prescriptions, but note that in California, instead of embracing demographic change, the GOP instead became more hidebound and entrenched in their ways.
Very slow learners.
Ivan X
@Adam L Silverman: of course I’m interested! I will do as instructed and keep my eyes open.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I totally agree. Serbians (to name one example) have been holding various grudges for centuries. Hasn’t done them a lot of good, but they know how to hold them. And given the opportunity, they acted on them.
Ivan X
@Omnes Omnibus: indeed.
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
But it was definitely an attractive offer – like a drug dealer. Pakistan blinded by Kashmir decided to make a pretty bad bet. It’s really unfortunate. I hope they can get rid of that.. but I doubt it.
cain
@Amir Khalid:
Indeed.. that brand of Islam is toxic. Pakistan / Indian subcontinent had a wonderful form of Islam – Sufi Islam which I really much enjoyed from a philosophical point of view. But the devotional songs were very similar to the Hindustani ones.
cain
@danielx:
Indians too.. jeezus. I don’t know what the fuck their problem is. It’s not like they can remember what life was like before that. Maybe it sucked and the invasions made it better. They certainly weren’t going to the food they enjoy now. Plus come on.. playback singer Mohd Rafi.. that’s a good reason for the whole thing right there!
Anotherlurker
@danielx: What is Irish Alzheimers?
You forget everything but the grudge.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Trump isn’t George Wallace, Josh Hawley is George Wallace. Trump wasn’t a politician, that’s a big deal.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
That’s nothing new, that’s as old as the Republic. Trump is the new Reagan, they have quite a bit in common. Not politicians until Reagan ran for Governor of CA and Trump for President, They were well known before getting into politics.
gene108
If you take Republicans operating in bad faith to an extreme end, you will wind up with some sort of dictatorship, because nothing can or should stand in their way of absolute power.
Hitler, Lenin, Castro, and other 20th century revolutionaries made alliances to help them seize power, but were operating in bad faith while doing so. They knew they’d screw over their allies the first chance they got, because all they cared about was having total power to implement their agenda.
I feel like after the events of January 6, 2021, Republicans are getting closer and closer to truly trying to establish a dictatorship of some kind, because they have so fully embraced insurrection as being, if not a legitimate way to settle political issues, at least something that should not be considered beyond the pale.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
This started before trump. He ramped it up to boiling but the basis has been there for a very, very long time. It has been different names and possibly somewhat different and not always rigidly designed/named goals, but it’s been there. The KKK wanted a version of this, the war mongers wanted a version of this, the politically powerful republicans wanted this, Nixon and Reagan wanted a version of this. trump took it public. trump made it racist, which has always been a conservative position. I’m not saying all republicans wanted this, I’m saying the vast majority did. It was not talked about, in public for sure. But there is no question that a lot wanted this, even if it’s not all for the exact same reasoning. But over the last 3 or 4 decades it has become more mainstream republicanism. The racism, the complete naysaying about anything democratic. They may not exactly like his style, which is to say a total absence of any style at all, but they like what he says, they like what he does. He’s the guy with the money, not one penny of which was earned in any way. He’s the guy with the racism, who told them they too could be openly racist. They don’t see the issue with him surrounding where he is with multiple fence lines, all the while trying to build violence without taking any responsibility for even a second of it. And turning his supposed enemies into their enemies to protect himself. Now of course he’s not smart enough to do all that but he is malleable enough if given a reason he likes. Sounds like Stephen Miller territory.
piratedan
@CaseyL: well in this particular instance, the FBI did indeed arrest members of the Klan for the deaths of the Civil Rights workers in Mississippi. Granted, the men were charged with Federal Civil Rights crimes after both the local, county and state entities declined to press any charges of any kind. Was it perfect, no, but the publicity and the heinousness of the crimes helped usher in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
As for LBJ’s role in the prosecution/direction… given Hoover’s “tendencies”, its speculated that if left to himself Hoover would never have touched the case, hence someone had to have motivated the efforts, i.e. there usually isn’t a mandate to use the US Navy in a search without some kind of push from on high. The trial took place in 67 and convictions were had, even in Mississippi. Understood that the sentences were “light” but up to that point, there was no justice at all and it broke the myth that the Klan was above the law.
Does that help?
burnspbesq
It helped that Trump and those around him were massively incompetent and had no idea how to accomplish their authoritarian objectives. To cite only three examples, (1) they didn’t mess with FOIA (or any other part of the Administrative Procedure Act), (2) they didn’t politicize the IRS, (3) until very late in the game, they didn’t fuck with the civil service.
gene108
@dmsilev:
The exit point comes, if we can muzzle social media for allowing the propagation of conspiracy theories, and get right-wing media to not fan the flames of those conspiracy theories or start some on their own.
Cut the fuel source off that reinforces the worst behavior, and the fire of crazy should die down, though it will not be eliminated. It at least will not drive Republican policy.
Jay
@cain:
They didn’t “bring them in”.
The Sawdi government exported radical Whahabbism and Radical Clerics as a government program to tamp down the radicalism at home, and to prolestize.
( spell check likes none of that).
So, they would go into places, from London to Peshwar, set up a Mosque, a madrassa, pay their way, export some shit head stirring up trouble in Sawdi Arabia, all for free.
The first Houthi uprising, ( they are 5’ver Shia, 7 Martyr’s behind Iran), was against a huge Sawdi Madrassa, set up in their heartland, that was radicalizing, arming and training not just their kids under the guise of a “school”, but also imported foreigners, from Afghan’s to Americans.
It was the first time the Houthi’s took up arms as a movement, and they burned the madrassa out, despite the Yemeni Government trying to intervene to preserve the Sawdi cash flow.
Kent
@burnspbesq: They could have absolutely trashed the administrative procedures act, a lot of environmental laws, civil service, and pretty damn near the entire liberal government during their first two years when they actually held Congress. We dodged a fucking bullet. They wasted two years fucking around with Obamacare and doing a lot of performative shit like withdrawing from international agreements and doing tariffs. Which are all easy because they are all just stroke of the pen executive actions. Someone like Ted Cruz could have left a lot more PERMANENT wreckage.
Raven Onthill
The parallel I draw is with the end of the Reconstruction and the beginning of the Gilded Age. Just over a year ago, I wrote:
A major factor, then and now, is the composition of the Supreme Court. I have taken to describing it as the high court of Gilead. The Court majority is, it seems, entirely on board with a white Christian fascist state.
The USA is a much larger and more diverse republic than it was in 1880 and a much larger and more diverse republic than Iraq. I do not think it will be possible to create a Herrenvolk democracy in the USA; too many people will not knuckle under. I think we are looking at a period of realignment.
The Twenties will roar.
Another Scott
@Jay: Interesting. Thanks.
I heard on the radio this evening that Bonesaw is likely to release the woman activist who was jailed for breaking terrorism laws (for driving). He’s apparently trying to clean up a little to try to get on Biden’s good side. I don’t think Biden will be easily fooled…
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
In other news, …
Hmmm…
It’s enough to make one be cautious about funny memes – maybe!
Cheers,
Scott.
GoBlueInOak
@Spanky: Michigan is a red state. The only thing that has kept it purple-blue this long is Detroit. And as Detroit has lost population over the decades to its current flatlined status, Michigan has become increasing less blue. It has had a very conservative state supreme court for awhile. Since 1994, GOP has controlled Michigan House entire time except for a short 4 year period and one 2 year period – so 20 of the last 26 years. The Michigan State Senate has been controlled by the GOP since 1984.
Same pattern in Wisconsin with Milwaukee. PA State Senate has been GOP since the mid-1980s, and PA State House GOP since 1994, except for a short 4 year period 2006-2010.
Rust belt long depended on its largest cities with large minority populations to make those states “blue” in Presidential and other statewide elections. As their economies have been left behind and their large cities lost population over the decades, that bullwark has weakened.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
No one.
As ”The Onion” predicted, after Obama won re-election, “ After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016”, and that’s basically Donald Trump.
He’s nothing but bitterness, resentment, and anger. He’s deeply racist in such a way that it cannot be faked, and the white supremacist militia nuts recognize this.
As hard as Cruz, Hawley, and others want to take his place, I think the truly dedicated RWNJ’s will know they’re fakes.
The ones that worry me are more mainstream, but competent-ish Republicans, who have ambition. They see what Trump got away with, and will figure out how to get away with more by not being so boorish.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@GoBlueInOak:
Well then I guess we’re all fucked and doomed, so why bother, right? That goes for this thread. I thought I was on LGM
KSinMA
@Ksmiami: This.
Geminid
@GoBlueInOak: Ohio is a good example of a rust belt state that has turned red. Yet, although in 2012, 2016, and 2020, Romney and trump carried it by substantial single digit margins, Sherrod Brown won reelection in 2018. The race for Porter’s seat next will be worth watching.
Geminid
@Omnes Omnibus: From what I read, and hear when I tune into the local Christian radio station, the ideas expressed in the Sermon on the Mount doesn’t get a lot of play. That’s the squish Jesus. A lot of preachers like to talk about the tough Jesus who overturned the money changers’ tables, or the scary Jesus of Revelations. They also spend a lot of time on the Old Testament books of Judges and Kings. The general topic being the few righteous men trying to stem the Jewish people’s backsliding into idolatry.
Geminid
@Geminid: I did listen once to some Baptist preaching on the Sermon on the Mount. His topic was the passage in which Jesus said “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.” After a lengthy discourse on ancient and contemporary poverty, and a reference to the desire for “free stuff,” the preacher concluded that what Jesus really meant was that “the meek will be satisfied with what they have!“
jlowe
My recommendation for dealing with the Sadrists was always: they claim they want to be legitimate and run things, fine, give them responsibility. . .
Hi Adam, this echoes a conclusion I formed some months back: there’s an armed wing of the GOP located an hour’s drive from me and that living in my Congressional district is a bit like being behind enemy lines. Shades of “armed propaganda” that the CIA was teaching to the contras.
This inspires me now to read more about the militias throughout the Middle East. There might be a glimmer of hope if the GOP wanted to be legitimate and run things but events over the last several years, going back to W, has left the impression there’s no real interest in “running things” and that it’s all about the cruelty and the grift.
Democrats, across their entire spectrum, have nothing corresponding in terms of power projection (we don’t practice politics as blood sport). I think the presence of that gap is starting to sink in for some people. There’s a authoritarian vibe growing among the further leftish portion of our political spectrum. The climate governance set, now desperate from our inaction on climate change, are becoming seduced by the writings of Carl Schmitt. Even reading Bruno Latour these days is starting to become scary.
jimmiraybob
I would like to hear more about your migrant/refugee plan.
waspuppet
And the people who vote for them have proven conclusively that they don’t want them to govern. Republicans have completely purged the notion that the government can make anyone’s life better. They started it so long ago that their current followers don’t even understand that such a thing can be possible, much less real.
sherparick
@waspuppet:
They do believe that Government can be used to make the lives of the people they deem “un-American” worse. It always ends up with the chicken farmers in charge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djamel_Zitouni and Heinrich Himmler – https://www.answers.com/Q/Was_heinrich_himmler_a_chicken_farmer
kindness
It’s as if giving power to those groups who value martyrdom above actual coalition governance might not have worked out so well and is being exposed as being a really bad idea.
Except Republicans are the Brokeback Mountain party in that they just can’t quit them.
wizened_guy
If the Republican Party were happening in other parts of the world we would refer to it, accurately, as an ethnic separatist movement. As for its actual political project, I think the closest analogy would be the apartheid-era Afrikaner Party, whose main purpose and goal was the preservation of white minority rule.
Feathers
Dead thread, but… One thing missing from your analysis is how the anti-abortion movement primed the Republican Party and base for all of this. Bald faced lying abut the science once you realize you have lost the moral argument; purging the party of anyone who wants to have any accommodation; forcing a media narrative that the pro-life movement is a popular one, when legal abortion has vastly more support; and of course, giving aid and comfort to violence and murderers, with no accountability. The protests outside of abortion clinics were never to “save babies,” they were to let women who had abortions know that they faced violent retribution if they ever went public with their stories. One in three American have had an abortion and yet it is all secret and vanished.
@Jeffro: The problem is that these “Christian Academies” have an explicitly anti-democracy curriculum. They explicitly teach that America is a Christian nation and that it would be more Godly if we let Christians run things. Elections are bad if it means non-Christians are allowed to run things. What these schools are teaching needs to become far more widely known.