RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
The Jan. 6 Insurrection Should Have Been No Surprise and Neither Should the Next Right-Wing Coup Attempt
While the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 was shocking, it was not surprising to Right Wing Watch or other extremism researchers and watchdogs, who repeatedly sounded the alarm about calls from far-right figures for violence and revolution both before and after the 2020 presidential election.
Two weeks before Election Day, Right Wing Watch’s Kristen Doerer, reporting on the disrupted plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, noted:
Right Wing Watch has seen an increase of violent rhetoric across different right-wing subgroups—from conspiracy theorists and religious-right activists to white nationalists and anti-government groups. In some instances, extremists call for civil war, the use of force against Black Lives Matter protesters, and for government leaders to be tried for treason and executed.
For example, televangelist Jim Baker warned in August 2020 that if Trump were not reelected, “we’re gonna have a revolution.” In September, Rick Joyner repeated his warnings that the U.S. is headed for civil war, adding that God has “seeded” the country with Christian veterans who “know how to fight in urban warfare” and would help lead “good militias.”
It was into that volatile situation that former President Donald Trump dropped the Big Lie that he won the election only to have it stolen from him and his supporters. The Big Lie—and the implication that President Joe Biden is illegitimate and his supporters are traitors to the Constitution—was repeated relentlessly by Trump, his legal team, Republican allies, right-wing media and movement leaders, and Christian nationalist religious figures.
Some calls to overturn the results of the election, and some threats of violence to keep Trump in power, circulated in far-right corners of social media, while others were made in the full light of day from rally stages just blocks from the White House.
At a rally on the National Mall on Dec. 12, 2020, a wide array of right-wing Christian activists was joined by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and extremist Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who demanded that Trump invoke emergency powers and martial law to stay in office and warned that if Trump did not, he would be leaving it to militias to fight a “much more bloody war.” Another rally speaker, right-wing Orthodox Christian blogger George Michalopulos, declared, “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” A week earlier, Michalopulos had admiringly reposted on his blog an online call for Trump to “crush” his enemies and “use his authority under the Insurrection Act to arrest and/or kill everyone who participated” in the “plot” to steal the election.
Around the same time, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trumpist attorney Lin Wood called on Trump to declare martial law rather than concede to Biden. Wood declared on Dec. 1, 2020 that “Our country is headed to civil war.” That same day, an Ohio group with Tea Party roots had taken a full-page ad in the Washington Times that declared, “Without a fair vote, we fear, with good reason, the threat of a shooting civil war is imminent.” The ad urged Trump to declare martial law and have the military oversee a new election “before there is no peaceful way left to preserve our Union.”
Shortly before the first attacks on the Capitol, Right Wing Watch published a report on the rally held by Trump supporters the previous afternoon and evening, noting that Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander led chants of “Victory or death!” and declared, “1776 is always an option.” Alexander’s friend and Stop the Steal colleague Alex Bruesewitz, a political consultant, declared, “What’s going to start a civil war is if we legitimize a rigged and stolen election.” At the same rally, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer rejoiced that members of Congress were said to be “in fear right now” and “scurrying around in secret tunnels” like “the little rats that they are” to try to avoid the Stop the Steal activists.
That afternoon, Right Wing Watch noted that the attack was preceded “by widespread calls for violence on pro-Trump social media,” which included a post calling for Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Chief Justice John Roberts to be “dispatched.” In the days before the insurrection, attorney Lin Wood had also called for Pence and others to be executed.
There is no doubt that the anger generated by Trump’s Big Lie fueled the violence on Jan. 6, 2020. But it didn’t stop there.
On the morning after the insurrection interrupted but failed to stop certification of Biden’s victory, hard-right activist John Guandolo appeared on a Christian television network and told viewers that the insurrectionists showed “restraint” by not executing “traitors” in Congress. “I don’t see any other way out than a real armed counterrevolution to this hostile revolution that’s taking place, primarily driven by the communists,” Guandolo said.
Since then, Trump supporters’ continued resentment about what many of them believe was an illegitimate election outcome has been harnessed by Republican elected officials to justify new voter suppression laws and the creation of provisions making it easier for state-level politicians to overrule election officials and the will of the voters. It is also being manipulated by Trumpists like Cleta Mitchell and Steve Bannon to encourage “America First” activists to take power over election machinery by running for office at local and state levels.
Mitchell, a right-wing attorney who participated in the notorious phone call on which Trump badgered Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to swing the election to Trump, now heads a massive right-wing political project to gain control over the counting of votes. Last year, she charged that Democrats “cheated in the presidential election of 2020 and got away with it.” Remarkably, thanks to the political machinations of another supporter of more restrictive voting laws, she simultaneously serves on the advisory board of a federal government commission to advise state election officials on voting guidelines and procedures.
“The risk of a coup in the next U.S. election is greater now than it ever was under Trump,” prominent law professor Laurence Tribe wrote in The Guardian this week. Tribe noted that shortly after the insurrection, “Republicans abandoned their increasingly half-hearted search for accountability, and the leaders of their party began planning their next bite at the poisoned apple of power, an apple they told themselves had been stolen from them despite all evidence to the contrary.”
Indeed, most Republican leaders are aggressively trying to prevent accountability for Trump and others whose rhetoric—at least—inspired the insurrectionists. Right-wing leaders openly disparage the work of the House committee investigating Jan. 6, and some former Trump aides are brazenly subverting the investigation and the rule of law by refusing to respond to congressional subpoenas for their testimony.
A new Atlantic Council report by resident fellow Jared Holt, formerly a Right Wing Watch investigative reporter, documents that domestic extremist movements have responded to post-insurrection crackdowns by becoming more active in mainstream conservative politics; decentralizing their operations and encouraging more local activism; taking advantage of efforts by right-wing entrepreneurs to create alternative digital platforms; and actively engaging in emotionally charged issues like vaccine and mask resistance and opposition to teaching about racism in U.S. history and institutions.
NBC journalists Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny profiled this week a right-wing activist who exemplifies this shift to local organizing. Denise Aguilar was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, celebrating that “patriots broke open the doors” and calling the day a “revolution.” Now she and fellow activists have focused on mobilizing local opposition to vaccine and mask requirements in schools, seemingly heeding Bannon’s call to his right-wing listeners to “take this back village by village.” As Right Wing Watch has reported, a wide array of right-wing political groups has embraced campaigns to generate hostility toward local school boards as a way to mobilize voter turnout to take over school boards and build momentum for broader electoral wins in 2022.
The Atlantic Council and Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla also have reported that right-wing politicians and influencers have engaged in “historical revisionism” about the insurrection, playing down the violence of the insurrection or baselessly blaming left-wing agitators.
Just as the threat that violence would be used to try to block the peaceful transfer of power and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was clear, the continuing threats to our democracy are ever more apparent—and call for continued vigilance and resistance. Those threats come from continued right-wing promotion of Trump’s Big Lie and its wide acceptance among conservatives, threats and harassment directed at election officials, Republican opposition to truth-telling and accountability about the insurrection, and voter suppression laws and other schemes by GOP state legislators and activists to put control of election machinery in the hands of Trump loyalists.
This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.
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A far-right wing pundit’s decision to go after a 29-year old woman’s TikTok video about her plans for a relaxing Saturday during a holiday weekend sparked a firestorm between billionaire businessman and TV personality Mark Cuban and former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, with the woman revealing later some of the hate she received after being made a target.
It all started when “Theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh, as he calls himself, reposted a TikTok video on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, from a woman who says she’s “29 and single, and I don’t have kids yet.” The woman, identified by Mediaite as Julia Mazur, told her followers she slept in Saturday morning, woke up with a hangover and didn’t get up until 10:15 AM, after going to a Beyoncé concert the night before.
Mazur described her upcoming day, saying she enjoys not having plans, kids, a husband, or errands, and loves going wherever the day takes her. She was looking forward to watching some streaming shows on Netflix and Hulu, and possibly learning how to make shakshuka.
“I wouldn’t want to do anything else this Saturday,” she said happily.
Walsh responded to Mazur’s casual celebration of a joyous weekend by saying, “Her life doesn’t revolve around her family and kids so instead it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all she’s too stupid to realize how depressing this is.”
“If you don’t have a family at least do something interesting with your time,” Walsh continued. “These people have absurd amounts of free time and they do absolutely nothing with it. Wasting their lives staring at little glowing boxes. Absolutely soul crushing.”
Her life doesn’t revolve around her family and kids so instead it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all she’s too stupid to realize how depressing this is.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 3, 2023
Cuban stepped in, snarking on Walsh: “Says the guy who’s life revolves around Twitter/X.”
“How do you know she isnt trying to make it her job ? She has really good engagement and increasing numbers,” Cuban added.
That’s when Miller jumped in.
“You have a large following,” Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s family separation policy, began. “People listen to your advice. What would you say is a more fulfilling path for adults: starting a family, or sleeping late and watching TV? What advice would you give to someone who suggests they wish to be childless so they can stream more shows?”
“Thanks for asking Stephen,” Cuban said in his lengthy response, which included him saying Mazur having a family or not is “none of my fucking business.”
He also asked Miller, “what happened that causes you to hate so much. Seriously Stephen. Why so much hate from you?”:
“1. I wouldn’t give her advice unless she asked. 2. After looking at the comments to her posts, I would thank her for offering a place for people who can relate to her, to engage and have a conversation. She replies to the comments and based on that, people seem to appreciate it 3. From a business perspective, I would tell her that the Wellness Space is crowded but if she does this in addition to her job, she might be able to build a nice business. 4. As far as a family. I would tell her to do whatever she thinks is best for her. It’s none of my fucking business 5. If I had you both in a room , I would point at her and thank her for trying to bring joy to others and I would point at you and ask what happened that causes you to hate so much. Seriously Stephen. Why so much hate from you?”
The exchange didn’t end there.
“In the interests of time I will respond with two points,” Miller replied. “1. No society can succeed where the constant message from our elites leaders is do whatever the hell you want and don’t worry about children. Children are simply the most important thing in the whole world and the foundation of civilization and all human flourishing. 2. Could you be more specific with your crass (and, I think you would acknowledge, unprovoked) smear on point 5? The issue/work with which I’m arguably most associated, stopping human smuggling and trafficking, is quite literally about saving human lives.”
Cuban replied, in an even lengthier response that included saying, “What any individual does in terms of having children or not is their choice. Full Stop.”
“Maybe I’m wrong , but if one of those children is born to an illegal immigrant, my understanding is that you do not want to help them and you want to deport them ?” he added, calling that “hateful.”
Ultimately, Mazur posted another video, detailing some of the hate messages she’s received since Walsh’s initial post.
Walsh’s platform often revolves around attacking the LGBTQ community, including especially transgender girls and women, He has been included in reporting on white Christian nationalism, and “far-right media instigators.” He also recently warned, “whites are trending towards extinction in the United States.”
Mazur said Walsh’s followers told her, “I should actually die and never leave my house. I should be sexually assaulted,” she said, adding she was told, “I’m a whore.”
“These people were really really really riled up about my choices,” she said.
But Mazur concluded, “life’s too short figuring out what Matt Walsh wants us to do.”
Julia has responded to Matt. https://t.co/ETgGX7inUQ pic.twitter.com/p39FXHgluT
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 4, 2023
Watch the videos above or at this link.
Image of Mark Cuban via Shutterstock
RIGHT WING EXTREMISM
Liberal Fox News Co-Host Destroys Conservatives’ Claims the Right Holds the Majority Opinion on Culture War Issues
Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov, the lone liberal on the the right-wing cable channel’s very popular afternoon show “The Five,” destroyed her conservative co-hosts’ talking points on a wide variety of culture war issues.
Behind a chyron of “Tyranny of the Minority” – related to remark made by Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy – Tarlov on Wednesday fed facts to the conservatives who tried to claim the majority of Americans oppose the right to choose an abortion, and the majority of Americans do not support transgender people.
“On the trans issue, for instance,” Tarlov offered, “our own Fox polling shows that 57% of Americans think that trans kids and their families being the target of political attacks, as in these anti-trans bills, is a major problem.”
“When you look at the actual numbers of kids that are, for instance, they have gender dysphoria, and they’re getting top surgery. How many kids do you think got top surgery last year?” she asked, not receiving a response from any of her co-hosts.
“Under 300,” answered Tarlov, who “holds two Master’s degrees in political science and public policy, as well as a Ph.D. in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science,” according to Variety.
“Then think about an issue that’s really important to Democrats –” she suggested, trying to continue before co-host Greg Gutfeld interjected, asking: “Children?”
“Minors,” she responded, referring to the question of top surgery.
“That’s an atrocity,” Gutfeld declared. “But continue,” he added, laughing.
“But over 5800 kids were victims of gun violence, for instance,” Tarlov pointed out. “I don’t hear Republicans talking about that. Tyranny of the minority –” she again tried to continue before Gutfeld interrupted.
“Oh, what a false comparison,” he snarked.
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“It absolutely isn’t,” responded Tarlov. “It’s a priority on the right to talk about trans issues, a priority on the left to talk about gun violence. Which affects more people?” she asked.
“Abortion is another instance of the tyranny of the minority,” Tarlov continued. “I get it, federalism – you send it back to the states where a group of elected officials have decided, for instance, in like Texas, Louisiana, that women should not be able to get abortions after six weeks. We have women that are bleeding out, going into sepsis. In Louisiana, a woman was forced to carry a baby that had no skull.”
Gutfeld, apparently outraged, screamed, “What does this have to do with this topic?”
“What are you talking about?” she replied. “This is, he says tyranny of the minority.”
“But that had to do with LGBTQ,” Jeanine Pirro interjected, “not with all of your favorite issues.”
“He’s running to be president of the United States of America,” Tarlov argued.
“But that’s not what we’re talking about, we’re talking about – I asked you specifically about pronouns,” Pirro complained.
“And I said he was wrong to act as if the GOP is the party of the majority opinion – they are not. They’re taking minority positions and running with them,” Tarlov explained.
An agitated Gutfeld again interjected, “Pro-life isn’t a minority position.”
“It is, actually,” she replied.
“What, are you gonna talk about the fact that it’s like 48%,” Gutfeld, hands raised, again snarked.
“No, I’m going to talk about the 69% – it’s the highest it’s ever been recorded – that now support abortion at least through the first trimester,” she replied. “And what’s happening then in Ohio and Kansas and Kentucky.”
“What’s the Democrat stance on abortion?” Gutfeld asked.
“That it’s between a woman and her doctor to make those decisions,” she said.
“No, what’s the what’s the cut off?” Gutfeld asked. “Is that what you call that tyranny of minority as well?”
Frustrated, Gutfeld added, “I think the logic here is that you’re slicing these issues –”
“Are you talking about, ‘we want to kill live babies’?” Tarlov asked, referring to conservative talking points.
“I didn’t say that,” Gutfeld replied.
“I’m just pointing out that this isn’t actually the right argument, but go ahead,” he offered, before Pirro took over and said, “I’d like to get back to the issue.”
Watch below or at this link.
You can tell Jessica Tarlov hit a nerve here by how Judge Jeanine and Gutfeld reacted — especially when she points out how out of step the GOP is on abortion and other issues while simultaneously railing about the “tyranny of the minority” regarding trans kids. pic.twitter.com/IY1tnmaGVP
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 16, 2023
According to an expert on authoritarianism, comments made by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Saturday while standing with former president Donald Trump should raise flags as he promised to use “force” to create change in Washington, D.C.
Considering the former president was recently indicted for conspiracy related to the Jan. 6 insurrection that led to lawmakers fleeing for their lives, historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Gaetz comments alarming.
Speaking before a crowd at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, Gaetz stated, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should,” before adding, “But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”
Reacting to Gaetz’s proclamations, Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, “What he is saying is that they are not going to have change through elections or through legislation or through reform. They are going to have change through violence.”
“And that’s how fascists talk,” she added. “So, even if Trump is out of the picture, these are people who have adopted methods very familiar to me as a historian of fascism, that violence and corruption and lying that’s what the party is today.”
Watch below or at the link:
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