(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Musings for Friday - Reprise - The Gathering Storm (6 January 2021) - Posted - Tuesday Jan. 25, 2022 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-14 For over 80 years, we all watched it gathering as we ignored or denied its existence. Author’s Note Sometimes, with everything that’s going on it’s good to go back to see if we should be surprised. This is my attempt 16 months after I originally posted it to see if this story prepared us for what we’re seeing. Original Author’s Note T The following is my attempt to write an article bringing together Stonekettle’s 6 January post, Insurrection, One Year On, with Mark Sumner’s 6 January piece on the Republican’s tactical extremism, The ABC News documentary on Ammon Bundy, Stewart Rhodes and his Oath Keepers, the 3%ers etc. Along with Kevin M. Kruse’s book; One Nation Under God, How Corporate America Invented Christian America. It’s my belief that what happened on 6 January 2021 was inevitable given how resistant the Republican Party and big business joined with the Christian Right were to any efforts to make the United States a fair and equitable country for all people. It’s been obvious they wanted a Laissez-faire White Christian society and nation for some time. And would be willing to do anything to achieve it. SPRING 1951 An organization called Spiritual Mobilization (founded by James W. Fifield Jr. pastor of the elite First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. Arguably the first mega church) decided on an idea they believed would advance their cause. To mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence they proposed using the week surrounding the 4th of July to stage a series of events around the theme of “Freedom Under God”. (Note: This was 3 years prior to “one nation, under God” being added to the Pledge of Allegiance.) To that end they created a group they called the Committee to Proclaim Liberty, which consisted of religious and political leaders as well as celebrities and business leaders. As Kevin M. Kruse describes it: Its two most prominent members had been brought low by Democratic administrations: former president Herbert Hoover, driven from the White House two decades earlier by Franklin Roosevelt, and General Douglas MacArthur, removed from his command in Korea two months earlier by Harry Truman. You’ll note a future president among the committee’s members; Ronald Reagan. The goal of the Committee was advancing conservatism using religious themes. Conservatism included libertarian ideals of leading figures of industry and business looking to rid themselves of the “shackles” of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Others not listed on the invitation but “clamoring” to be on the Committee were names such as: Harvey Firestone, E. F. Hutton, Fred Maytag, Henry Luce and J. C. Penny as well as the heads of U.S. Steel, Republic Steel Gulf Oil, Hughes Aircraft and United Airlines. Also the presidents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers(NAM). The heads of free enterprise advocacy organizations like the Foundation For Economic Education (FFEE) and the Freedoms Foundation. Much like today, in order to claim the Declaration was a condemnation of government power in general and not a condemnation of the British crown they had to edit and twist the very document they were championing. Even truncating the preamble they used on page four of their invitation. Sponsors ran ads with excerpts with editorial commentary. 4 November 1980 Ronald Wilson Reagan was elected President, his first of two terms. As part of his campaign Reagan was known for the following quote; The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Also, as part of his campaign Reagan gave a “States Rights” speech from the Neshoba County Fairgrounds on 3 August 1980. Critics note that Reagan's choice of location for the speech (the fairgrounds were about 7 miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi , a town associated with the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in 1964) was evidence of racial bias. Many thought this was a nod to Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Nixon’s political advisor Kevin Phillips described the Southern Strategy in a 1970 interview with the New York Times; From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrat. Tactical Extremism Our very own Mark Sumner wrote an article on the one year anniversary of the 6 January 2021 Trump led insurrection called: Tactical extremism brought America Reagan, Gingrich, Trump — and a looming threat to America. In it Mark states that the beginnings of the insurgency began more than five decades earlier. As I have noted above, author and historian Kevin M. Kruse tells us (although Kevin doesn’t use or describe the term) the Republican slide into tactical extremism actually began more than 80 years ago when business and religious leaders coalescing around their hatred for Roosevelt’s New Deal made a bargain with the GOP to attack it and the Democratic Party. As Mark notes: Tactical extremism brought Goldwater conservatism, then Reaganism, then Gingrichism, then the Tea Party, then Trumpism. For 2022, the not-at-all-invisible bosses of the Republican Party see only one alternative: embracing insurgency. snip Why didn’t the Republican Party press harder against Trump? Because that fight is over. Republicans long ago surrendered the idea that their party has an ideological core. Instead, it has a rotating series of agendas that all follow that 1964 script — exploiting racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and hatred of immigrants to generate anger. Anger. Anger. Money. And anger. That pro-extremism position was enough to secure Republicans the White House just four years later. Since then, the answer to what Republicans would do next has been simple: More. When Watergate sent the party into a fresh spiral, the answer was more extremism. Richard Nixon might have felt he had to keep the worst of his racism for his “friends.” Ronald Reagan had no such qualms. April 2014 From the ABC News documentary; Homegrown: Standoff to Rebellion ...the Bundy family issued a public "call out" for battle-ready groups to come to their aid after federal agents seized their cattle in Bunkerville, Nevada, over unpaid grazing fees. "Range War begins tomorrow," Bundy's father posted online. By all accounts, Ammon Bundy's first major showdown with the federal government in 2014 -- the one Rhodes invoked on Jones' radio show -- was a boon for U.S. militias and the nation's anti-government movement. At the time, militias were in the midst of a revival. The militia and white supremacist movements had diminished in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, but Barack Obama's election to the White House in 2008 and his perceived liberal policies on guns, immigration and taxes changed that. Claiming he wanted "to prevent the destruction of American liberty," Rhodes formed the Oath Keepers in 2009, shortly after Obama took office. Like other modern militia groups, Rhodes based the Oath Keepers on the Second Amendment's call for "a well-regulated militia." But the militias referenced in the Constitution were supposed to be under the direction of state governors, which is why states now have National Guard units, according to Mary McCord, the former head of the Justice Department's national security division. McCord said that despite their "own disinformation," there's "no authority for these private militias," especially when they "decide on their own to call themselves up." Others suggested militias can be legal, as long as they don't engage in violence. Nevertheless, in early April 2014, the Bundy family issued a public "call out" for battle-ready groups to come to their aid after federal agents seized their cattle in Bunkerville, Nevada, over unpaid grazing fees. "Range War begins tomorrow," Bundy's father posted online. As Reuters reported at the time, Jones began "avidly promoting" the dispute on his radio show. And then armed militia members from across the country, most prominently Rhodes and members of his Oath Keepers, converged on the Bundy ranch. The standoff grew increasingly volatile over several days, with federal agents deploying dogs and stun guns, and rifle-carrying militia members taking sniper-like positions on an overpass overlooking the area. Fearing a bloodbath, federal authorities ultimately backed down and released the cattle. To Jones, it was "a giant Americana victory." Rhodes hailed it as "a significant watershed moment," and the Oath Keepers released a video calling it "the first time in our country's recent history that good Americans stood up and said, 'We're not going to let this happen on our watch.'" Whether they call themselves libertarians, sovereign citizens or a militia member it basically comes down to wanting their “freedoms” but not have to: Pay taxes, Be responsible to their fellow citizens, Obey laws that others in society deem necessary for a civil society. January 2016 Two years after the showdown in Nevada, in January of 2016, Bundy led an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside Burns, Oregon, to protest the lengthy imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers who set fires on federal land. The ranchers told Bundy they didn't want his help. Still, armed militia members, including numerous Oath Keepers, once again came to Bundy's aid. The Trump effect Less than a year after the 2016 Oregon standoff, Donald Trump was elected president. At the time, the number of militias and so-called "patriot groups" was actually slightly declining, according to some counts. But thanks to Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric, his claims of a government "deep state," and his reluctance to criticize the far right, militia groups and other right-wing extremists "felt license to be more public" and "more vocal," McCord said. Members of the Oath Keepers even reportedly provided security at some of Trump's political rallies. Once in office, Trump regularly demonized government institutions, accused longtime public servants of "treason," and allowed wild conspiracy theories about a "deep state" -- including the QAnon movement -- to flourish, experts told ABC News. We now have three legs of the four legged chair of what’s happening today in America. Big Business, the Christian and the GOP coming together to turn back FDR’s New Deal. The GOP resorting to tactical extremism to accomplish their goals. And the onset of militias finding their authoritarian politician willing to call on white men with fragile egos who had formed militias to step out of the shadows. The fourth leg is what happened after the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. The fourth leg is what ties them together. The fourth leg is bigotry and misogyny. 6 January 2022 It's not over. And what's horrifying a year later isn't that a bunch of raggedy-assed unwashed unshaven sloppy virgins in militia garb, wild-eyed drooling conspiracy nuts led by some goof wearing horns on his head and woad on his face like a Dollar Store Mel Gibson, and a veritable cornucopia of howling racists in every fruity flavor from pathetic Klansmen to sad inbred toothless Confederates to violent white nationalist Nazis, attacked the nation's capitol in an attempt to overthrow democracy and appoint Donald Trump as King of some new Empire of Blustering Capitalist Rage. How the hell did we get here? It's easy to blame Trump -- and there is no doubt he proudly bears a lion's share of the responsibility for what happened a year ago today. But Trump is a symptom of a much deeper sickness. Like Adolf Hitler, Trump is an conniving opportunist who didn't create the nation we now live in, he just took advantage of it. Took advantage of the hate, the bigotry, the unfocused pervasive rage of those who feel their privileged place in the universe is somehow being stolen from them by the undeserving. The words written directly above are those of a no nonsense retired (Navy) and former military intelligence officer(job title not rank) known by his blog name Stonekettle. Taken with what I have laid out above with the works of Kevin M. Kruse and Mark Sumner many could see this coming. So what was the catalyst, the spark that set all these racist hair on fire? You have a hint from the ABC News piece linked above. And with Stonekettle’s words I hope to make it clear. So bear with me. Now as a military intelligence officer, Stonekettle was trained to gather information and build a collective picture of what that intelligence was and what it meant for those making the decisions. His job was to tell the truth, disregarding his own bias, even if it meant telling those in charge when they were wrong. One particular instance from Iraq in 2003 involved collecting intelligence in the Northern Arabian Gulf. Upon reviewing the day’s strike missions, he realized that he had led the team to a target that would involve killing innocent people. At the expense of some very irate commanders, he got the mission called off because he knew that killing innocent people was wrong. The very leaders who were irate with him were the ones who had taught him to “look beyond his own bias and tell the truth”. Years later, as Stonekettle retired and became a writer, he connected to old friends, some of those very same men who had trained him. Trained him to set their biases aside and tell the truth. He was horrified at what they had become. “They became, literally became, different people”. Why was Stonekettle horrified? Let’s let him tell it in his way. You see, a liberal black man had just been elected to office. I voted for him. Yes, I did. Not reluctantly, but with enthusiasm. Proudly. Obama, my God, he was young and dynamic and smart and educated and articulate and kind and compassionate and funny and all the things that made me proud to be an American. I'm still proud that I voted for him, twice, voted for the first black president not because he was black but because he embodied the very best of what this nation might be. But what does that have to do with January 6th? How did we get here? To this moment? That's how. President Barack Obama. Because the election of a young, dynamic, smart, educated, articulate, kind, compassionate, and funny liberal black man galvanized the foul racist mean underbelly of this country like nothing else ever had. Those who attacked the Capitol a year ago today. They are in almost every regard, the antithesis of Barack Obama, mean, crude, uneducated, ill spoken, filled with rage and blind ignorant loud blustering false patriotism. And those men I had admired? Those veterans I respected? Like me, they were trained to be objective. To put aside their own bias. To demand proof. To require evidence. To check and doublecheck the information. And they threw all of that away, all of it, when a black man took office. They forgot everything they ever knew. They forgot who they had been. They watched Fox News all day and they lost their humanity. They lost their objectivity. Without the supporting structure of the military and the purpose it gave them and the impartiality our profession had imposed upon their worldview, they lost their very identity. They became, literally became, different people Stonekettle wasn’t alone. Many of us watched as friends and family became different people. Or maybe they didn’t become something different. maybe they exposed who thy really were. But why now? Because they were given permission. Permission to say out loud their inner bigotry and misogyny. Yes, misogyny too. Just ask Hillary. Or Kamala. Or Nancy. Some of us have been inclined to put it on Fox News as the perpetrator. Fox News and Rupert Murdock had their role, but it was a role they were picked to play. Ronald Reagan had his role as did many in his administration. The Nixon Administration as well. As Kevin M. Kruse demonstrated in the 294 pages of his book One Nation Under God, How Corporate America Invented Christian America; the foundation of all that has transpired was laid more than 80 years ago. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/14/2163921/-Musings-for-Friday-Reprise-The-Gathering-Storm-6-January-2021-Posted-Tuesday-Jan-25-2022 Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/