Collaboration Between (Nongovernmental) Fascist Organizations and "Law Enforcement"
This is yet another extremely serious development.
In the trials of the January 20 defendants, the prosecution is using edited videotapes provided by the Oath Keepers, a fascist paramilitary group made up mainly of present and former law enforcement, and Project Veritas, a right-wing group that specializes in carrying out secret videos of liberal and progressive groups, lying about their own identities, and asking questions aimed at providing material that they can then edit into something that seems incriminating--they have targeted ACORN, the Washington Post, and Planned Parenthood, among others.
In the Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrations in August 2017, police stood by and did nothing when a fascist shot at a Black protester. Another Black man badly beaten by fascists there was later arrested and charged with a felony. In June 2016, police in Sacramento, California, worked with fascists to identify and arrest anti-fascist protesters.
Much of this police/fascist collaboration began even before Trump was elected. But as pointed out by civil liberties advocates and others, Trump has made clear that he's giving a green light to the police to act against protesters, and he has sent a message to fascist forces within police forces that it's completely acceptable to act on their views.
The collaboration between already vicious and violent police and heavily armed and violent fascist forces who have even fewer constraints than the police, signals an emerging leap towards "classical" fascist rule that uses "brown shirt" terrorism against the people. Coupled with the demonization and criminalization of political protest, and legal arguments that hold activists and organizers responsible for any alleged illegal actions by anyone at a protest, they together represent much of the architecture of a fully fascist society being clamped into place, no less deadly for being largely overlooked.
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