Community leaders denounce march by white nationalist group in Boston. Members of Patriot Front, a designated hate group, appeared to assault a Black man near Copley Square over the weekend.
(Image by YouTube, Channel: WCVB Channel 5 Boston) Details DMCA
"They're not here to hurt me."
The essence of Donald Trump. The not-so-secret weapon of the Republican Party.
Hate is a powerful political motivator, especially when combined with fear and ignorance. It may also be the most dangerous threat to the American experiment in democracy.
Trump uttered those confident words when aides and Secret Service agents informed him that some of the people marching to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were armed. Trump wanted to join the march and watch the violent overthrow of a presidential election up close and personal. After all, he knew that these were his people and if weapons were going to be used they wouldn't be used against him, but rather, against those certifying the election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States and those protecting them.
No sweat, Trump said, "I'm the effin' president."
The Secret Service wasn't buying it.
The marchers Trump wanted to join were motivated by hate, a hate for non-whites, Jews, other non-Christians, gays and them damn socialist libtards, who think they're so smart just because they got a college education.
It's a hate nurtured, inflamed and exploited by Trump in his campaign for the presidency, in his four years in office and in his desperate effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been tracking hate groups in the United States since 1999. In its annual census, released in March, the Center identified 733 active hate groups in 2021. The Alabama-based civil rights group noted that the number of hate groups had fallen for the third straight year, after reaching a high of 1,020 in 2018, two years into the Trump presidency. The number of anti-government extremist groups had also fallen in 2021, from 566 to 488, the SPLC reported.
At first glance, that sounds like good news, but there's another, less positive, interpretation of the numbers. According to the SPLC, "Rather than demonstrating a decline in the power of the radical right, the numbers suggest that the extremist ideas that mobilize them now operate more openly in the political mainstream."
In fact, they are part of everyday discourse from Republican elected officials, including members of Congress, and on right-wing media outlets, notably Fox, as well as numerous social media sites.
Trump made it OK to spew this bigotry openly. No need to hide anymore. Put your sheets in mothballs. Republicans, traditionally trailing Democrats in numbers nationwide, welcomed the ill-tempered, ill-informed and angry white-is-right mob of haters into their club. Hey, more votes are more important than an actual governing program, right? Power is the goal.
The haters had found a home, someplace where they could air their worst fears publicly and be taken seriously.
Today, they have co-opted the Republican Party. The few party members with the moral principles and guts to speak the truth about Trump and his acolytes publicly are subject to daily threats. The assault on the Capitol and violent demonstrations elsewhere lend more weight to the threats.
Trump, or an imitator, can call up an army of goons willing to violently defend his lies. They are in every state.
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