It's All of a Piece

 

     The day after President Obama was first inaugurated in 2009, 22 year-old Keith Luke of Brockton, Massachusetts exited a black van parked in front of his old home at 103 Clinton Street. Then he broke into the home of a black woman and raped her (so he wouldn't die a virgin) then shot her. Then, when the victim's sister arrived, Keith shot her several times in the back, killing her. Then he shot his rape victim again (miraculously, she survived). Then Luke went outside and shot a black man two times in the head, eventually killing him.

     Luke later told authorities that he wanted to kill black people in his old neighborhood, which is largely Cape Verdean, because he feared white people were going to be outnumbered by "inferior" races. The Great Replacement Theory, in other words. He also said he wanted to go to a Bingo game and shoot Jewish people. At his trial, he'd sported a carved swastika into his forehead as if he was channeling Charles Manson. As his sole surviving victim gave horrifying testimony, Luke laughed at her.

     After several abortive attempts, Luke finally showed some consideration for the human race and hung his bloated body in his cell on May 12, 2014. They harvested his organs and, while I feel sorry for anyone who had them implanted in their bodies, it would be a supreme irony if any of the recipients were black. 

     We'll never know if his little murder spree was inspired by the inauguration the day before of our first black president but the timing cannot be ignored. The proliferation of hate groups in the first six years of the Obama administration increased by 800%. By April 2009, the president's Homeland Security Chief, Janet Napolitano, released a report that said in part,

     “Right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists – including lone wolves or small terrorist cells – to carry out violence.”

     This was just before the Tea Party movement, the first truly successful astroturf movement in US history, was a thing. 

     And yet, Republicans, knowing their base, had screamed bloody murder about the report. Napolitano's prescient conclusions, which perfectly describes the groups that were involved in the bloody riot on January 6th, was effectively shouted down and slammed dunked into the memory hole by every right winger on Capitol Hill whether or not they knew it was true.

     Of course, we now know that at least 38 cops from all over the country were there at the Capitol on January 6th and many former cops were there either representing their personal interests or had already been recruited by the same groups that were there at the Capitol that day. Napolitano's 13 year-old report wasn't an act of prophecy but sure looks like one now.

     We've known about this merging of police, military and the rabid right wing since long before April last year when the Center for Strategic and International Studies published their report on the subject, "The Military, Police, and the Rise of Terrorism in the United States." We've seen far too many times that police are much more prone to crack down on peaceful black protesters than violent right wing groups (Ashli Babbitt was the only fatality of police that day and that was because it was absolutely necessary).

     Add to those ranks the increasingly fascist right wing (Characterized by CPAC holding a summer shingdig in Tucker Carlson's old stomping grounds of Hungary) and a GOP that never seems to tire carrying the rancid water of the worst elements this country can offer.

     And Democrats, less than four and a half months away from the midterms, aren't clanging the alarm bell as much as they're just polishing it.

     And if we're going to save our Democratic Republic, I don't think it's too hyperbolic to say we have a slender 13 or 14 week-long window. Because, with this Nazified version of the right wing, every election cycle is going to be just a dress rehearsal for ever greater atrocities and freedom erosions until there's no daylight left between us and the Third Reich.

     And the end game of the emerging Fourth Reich is the peak of its predecessor. And these "lone wolves" such as Payton Gendron (Who also picked out a black neighborhood for special attention), Dylann Storm Roof and Keith Luke are not lone wolves but losers who inspire each other and try to outdo each other.