Mediaboss Marketing

I am a Democrat. I am a very blue Democrat. I am a very blue Democrat in a very red state, Kansas. I have a hard time making my vote count, but I dont give up. I have not always been a Democrat. I have only been a registered Democrat since August 2020, but my conversion started before that. My real awakening started long before the first impeachment of Donald John Trump.

The first election I was eligible to participate in was the August 1972 primary. I registered as a Republican at the same time I registered for my Selective Service card. I have never missed a primary or general election since. I did miss the draft. In all those years, I have only voted Democratic twice, and one of those was this past election. Ill let you guess the other.

I watched with rapt attention the Watergate hearings. I also followed closely the allegations surrounding Spiro Agnew, Nixons first Vice President. John Deans testimony, the Saturday Night Massacre, the secret White House tapes, the missing 13 minutes, all were captivating. The pressure placed on Agnew to resign or be charged with crimes; the members of the White House staff who were charged, tried, and found guilty. Then, the climactic act of members of Congress visiting the Oval Office and convincing Nixon that there was no saving his Presidency; that unless he resigned he would be impeached and he would be found guilty by the Senate. A corrupt administration was brought down.

I was very unhappy with the administration but I never once thought of leaving the party despite the dishonesty of the Nixon administration because I had developed a lot of admiration for the men who sat on the committees; Sam Irwin, Howard Baker, Daniel Inouye, (a WW II Medal of Honor winner of Japanese descent) to name but a fewstatesmen from both parties who put country before partya trait sorely lacking these days. I didnt realize it at the time, but I believe that the Nixon administration began the denouement of the Republican Party. It wasnt obvious at first, but slowly, things began to change. I admired Reagan, but the Iran-Contra scandal was a black mark that stained permanently and I believe it went higher than Ollie North.

The real spiral downward began with Newt Gingrich and the Moral Majority. Hardcore opposition became the byword instead of trying to find common cause and compromise. The party had forgotten its founding principles. It began to cater to the special interests and upper classes, yet I still hadnt had my fill.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton was another black mark in my book for the Republican Party. I considered it a private matter and nothing that other presidents hadnt done and more before. In my mind, it did not warrant impeachmentthe partisan games had begun in earnest.

I remained a Republican. I voted for W, but was somewhat bothered by the Supreme Court decision to halt the count in Florida before it was completed, thus giving the Presidency to W by a narrow margin. As a matter of fair play I felt the vote count should have been completed. I was bothered by the renewed conflict in Iraq. I felt it more to get Saddam for Daddy than a hunt for WMD. The hunt for Bin Laden I supported fully; the attack on the twin towers was inexcusable.

This was the genesis of the Tea Party Movement, which was too far right and too fiscally tight for me. I was living in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro area for part of this time. As a healthcare professional, I saw firsthand the need for the ACA and I supported it, but I voted Republican because moderate Republicans were nominated. A few years later, I was very proud of McCain for his thumbs-down on repeal of the ACA. It was during this period that to me the meaning of Republican = Obstruction, especially with Mitch McConnell as majority leader of the Senate came to be. Nothing got done that the Obama administration tried to enact. If it didnt suit Mitch, it didnt see the light of day, the Grim Reaper ensured it. Merrick Garlands nomination by Obama was held up for months with the excuse that a new president should have the honor of nomination of a Supreme Court judge for a vacant position. That was not rightGarland should have been given an Up or Down vote with that much time remaining in a presidential term. We would all learn how much that meant to the Republicans Senate in 2020 when RBG passed away just weeks before the general election.

First rumblings from Trump: birtherism; Obama was not qualified to be President, not a natural citizen, show us a birth certificate. It illustrated Trumps racism; not my cup of tea.

2015; Trump announces his candidacy. Like many, I wrote his candidacy off as a marketing and branding ploy, thinking it wouldnt go anywhere. I never cared for the man for what little I knew of him before his candidacy and the more I saw, the less I liked. To see him degrade women and make fun of the handicapped, well, how low can you go. A little man with a huge ego.

2016-Trump wins the nomination, then the Presidency. I listened to his acceptance speech after winning the election. Its better than I expected. There was no braggadocio and it was somewhat (for him) humble, so I thought maybe he will be ok, maybe hes finally realized the import of the responsibility, but then comes the dark and daunting inauguration speech and naming of a bunch of nobodies with little to no government experience to cabinet positions. Give him a chance, I told myself.The lies, the systematic dismantling of the administrative state, the cozying up to autocrats, no pretense of trying to unify the country upset me tremendously. The meetings with Kim Jong Un of North Korea were absolutely. It gave legitimacy to a rogue government. None of this was Presidential. It was during this time that the Lincoln Project was founded. It is a group of Republicans and former Republicans dedicated to defeating Trump and Trumpism. I joined the group in its early stages and remain a member. Meanwhile, in Congress, the massive tax cuts for the rich that opened the debt by a trillion dollars, tariffs that accomplished nothing, and a Senate that churned out right-wing conservative judges, several who were deemed non-qualified by even the Federalist Society, who vetted them for Trump.

The final straws for me came within a matter of days. The hearings for the phone call with the new president of the Ukraine seeking aid for the 2020 election in exchange for weapons to use against Russia, the firing of the Ambassador to the Ukraine, the Pentagon liaison officer all but finished it for me. The pettiness and the retribution, the denials in the face of hard evidence left no doubt. I would hold out, though to see what happened. Maybe there would be some statesmen to step up like there were in 1974.

I watched the entire hearing for the impeachment and the sham trial. The evidence presented at trial was overwhelming and, if presented in a court of law, would have been a slam dunk forconviction, but not in a partisan Senate where a 2/3 majority is required to convict. I realized the impeachment is a political process, but each Senator swore an oath to impartially evaluate the evidence presented and render a verdict. With one lone exception, none of the Republican senators had the spine to do so, using the excuse, let the voters decide.

It was then I knew I had to change my party affiliation, but I also knew I would hold off until after the August primary so I could vote against our 1st District Representative who was running for the Senate seat Pat Roberts was vacating. As soon as the primary was over, I switched parties and have not looked back. I worked on the campaigns for Barbara Bollier, Kali Barnett and the other Sunflower Sisters in their quest for Congressional seats.

The events leading up to the election, the only way we lose this election is if it is rigged, the continued repetition of the BIG LIE, the incitement and conditioning of his rabid followers to invade the Capitol have only hardened me to the fact that the GOP I once knew is dead. It has become the party of conspiracy and autocracy.

I urge all Republicans who feel lost to look within themselves and abandon the party as I did. Dont take as long as I did. There is not time. The Democratic Party may not be the answer to all your prayers, but I cant see how good people could support what the Republican Party is today. We almost lost something very precious and dear on January 6th. We may not be so lucky next time. Our democracy must not be taken for granted. We must do our utmost to preserve it for our future generations.

Mike Giess, Hays

View original post here:
LETTER: The move from the GOP to 'very blue' Posted Feb 09, 2021 - hays Post

Toya Johnson and Reginae Carter gave Toyas youngest daughter, Reign Rushing, a lavish tea party at Midtown Collective in Atlanta, Georgia, this past weekend. The event was held in honor of Reigns third birthday.

Bella Decorative Rentals and KSoiree greatly contributed to Reigns tea party. Roland Custom Cakes provided the cakes that took up an entire table at the event. My Fair Sweets and Talented Toya Sweet Studio provided the sandwiches and other treats for the occasion.

Best tea party we [have] ever been to, Yandy Smith wrote online after attending Reigns tea party. Just the cutest ever, the celebrity mom added. I absolutely love this, a BCK Instagram fan commented. The girls looked like they had a Ball. Happy Birthday, Lil lady.

Cake decorating was one of many activities at Reigns tea party. Guests also enjoyed a fashion show along with the abundance of food and treats. The slumber party was one of the main events at Reigns party. The sleepover was the first for Toyas daughter.

Happy birthday to my little mini-me, Reginae Carter wrote to her little sister this past weekend. I love you so much, the young adult exclaimed. I cant believe youre the big 3, Reign exclaimed. Ill forever be right there in front of you. If anybody wanna get to you, they gotta get through me. Happy birthday to my Reignyyyy.

Toya Johnson wrote, Wishing my little princess the Happiest Birthday! May your day be filled with sweetness, wonderful surprises, and fun! May all your dreams come true! I love you @reign_beaux.

Reign is Toyas daughter with her fiance Robert Red Rushing. The celebrity couple became engaged to be married last year, which was a precious moment T.I. and Tiny: Friends and Family Hustle viewers had the opportunity to witness during one of the shows episodes. Reginae is Toyas daughter with rapper Lil Wayne.

Photo: Reginae Carter/Instagram/@leslieandrewsphoto

Read the original:
Toya Johnson And Reginae Carter Host Tea Party For Reign Rushing - BCK

Back in the before times of January 2015, when I was a reporter for CNN, I did a weekend live shot from the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, one of those political cattle calls where Republican presidential hopefuls take turns onstage professing their Christian faith before a crowd of people harvested from a Grant Wood painting, hoping to impress the states conservative activists. Most of the supposedly serious 2016 contenders had flown to Iowa: Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee. But the CNN anchor that day, Michael Smerconish, asked me a reasonable question about two attention-grabbing Republicans who were also there, Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, and whether they might run for president too. Like most Very Savvy political journalists at the time, I laughed off Trumps appearance as just another thirsty White House tease. And having covered Palin up close since she was chosen as John McCains running mate, I knew her best shot at the Republican nomination was back in 2012.

Soon after the segment aired, CNN president Jeff Zucker, who is always watching, emailed me and a few other producers demanding that we not cover Trump or Palin, explaining that both Republicans were carnival acts, attention-seekers, two unserious distractions from the real presidential race to come. At the time, few in politics would have disagreed. I think about that moment from time to time, and not just because CNNs position on covering Trump so famously changed once he actually became a candidate, delivering ratings galore. But the Iowa story is worth remembering, too, because of the way Trump and Palin were lumped together by the smart set as little more than a sad and desperate right-wing sideshow, when in truth, they were two of the most consequential political figures in American history.

These days Palin has receded to a historical footnote and a punch line for a news media thats become even more cocooned in its urban bubble since 2008, with Trump now receiving most of the credit for upending the presumed order of national politics. But it was Palin who opened the door for Trump, the first politician to fuse together backlash politics and anti-elitism with the mighty American power of celebrity. The impact that she has had on rejuvenating almost the Republican Party, its been unbelievable, Trump said of Palin in 2008, soon after she was picked from obscurity to join McCain on the ticket. After McCain lost, Palin resigned from the governorship in Alaska but continued to gather strength as a fixture on the conservative political circuit, publishing a best-selling memoir, headlining Tea Party rallies, joining Fox News, and coming close to running for president in 2012. And she did most of it while bypassing the lamestream media by posting her musings and rants on Facebook for an enormous community of die-hard fans.

Like Trump, Palin had powers beyond the campaign trail: She wore a celebrity halo rarely seen on a politician. Her traveling circus in the fall of 2008 proudly embraced redneck America, Hank Williams Jr. and Gretchen Wilson, hunting and fishing, Carhartts and Walmart. Her crowds were rapturous. Rural Americans and working people who didnt go to college saw her as one of their own, while liberals and journalists loved to mock her lack of sophistication and manner of speaking. It was a partisan culture clash that only gave Palin more strength. Tina Feys scornful impression of Palin on Saturday Night Live was only the beginning. After Palin came on the scene, as Nancy Isenberg recounted in her book White Trash, a history of class in America, Hollywood unleashed a crop of new TV shows that played off the redneck trope that Palin ushered into the mainstream: Swamp People, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Redneck Island, Duck Dynasty, Moonshiners, Appalachian Outlaws. Her family dramas became tabloid favorites. And Palin would go on, fittingly, to star in her own reality show, Sarah Palins Alaska, produced by Mark Burnett, Trumps beloved reality-show producer.

Barack Obama later wrote in his 2020 memoir, A Promised Land, that Palins explosive rise was a sign of things to come, a larger, darker reality in which partisan affiliation and political expedience would threaten to blot out everythingyour previous positions, your stated principles, even what your own senses, your eyes and ears, told you to be true. More than any politician that came before her, Palin made politics purely about cultural identityand there would be no turning back. Obama left readers to draw the obvious comparison to Trump. Whether Trump was watching closely or not, Palin carved out a new path to power. And now, in his postpresidency, Trumps future might also look a lot like Palins. Out of the White House and essentially deplatformed from Twitter and Facebook, Trump is inhabiting something of a media time warp, now much more dependent on traditional media for attention. Hes still the hottest story in the world, but Palins moment in the sun, which began more than a decade ago, offers a possible glimpse into how the next few years will unfold for the former presidentand how his hold on Republican politics and the media, which seems overpowering today, will fade with time.

Between 2009 and 2011, Mitch McConnell might have controlled the official levers of GOP politics in Washington, but no Republican occupied the public consciousness more than Sarah Palin. The country might have had its first Black president in office, grappling with seismic economic distress, but Palin was the entertainer in chief. Her face was splattered on magazines, on cable and broadcast news, on Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, on Oprah and CBN, on Facebook and Twitter, on weirdo fan blogs and international news sites alike. She was inescapable. In 2009, my colleague Michael Calderonewrote for Politicoabout the Palin-media codependency, noting that Andrea Mitchell had hosted her MSNBC show from a Barnes & Noble in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Palin was scheduled to stop on her book tour for Going Rogue. That year Andrew Sullivan blogged about Palin more than 24 times in two days for The Atlantic. National Review launched a blog dedicated solely to observing Palin. The Huffington Post helped usher in the outraged fact check genre, with The 18 Biggest Falsehoods in Palins book driving plenty of clicks. Palin sat down for a big exclusive with Barbara Walters, with ABC dripping out teaser clips across Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and Nightline. She was inescapable.

As the Tea Party movement forced its way into the national conversation, she emerged as its de facto standard-bearer. Political pundits were at once confounded and bewitched. Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard placed Palins defiant anti-intellectualism in the tradition of American populism. Maureen Dowd wrote that Democrats would be foolish to write off her visceral power. Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, celebrated her ability to trigger know-it-all political reporters. Any of this sound familiar? Her arrival in politics came just as the legacy news media was succumbing to its current social media addiction, but Palin held attentional singularity, commanding clicks and TV ratings alike. In 2010, my colleague Gabriel Sherman wrote in New York that no politician in history had marketed herself over multiple platforms with the sophistication and sheer ambitiousness that Palin has shown. Every time she appeared on Fox News, where she signed on as a contributor in 2009, ratings shot up 10-15%, Sherman reported, a phenomenon that repeated itself at MSNBC. Fox even sidelined one of its own reporters after she delivered a tiny morsel of Palin criticism on air. With a $100,000-a-pop speaking fee, TV contracts, and a best-selling memoir, Palin was monetizing the whole time, making upward of $12 million in the year after leaving the Alaska governors mansion, out of power but more powerful than ever.

Palin leaned into the media chaos with a smile and not an ounce of restraint, giving her limitless political abilities. When Palin coined the phrase death panels during the fight to pass Obamacare, it became the Tea Partys signature rally cry, repeated endlessly despite being a falsehood. Her appearances at conservative conventions and Tea Party rallies, often while wearing jewelry festooned with American flags, were aired in full on cable news, with reporters assigned to follow her every move. Her ability to raise small-dollar donations from grassroots conservatives was unparalleled. In 2009, when Palin was waffling about speaking at a Washington fundraiser for Senate and House Republicansa D.C. micro-drama if ever there was onethe back-and-forth was covered exhaustively by NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, Politico, and dozens of other outlets. Republican elites were sick of her: The National Journal conducted an Insiders Poll of 85 GOP strategists in Washington, and Palin was the top response when asked: Which voice in your party would you most like to mute? Of course those insiders only uttered their concerns on background, fearing a GOP base that felt differently.

When Palin started picking favorites in GOP primaries during the 2010 midterms, she instantly became the most coveted endorsement of the election cycle. With her small-staffed political outfit, SarahPAC, Palin didnt bring much of a political machine to the table, but a single social media post could generate enough media coverage and fundraising dollars to flip the direction of a primary overnight. In May 2010, when Palin endorsed Nikki Haley just before South Carolinas four-way gubernatorial primary and appeared with her at a rally in Columbia, Haley was left for dead in last place. A few weeks later she was the Republican nominee. Former Haley adviser Rob Godfrey, who was then working for a rival candidate, told me at the time that Palins endorsement was an earned media blowtorch. The Washington Post launched a Palin endorsement tracker to follow along. Some of Palins picks were conspiracy lunatics and helpless eccentricsRepublicans like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine ODonnell in Delawarewho won their primaries but went on to lose in November, infuriating Republican strategists in Washington who saw their more electable candidates swamped by a single Palin tweet.

Its memory-holed now, but Palins stardom continued unabated all the way through late 2011, a full three years after her arrival on the national scene. Her flirtation with running for the 2012 Republican nominationnever ruling out a bid and allowing supporters to build an operation for her in Iowakept her in the headlines. While dancing around a bid of her own, Palin threw carefree darts at declared candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Her newest adviser, a filmmaker named Steve Bannon, helped position Palin as a populist alternative to the crony capitalism that had infected Republican politics. Advisers to the Republican candidates all groused privately to reporters about Palins headline-grabbing ways, but on the record, they politely welcomed Palins possible endorsement and shied away from criticizing her. In the summer of 2011, she announced a One Nation bus tour of historical sites up the East Coast, making stops at Fort McHenry, Gettysburg, and Bunker Hill, teasing a presidential run with her telegenic family in tow. Local TV news choppers chased the bus driving up Interstate 76 to air live coverage. ABC News, clearly interested in service journalism, added a helpful interactive map of the Palin bus tour to its website. The only event that managed to push Palins bus tour off of cable news was the hacked picture of Anthony Weiners junk that surfaced on Twitter. But some two months later, Palin was back at it, drawing a horde of press during her visit to the Iowa State Fair.

More here:
For Donald Trump, Sarah Palins Fall Shows the Limits of Media Obsession - Vanity Fair

Occupy Wall Street participants march down Fifth Avenue in New York on May 1, 2012. Lingering anger over the 2008 global financial crisis has fueled several populist movements, including most recently, the battle waged by amateur investors coordinating in Reddit against hedge funds. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Occupy Wall Street participants march down Fifth Avenue in New York on May 1, 2012. Lingering anger over the 2008 global financial crisis has fueled several populist movements, including most recently, the battle waged by amateur investors coordinating in Reddit against hedge funds.

James McCombs was 13 years old in 2008 when he found out the money set aside for his college tuition was gone.

"I was old enough to know what was going on, and old enough to hear my parents' conversations," he remembers. "Old enough for them to tell me that the college fund was gone."

The fund had been tied up in the stock market, and it didn't survive the market crash sparked by the global financial crisis.

McCombs, now a real estate agent in Lincoln, Neb., says his life got thrown off track. He got into an expensive school in New York, but couldn't afford it so he took out loans to attend a state school.

Those costs also proved overwhelming, and he dropped out. Years later, he's still paying off those loans.

"Basically my future got mortgaged, it got put on hold and stolen from, and that happened all over the country," he says.

Today McCombs is part of the Reddit community of amateur investors who shocked Wall Street by handing severe losses to hedge funds shorting stocks of companies such as GameStop and AMC Theatres.

And like many of his fellow Redditors in WallStreetBets, the forum that fueled the trades, the anger from the economic chaos of the Great Recession still feels very raw for McCombs.

So much so, that he found himself buying the stocks being shorted by hedge funds. And he was motivated not so much by profit, but the burning desire to hit back at the Wall Street firms he blames for sparking the global financial crisis.

"Now we have an opportunity to take it back," McCombs says, referring both to some of the money his parents lost in the 2008 turmoil and also regaining some sense of control.

WallStreetBets started as an investment forum and its moderators continue to insist it is just that as the group has now grown to boast nearly 9 million members.

But interviews with some of its members and an examination of its threads also show something else that it's morphed into a movement of sorts, riding a giant wave of unresolved anger from the Great Recession.

That crisis was not caused by hedge funds alone. Instead, it was an accumulation of risky investments by financial institutions that eventually imploded.

The implosion led to such widespread economic pain that it's fueled populist movements, like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street and now, WallStreetBets.

"I vividly remember the enormous repercussions that the reckless actions by those on Wall Street had in my personal life, and the lives of those close to me," one post by Reddit member ssauronn says.

The Redditor recalled a year where money was tight and food was scarce.

"We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to punish the sort of people who caused so much pain and stress a decade ago, and we're taking that opportunity," ssauronn also says, in a post that has sparked more than 8,000 comments.

Erin Capparelli, a 40-year-old delivery driver in Florida, is another Redditor motivated by the desire to hit back at Wall Street after the Global Financial Crisis.

Capparelli made her first stock investment of a few hundred dollars in GameStop shares back in January, at first hoping to make some extra cash.

But when apps like Robinhood limited trading in shares being targeted by Redditors, Capparelli says her feelings shifted.

"As soon as that happened, the whole sentiment changed to, 'This is messed up, the game is rigged, it's against us,'" she remembers.

Robinhood placed the trading restrictions because of more technical reasons related to requirements needed to process trades being placed by its customers. But many Redditors saw it differently, believing it was being done to hamper them.

The limits made Capparelli think back to 2008, when her career growth stalled and she witnessed family and friends fall into hard times.

That's when her priorities shifted, and she started seeing her investment in GameStop as a protest, a way to fight back against Wall Street, even if she loses money doing it.

"It always falls back on the little guy," Capparelli says. "We're not too big to fail. We can easily fail."

WallStreetBets is not the only movement to be fueled by anger from the global financial crisis.

Nelini Stamp, 33, camped out with Occupy Wall Street in New York's Zuccotti Park in 2011 and stayed all three months, until protesters were cleared by police.

Stamp notes WallStreetBets is not the same. Occupy Wall Street was primarily a protest against income inequality and capitalism. Redditors, however, are steering their protest through the same financial system that Occupy Wall Street was railing against.

Nonetheless, Stamp sees both movements as having the same overall goal.

"It's obviously different tactics, but I think it comes from the same kind of sentiment, like, 'enough is enough,'" Stamp says.

The prices of GameStop and several of the other stocks made popular on Reddit have fallen significantly, tumbling from record highs.

Though that could be seen as a setback, Laurel Weldon, author of When Protest Makes Policy: How Social Movements Represent Disadvantaged Groups, says that would be missing the point.

"Often a kind of social protest is aimed at disruption alone, it's aimed at expressing a grievance and in doing so I mean in some ways, you have to think that this has been a successful protest," Weldon says.

"It's really picking up on this anti-financial elite, stick-it-to-the-man ethos that I think is quite a powerful current in contemporary American society," she adds.

Capparelli, the delivery driver in Florida, says the impact caused by her GameStrop trade has now taught her that there is power when people collectively put their money toward something they believe in.

And she says she will keep investing regardless of how GameStop turns out.

"Our money talks. Our money has to be our voice," Caparelli says. "You can scream your head off in the street or throw fifty bucks at the stock market. What's going to make the biggest difference? It's going to be money, unfortunately."

Go here to see the original:
'The Game Is Rigged': How Fury Over The Great Recession Fueled The Reddit Trade - NPR

Americans are being radicalized faster than ever before as politicians and community leaders continue mainstreaming far-right values, like white supremacy and anti-government rhetoric.

The ideas incubated by white nationalists are being pulled from the backwoods of Ku Klux Klan rallies and militia meetings and into the mainstream through the internet, so much so that nearly 25% of the American public has been exposed to them on a fairly regular basis, according to Devin Burghart, executive director for the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.

Not all of them have been radicalized. Not all of them decided to invade the Capitol, Burghart said. But its a reminder that we have a deep and growing problem and that you are undoubtedly likely to encounter someone who shares these ideas.

Far-right extremist values have always played a role in America. Burgharts first encounter with white supremacy was at age 14 when neo-Nazi Robert Matthews held a rally in downtown Spokane, Washington, to recruit families into his far-right group. Burgharts run-ins with extremism didnt end there. As a teenager involved in the local music scene, Burghart watched white power skinheads try to recruit his friends to bridge the gap between healthy youth rebellion and hardcore white supremacy.

Like gun rights or religion, extremists used music to bond with people and gradually radicalize them by re-introducing far-right values such as white nationalism. The radicalization process hasnt changed significantly, but Burghart said leaders who act as facilitators of misinformation online and on-air have unprecedentedly sped it up.

What used to take years now takes months in terms of exposure to the ideas and involvement in more extreme, radical far-right organizations, Burghart said. A persons path to radicalization moves from early exposure to ideas based on crass stereotypes and concerns of status into a place in their mind where violence is justified.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified domestic violent extremists as the primary threat to Americans in 2020, and predicted those groups will continue to target individuals institutions. An analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies of 893 terrorist attacks in the U.S. dating back to January 1994, found right-wing extremists perpetrated two-thirds of the attacks and plots in 2019 and over 90% between Jan. 1 and May 8, 2020. Both agencies predicted violence would intensify during the general election.

Related: Who are Michigans militias? Armed patriot groups resurface during anti-government climate

Allendale Township Planning Commissioner Ryan Kelley speaks on stage with his wife and children in Allendale Township on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020. The American Patriot Council held a rally at Allendale Community Park to support President Donald Trump and resist socialism while Justice for Black Lives held an opposing rally outside Allendale Township Hall to demand the removal of Kelley from the commission because of his alleged ties to militia members charged in the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (Cory Morse | MLive.com)Cory Morse | MLive.com

Today, people are introduced to core far-right values through an online post shared by their family or community members. Some of these values, like white supremacy, dominated American society at one point and are considered sacred, withstanding time and societal changes. Other values, like gun rights and anti-immigration, are being sacralized right now, according to Scott Atran, a former research professor at the University of Michigan who has interviewed domestic extremists and international terrorists.

Most people who join extremist movements are normal people who have felt disfranchised, experts say. In America, these are people who fear white dispossession and changing demographics.

A movement can have many different kinds of people, but usually for it to sustain itself it has to have a core social dynamic and core values, Atran said.

Those identified in the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 came from a variety of backgrounds, including a Chicago real estate agent; a Dallas-area lawyer, a CEO, a West Virginia state representative and a Florida firefighter, according to reports.

Americans widely accepted far-right values like white supremacy until World War I and the Civil Rights Movement. As the nation shifted its focus on lifting Black people and women, Atran said federal agencies fairly had far-right extremism under control. Still, racist and fascist core values were strong among some people, who Atran said were forced to hide their views.

It was fairly under control because the public space didnt allow for extremists to come out into the open back then. They were in the closet and had to hide, Atran said. But thats not the case now, (the FBI) lost the tread and allowed it to grow to the point where it is now, where it has metastasized.

Related: Report finds 25 hate groups in Michigan as extremism becomes mainstream

Members of the Proud Boys stand on the front lawn of the Capitol while open carry gun activist rally in Lansing on Thursday Sep. 17, 2020. Nicole Hester/Mlive.com

Far-right beliefs began spreading rapidly again after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, only this time they had the internet to project their values on the masses, according to Burghart. This was the initial indicator of Americas lasting challenge of accepting a changing demographic.

You didnt need the Aryan nation members at that point to start talking badly about immigrants because you had members of Congress use ideas once confined to the backwoods Klan rallies and militia meetings as justification for legislation, Burghart said.

Political involvement in spreading far-right values escalated in 2008, during the recession and when Barack Obama was elected as the first Black president. Extremist-led movements are typically sparked at times of economic and social uncertainty, like during a global pandemic, said Ryan Scrivens, a Michigan State University professor whose research is focused on extremism.

These are during times people feel that theyre disenfranchised or that their voices arent being heard, Scrivens said. Its when they feel like something of theirs, whether its land or resources, is being threatened. Thats when you start seeing violence.

Related: Politicians who lied about election fraud gave extremists something to fight for, experts say

White nationalism and politics overlapped in 2009 when the Tea Party, a new far-right group, emerged. On its surface, the Tea Party lured members in by talking about debt and taxes as a rationalization to undermine democratic processes, like removing Senate terms. Still, Burghart said research found the primary values driving the group were fears of white dispossession and racism. The study found the longer people were involved with the Tea Party, the more racist they became.

The movement didnt just reflect their racism; it worsened it, Burghart said.

The Tea Party movement is an example of how the internet and facilitators of far-right values can quickly radicalize people in the 21st Century, according to Burghart. At its apex in 2015, Burghart said national polling showed the Tea Party had 16% to 18% of the American adult populations support, which would put the number of sympathizers at tens of millions. Closer to its core, millions of people attended Tea Party meetings and protests, as well as bought party literature. At one point, the Tea Party had more than 250,000 members nationwide who signed up on the websites of six national organizations that formed at the inception of the movement.

25

Michigan Capitol ahead of potential protests

Related: Michigan extremism a dress rehearsal for Capitol riot, experts say

Once far-right values are normalized by the masses, people on the path to radicalization may find themselves in an echo chamber. Whether its through Facebook groups, Twitter or YouTube, far-right sympathizers find themselves in a situation in which extreme beliefs are being amplified, according to JoEllen Vinyard, an Eastern Michigan University professor who studies extremism.

People have selective perceptions, Vinyard said. They watch the channels that they agree with, they read the internet sites that agree with them, and they dont see another side to the issues. These people really believe theyre right about their concerns and that they need to take actions on behalf of the government.

People are fully radicalized when their sacred values infuse their identifies with a movement, said Atran. Extremists dont negotiate sacred values, like white supremacy; they risk their lives and others lives to preserve them.

Thats when we find a maximum willingness to sacrifice and do virtually anything from killing children to suicide bombings, Atran said.

Research shows that once a person is radicalized, it is tough bringing them back.

Thats because your life is so narrow at that point, Burghart said. We have had people come out on their own, but it was a tough road for them. They had to reconstruct how they think of the world after being involved in the movement for so long.

Thats why experts believe the best intervention to extremism is addressing it as a community and not fully through legislation or law enforcement.

Formally, governments have tried deploying counter-narratives to extremism but found little success, according to Atran. Thats partly because far-right values have been treated as ideas floating in free space.

Theyre ideas that are embedded in particular social networks in particular ecologies. And the only way to deal with them at all is to go into those ecologies or develop alternate ecologies, Atran said. If you just work in the realm of ideas, you will get absolutely nowhere.

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, right, speaks next to members of the Michigan Liberty Militia during the "American Patriot Rally-Sheriffs speak out" event at Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids on Monday, May 18, 2020. The crowd is protesting against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order. (Cory Morse | MLive.com) Cory Morse | MLive.com

The far-right movement in America is a leaderless resistance. Atran said the KKK, which developed the idea, started a grassroots movement that couldnt be stopped by law enforcement because responsibility would be diffused. No one would assume responsibility, and white supremacy values would keep spreading until someone took extreme action.

The internet has allowed that to happen at a much more massive scale, Atran said. Its very, very hard to control hate speech. If a platform like Facebook or Twitter tries to shut them down, they proliferate across different platforms.

Law enforcement also has its limits, and Scrivens said arresting people wont stop them from being radicalized.

I believe we, as a community, need to be having these conversations and not allow these extreme views to be normalized, Scrivens said.

Atran said the constitution had kept the country together in times of American division, but that worked partly because communities worked together.

A great threat to this nation is the ties of community that allowed ideas to be deliberated, that allowed them to bubble up and be agreed up, that social space just doesnt exist, Atran said. The internet promised to recreate those ties, but its done the exact opposite because algorithms encourage anger and division to bring in advertising revenue. So, how do we create those community bonds institutionally?

That is a challenge that will require the community and leaders to be deeply involved in pushing back far-right values, Burghart said.

We have to start rebuilding the strength of a multi-racial, pluralistic democracy that we should be so proud of instead of the deeply troubling anti-democratic resistance that we saw help lead people to rush the Capitol, Burghart said.

See the article here:
Extremists have gone mainstream. Lawyers, realtors and every-day folks make up their ranks. - mlive.com