Lack of Stability in the United States Tends to Benefit Trump & Rightwing Militant Extremists

Okay, so my father recently reached out to me with an idea about something that he felt I should address here, on the Charbor Chronicles..              

He saw news that far rightwing militia groups, or pseudo-fascist groups, will try and disturb things and create chaos in order to get their way. Additionally, he pointed out that former President Trump (ah, it still sounds so good to say those words, doesn’t it?) tends to thrive on chaos, and generally finds a way to benefit from it. He also mentioned that racism, specifically, has been thriving in the United States since it and related hite crimes began to spike in numbers and in seriousness since 2015, when the Trump campaign began to grow and gain traction. He also expressed his belief that Trump would have become a dictator in this country if he could have been, which is a belief that he and I share.              

After sending a small note with personal greetings and such (which I obviously will not share here), I answered his message with one of my own on the subject matter. It is in one long block, but when I was done, it seemed to me that it more or less described what was going on in this country, and the historical context in terms of other places where extremism and authoritarianism grew strong during turbulent, unstable times.              

And guess what? Yes, right now, the United States also feels like it is going through turbulent and unstable times.              

So without further ado, here is how I answered him:                          

As far as what you were saying, I agree that this is happening, and that it is a conspiracy of extremist rightwingers. Apparently, there are some military and/or police personnel, some active and some likely no longer active, who are trying to orchestrate these kinds of episodes, like the one that we saw in January 6th, and the storming of the Capitol building. Not sure how much Trump himself is actually tied to it, although I do believe that he should be in prison for (among many other things, frankly) his role in leading a bunch of fired up Cult 45 members to the Capitol building, and we all saw the results of that. These are, as you said, classic fascist strategies. They were used by Mussolini in Italy, and helped him gain power. They were used by Hitler in Germany, and helped him gain power. It was attempted by far rightwing militant groups in South Africa in the waning days of apartheid, and while it did not succeed, it did seriously destabilize things there, and obviously gained headlines. And now, we are sadly seeing it right here in the United States, and they seem to have found their champion in Trump. And yes, I agree with you that we likely are going to see more such attacks. Not sure if we will see them in Washington, D.C. again or not, but it would frankly be surprising if we did not see some kind of similar militant incidents in the near future. We can also expect Trump to stay relevant, and quite possibly to run yet again. But Trump, while not exactly my idea of an intelligent or thoughtful man, is skillful in some ways. Self-promotion is one, but being crafty and saving his skin is another, and so I imagine that he will do the same kind of half-assed condemnation of violence at some points, while supporting with a tacit, knowing wink to his extremist supporters at other points. Most likely, his supporters will applaud him and praise his cunning every step of the way. Sad times that we live in.