Republican Ties to Extremist Groups Are Under Scrutiny

[riversedge]

Source: nytimes



A number of members of Congress have links to organizations and movements that played a role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.




Jan. 29, 2021Updated 8:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The video’s title was posed as a question, but it left little doubt about where the men who filmed it stood. They called it “The Coming Civil War?” and in its opening seconds, Jim Arroyo, who leads an Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, declared that the conflict had already begun.

To back up his claim, Mr. Arroyo cited Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, one of the most far-right members of Congress. Mr. Gosar had paid a visit to the local Oath Keepers chapter a few years earlier, Mr. Arroyo recounted, and when asked if the United States was headed for a civil war, the congressman’s “response to the group was just flat out: ‘We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.’”

Less than two months after the video was posted, members of the Oath Keepers were among those with links to extremist groups from around the country who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, prompting new scrutiny of the links between members of Congress and an array of organizations and movements that espouse far-right beliefs.

Nearly 150 House Republicans supported President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. But Mr. Gosar and a handful of other Republican members of the House had deeper ties to extremist groups who pushed violent ideas and conspiracy theories and whose members were prominent among those who stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to stop certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/republicans-trump-capitol-riot.html

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Members of a Three Percenters group provided security for Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, right, during a campaign event last year in Ringgold, Ga.Credit...C.B. Schmelter/Chattanooga Times Free Press, via Associated Press

[sandensea]

1. High time, too. They've had extremist ties since the John Birch Society

Now known as the "moderate" wing of the GOP.

[MustLoveBeagles]

2. K&R

[Midnight Writer]

3. I hope they also find out who is funding these groups. I bet the same money is behind these pols.

This sedition did not just "spring up".

[ailsagirl]

4. It seems that we always hear someone is...

“looking into it” (“it” being whatever the current issue is) but then we never hear anything more. At least, that’s my take.

[OldBaldy1701E]

5. It's called 'placation'

when you put on a show for the masses to placate them into not following up on whatever egregious thing you and/or yours did. You keep looking serious and important and you babble on about 'tireless efforts' and 'thorough investigations' until this 'ten second attention span' society we live in forgets it and turns to the next twitter piranha attack. Hey, this method has been working for the last 80 or so years, why mess with a good thing?

[ailsagirl]

6. You're right

I’m glad, at least, I wasn’t imagining it.

[crickets]

7. I understand what you're saying, and I get why you're saying it.

At least two (three?) Repub administrations have gotten a pass since Watergate.

But I have to disagree.

The Capitol Police camera footage I saw last night on MSNBC had me crying and almost ready to vomit. If Repubs think we're going to forget there was a violent insurrection, that we're all going to wander off and watch a sitcom instead, they are sadly mistaken.

The 'well let's just let Ollie North lie to our faces' era is OVER.

This is not going to go away.

[OldBaldy1701E]

8. I sincerely hope so. (n/t)