The Right-Wing Violence Trump Has Encouraged Has Deep Roots in American History

[Judi Lynn]

BY
DOLORES JANIEWSKI CHAD PEARSON

The far-right violence that Donald Trump has stoked has deep roots in US history. Kicking him from office won’t change that — but it would deal a blow to right-wing vigilantism.

11.03.2020v

Throughout his reelection campaign, Donald Trump and his allies have aggressively pushed law-and-order rhetoric, conjuring up lurid fantasies about “antifa” violence while encouraging extralegal actions by vigilante groups like the Proud Boys. They’ve sought to exploit paranoid fears of roving gangs while appealing to so-called patriotic militias. And they’ve defended police brutality and attacked Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors even as they champion right-wing groups that defy government mandates for masks and other protective measures.

Given the robust public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump and his supporters have appeared desperate at times. Yet Trump’s belligerence, no matter how unpopular, has emboldened his most extreme backers and found support among cops on the beat. In addition to facing brutality from law enforcement, BLM protesters have endured intimidation and violence from weapon-carrying, back-the-blue vigilantes in major cities (Austin, Louisville, Philadelphia, Portland) and small communities (Kenosha, Wisconsin, population 100,000; Weatherford, Texas, population 25,000). Counterprotesters have celebrated the actions of the police while terrorizing protestors.

Historically, reactionaries and vigilantes have been especially effective in imposing their will in small and medium-sized communities compared to larger cities, where activists enjoy access to networks of like-minded comrades. The July 25 episode in Weatherford, a community thirty miles west of Fort Worth, is a case in point — underscoring the historic complicity of law enforcement in vigilantism, even though its perpetrators, unlike Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, did not resort to deadly force.

What Happened in Weatherford

Counterprotesters assembled on Saturday, July 25, in Weatherford, incensed at the presence of local and out-of-town BLM supporters demanding the removal of the town’s Confederate statue. Sneering counterprotesters, many of them armed with guns and toting a variety of flags (Texas, Confederate, American, pro-Trump, and Blue Lives Matter) angrily shouted “go home” and applauded as armored police officers arrived on the scene.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/violence-trump-blm-weatherford-kenosha

[The Magistrate]

1. True, Ma'am

This is little but a sort of 'fourth wave' of the Ku Klux Klan. People forget its prevalence in the 1920s. It was open, numerous, and politically powerful nationwide. They ran Indiana, right up to the statehouse.

It fell then, not because of revulsion with its goals or means, but because its leader became embroiled in a sex scandal, raping a young woman who was subsequently poisoned. Took the charm off, a bit, that did....

[Judi Lynn]

3. Horrendous! Looked for more info. on this leader's monstrous actions, found this:

“Murder Wasn’t Very Pretty”: The Rise and Fall of D.C. Stephenson
The Grand Dragon of the Klan and prominent Indiana politician had a vicious streak that had horrifying consequences



“Murder Wasn’t Very Pretty”: The Rise and Fall of D.C. Stephenson

David Curtis Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, 1922 (From “The Dragon and the Cross.”)

By Karen Abbott
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
AUGUST 30, 2012

Article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/murder-wasnt-very-pretty-the-rise-and-fall-of-dc-stephenson-18935042/

Had never known any part of your post. Looking forward to finding out more about this.

Deep thanks for making it possible to get a better grasp of the Klan history. Never knew they were deeply engaged in Indiana. Horrible!

Thank you, "The Magistrate."

[Judi Lynn]

5. "It took the kidnapping, rape, and death of a white woman to bring down the KKK"

How power, sexism, and male impunity toppled a grand wizard

Laura Smith
Follow
Jan 3, 2018 · 6 min read

Article:
https://timeline.com/it-took-the-kidnapping-rape-and-death-of-a-white-woman-to-bring-down-the-kkk-330b1d3581bd


These articles are simplistic. Your post prompts people to look for more on the KKK in Indiana. It's looking as if an enormous amount of information has been missing from ordinary public school U.S. history classes!


Adding:

Decided to look for images of the KKK march in New York, found, instead, tons of google images of KKK parades, etc. in cities all over
the U.S. I had no idea there were this many of them! If nothing else, it does give us something to consider in learning a whole lot of them faded away before modern times. You could almost see it as progress that they lost their power for a period of time over the years, if they don't start gathering strength again through the butting in of Donald Trump types. It's also hard to ignore that they also seek to degrade women as well as all people of color.




Many images of parades, etc. across the U.S.:
https://tinyurl.com/y6ouk2wm

[The Magistrate]

6. I Grew Up There, Ma'am, In Good Part

When I was young, it was not all that long ago.

It was 'Birth of a Nation' and Woodrow Wilson pretty well kicked it off.

There was also an odd leaven of Black combat veterans. A good many black soldiers were seconded to the French army in 1918 --- Pershing didn't want them, and the French had strong contingents of African troops, and were quite willing to mix blacks with whites in companies and even platoons, needing manpower badly as they did after the abattoir of Verdun. People who had been in the trenches were hard to intimidate.

There was a great wave of 'race riots' after WWI here, a term which in those days meant white mobs attacking black people. In cities white gangs, which often had loose connections with city 'machines', operated with impunity from, if the active support of, police in these outbreaks.

Wilson, who called the movie 'history written in lightning', systematically fired black employees of the Federal government. In a hold-over from what had been the original stance of the Republican Party (back when it could be described still as 'the party of Lincoln' with a straight face), Federal employment was one of the few paths to respectable employment open to Black people outside the strictly segregated 'colored sections' of the Jim Crow period. I will leave aside further evidences of the man's utter unfitness for national leadership, and say only that the wretch does not receive nearly the credit he deserves for the atrocious course of the twentieth century.

The movie presented a glamorous but wholly fictitious account of the Klan's origins and activities during Reconstruction, as well as presenting a disgusting and utterly false caricature of the freedmen at the South, portraying the period after the civil war as a passage black tyranny over white men and women, and a sexualized tyranny at that. In the climate of the day, fed by a President's patronage, the movie had tremendous effect, giving rise to a revived Klan, which actually had little direct connection with the original body roused up during Reconstruction. It presented itself as an 'America First' body, and opposed not only blacks but also catholics, jew, orientals, anything which was not native-born white.

Harding comes in for a lot of criticism and condemnation, much of it deserved. Indeed he was something of a rogue and his administration was monumentally corrupt in money matters, but Harding did publicly condemn lynching, and resumed Federal hiring of black people.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Who else could have considered Birth of a Nation to be 'history written in lightning'? It's hideos!

Movie production was new then, an enormous breakthrough in technology, probably overwhelming to everyone, but still, no one should be that stupid, to see it as anything like history.

So he also was the President. Say no more! Wow.

The information on civil service was new to me, and interesting as the direction taken by a lot of Black people seeking employment. It appears that could be the reason behind the hostility I've seen in prominent Republican leaders, like Jeb Bush, and Trump, in their behavior designed to handicap civil service employees over a very long time. Had been curJious about why Jeb Bush was so persistantly trying to create hardship for Florida's government employees, was baffled about that. Noticed Trump has been bearing a real grudge against them, too.

Your post threw a sudden light on this area of apparent hostiity by Republican officials toward government workers. They seem to resent the thought of steady, dependable employment for certain people.

The continual reference to struggle between classes of people as "riots," etc. attempts to suggest a two-sided situation when it has always been pure aggression against suffering, powerless people. That point has always been side-stepped. So glad you mentioned it.

Saw "Friendly Persuasion," started seeing Indiana as a Union state, so many years after it already had a horrendous history with the Klan! So glad to get that bit of ignorance cracked open for a little bit of sunlight today!

For anyone else similarly ignorant of Indiana's history, here's a quick Wikipedia summary which might help:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_in_the_American_Civil_War

Clearly, Indiana has been a far more interesting state than anything which floated up from casual cultural associations, and no actual research at all! Thank you for adding so much needed information.

[The Magistrate]

8. Thank You, Ma'am

I enjoy your posts, especially the more eclectic ones. You have often pointed me towards things I was happy to learn.

[empedocles]

2. Thank you

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thanks for checking it out, empedocles.

[malthaussen]

9. Deep roots. What matters is sanction.

Or "empowerment," if you will. The message since 9/11, accelerating since the election of Mr Obama, is that it is okay to take these feelings of hatred, violence, and resentment out of the closet and wave them in everybody else's face. Moreover, "you're not alone," many others feel the same way, which you might never have known were it not for the rise of social media and the attention lavished on the radical element of the Right.

We had about one generation of history where it wasn't nice to be nasty. That no longer applies.

-- Mal