How Extreme is the "Extreme Rightwing"?

   

                                          Deceased Allen, TX shooter                                                                                  Ex-Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino wearing a red

                                                                                                                                                                             Right Wing Death Squad (RWDS) patch   

  

How Extreme is the “Extreme Rightwing”?

Like the Ones Trump Pledged to Pardon

“I mean full pardons with an apology to many… I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons, full pardons.” 

Donald Trump, fall of 2022 and often repeated since, including at the May 10th CNN New Hampshire Town Hall

On May 4th, four leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with their roles in connection with the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol… the same group Donald Trump told to “stand back and stand by” during the September 29, 2020 presidential debate. “Jeremy Bertino, who gave evidence for the prosecution in the seditious conspiracy case against Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four others, said he was ‘horrified’ to see photos of himself [pictured right above] associated with the shooting in a statement shared with Newsweek on Monday [5/8].

“The suspected gunman, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, was reportedly wearing tactical gear as well as a patch that read ‘RWDS’ during the shooting on Saturday [5/6; see pictures left above] that left eight people dead and seven others injured at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas. Garcia also appears to have shared photos of a black tactical vest with a patch that reads ‘RWDS’ on the Russian social network OK.RU and investigators are examining a profile on the site believed to belong to the suspected shooter.” Newsweek, May 9th.

The notion of being justified in executing your political opponents is increasingly gaining traction among an ever-widening MAGA constituency. The evidence is well beyond dark corners of the Web; embracing that concept of exterminating liberals is everywhere, if you understand the symbolism, which is anything but subtle.

Amazingly, for example, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has asked his pardoning board to authorize a pardon for Daniel Perry, who killed a BLM protestor, Garrett Foster, in July of 2020. Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant, was sentenced May 10th to 25 years in prison after prosecutors used his social media history and text messages to portray him as a racist who might commit violence again. Abbott cited that often misused “stand your ground” law in many red states (including Texas) as his personal reason for why the shooting was justifiable. It’s OK to kill your vocal political opponents?

Clever politicians have been able to whitewash all kinds of nasty and obviously racist slogans by creating new ones that they carefully will not define. Like “woke,” which is well understood by White supremacists as a mainstream supportive rallying cry… even as shrewd politicians – wink, wink – use the same mantra for “standing up for parental rights.” But those who champion such extremism appreciate the “wink, wink.” Writing for the May 11th Associated Press, journalists Alanna Durkin Richer, Michael Kunzelman and Lindsay Whitehurst try and unravel some of these codes, symbols and messages, which are crystal clear to those on the extreme right, just as they slip by those not steeped in the underlying conspiracy theories.

“The shooter who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall was wearing a patch that read ‘RWDS’ — short for ‘right-wing death squad’ — a phrase that has been embraced in recent years by far-right extremists who glorify violence against their political enemies.

“Authorities have not said what they believe motivated the shooter, Mauricio Garcia, who was killed by a police officer who happened to be near the mall Saturday [5/6] when Garcia opened fire… Posts by Garcia, 33, on a Russian social networking site expressed a fascination with white supremacy and mass shootings. He posted photos showing large Nazi tattoos on his arm and torso, including a swastika and the lightning bolt logo of the SS, Hitler’s paramilitary forces.

“Here is a look at the term and how it became popular among violent extremists… : What’s the history behind use of the initials ‘RWDS’?... The acronym for right-wing death squad is one of countless shorthand terms used by extremists. Others include ‘RaHoWa,’ short for Racial Holy War, and ‘1488 ,’ an alphanumeric code combining references to a white nationalist slogan and Adolf Hitler.

“The term right-wing death squad originally emerged in the 1970s and ’80s to describe Central and South American paramilitary groups created to support right-wing governments and dictatorships and target perceived enemies on the left, said Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism…. The term reemerged in the 2010s among members of right-wing groups, who use it on stickers and patches and in online forums. Other far-right gear and online memes specifically glorify Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the brutal Chilean military dictator whose death squads killed thousands of political opponents… ‘It essentially became a phrase that was co-opted to demonstrate opposition to the left more broadly by right-wing extremists,’ Segal said.”

Some of these extremist rightwing militia leaders and proponents of violent resistance against the “enemies” of White Christian nationalists are well-read… and they cast the evils of history as policies their followers are mandated to follow. I suspect that they believe an English translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) is a good summer read. Remember, most of these believers are very well armed!

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you think this is merely rhetoric that is normal in a democracy, take a long hard look at the rise in mass shootings, with AR-15 style assault rifles, all over this country… in the name of rightwing political beliefs.