Thread by @JYSexton

So.

White extremists have shot and beaten protesters and been caught planning violence and fascist coups.

Let's talk about America's long history of cooperation between law enforcement and extremists.

Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.

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penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…

First things first, this isn't an isolated case. Throughout American history law enforcement has worked with violent extremists and hired militias to protect "law and order / protect wealth, power, and privilege.

This history has been largely hidden.

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themuckrake.com/main/collusion

Unfortunately, the incident in New Mexico where a "militia," or an armed gang of white men, shot a protester isn't that shocking in the scheme of American history.

We've been here and we'll continue to skirt on the edge of a fascistic abyss until we recognize our history.

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Many of us were shocked when we saw this video of law enforcement warning the Proud Boys, a white supremacist gang, about cracking down on protesters and not wanting to "play favorites."

It was an insight into a part of America that is largely covered up and disinfected.

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In this current moment, white terrorists are by far the biggest threat to American security.

It isn't protesters. It isn't "Antifa." It isn't liberals traitors or any of these conspiracy theories.

It's enabled white supremacist violence. And it has always been the case.

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To begin, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. To 1786 and what's come to be known as Shays' Rebellion, an uprising by nascent Americans frustrated by taxation and their lack of representation.

This uprising absolutely terrified the powerful and wealthy.

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Shays Rebellion was so widespread that eventually the wealthy and powerful were forced to hire mercenaries and private militia to protect themselves. Law enforcement and these private armies quelled the rebellion, but it uncovered a flaw in America's government.

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Representatives assembled in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation, but the fear of an uprising led them to make remarkable and unauthorized changes.

They weren't there to craft a new Constitution, but the threat motivated them to go beyond their authority.

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Though members of the convention protested that they weren't authorized to create a new government, members like James Madison pushed them to do so, even if it was a coup, and the agreement hashed out was meant to stave off any threats to their power.

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The newly constituted government was predicated on protection from uprisings by poor Americans and to seal into the country's foundation white supremacy in the form of slavery.

What happened after that, unfortunately, was a war between the government and its people.

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Because of the unequal, racist nature of the government, law enforcement continually partnered with extremists, including in returning escaped slaves, and subjugating the people, both in regards to race and class.

This was the beginning of American law enforcement.

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Following the Civil War, southern law enforcement worked hand-in-hand with the Ku Klux Klan, a paramilitary white terrorist organization. They either looked the other way or were actually members of the Klan themselves.

It was an extralegal movement based on white supremacy

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This relationship between the law and KKK, a marriage of legal and extralegal means, was the way the South continued white supremacy and the suppression of African Americans for generations.

It was a partnership. Clear and simple.

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But it wasn't just limited in terms of race. Law enforcement also partnered with wealthy elites in suppressing labor unrest.

Law enforcement worked alongside private militias and mercenaries to wage war on workers struggling for modest wages, killing them regularly.

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In one nauseating instance, law enforcement worked alongside extremist mercenaries in Ludlow, CO, in 1914 using machine guns to mow down protestors and their families, killing 20, including 12 children.

This massacre was a blueprint for the continued cooperation.

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The pattern has been consistent.

Law enforcement and extremists harming protesters and "radicals" and using conspiracy theories as their explanation.

Like the New World Order conspiracy theory, the Mayday protesters in 1919 were being "manipulated by foreign agents."

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In the Red Summer, unions and protesters were assaulted, stabbed, kidnapped, by a cadre of police and white right wing extremists.

Again, it was a partnership between the state, law enforcement, and these terrorists, all of it motivated by conspiracy theories and fear.

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By now, some people are aware of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was a nightmarish display of white paranoid violence that saw people murdered in the street, airplanes dropping bombs on black neighborhoods, their homes burnt and looted.

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As the madness played out in Tampa, it was being perpetrated by white extremists as well as law enforcement, the two sides working in tandem on an orgy of white supremacist violence and murder.

Again. It was the state and the mob suppressing people of color.

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But those are singular incidents. No conversation about this topic would be complete without mentioning the epidemic of lynching that again partnered the state, law enforcement, and white extremists.

Thousands took place and they were enabled by police.

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Lynchings weren't just private affairs taking place on the edge of town. Cops helped. People held picnics. They were major parties and social affairs that entire towns participated and reveled in.

Again. It was the state, law enforcement, and white extremists partnering.

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The racial violence in the 20th century revived the KKK and they began consolidating power again, forming a relationship between the legal and the extralegal as law enforcement turned the other way or put the hoods on themselves.

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In contrast to the post-Civil War KKK, this KKK spread across the nation and acted in the open air with impunity.

They took over the political machinery of states like Indiana and had much influence over law enforcement.

Again. The state, law enforcement, white extremists.

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When the Civil Rights Movement pushed back against this partnership, the Confederacy and white supremacists came out into the open to fight them.

Again. These extremists were aided by the police and the state, continuing centuries of partnership in white supremacy.

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Protesters during the Civil Rights Movement were assaulted simultaneously by white supremacists AND law enforcement, the two sides stoning them, clubbing them, bombing their homes and churches, threatening their lives.

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But it wasn't just Southern white supremacists. The US government itself was working behind the scenes to undermine the Civil Rights protesters, surveilling them, dispatching spies, threatening their lives and violating their Constitutional rights.

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The actual working plan for the US government was to crush these protesters. They shredded the Constitution, and all because, like every other white supremacist movement, they believed a conspiracy theory that outside actors were manipulating the movement.

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This has always been a top-down operation, this partnership between the state, law enforcement, and white extremists.

When a protest movement emerges, it is attacked full-force, whether it's by FBI programs, violent actors in hard hats, or a spate of hate crimes.

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Unfortunately, we're watching it play out again now.

White extremists are in the streets with the quiet support of law enforcement and the government, ready to enact violence against protesters in order to restore order to a white supremacist state.

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As it's happened in the past, protesters are being called terrorists while extremists and KKK members enact actual violence and murder.

It is the same twisted narrative that has played out over and over and over again and people have to see it for what it is.

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The rise of white militias and extremist groups has happened before and it threatens our democracy every time.

It's allowed to happen because America refuses to confront its white supremacist problem and the state relies on these threats to retain power.

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It is a powderkeg though, and the shooting in New Mexico and the arrests so far might only be the beginning.

As the BLM movement gains strength and power, we will see more of these extremists threatening violence as well as law enforcement and the state standing by.

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It doesn't hurt, of course, that like the days of the KKK, law enforcement has been infiltrated by white supremacists looking to use its power and violence for their own ends.

This is our history. It's continuing. And until we realize that, we're doomed to repeat it.

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