Jared Yates Sexton Profile picture
Jun 29, 2020 32 tweets 11 min read Read on X
All right.

Let's talk about that couple who pointed their guns at peaceful protesters and how the racist, paranoid reality they're drowning in is one of the cornerstones of American life and continues to put all our lives at risk to this very day.

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themuckrake.com/main/radicaliz…
I know it's easy to make fun of these people. They look ridiculous. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that they threatened innocent people with loaded guns and a massive tragedy could've played out.

We have to address this and recognize how we got here.

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All around American paranoid white people are threatening protesters with guns, chainsaws, knives, clubs, bats, waiting for "antifa buses" and hordes of protesters to show up and destroy their towns.

They live in a manufactured alternate reality and are primed for violence.

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Of course, we must talk about Fox News and Donald Trump and how they have created this tinderbox of racial paranoia, but to start there means that we dismiss America's LONG history of racist paranoia.

We have to confront ourselves and our past if we want to get out of this.

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We have to go back to the very founding of America, to where a white oligarchy framed a Constitution they weren't even authorized to make and then told states they either authorized it or were going to be subjected to deadly attacks by Native Americans.

That was the appeal.

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Even back then, in the 18th century, American media framed the narrative as a do-or-die struggle for white people.

They either went along with the plans or else they were going to be subjected to slaughter by people of color.

That's the cornerstone of this country.

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We like to think about the Confederacy as this aberration, but the Confederates believed they were in line with the Founders, and they seceded citing paranoid conspiracy theories that shadowy organizations were meaning to cause slaves to rise up in violence.

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The story of America that is largely hidden and kept from people is a story of white paranoia and is tinged with these conspiracy theories that people of color must be controlled lest they spontaneously turn to widespread bloodshed and violence.

It permeates everything.

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This is something people misunderstand.

White supremacy is about believing that people of color are naturally inferior and violent and susceptible to manipulation.

White supremacists believe they're caring for people of color, that they're stewards for them.

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Time and time again, white supremacists have de-legitimized protests and movements by people of color by claiming outside manipulators are using them.

For a long time the scapegoat was communists and this led to widespread violence and lynching.

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This continued into the Civil Rights Movement, where white supremacists rationalized their violence by citing paranoid conspiracy theories that communists were agitating people of color to protest.

In their minds, they were warding off an invasion.

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These are aspects of our history that are just conveniently left out of our curricula. White paranoia has shaped response to people of color and has directed the scope and breadth of the violence.

It is this fear of potential manipulation and violence that leads to this.

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Again.

What we are talking about here is white supremacy, or the belief that people of color are just naturally barbaric and unless they are controlled by a superior race they will be manipulated and will simply destroy society.

That's what's happening now.

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Across the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, people were murdered, beaten, bloodied in the streets.

The people doing it believed they were protecting themselves and fighting a communist invasion. It was weaponized white paranoia turned into violence.

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And it wasn't just white supremacist politicians in the South stoking that paranoia.

As high up as J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, people believed they were fighting a communist invasion in Civil Rights. They infiltrated groups, harassed them, infringed on their rights.

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Meanwhile, protesters were brutalized in the streets and treated like animals.

People of color were dehumanized, turned into "savages" or pawns in a larger game of white supremacist control.

White Americans thought they were fighting an invisible war.

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That idea of an invisible war was forwarded by Neo-Confederate preachers like Jerry Falwell.

If you haven't, please look up my Cult of the Shining City writings for further information, but what he proposed was that communists and Satan were manipulating protesters.

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Over time, the idea of an invisible war between white supremacists and outside agitators took shape into the New World Order conspiracy, in part because of the tragedies of Ruby Ridge and Waco.

It didn't help, of course, that a Democrat was president at the time.

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The sad truth is that there was money to make and power to be had in the wake of Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Conspiracy theorists gained purchase in the culture and showed how these tragedies could be juiced for maximum effect.

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Organizations like the GOP and NRA spun a narrative that liberals were traitors in league with the so-called New World Order and that they, in league with manipulatable minorities, were going to overthrow America and threaten white Americans

This proved incredibly lucrative

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Using conspiracy theories, Republicans gained power in the government and raised unbelievable amounts from paranoid white people. The NRA grew in stature and raked in the cash.

It was obvious that white paranoia was primed and ready to be cultivated.

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Of course, this story wouldn't be complete without mentioning the murderous consequences of stoking white paranoia.

Believing he was in an invisible war, Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in OKC.

He believed the lie wholeheartedly.

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Despite this and other tragedy, Roger Ailes formed Fox News with the understanding that there was a major marketing niche for selling this paranoid alternate reality to terrified white Americans.

This is the basis of FNC. Always has been, always will be.

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Fox News sells to its viewers a sanitized, cleaned-up version of the New World Order conspiracy theory.

They'll never use the name, but the narrative is explicitly NWO and follows the narrative that cabals and liberal traitors are using minorities as weapons.

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The way Fox does it is to appeal to white nostalgia, to call back to an America where people of color were quietly oppressed and dissenting voices unheard

They do it as a way of stoking the paranoia that liberal traitors are intentionally destroying the country.

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In recent years, with Obama and Hillary Clinton, the message has gotten progressively clearer.

They allege a major international conspiracy to undermine America. It is, again, the New World Order conspiracy theory in message and shape.

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The effect has been a massive spike in gun sales, which is part of the goal. Fox and its partners commodify white paranoia into industries like guns, prepping supplies, gold, and the like.

It's about creating and exploiting fear.

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That's what prepping is about. The commodification of white paranoia that a race war is coming, that the New World Order is coming to take their guns and put them into white slavery.

It is the fear that pushes the needle for Fox, the GOP, and the NRA.

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It also happens that this white paranoia wins elections. The GOP can no longer win unless it hatches up the electorate and gets paranoid white people to the polls to vote for protectors against the invisible threat of the New World Order and radicalized people of color.

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But there are consequences.

Other than widespread racism, people like McVeigh who believe they're soldiers in this invisible war kill on a mass scale. They mow people down. Slaughter them in cold blood.

They live in the reality the GOP, NRA, and FNC have peddled.

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If you believe the New World Order conspiracy, if you believe there's an invisible war, then murder is acceptable. You are, after all, a soldier defending your family and country.

This is how fascism becomes acceptable, through a fake, propaganda threat people believe.

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There's nothing innocuous about those people pointing guns at protesters. There have already been mass tragedies coming from this white paranoia.

We'll be INCREDIBLY lucky if we avoid more bloodshed because these people truly believe they're engaged in an invisible war.

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More from @JYSexton

Apr 16
What’s happening right now is that the Right is loudly expressing their bigotry and desire to crush what little of “the Left” exists and the Center is simultaneously appalled by their openness but trying quietly and institutionally to crush what little of “the Left” exists.
One of the reasons things seem strange right now is because the American understanding of actual politics versus our conventional “Red/Blue” narrative is so limited that most people are living in a mystified state that obscures the actual struggles and fault lines.
When you work in institutions (I was in academia for 16 years) you start to get a real glimpse at performative cowardice and hollow principles. And you understand exactly how the song and dance works and what the Center offers and really values.
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Authoritarianism is systemic abuse and feeds off crushing the human spirit.

It assaults us with unthinkable atrocities and means to convince a better world isn’t possible. Resistance begins with rejecting this and fighting for what we deserve.

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/its-meant-to…
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People want us to believe authoritarianism exists at the point of a gun, but it’s a disease of despair.

Authoritarians bombard us with abuse meant to destroy our spirit and convince us the reality of life is violence.
There are only three ways authoritarianism wins. It entices you to put on the armband and participate, it crushes you as opposition, or it convinces you to look away as it takes control.

This is the reality that was hidden from us post-war. And we must recognize it.
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What has been systematically created is a zero-sum society where the ruthless are rewarded and a deep distrust of one another is instilled, creating the perfect environment for corporate dominance in which solidarity is prevented and democratic energy contained.
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It is a deep, deep wound. And we must heal from it.
America is far from the first country to suffer this. Neoliberalism has systematically spread this trauma around the globe. But it has infected us and created a fetid environment that’s perfect for dominance and oppression. Healing is the only way forward.
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Moments like the NBC and MSNBC revolt over the hiring of Ronna McDaniel and the resulting cave by management serve as ready-made examples of how the power of employers is dependent upon a complete and total illusion of total authority that can be easily shattered.
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The moment employees realize the abuse and exploitation they’re enduring can be ended is when the illusion shatters. When you realize you deserve better the wheel is already in motion. And that’s exactly what we need at this moment.
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I know it’s cathartic to see Trump bled of his assets, but there are millions of Americans deeply familiar with having their homes and cars taken from them and liens on their paychecks.

Just saying, maybe pump the breaks on the “optics being bad.”
I continue to be shocked by how hating Trump is revealing so many deeply-held beliefs people would rather pretend aren’t there. Disgust with fat people, constant cosmetic judgments, disdain for poor people.
Trump is deeply, deeply detestable. He represents the worst in humanity. But the reasons to like him go way beyond how he looks or any of these other small critiques. And I’m sorry, but his financial collapse is not going to win any voters over from his side.
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The wealth in this country is divided between antidemocratic billionaires and corporate “centrists” who are consistently moving rightward as the billionaires rush headlong into authoritarianism.

That’s why it increasingly gets worse as tired political lenses make less sense.
The old “Left vs Right” narrative is false. We have a center and a Right, and the center continues to move rightward. Money, power, and influence tear away at liberal democracy as we’re continually told a long dead paradigm is at play.
The fight now is between authoritarians and institutionalists wary of democracy or change. The narratives playing out are just stories hiding growing radicalization and acceptance of authoritarianism throughout the monied class.

And millions are just lost in those narratives.
Read 5 tweets

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