Very helpful @benwallacewells piece: "...a general pattern has become clear across the extremist factions: far-right and conspiratorial movements were, in effect, “mainstreamed and normalized” as they were channelled into the protests over the election..." newyorker.com/news/our-colum…
“We see a spike in activity after every major war. Spikes in Klan membership align with the aftermath of warfare; the early militia movement aligns with the aftermath of warfare,” @kathleen_belew told @benwallacewells.
These observations—of the central presence of women, and of the vivid white-power imagery—are even more interesting in combination. They suggest a coalition that has been able to broaden without, so far, being forced to change.
That so many of these faces were familiar to people like @mrolmos and the @UR_Ninja journalists, who had studied local riots closely, suggests that the universe of potentially violent extremists might not be vast or unknowable.
The extremist movement has been, as @milleridriss put it, “normalized and mainstreamed” by politicians who saw opportunity in leveraging it.
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