Jared Yates Sexton Profile picture
Apr 27, 2021 14 tweets 5 min read Read on X
As it's becoming increasingly clear the FBI and police have partnered with the Proud Boys, we need to talk about the long and ugly history of the alliance between law enforcement and fascist groups in protecting white supremacy and the wealthy.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/a-natural-al…
It was shocking to a lot of people to see police and paramilitary groups buddy up to each other during the BLM protests, but history shows these groups have the same interests and goals.

They work together for a common goal: protecting white supremacy and the economic system

2/
Revelations have shown that the Proud Boys and their leaders have been partnering with law enforcement, federal and local, in targeting "Antifa."

This is how it happens. The Right and law enforcement partner to take down possible reformers.

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To start, we have to go back to the 1790's, where the French Revolution inspired the start of British policing to stave off revolution.

The same people who led the police found paramilitary street gangs to intimidate, attack, and sabotage the Left.

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The purpose, of both the police and the street gangs, was to protect established power and wealth.

What's more, their members were often members of both the police force AND the paramilitary group. A trend that continues to this very day.

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The reason our law enforcement and military are full of white supremacists is because they are engaged in common cause.

The enforcement of law and order, as they are currently defined, is about suppressing reform and "protecting" society from people of color.

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There's a reason law enforcement fashions itself as a crusade for good against evil, a "Thin Blue Line" between society and criminal evil.

It's based in the history of white supremacy and the idea that Anglo Saxon culture is wholly and good.

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In America, we've seen this play out in extralegal ways, as law enforcement has helped paramilitary, fascist mobs lynch people of color, burn down their neighborhoods and businesses, and murder them in cold blood in the street.

It is a long, long partnership.

8/
The conspiracy theories we're dealing with now are also at the heart of the relationship as law enforcement and white supremacists believe they are "protecting" America from a major conspiracy and legitimize violence on the idea that foreign influences are destroying us.

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With Civil Rights, violent whites and law enforcement believed African Americans were unwitting agents of Communist plots.

They believed they were defending America from a terrorist conspiracy determined to destroy them.

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This paranoid mindset is why the FBI and law enforcement prosecuted Civil Rights figures like MLK.

They worked to undermine and destroy them, believing they were fighting a foreign plot. They used incredibly insidious means, including partnering with violent extremists.

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We continue to see the same paranoia and partnership between law enforcement and the fascistic Right play out to this very day.

The idea that BLM was a "Marxist" conspiracy is just an echo of past racist paranoia and saw them coming together to crush reformers.

12/
This is how an event like January 6th can take place even as law enforcement knows it's coming, how they were also involved in it.

Because the white supremacist paranoia pairs them with extremists in defending white supremacy and economic power.

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The problem isn't just that white supremacists have infiltrated law enforcement, both local and federal, it's that the two are inherently linked by ideology.

They have the same goals, same purpose, which is to destroy any and all challenges to the white supremacist system

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More from @JYSexton

Jun 7
Authoritarianism is on the rise and democracy is on the verge of destruction because the wealthy have dismantled reality.

That's why we're awash in conspiracy theories and why education, journalism, and science are being demolished.

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/the-flooded-…
Image
The wealthy have always attacked information and tried to control education and access to information about what they have done, but this new era gives them incredible tools to complete what they have always tried to do: control reality itself.

Right now, we are losing this war.
People are familiar with Steve Bannon's "flood the zone with shit" strategy, but the wealthy have been attacking information for forever.

In America we have been inundated with attacks on empirical reality for all of our lives. This has been a concentrated effort. Image
Read 8 tweets
May 31
Trump’s conviction should be the end of his political career.

The Right rallying violently around him should be a moment for some to realize we’re in a severe crisis and leave behind the comforting lies they’ve been sold.

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/when-the-end…
Image
For years people have been making so much money and gaining influence assuring followers the system would solve the Trump problem. That he would be held accountable and the spell would break.

These are false prophecies. The date of the apocalypse came and went. We’re still here. Image
The truth is that Trump is a symptom of a larger disease. We’re facing a full-blown authoritarian tilt with complicated factors.

It’s cathartic to see these convictions, but focusing on the joy hides a deeper truth that we must face if we’re going to survive.
Read 9 tweets
May 18
Persecution is essential to the Right’s worldview.

They can become wealthy and influential for no reason whatsoever, get treated seriously despite never earning a shred of it, and still it’s never enough to fill the emptiness that defines them. Image
The Right is defined by undiagnosed and repressed trauma, a self-hatred that has to be projected onto the rest of the world.

There’s not enough money or fame or power to fix it and any measure of it just feeds their self-hate, making them more and more miserable.
We should be grateful to Musk and Trump and all the people in their orbits. They tutor us everyday in the true nature of wealth and power and what fuels the need to hurt others.

It’s an ideology that follows self-hate masked by narcissistic persecution complexes.
Read 8 tweets
May 8
Trump should be punished for his crimes.

But the circus around his trial is more about avoiding talking about actual problems and instead believing our institutions are fundamentally sound and Trump isn’t a symptom of a much larger disease.

jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/decline-and-…
Image
The Trump Hush Money Trial is a perfect tabloid storm. But nothing coming out of the trial will matter electorally.

And even if Trump were to go to jail, the Right Wing authoritarian movement won’t just dissipate. It’s comforting fantasy and entertainment.
For 8 years now we’ve watched as one person after another told us Mueller or Comey or Smith would get Trump and fix this for us.

And what it’s hidden is that Trump is a front for a much, much bigger problem that goes way beyond him.
Read 8 tweets
May 8
Apple has unintentionally made one of the most fitting and revealing advertisements of the modern era.

My god. This horror perfectly encapsulates the feeling of life as the powerful wreak escalatingly careless and clueless destruction.
That nobody at Apple looked at this nightmare and vetoed it is everything you need to know. They were just in a hurry to sell some dumb, barely updated version of an old product and thought people would enjoy the visuals. And they gave us a perfect discordant horror show image.
The most frightening thing about about our crisis is that the powerful are increasingly clueless while more powerful and wealthy than ever. That’s what nepotism and rigged markets will get you.

And they’re the ones with their hands on the hydraulic press.
Read 4 tweets
May 4
The thing that so many people are resistant to deal with is that the protests aren’t just about Gaza anymore but also state violence and what confrontations over power will look like as our crisis worsens.

And how that and Gaza and all our other major issues are tied together.
We’ve been conditioned to segment all issues, to separate them, but the truth is that the very force that enables indiscriminate brutality around the world is what keeps women from controlling their bodies, people of color from voting, and what keeps oppression rolling.
What our politics have been reduced to is arguing over whether to accelerate fascism or keep the status quo that is riven through with authoritarianism and getting worse.

What we’re watching now is a confrontation over whether that frame will be allowed to change.
Read 7 tweets

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