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Jeet Heer Profile picture
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30 Jun, 4 tweets, 1 min read
1. I don't think it's sufficiently understood that the battle over the meaning of January 6 is feeding into the new salience of racism/anti-racism in right wing arguments.
2. On the face of it, going big on anti-anti-racism (as in the CRT moral panic) doesn't make a lot of sense under Biden (who by virtue of being an old white man isn't an easy target). 2020 was a depolarizing election on race. But January 6 has made it central again.
3. Involvement of racist groups like Proud Boys in Jan. 6 & also disproportionate role of former military led Biden administration to give priority to rooting out racist extremism in military. Tucker Carlson has been on forefront of stoking backlash to this.
4. Ultimately I think the anti-CRT stuff & "woke military" nonsense will feed off each other. That's the direction culture wars heading. More here: jeetheer.substack.com/p/extremists-i…

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More from @HeerJeet

Jeet Heer Profile picture
1 Jul
1. Bill Cosby. Donald Rumsfeld. Two very different careers. Very different men. And yet.
2. The coincidence of Cosby's conviction being overturned at the same time as Rumsfeld's death underscores the power of elite impunity.
3. With Cosby, it's important to understand the 2004 non-prosecution agreement (the root reason why his own testimony of guilt can't be used) was only part of a much larger pattern of legal system not willing to hold him to account.
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
25 Jun
1. One of the big differences between Canada & the USA is the relative salience of Indigenous issues. Canada has considerably more Indigenous per capita (especially if you consider only continental USA) & issues of treaty rights are more prominent.
2. In general, Indigenous concerns (history, culture, politics) more prominent in Canada & also just in social life (i.e. city I live in is nearly 10% First Nations or Metis). But I think American situation is changing and will soon change in big way.
3. The uncovering of mass graves & unmarked graves near former residential schools in Canada is spurring on similar research in USA. Deb Haaland being Interior Secretary is a big factor. newrepublic.com/article/162821…
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
25 Jun
1. The American right's turn against the military (as "woke" and beholden to CRT) is a pretty significant development, not without precedent & very specifically focused on officer class, but still something new & pregnant with meaning.
2. To be very specific, the focus of the right's ire is on the military leadership. This is what I'd call the Rambo trope: "the troops are good, they want to win, it's the goddamn pencil neck bureaucrats in the Pentagon that are the problem."
3. The Rambo trope all precedes Rambo of course: you see it in Dixiecrat attacks on desegregation of military and in Joseph McCarthy's attack on George Marshall & (suicidally) his attempt to red bait the Pentagon.
Read 8 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
24 Jun
1. The threat of the insurrectionist right remains real. Yet this clip, on a network Trump has appeared on, shows the limits of a counter-terrorism approach. This isn't a hidden network; it's an out-in-the-open political movement advocating violence.
2. As in 1850s, the threat of insurrection is coming from within the system, from people who have positions of power, wealth & status in the existing order. That makes it a threat of a different order & kind than, say, 9/11 or even the Oklahoma bombing.
3. As far as I can tell, the existing counter-terrorism models all posit threats from outside the system, from extremists on the fringe rather than extremists who have their own TV network, a former president egging them on, etc.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
23 Jun
1. This is in fact the typical coalition of right-wing mobilization: elite defense of status quo allying with vulgar anger: the snobs & the slobs. In 1920 Lothrop Stoddard writing tomes while other rougher Klansmen did the lynchings: led to 1924 immigration act among others.
2. One sees the snobs & slobs alliance in McCarthyism, with roughneck Tailgunner Joe providing the popular touch while Wilmoore Kendall & William F. Buckley (and even, sadly Sidney Hook) providing a high-brow rational for red baiting.
3. As I mentioned the other day, anti-CRT movement has this component, with both a very explicitly racialist base stirring up shit & a very organized think tank/dark money infrastructure pushing it into respectable form of GOP bills.
Read 6 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
22 Jun
1. In 1974 violence broke out Kanawha County, West Virginia over comparative religion textbooks. Fundamentalist parents dynamited a school building among other acts of violence. Then the Heritage Foundation stepped in & offered legal defense for the alleged dynamiters.
2. The Kanawha County textbook wars of 1974 are a direct precursor to the anti-CRT struggles today. While political battles over schooling are immemorial, the specific model of 1974 (agitated parents, right-wing think tanks proving organizing) started in 1974.
3. Heritage Foundation has taken the lead in organizing anti-CRT for the same reason they intervened in text book wars of 1974: school battles are a good way to recruit grassroots into movement conservatism.
Read 5 tweets

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