By Greg Sargent
Columnist |
August 25, 2022 at 12:28 p.m. EDT
Consider the events of this month alone: Members of a militia in Michigan were convicted of a plot to kidnap the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. We’ve seen numerous threats and attempts at violent attacks against the FBI. And the Internal Revenue Service launched a new security review in response to threats of violence toward its workforce.
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There is an unsettling historical fact associated with the IRS’s security review: It is the first time the agency has seen the need for this since far-right domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
Threats of political violence appear to be rising. Donald Trump continues to treat his effort to incite the violent overthrow of the government as a righteous cause, and a large swath of his party is embracing him in that project.
What’s more, with Trump under investigation for hoarding highly classified documents, escalating threats toward the FBI have done nothing to dissuade Republicans from throwing around virulently hyperbolic rhetoric about alleged federal law enforcement thuggery. And Republicans have launched a new wave of wild-eyed nonsense about the IRS amid still more threats.
In eerie ways, a good deal of this echoes the 1990s. And as luck would have it, Nicole Hemmer, a historian of the American right wing, is set to release “Partisans,” a new book on the 1990s that traces many pathologies in our current politics back to that decade.
So I reached out to Hemmer to discuss the parallels between then and now. An edited and condensed version of our exchange follows.
Greg Sargent: The IRS announced their first security review since the Oklahoma City bombing. Militia members were just convicted for a plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan. Threats against federal agents are rising.
I’m having bad flashbacks to the 1990s. Are you?
Nicole Hemmer: I am having those same flashbacks. The 1990s are a decade when militia activism in the United States and far-right violence were surging.
Sargent: Can we attempt a taxonomy of today’s right wing? How do you define the different components?
Hemmer: You have a violent far right that believes the government is fully illegitimate, and that violence is the proper response to any kind of government action or presence: The Oregon wildlife refuge occupation, the attempts to kidnap Whitmer.
You have groups like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who are violent but also have clear political goals. And then you have a more mainstream right-wing political movement that has become more and more attracted to violence in recent years. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But also Donald Trump himself.
In 2016, he was encouraging police brutality, encouraging people to beat up protesters. He was tapping into violence and giving it his stamp of approval. We see rising interest in violence over the course of his presidency.
Sargent: It seems to me today’s climate is more similar to the 1990s than, say, to the Barack Obama years. The tea party was about racist backlash and Obamacare “death panels.” But the enemies in the 1990s were globalists, federal agencies, law enforcement — just like today.
Hemmer: That shift back to the enemies of the 1990s — Donald Trump plays a pretty big role in bringing that language back and mainstreaming it.
Sargent: In a sense the 1990s created the politics of today.
Hemmer: You’re right that the 1990s are the origin of a lot of these arguments. The militia movement itself really comes to the fore in the 1990s.
But things change. In the 1990s, the foreign country most in the sights of the far right was Japan, and now it’s China. Now, you have social media and a kind of meme language that transfers over into mainstream politics. Language like “cuck” has become pretty familiar even though it used to belong to the fringes. The shift in media is really important.
Columnist |
August 25, 2022 at 12:28 p.m. EDT
Consider the events of this month alone: Members of a militia in Michigan were convicted of a plot to kidnap the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. We’ve seen numerous threats and attempts at violent attacks against the FBI. And the Internal Revenue Service launched a new security review in response to threats of violence toward its workforce.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
There is an unsettling historical fact associated with the IRS’s security review: It is the first time the agency has seen the need for this since far-right domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.
Threats of political violence appear to be rising. Donald Trump continues to treat his effort to incite the violent overthrow of the government as a righteous cause, and a large swath of his party is embracing him in that project.
What’s more, with Trump under investigation for hoarding highly classified documents, escalating threats toward the FBI have done nothing to dissuade Republicans from throwing around virulently hyperbolic rhetoric about alleged federal law enforcement thuggery. And Republicans have launched a new wave of wild-eyed nonsense about the IRS amid still more threats.
In eerie ways, a good deal of this echoes the 1990s. And as luck would have it, Nicole Hemmer, a historian of the American right wing, is set to release “Partisans,” a new book on the 1990s that traces many pathologies in our current politics back to that decade.
So I reached out to Hemmer to discuss the parallels between then and now. An edited and condensed version of our exchange follows.
Greg Sargent: The IRS announced their first security review since the Oklahoma City bombing. Militia members were just convicted for a plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of Michigan. Threats against federal agents are rising.
I’m having bad flashbacks to the 1990s. Are you?
Nicole Hemmer: I am having those same flashbacks. The 1990s are a decade when militia activism in the United States and far-right violence were surging.
Sargent: Can we attempt a taxonomy of today’s right wing? How do you define the different components?
Hemmer: You have a violent far right that believes the government is fully illegitimate, and that violence is the proper response to any kind of government action or presence: The Oregon wildlife refuge occupation, the attempts to kidnap Whitmer.
You have groups like Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who are violent but also have clear political goals. And then you have a more mainstream right-wing political movement that has become more and more attracted to violence in recent years. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But also Donald Trump himself.
In 2016, he was encouraging police brutality, encouraging people to beat up protesters. He was tapping into violence and giving it his stamp of approval. We see rising interest in violence over the course of his presidency.
Sargent: It seems to me today’s climate is more similar to the 1990s than, say, to the Barack Obama years. The tea party was about racist backlash and Obamacare “death panels.” But the enemies in the 1990s were globalists, federal agencies, law enforcement — just like today.
Hemmer: That shift back to the enemies of the 1990s — Donald Trump plays a pretty big role in bringing that language back and mainstreaming it.
Sargent: In a sense the 1990s created the politics of today.
Hemmer: You’re right that the 1990s are the origin of a lot of these arguments. The militia movement itself really comes to the fore in the 1990s.
But things change. In the 1990s, the foreign country most in the sights of the far right was Japan, and now it’s China. Now, you have social media and a kind of meme language that transfers over into mainstream politics. Language like “cuck” has become pretty familiar even though it used to belong to the fringes. The shift in media is really important.
