far right 
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4/11/2021
Prosecuting Sedition in a Divided Nation is a Challenge as Old as America
by William H. Pruden III
America's cultural value on free expression makes conviction of far-right radicals on sedition charges unlikely. The Ft. Smith, Arkansas trial in 1988 was a PR victory for the far right when 14 defendants accused of plotting against the government were acquitted.
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SOURCE: New York Times
4/6/2021
Fears of White People Losing Out Permeate Capitol Rioters’ Towns, Study Finds
Political scientist Robert Pape's work suggests that the prime driver of participation in the Capitol Riots was a sense that the election result reflected a threat to the power and influence of whites in American culture, with familiar echoes to racist and nativist movements of the past.
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3/28/2021
Ammon Bundy's Ongoing Religious War
by Betsy Gaines Quammen
Ammon Bundy has been looking for another battle since the takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. With a new administration promising increased regulation of public lands use, he may choose one soon.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
3/8/2021
The John Birch Society Never Left
by Rick Perlstein and Edward H. Miller
Journalists are calling for the Republicans to follow the lead of William F. Buckley and stand up to far-right extremists in their ranks. The problem is that neither Buckley nor the GOP of the 1960s did any such thing, instead perfecting the technique of speaking to two audiences.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
2/22/2021
The 150-Year Prosecution of White Supremacy
Merrick Garland's answers to quesitons about domestic right-wing extremism show that he understands the through-line connecting post-Reconstruction racist terrorism, the 1990s militia movement, and the groups present at the US Capitol on January 6. It remains to be seen if he will have the support he needs to follow through on his pledge to prosecute them.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/15/2021
McConnell’s Task: Purging the Crackpots and Bigots
by Kevin M. Schultz
William F. Buckley Jr. was able to advance conservative ideas by publicly dissociating from antisemites, Ayn Rand cultists and John Birch conspiracists on the right-wing fringes. Mitch McConnell's problem leading America's conservative party is that all those groups are back with a vengeance.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/16/2021
Police Forces Have Long Tried to Weed Out Extremists in the Ranks. Then Came the Capitol Riot
The Capitol riots highlight the dangerous potential for far right extremists to operate inside police departments, as well as official ignorance of the scope of the problem.
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2/14/2021
Trumpism after Trump: Beyond Fascism
by Gavriel Rosenfeld
Understanding the future of the far-right grievance politics catalyzed by the Trump presidency, it might be helpful to think of it as "MAGA-ism," a 21st century American phenomenon.
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/5/2021
Marjorie Taylor Greene Knows Exactly What She's Doing
by Jamelle Bouie
Historians Lisa McGirr, Sara Diamond, and Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld argue that the Republican Party has always had to keep a porous border between itself and the hard right groups who led its activist base since the Goldwater years. The borders today seem to be dissolving.
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SOURCE: CNN
2/5/2021
What Kyle Rittenhouse's Fate Reveals about Law and Order
by Nicole Hemmer
Historically, white vigilantism, especially against the demands of minorities for civil and economic equality, has been a key component of the politics of "law and order."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
2/7/2021
A Century Ago, White Protestant Extremism Marched on Washington
"There still has to be a reckoning within white Christian churches about white supremacy. There need to be very careful conversations about this, not as, 'Individuals are prejudiced,' but about, 'This is the system that we all inhabit'."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/28/2021
Opinion: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Vile New Antics Highlight A 50-Year GOP Story
Washington Post Political Columnist Greg Sargent says that Marjorie Taylor Greene's conspiratorial bigotry reflects a historical problem with the Republican Party: the porous boundary between the mainstream and the extremist fringe. But that boundary is weaker than ever today.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/26/2021
Out of the Barrel of a Gun
The resurgent militia movement and renewed attention to the threat of political violence compels a reckoning with the vast number of firearms in America and with the political significance of guns.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/26/2021
Lone Wolves Connected Online: A History of Modern White Supremacy
Forty years ago, Louis Beam had the idea of using the internet to drive a movement. Today, his vision is disturbingly prevalent.
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SOURCE: NPR
1/15/2021
When White Extremism Seeps Into The Mainstream
Historian Kathleen Belew discusses the history of the far right and the work of separating the hard core of the movement from its fringes and those who might be persuaded to join it.
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
1/14/2021
A TV Documentary Shows the Deep Roots of Right-Wing Conspiracy
New Yorker critic Richard Brody discusses the 1964 broadcast of "Danger on the Right" on the John Birch Society.
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SOURCE: The Intercept
1/23/2021
Capitol Attack was Culmination of Generations of Far-Right Extremism
Historians Robin D.G. Kelley and Greg Grandin discuss the historical relationship between white supremacy and political violence in the US.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/21/2021
Charlottesville Inspired Biden to Run. Now It Has a Message for Him
People who lived through the 2017 white supremacist invasion of Charlottesville warn that there can't be any unity without accountability.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/19/2021
France Knows How This Ends
by James McAuley
"What is especially useful to remember about the Dreyfus affair now is the point of no return it represented, the repugnant embrace of lies by one half of society, educated people who were not ignorant but who had simply ceased to care."
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
1/18/2021
The Long Prologue to the Capitol Hill Riot
Historian Kathleen Belew notes the continuities in far-right and white power culture that have endured since the 1970s and were on display in the Capitol riot.
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