Guest post: These y’all quaeda yokels

Originally a comment by Papito on Men with rifles yelling at us.

You have be pretty far down the rabbit hole to understand how these militia creeps think they’re being patriotic. The fact you don’t is a good sign. The fact I do reflects poorly on my relatives.

They’re patriotic to an imaginary country. That country doesn’t exist, has never existed, but they’ve been convinced it really does, or did, somehow.

The real country around them – full of people who are not white, and sometimes governed by people who are not male – is somehow preventing their imaginary country from coming fully into being. The laws of this real, imposter country, insofar as they infringe on these mens’ feelings and desires, prove how evil the imposter country is, and how urgently it must be opposed. This thinking is fundamentally religious in nature; they are motivated in similar ways to the Islamic extremists who want to establish a new Caliphate.

These y’all quaeda yokels don’t see the coronavirus lockdown a discrete response to a single problem; their complaint is not about a single policy mistake. They see it as part of a conspiracy to deprive them of the ability to establish their imaginary country. Hence the guns: they will need lots of guns to establish their imaginary country. They are explicitly fomenting a second civil war, or second revolution, after which they will be able to establish their imaginary country.

In this foolishness they are supported by numerous American politicians, such as Trump and Rep. Steve King. Abroad, they are supported by Russia, because Putin both loves to screw America up and loves right-wing extremism. Numerous Faux News talking heads also fortify their rhetoric.

In distinction to the kind of racist policing exemplified by the murder of Tamir Rice, these people pose an actual threat to America and its citizens. Also in distinction to movements like Black Lives Matter, the militia freaks have not just sympathizers but members in law enforcement, and are duly emboldened.

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