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While 2018 was not the banner year that 2017 was for the Alt Right and others on the Far Right, it was still a period of intense activity.

The dominant story about race in the United States goes like this: in the past, we had troubling racial patterns, including genocide, slavery, and segregation. Then heroic individuals took spontaneous action and showed America the error of its ways. We changed all of our racist laws and became colorblind, evidenced by the election of President Barack Obama. When race is evoked today, it is only by people of color aiming to avoid responsibility and gain “special rights.”

I met Barry Silverman at a gathering of the Rockland County Tea Party/Coffee Party at the New City Public Library, about twenty miles north of New York City, in January 2011.

Parties of the Right with strong anti-immigrant and anti-Europe policies have flourished across Europe. Some of these parties have direct ties to the Nazi party, and many more use the same imagery. This mainstreaming has parallels in the U.S.

Some critics tend to cast the Christian Right movement as monolithic, when in actuality it has always been at just as fractious and dynamic as it has been powerful and influential.

Since 9/11, practicing Islam has been unfairly viewed as suspicious in some circles, including among many in law enforcement. On December 20, 2009, in Henderson, Nevada, a concerned caller notified police that seven Muslim men were praying in a gas-station parking lot.

Scaife’s redefinition as a libertarian is belied by his decades of funding, including as funder of the architect of the religious and political right alliance and religio-political think tanks.

A recent Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s investigations of certain domestic advocacy groups from 2002-2006 found that the agency considered routine civil-disobedience violations, such as trespassing or vandalism, potential terrorism. For example, the Bureau determined that spilling human blood on walls, an American flag, and pictures were “forceful acts” sufficient to trigger inclusion on terror watchlists.

What might have seemed to most to be normal, if unusually acrimonious, political aggression was in fact a classic example of a right-wing strategy developed in the late 1980s: Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW).

Violent White supremacist groups have long sought legitimacy by sanitizing their image without toning down their hateful views.