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This video prompted a lot of thoughts for me about conservatives vs the alt-right and the Republican Party https://twitter.com/Cleavon_MD/status/1346990726115061760
I (an many political commentators) have noticed an increasing spread of far/alt-right ideas and language into the more mainstream conservatism in the last ten years or so. Terms like "Social Justice Warrior" and "red-pilled" etc used to be only used by extremists
Now they're used by knitters on instagram and have become common terms. The far-right did a very effective job of jumping on Trump's bandwagon early on and making their beliefs mainstream and more acceptable by conservatives
There are lots of conservatives on social media who appear to be imitating the far right in language and attitudes. Many of them probably have pushed their beliefs further to the right, but I suspect many of them are ignorant of where this stuff comes from
Which brings me to yesterday's activities at the Capitol. There was a terrifying amount of violence and the potential for worse violence that thankfully didn't happen. Five people have died. Police found pipe bombs, there were people in paramilitary gear carrying zip ties
There were actual, literal Nazis in Nazi and white supremacy paraphernalia storming the US Capitol. Members of Congress had to be evacuated and were told to wear gas masks. It was some serious shit.
But there were also a bunch of dumbasses waving flags and cheerfully taking selfies, acting like this was just another rally. These are the kind of people who are unwittingly imitating far right rhetoric because it has crept slowly into mainstream conservatism
And they're the ones now crying "how dare everyone be mean to me, I was just supporting my president". You'd think they'd maybe wake up to themselves and realize what they've allied themselves with, but I'm not holding out much hope
tl:dr - the far right have taken over the Republican Party and most of them are too dumb to figure it out, or are happily complicit in the coup.
