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The Age of Insurrection

The Radical Right's Assault on American Democracy

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
From a smattering of ominous right-wing compounds in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, to the shocking January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, America has seen the culmination of a long-building war on democracy being waged by a fundamentally violent and antidemocratic far-right movement that unironically calls itself the "Patriot" movement.
So how did we get here? Award-winning journalist David Neiwert—who been following the rise of these extremist groups since the late 1970s, when he was a young reporter in Idaho—explores how the movement was built over decades, how it was set aflame by Donald Trump and his cohorts, and how it will continue to attack American democracy for the foreseeable future. Neiwert especially studies how the Pacific Northwest has long been a breeding ground of extremist violence, from the time when neo-nazis migrated to the area from southern California in the 1970s, through the great battles in Portland and Seattle and neighboring towns over the last decade.
Laying out how these groups organize their terroristic violence and attacks on democratic institutions at every level—including local, state, and federal targets—Neiwert details what their strategies and plans look like for the foreseeable future.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 10, 2023
      Journalist Neiwert (Red Pill, Blue Pill) offers a brisk and searing history of right-wing extremist groups in America from the 1970s to the January 6 Capitol riot. As a reporter in northern Idaho in the 1970s and ’80s, Neiwert witnessed the arrival of the Aryan Nations from their former base of operations in Southern California. Noting that the white supremacist group “terrorize the local population with waves of violent hate crimes” and “slowly alter the local demographics by attracting scores of fellow far-right extremists to the region,” Neiwert traces the ripple effects to the 1992 Ruby Ridge raid, in which Aryan Nations “convert” Randy Weaver refused to surrender to the FBI on weapons charges, leading to the deaths of his wife and son; the launch of the Patriot militia movement, which “spread like wildfire” after the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex.; and the emergence of the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and other paramilitary groups that played roles in the January 6 insurrection. Though not much new ground is broken, Neiwert offers visceral descriptions of these groups’ intimidation tactics; astutely analyzes the overlaps between Christian nationalism, white supremacism, the sovereign citizen movement, and other aspect of their ideology; and sheds light on the right-wing media’s “mind-bending efforts to help Republicans avoid accountability for the January 6 insurrection.” It’s a disturbing look at how hard extremism is to stamp out.

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  • English

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