Words by hateful groups sounded very familiar

Last year I followed a report of an altercation in St Louis between members of the Proud Boys and a Catholic priest. I had never heard of the Proud Boys. I always want to go to original sources in search of the truth. I am a dedicated servant of truth. I went to the Proud Boys web site. I read what they had posted there. I saw the pictures and the symbols. I followed links around the net to a surprisingly large number of similar, linked groups.

At least it was surprising to me. The more I read, the more I saw, the more uneasy I got. And I could not figure out why. I was familiar with the Nazis (It offends me, by the way, that the are called “neo-Nazis” as if there is not an unbroken line back to the venerated Adolf Hitler; you don’t hear about the neo-KKK or the neo-Southern Poverty Law Center.) I was familiar with the KKK and Aryan Nation and Americans for White People and the White Panther Party … the list goes on. I was familiar with these groups from the late 1960s and 1970s, but I was unfamiliar with the current crop of white supremacist, nationalist radical hate groups.

Eventually, I discovered the core source of my unease. The words they used, the syntax, the context of what they were spewing was familiar. I was hearing from the president, Carlson, Ingraham, McConnell and Q , and many more in that cohort. These people have been being primed to rise to the defense of America Made Great, to rescue us from the Deep State cabal, the Clintons, Obamas, Sanders, Antifa, the radical socialist liberal left, as well as Muslim Mexican drug-dealing rapists who threaten the destruction of the suburbs.

These radical threats to White Christian conservative America made great again might even be so evil as to force you to wear masks (which they were doing any way, but by choice and for far different reasons). They are philosophically, politically, morally, socially, “patriotically,” primed. The way has been made level. The path has been cleared, the road paved. They are standing back. They are standing by.

THOMAS SEARS Fayetteville