This book is a look at the events and social currents leading up to the insurrection on Jan 6, 2021. The author is a reporter who has experience reporting on war-torn countries around the world. He has done a huge amount of research and “visited with” people on both sides of the aisle even entering the Capitol on Jan 6th as a reporter.
As a result, he has lots of names of Magat ring leaders, many of whom are making a financial killing off of spreading their lies and misleading comments along with their hatred of anybody not just like themselves. One has even been quoted as saying that “not all people need to vote” and since Blacks are often at the top of the list of those that this cabal wants to prevent from voting (see Georgia’s and other states’ new laws to suppress the vote in urban areas), it is apparent that they think that Blacks shouldn’t be able to vote as thought by being Democrats they are somehow inferior or less intelligent.
However, I would respond to that with the answer that I am as intelligent if not more so than people who believe the big lie based on conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who has recently been bit, rightly, with a billion-dollar fine for his lies and slander against the Sander Hook parents in Connecticut. Then you have Erik Prince who has made billions for his firm by serving as “military” furthering the senseless involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Vos who made their money operating a pyramid scam called Amway.
Then there is the Kock family whose political doctrine is the uplift of what they call “property rights” over any sort of human rights.
The facts seem to indicate, and there is plenty of evidence, that the rank and file MAGAts are being led by the nose by these unscrupulous robber baron types and yet they THINK that they are the elite or the most American.
As he points out in the closing, if America ends up having a civil war, it will be the first one of its type. One based on lies and generated conspiracy theories by unscrupulous men and women wanting to make money for their own pockets at the cost of dissension and conflict and anti-government angst generated over very little if any actual cause. But then, the first civil war in this country was fought over the false idea that somehow white people deserved to own Black ones. (btw all attempts to compare slavery to indentured servitude are false because indenture lasted for a period of training or was meant to, and slavery was meant to be eternal).
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The above is a review that I wrote for the book The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible by Luke Mogelson, a reporter who has been embedded in various missions in the Middle East and is now living in Paris. He has done a tremendous amount of research talking with people on both sides of the political aisle as I note above in the review.
Every bit of evidence points to the fact that the Magat republicans have been led astray by the lie manufactured by trump and those complicit in his attempt to become, what some supporters even say out loud, the Emperor of America. Despite the fact that the special group of the right ring so-called Cyber Ninjas found that actually Biden garnered a wider lead than was originally thought in the state, the MAGAts still insist on believing the lie that the election was stolen.
Based on such obvious propaganda (otherwise called lies and/or misstatements), these people STILL insist on believing the lie and advocating for a return of the corrupt racist Trump to the White House. In the meantime, they are working hard to disenfranchise all of us who disagree, Women, Blacks, Hispanics, the LGBTQ community, and others from being able to vote.
Some, in particular, a politician in Arizona has had the nerve to suggest that “some people should not be allowed to vote. If I agreed, it would be in the direction of believing that people who “bought the lie” shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but I restrict that opinion to just those who planned and executed the insurrection of Jan 6, 2021. Many of the rank and file persons are to be pitied because they have been led astray by the elites in their own circles, like the DeVos, Princes, Alex Jones, and others.
Some are even threatening civil war if trump is brought to justice. Trump was behind the illegal action on Jan 6th and if we as a country want to remain a nation of law and order, he needs to pay the price for his treason. Do I want civil war?? Heck no. What do I want? Justice and the rule made clear that no anybody is above the law, including a former president who is basically throwing a temper tantrum because of his attempt to hang on to power, and presumably the right to discriminate against those that disagree with him to his heart’s content.
Never again. I might wish that we had learned our lesson with the fairly minor criminality of Richard Nixon, but trump was and is a much more serious lesson and if we don’t learn from it, what WILL it take?
So, while I abhor the idea of an actual civil war…in a law where justice and law and order are supposed to hold sway, I also don’t think we can afford to let the fascistic Magat tribe destroy all the justice and freedom that liberal people have fought and died to maintain in this country. Too much good has come about, not just for the LGBTQ population, but also for Blacks, Hispanics, and women as a gender, for us to lose everything and go back to the often nasty, even barbaric attitudes of the robber baron era before poor and working-class people were given rights via union activity along with more enlightened progressive attitudes about what it is to be human. Oh and let’s not forget that there is a strong string of anti-jewish sentiment running through the lifeblood of the leaders of the Magat movement, if not necessarily through the rank and file. Remember the “Jews will not replace us” slogans in Charlottesville if you doubt that. There is no doubt in my mind that they will keep adding “outside groups” to keep the rage going.
The funny thing, many of the Magat rank and file are among those more likely to benefit from the defeat of the philosophy they have been tricked into believing in. Even some of the foot soldiers at the insurrection have seen that they were misled and betrayed. The leaders abandoned them. Unfortunately, some still don’t see it. Sadly!!!!
I mean, look at trump who rails about the so-called elite while sitting in his gold-plated mansion and purported billions of dollars in his investment portfolio. Now, who the heck is the “elite” if not him?