Month: June 2021

Gun violence is gun violence. The Austin American-Statesman reports as many as 13 people shot early this morning in the entertainment district in downtown Austin, Texas:

The shooter or shooters remain at large, and detectives were working rapidly to view an array of video gathered by bystanders and other cameras near the scene in the 400 block of East Sixth Street to identify any suspects. Authorities say the shooter appears to have fired randomly.

Austin-Travis County EMS medics responded at 1:25 a.m. to what they described as an “active attack.” Medics took four people to the hospital by ambulance, Austin police took six others to the hospital and three were taken by private vehicle, EMS officials said.

“It was very difficult to contain the scene, it was very difficult for EMS to make their way into this crowd,” interim Austin Police Chief Joe Chacon said. “And because of the nature of the injuries, officers had to go ahead and use their police vehicles to put some of these shooting victims into their vehicles and transport them themselves.”

Police told the American-Statesman that the crowd in the city’s entertainment district at the time was near the size of a “pre-pandemic” group, meaning potentially tens of thousands of people gathered in the area anchored by Sixth Street.

NEW: This is video of the aftermath of the downtown Austin shooting showing officers performing first aid on the wounded.

pic.twitter.com/gkUuFLn9up

— Tony Plohetski (@tplohetski) June 12, 2021

Taylor Blount was at a Sixth Street bar when he heard a flurry of shots.

“I only heard them from a single weapon and then everyone started running in different directions,” he said. “People were freaking out a lot, and there were some people crying, but most people were just freaking out.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler this morning issued a statement:

Anywhere else in Texas, that last line might imperil a politician’s reelection.

My first introduction to Molly Ivins was “Inside the Austin funhouse” from the May 1975 edition of The Atlantic. (Pre-internet, remember, kids?) Her article on the Texas legislature noted the, um, rambunctiousness of Texas lawmakers and their propensity when debates got heated to go to “fist city.”

Nearlly half a century later, fists are no longer the default dispute-solver in Texas nor in a lot of other places in this country. Do you feel safer?

The full audio of a 40-minute call CNN released this week between Rudy Giuliani, then–US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, a top ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reveals that Volker’s testimony before the first Trump impeachment trial was, shall we say, carefully parsed. Volker downplayed having knowledge of the alleged quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine.

“You will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion,” Volker wrote in his deposition.

“At no time was I aware of or knowingly took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden. As you know from the extensive real-time documentation I have provided, Vice President Biden was not a topic of our discussions,” Volker said in testimony.

The full recording, not just text messages, suggests otherwise.

Mother Jones:

The recording of the conversation contradicts Volker’s sworn testimony to Congress that he never witnessed any attempt on the part of Trump and Giuliani to muscle Ukraine into launching an investigation of Biden, Trump’s possible opponent in the upcoming presidential election. 

The discrepancy between Volker’s testimony and the recording of the call has drawn the attention of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who tells Mother Jones that Volker’s assertions to Congress amounted to “a disingenuous revision of history.” 

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post notes that Volker was walking a fine line:

The idea that the Trump team’s push might somehow not actually have been about the Bidens was a very fine line walked by another member of the “three amigos” whose testimony Republicans initially played up, then-European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry also tried to make a similar argument. The problem with all of that: Giuliani himself had explicitly connected the requested investigations to Biden in his public comments months before. The motivation here would seem to have been no secret, especially for someone who actually pays regular attention to U.S.-Ukraine relations.

Giuliani clerarly made the connection in calls including Volker.

“He [Volker] also referred specifically to the idea that Biden wasn’t brought up in the text messages he turned over — rather than at all in any conversations,” Blake writes. “And whether he was specifically party to ‘an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden’ is also debatable …”

It will end up being a footnote to history. But Republicans treated Volker’s testimony as exonerating. Especially now that the entire Ukraine affair pales in comparison to Trump’s big lie and inciting a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol.

This one’s for all of you who like to run as a way to burn of stress. 🙂

Have you ever seen an armadillo run? Here’s Camilla getting in a workout at the Philadelphia Zoo’s exercise pen. Zookeepers say the activity allows her to explore and smell new items pic.twitter.com/8gWhEegRqZ

— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) June 7, 2021

Surprisingly cute, don’t you think?

I guess the Dr. Seuss/Mr Potatohead cancel culture thing left the wingnuts so frustrated that they have moved on to cancel critical race theory:

In Washoe County, a debate over a proposal to expand the K-5 curriculum to include more teaching about equity, diversity and racism has coalesced with a debate about the district’s mask policy, drawing crowds to local school board meetings. To accomodate attendees, the district has arranged overflow rooms and set up loudspeakers outside.

Superintendent Kristen McNeill recommended the district form a task force to review curriculum instead of implementing the plan. The board approved the task force on Wednesday.

In Carson City, a proposal to incorporate concepts like equity into the strategic plan raised parental concerns about how schools broach the topic of race.

And in Clark County, the Black mother of a mixed-race student is suing a Las Vegas charter school over a “Sociology of Change” course that covers the concept of privilege as it pertains to race, gender and sexual orientation.

Both Carson City School District and Washoe County School District insist “critical race theory” isn’t part of curriculums or plans, but a nationwide discussion about it has touched down locally and stoked fears among those who doubt administrators’ explanations.

Opponents say the districts’ plans incorporate tenets of critical race theory, which draws a line from slavery and segregation to contemporary inequities and argues that racism remains embedded in laws and institutions.

“You say there’s no CRT in this curriculum,” Sparks resident Bruce Parks said at the Tuesday board meeting in Reno. “It is being taught in our schools right now. When you use words and language like ‘white male privilege’ ‘systemic racism,’ that’s straight out of CRT.”

The clashes mirror fights underway throughout the U.S.

In GOP-controlled statehouses, lawmakers have passed measures prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory, claiming the lesson plans constitute indoctrination and teach students to hate the United States.

Nevada has bucked that trend, with lawmakers approving a proposal last month to add multicultural education to social studies curriculum standards and teach students about the historic contributions of members of additional racial and ethnic groups.

Nevada Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Moore said the laws clarified social studies “content themes,” which already included concepts like social justice and diversity. The standards do not include critical race theory.

He cautioned against conflating the pursuit of equity with “the idea that students are being indoctrinated with this very philosophical principle about race and how it has impacted society” and said curriculum debates were nothing new, referencing parallel disputes about teaching climate change and evolution.

“People often forget how political that standards can be when you’re talking about what students need to know and be able to do,” he said.

Opponents of Washoe County’s curriculum proposal camped on the eastern side of the entrance to a packed local school board meeting on Tuesday, wearing MAGA hats and carrying signs that read “No CRT,” “CRT teaches racism,” and “The School Board works for the people!”

To combat concerns about ideological indoctrination, the Nevada Family Alliance has proposed outfitting teachers with body cameras to ensure they aren’t indoctrinating students in classrooms.

The small government conservatives fighting for freedom and liberty want to wire up teachers to monitor their speech in the classroom.

Just don’t call them authoritarians. It’s very offensive.

2017 G7 vs. 2021 G7 pic.twitter.com/JG9ZuBi3ya

— The Recount (@therecount) June 11, 2021

David Graham at the Atlantic comes up with a fascinating historical parallel that I haven’t seen from anyone else:

“He loved authority and business. He had a high sense of his own personal dignity,” one commentator observed. “He was not altogether destitute of a sentiment which bore some affinity to patriotism … His second wish was to be feared and respected abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at home.”

He came to power, succeeding a popular head of state who had tried to restore normalcy, and even enjoyed a certain amount of popular backing at the start. But a series of self-inflicted blunders over the ensuing four years gradually sapped his support. He “was bent on ruining himself; and every attempt to stop him only made him rush more eagerly to his doom.” As the end closed in, he raged against officials for following the law rather than his orders. “You believe everybody,” he fumed, “rather than me.” In the end, he was removed from office, and his best attempts to return came up short.

I refer, of course, to King James II and VII of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

The resemblances between this king and Donald Trump are peculiar, and also illuminating. In each case, a morally and politically flawed leader is ejected from office; he goes into exile, establishes an opulent court, and plots a reinstatement; his children strive to take up the mantle, while a small but devoted band of supporters remains steadfast. Think of it as 45 meets the ’45.

Trump’s story is familiar. The history of the Jacobite movement (the name comes from the Latin for “James”) may be less so. James II became king upon the death of his brother, Charles II, in February 1685, but his religion—Catholicism, in a Protestant country—and various political missteps led to his removal in the so-called Glorious Revolution. James fled to France, where he died in 1701.

His son James Francis Edward Stuart—James III and VIII to his supporters, the “Old Pretender” to his critics—twice attempted to reclaim the British throne, once in 1715 and then again four years later. James’s son Charles (“the Young Pretender” or “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” now known for his role in the period book and TV series Outlander) tried once more in 1745, before being defeated at Culloden the next year. Jacobitism and the House of Stuart were effectively finished, though the lost cause became a popular Romantic motif, especially in Scotland.

The parallels between the Stuarts and Trumps are personal, political, and structural. When I put the notion to Sir Tom Devine, the preeminent living Scottish historian, he first laughed uproariously. “I absolutely love this comparator,” he told me once he’d regained his composure. “The entrails of connections are so potent and so lovable.”

There are differences. James II was devout; Trump is not, though he has also found religion to be a powerful political force. James was also noted for his physical courage. But there are temperamental similarities between the men, says Daniel Szechi, a prominent historian of Jacobitism.

“Despite his many, many flaws, he was a better human being than Trump, but he shared some similar characteristics,” Szechi wrote in an email. “He was profoundly ignorant, had when young a libido the size of New York, believed he was on a mission from God, and maintained he was the true king even after the Parliaments of the three kingdoms had all deposed him, and, indeed, continued to believe the people of England still loved him despite all evidence to the contrary.”

Politically, the two men also shared an absolutist view of power, and both were accused of cruelty. “You could argue that the Trump experience revealed a sense of the development of almost a semi-monarchical court,” Devine told me. “Not only that, but a sense of dynasty, with all these other creatures who were around him to do his bidding.”

In November 1688, when James’s son-in-law and nephew, William of Orange, invaded England, James insisted he was the rightful king, even after it was clear his support had collapsed. In November 2020, Trump insisted against all evidence that he had rightfully won the election; James’s legal justification was arguably much stronger. James urged his supporters on to a violent attempt to restore him to power, though it took years for Jacobite forces to be put down, while the Trump-inspired January 6 insurrection was quelled within hours.

The Stuarts then set up courts in Catholic countries on the continent, first in France and then in Italy. Palm Beach’s Mar-a-Lago might not be the Palazzo Muti in Rome, but they played a similar function. The deposed monarch and his heirs could live in splendor, oversee a quasi-ambassadorial function, and hand out favors to loyal supporters.

Both dynasties drew their support from outside major centers of population and power. For Trump, that is rural areas, especially in the South. Jacobitism remained strongest on the fringes of the kingdom, in Scotland, Ireland, and Cornwall. (Indeed, Trump’s mother emigrated from Scotland, where her own Clan MacLeod had been supporters of the Jacobite cause.) Like Trump backers who now call for the secession of red states, Jacobites favored the dissolution of the union of the crowns.

Read: The Civil War isn’t over

Trump has now become an Old Pretender, in function if not personal affect: James Francis Edward Stuart was known as an intellectual. In his exiled court, the ex-president plots a return, either via a chimerical reinstatement or a new run for president in 2024. There is a Young Pretender too—Donald Trump Jr., or as we might rechristen him, Bonnie Prince Donny, who aspires to replicate his father’s political success. (Both heirs struggled with alcohol and romantic stability.)

“The old monarchy, the old Jacobite monarchy, took major risks. And of course the greatest gamble of all was in 1745, when Charles Edward Stuart descended on Scotland with only a few supporters, some gold, but only the promise of support from the French monarchy,” Devine said. “Because of his businessman background, there’s a strong element of the gambler in Trump. There is an important analogy there.”

The Jacobites gambled everything and lost. The question is whether this fate awaits Trump’s family and movement as well. Trump is down, but he retains a grip on the Republican Party and is the favorite for the GOP nomination in 2024 if he wants it. While observers like me warn of the grave threat to American democracy that his thinking poses, Jacobitism went from a real peril to a nonentity by the end of the 18th century. “It’s so harmless and so timid and so emasculated—it’s not a threat anymore—it can be sentimentalized in the work, for example, of Sir Walter Scott,” Devine told me. “That could be the [movement’s] fate—the lost cause of Trump.”

Here’s a youtube documentary on James II reign.

Leader of GOP says he won the respect of Russia at Helsinki summit and trusts Russia more than US intelligence agencies.

The flag-waving patriots of the GOP must be so very, very proud to support this traitorous moron.

After West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s comments last weekend in which he refused to consider reforming the filibuster or voting to support the For the People Act, it’s been very hard to avoid the dreaded thought that the 2021 Democratic agenda is already on life-support.

Sure, Senate Democrats recently managed to get a bipartisan bill passed to fund programs that increase competition with China and deal with various security threats, but that’s because Mitch McConnell granted his rare dispensation since he knows such legislation is not the sort of thing that the public will see as a Democratic “win.” And there was word on Thursday evening that the “Gang of 10” working on a bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate had come to an agreement, although early reports suggest that the climate change mitigation portion of the initiative has been jettisoned. But even as bad as such a “deal” would be, it is hard to imagine finding even 10 Republicans to vote to break the filibuster in support. Or even 50 Democrats for that matter!

Everything feels very small and insubstantial all of a sudden, which is extremely worrying.

It’s hard to imagine the Democrats will be able to keep the Trumpified GOP at bay in 2022 and 2024 if they are unable to deliver more than this. Just saying you tried, kind of, isn’t the most inspiring electoral message. On the other hand, it’s not as if the Trumpified Republicans are in particularly good shape either. It’s always tempting to see them as having some magical hold on the American public because it seems so bizarre and inexplicable that they are able to win at all. But it is important to remember that the leader to whom they are compelled to pay fealty despite losing the popular vote twice and never gaining above a 45% approval rating is making the GOP even more toxic than it was before. And many of the candidates they will be facing are more likely to be following the Marjorie Taylor Green model than the “reasonable” Republican model that might appeal to the suburban voters who could make the difference. According to the New York Times, there are a boatload of these weirdos jumping into the fray:

Across the country, a rising class of Republican challengers has embraced the fiction that the 2020 election was illegitimate, marred by fraud and inconsistencies. Aggressively pushing Mr. Trump’s baseless claims that he was robbed of re-election, these candidates represent the next generation of aspiring G.O.P. leaders, who would bring to Congress the real possibility that the party’s assault on the legitimacy of elections, a bedrock principle of American democracy, could continue through the 2024 contests.

One of them is a Michigan woman who calls herself the “MAGA bride,” complete with a Donald J. Trump-themed wedding dress, and says it is highly probable that Trump actually won her state. A Washington state Republican candidate for governor who lost by 545,000 votes decided to drop his inane lawsuit contesting the results and decided to run for Congress in 2022 instead. They are just two among many across the country who are running on Trump’s Big Lie agenda which includes support for all those vote subversion and voter nullification laws being passed by Republicans all over the country.

Considering the huge majority of Republican voters who are convinced that the Democrats stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump, the turn to conspiracy theories certainly makes sense in GOP primaries. But there are some Republicans who remember all the way back in 2012 when the GOP ran a bunch of right-wing kooks for the U.S. Senate and lost their majority. Remember Todd “legitimate rape” Akin and Sharron “second amendment remedies” Angle? Those two didn’t work out so well for the GOP’s play for the majority in the Senate. This time there may very well be dozens of candidates like that — many of whom endorsed by Trump himself.

For his part, Mitch McConnell is not thrilled about any of this:

FOX NEWS: Will you welcome the former president's involvement in the midterms?

McCONNELL: Well, he has his own agenda pic.twitter.com/aU279QVsAQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 10, 2021

The National Journal’s Josh Krakauer reports that McConnell isn’t the only Republican leader who is nervous about Trump’s influence. He points out that if Trump were any kind of team player he would stay out of the process and just use his clout with voters to raise money and turn out voters. But that’s not how Trump rolls:

[O]ut of office, he’s continuing his destructive behavior, endorsing weaker candidates in contested primaries, squelching the campaigns of erstwhile allies, and elevating not-ready-for-prime-time contenders in must-win Senate contests. His erratic behavior since losing the presidential election—exemplified by his conspiracy theorizing and suppression of the GOP vote in Georgia’s Senate runoffs in January, handing Democrats the majority—is only accelerating as the midterms draw closer. It’s leading to increasing Republican pessimism about their chances of retaking the Senate majority next year, even as the political environment is awfully favorable on paper to the party out of power.

What a shame that would be.

As for the Democrats, there may be some hope on the electoral front. The recent special election in New Mexico to fill the seat vacated by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland offered some interesting info that relates to the extreme radicalization of the GOP. The Democrat Melanie Stansbury beat the Trump Republican Mark Moores, as expected. But she beat him by 24 points, which is more than both Haaland and Biden received in the district last November. According to Politico, both parties attributed this to the Trumpification of the New Mexico Republican party which has been turning off Independent voters for a while and failed miserably with a dishonest message calling Stansbury a “radical extremist” who wanted to defund the police.

Obviously, it’s unknown if this portends a larger trend but it shocked the GOP which expected Moores to do much better than he did. Not that they can change their approach now. Their leader Donald Trump won’t allow that and neither will their hardcore base.

CNN’s data analyst Harry Enten pointed out that there have been a number of special elections at the state and local level that follow the same dynamic which he attributes to President Biden’s popularity. While history suggests that the party in power will lose the midterms, Enten says that Biden’s approval rating is the steadiest of any president since WWII and that gives Democrats a chance to hang on. It would certainly be helpful if the Senate Democrats could help out a little bit by passing some of the popular legislation he — and they — ran on last November. After all, that’s one of the main reasons people support him. 

Salon

By the man who literally wrote the book, Adam Jentleson:

Since we’re all about gangs this week, please step into my TED talk about how the Gang of 14 was one of Democrats’ worst strategic mistakes of the past few decades.

The year is 2005. Republicans really, really want to go nuclear to confirm Bush’s judges. Like, really want to.

Bush, Cheney and Frist were all eager to go nuclear. The floor general for the fight was a young comer named Addison Mitch McConnell. In May, on the Senate floor, McConnell announced that the “Senate is prepared to restore the Senate’s traditions and precedents,” and go nuclear.

To lay the intellectual groundwork for the effort, former Baker counsel and all-around Senate guru Martin Gold penned a law review article dubbing it the “constitutional option.” It’s good! Makes a strong case the Framers would’ve opposed the filibuster 😊

At issue were the nominations of a bunch of hyper-conservative Bush judicial nominees, like William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown. Dems were using the filibuster to block them. If at this point you think to yourself, “huh they’re on the bench today,” you know where this is going.

Into this space stepped the Gang of 14. No one wanted what they were selling – not Republican leaders, not Democratic leaders. They garnered a ton of attention for themselves and were seen as the great saviors of the Senate. But all they did was delay nature taking its course.

Just wait

The famed Gang of 14 struck a very stupid deal, whereby Dems retained their right to filibuster, but were only allowed to use it under “extraordinary circumstances.” Dems were very conscientious in how they applied this standard, and Rs basically convinced them no one met it.

Most of the controversial Bush nominees at the heart of the controversy got confirmed, all with fewer than 60 votes. In other words, Bush got most of the judges that he threatened to go nuclear over, without having to go nuclear.

But wait, there’s more…

As I said upthread, all the leaders hated the deal. Reid gave a speech saying Dems already *were* using the “extraordinary circumstances” standard, to no avail. For their part, the Bush WH wasn’t satisfied getting only the judges covered by the deal. They wanted to keep pressing.

The Bush WH sought to put forward judicial nominees who would test the boundaries of the deal, force Democrats to filibuster, and give Republicans an excuse to go nuclear – like they had wanted to do all along. (H/t @hillhulse, read his book on this).

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One of the nominees the Bush WH put forward to test the Gang of 14 deal – to see if Democrats would filibuster, and in so doing, give Republicans the excuse to go nuclear they wanted – was a former aide to Ken Starr whose earlier nomination had been blocked by a filibuster…

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His name was Brett Kavanaugh.

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Deeming that Kavanaugh didn’t meet the “extraordinary circumstances” standard & boxed in by Republicans’ nuclear threat, Dems did not filibuster Kavanaugh and let him be confirmed to the DC Circuit with fewer than 60 votes. As Ashley notes, this laundered much of his record.

https://twitter.com/ashleyschapitl/status/1403201308719464449

Two other nominees did not meet the GO14 “extraordinary circumstances” standard and were therefore not filibustered: John Roberts and, more controversially, Samuel Alito. Roberts probably would’ve been confirmed no matter what, but Alito was confirmed with fewer than 60 votes.

So what did Democrats get out of this Gang of 14 deal, that is remembered so gauzily, perhaps with the “West Wing” theme song playing in the background?

Jack shit.

What did Republicans get? Pretty much all the judicial nominees they wanted.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE…

Republicans also got to preserve the filibuster, which Dems had fallen over themselves to enshrine. When Obama won, instead of being able to confirm whomever he wanted on a majority vote because Rs had gone nuclear under Bush, he had to slog for 5 years to get his noms confirmed.

Did Dems realize they’d been played, and quickly go nuclear themselves? Of course not! It took them 5 years to do it, causing Obama to bleed enormous political capital over that time. My friend Cassandra Butts died while waiting 820 days to be confirmed.

If Dems had just let Republicans go nuclear, Rs would have gotten the same crop of judicial confirmations, and Obama could’ve nominated whomever he wanted to be confirmed with just a majority, in a Senate where he had 60(ish) Dems. This would’ve been a very different dynamic.

Then there’s Garland. How would his nomination have played out differently if Dems had only needed 50 votes to confirm him, in a Senate where they held 46 seats? McConnell made a snap decision to block him because he knew he could hold 14 of his members. But 4? Maybe… but idk.

Coda: after leading the fight to go nuclear in 2005, then flipping 180 degrees under Obama to claim going nuclear would break the Senate, McConnell promptly went nuclear when it served his interests to confirm Gorsuch to the seat he blocked Garland from filling…

Meanwhile, having used his time on the DC circuit (to which he was confirmed as a result of the GO14 deal) to distance himself from his past as a political hatchet man, we also got this guy.

One thing to add: very much a hypothetical, but if Republicans had gone nuclear under Bush, it is *much* easier to see Dems seriously considering going nuclear on legislation under Obama, and perhaps even doing it. The dynamic would’ve been very different.

I forgot an important point.

Under Obama, did the remaining Republican members of the Gang of 14 reciprocate – did they apply the “extraordinary circumstances” standard as conscientiously as Dems had under Bush, and help confirm key Obama nominees?

Haha, of course not!

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Anyhoo, this is why when my fellow, well-meaning Dems ask me if I regret the 2013 nuclear decision, the light drains out of my eyes and I stare into the middle distance.

Literally my only regret is that we did not do it *immediately.*

Dems risk making the same mistake now.

Originally tweeted by Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) on June 10, 2021.

Digby reviewed the report released earlier this week by the bipartisan investigation of senators on the Senate Homeland Security and Rules committees:

It is a sobering report and does add some new detail to the story that we hadn’t heard before. But it leaves many more questions than it answers. After all, these insurrectionists didn’t just cook this up out of the blue. They felt they’d been given the order to do what they did and said so openly as they stormed the building. None of that is addressed by this investigation — and that’s because the Republicans on the committee refused to do it.

Among those unanswered questions is how these insurrectionists got radicalized. Politico profiles jailed geophysicist Jeffrey Sabol of Colorado and draws no conclusions either. Just an average guy until he stormed the Capitol, assaulted federal officers, attempted to flee the country, and tried to take his own life. What turned him?

Politico (emphasis mine):

“For researchers on extremism, that’s the white whale—trying to understand what makes someone turn violent,” says Bennett Clifford, a senior research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “A lot of it is determined by individual circumstances and vulnerabilities.”

Clifford says he worries about the ways in which January 6 itself, much like 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, functioned as an accelerant for extremist views. “The Capitol brought out every single type of domestic violent extremist from throughout the far right—the racially and ethnically motivated folks, the militia/anti-government people, unaffiliated pro-Trump people. When multiple flavors of people gather in one place, stay in the same hotels together, it runs the risk that you get crossovers, the recruitment of previously unaffiliated people by larger groups. Or even if they don’t join the group formally, it can help infuse some new ideology into their worldview. That’s the scariest part of January 6 for me.”

Brian Levin, a criminal justice professor who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, believes part of the solution has to include addressing extremism as a mental health issue. “I’m not saying that this is something that absolves people of criminal responsibility, but when you have broad reservoirs of grievance and unstable or emotionally vulnerable people who are undergoing stressors at the same time, it’s a recipe for radicalization,” he says.

Remember all those stories of how ISIS used social media to radicalize new recruits? Don’t hold your breath waiting for government reports on what made guys like Sabol go rogue. (Or as the Internet called them during the militant standoff at the Malheur national wildlife refuge, Vanilla Isis.) We consider Islamist terrorists unalloyed evil. White ones we think are unstable, emotionally vulnerable, misunderstood, or otherwise stressed.

And who doesn’t want to join a violent insurrection when things are going poorly at home?