As we all watch impeachment today, I wanted to be sure people were aware of what is occurring in Richmond, which may (or may not) be avoiding a Charlottesville-like situation on Monday. Traditionally, pro-gun rights and pro-gun control groups rally in the capitol on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. This time around, militias began to organize from within and out of state.
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The militia outreach began to overlap with white supremacists who began to organize to join the fracas, three of whom have now been arrested by the FBI.
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That's intrinsically important, but also crucial because what we see whenever there is violence that falls on partisan or polarized lines is that it actually INCREASES normalization of violence - i.e. after Charlottesville, there were over 1,300 internet searches for "Kill the Jews", a 40% increase in searches for killing African-Americans, and a 22,000 % increase in searches to donate to the KKK. Even when the spike drops, the baseline of normalization of violence and interest in violent groups resets at a higher level.
thebulwark |
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