The political right does not have a monopoly on stochastic terrorism. ...
But there are three relevant ways in which the political right does differ from the left. First, it maintains a highly permeable boundary between conspiracy theorists and party officials. Indeed, it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. Donald Trump is an avid consumer and spreader of conspiracy theories, and the party’s ranks are filled at even the highest levels with officials who spread deranged claims.
Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed, among other things, that Pelosi has a “
gazpacho police” — she meant Gestapo — persecuting Republicans. Michigan Republican gubernatorial nominee
Tudor Dixon has an elaborate theory that Democrats devised COVID shutdowns to destroy the United States as a revenge plot for the South’s defeat in the Civil War. (If you listen to her reasons, they make even less sense.) The sort of bigoted gibberish Depepe
apparently spouted on social media, and which likely inspired his attack, is only incrementally distinguishable from the beliefs of high-ranking Republicans.
Second, mass gun ownership has become a right-wing fetish. Republicans are not the only Americans who own guns. But they are almost solely responsible for the near absence of regulation that has enabled individuals to amass weapons of war, and they are largely unique in their professed belief that gun ownership has a political purpose. They see guns as a weapon against political oppression. And they — again, including their elected officials — frequently threaten to turn them against the government.
And third, the Republican Party has a near monopoly on partisan armed militias. Conservatives like to point to the dangers of extremist groups like antifa, but antifa is tiny, lightly armed, and generally hostile to the Democrats. (Following Joe Biden’s inauguration, antifa
vandalized Democratic Party headquarters and chanted, “Fuck Joe Biden.”) Groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, by contrast, have staunch partisan loyalty. And Republicans increasingly reciprocate their loyalty. Republicans routinely denounce domestic anti-terrorism surveillance as a plot to intimidate their supporters.
Proud Boys are infiltrating a powerful Republican organization in Florida with the tacit assent of leaders like Marco Rubio.
