The Capitol riots on 6 January 2021 (Photo: flickr/Bill Bryan)
Mike Wendling’s new book, Day of Reckoning, could not have come at a more divisive time in United States politics.
Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris offer any solutions to the grave problems facing many people in the US. No wonder many are looking elsewhere.
We have seen an upsurge in working class people fighting back in recent years—from Black Lives Matter to the campus revolts in support of Palestine. However, many people are looking rightwards as the crisis engulfing them deepens.
Wendling records in chilling detail how previously fringe right wing ideas have now become part of mainstream discourse. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a unifying moment for different sections of the far right. His demonisation of migrants, Muslims and the left boosted the confidence of the far right.
During his recent TV debate with Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that illegal immigrants were eating people’s pets. That lie provoked laughter on the left but spread as truth on far right circles.
Wendling identifies three pivotal moments in the trajectory of the US far right. First, the Unite the Right rally that took place in August 2017, which led to the murder of counter-protester Heather Hayer.
This event led to mass outrage at the rightwing marches that were complete with tiki torches and Nazi salutes. Yet Trump declared there were “very fine people on both sides”.
The second event was the Covid pandemic which exposed US health inequalities. The far right used this moment of crisis to spread a distrust of masks and vaccines and to cast doubt on the very existence of the Covid virus.
Third, was the riot on 6 January 2021. Then 2,000 people attempted to invade Washington’s Capitol building to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The far right seized the opportunity to argue that the rioters were peaceful heroes defending the US constitution. It claimed the riot was instigated by undercover federal agents or “Antifa”.
The conspiracy theories swirling around these events were no longer just on the fringes of social media. They were now in the mainstream.
Fox news anchors popularised the conspiracies. Members of the Freedom Caucus, a collection of far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, also spread the theories.
Wendling travelled round the US talking to the very people that are propagating these conspiracy theories. His attempt to understand what they believe is made very difficult by their range of beliefs and disparate nature.
When we think of the far right in US politics, we often think of QAnon, a group of people who believe that a global cabal of paedophiles is manipulating the US government.
Or we might think of the Proud Boys, a racist group that has re-orientated itself on targeting trans people. But the spectrum is much wider. It runs from Christian nationalists to the “Radical Mom” movement—and online influencers such as Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.
The growth of the far right is alarming. Trying to understand how they are organising is important and Wendling’s book is a tool in that fight.
But at times the book equates violence from the right with left movements that are fighting back. It misses the vital point that wherever the far right marches or rallies, it must be countered.
The book finishes with a stark warning about this November’s presidential election. For Trump and his supporters, this election is a life-or-death struggle.
Wendling argues that if Trump loses, his supporters will not slip quietly into the night. Instead they will take their reactionary fight to the streets.
And, if Trump wins, his politics will embolden the far right and push mainstream politics rightwards.
Ultimately, Wendling’s book fails to take the final step and call for mass action to defeat Trump. With no solutions coming from the Democratic Party, it’s up to working class people to fight Trump and the far right.
Mike Wendling, Day of Reckoning: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy, Pluto Press, £14.99
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