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An article in The Guardian caught my attention this morning. The title of the article was, “‘Anger and radicalization’: rising number of Americans say political violence is justified.”
What particularly struck me was poll results which said that “12% of Americans believe the government is run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles.” That’s about 30 million people, out of a US population of around 330 million.
This is the primary constituency for the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers and the tens of thousands of others who tried to overthrow US democracy on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol. Fortunately, between the actions of Capitol Police and DC police and the relative disorganization of the ultra-rightist insurrectionists, they were defeated, and many are now in jail or on their way there.
Donald Trump is using his campaign for President to try to raise back up this 12% of the population, as well as others, and it is clear that he is having an impact, while turning off many more, including some Republicans.
Other polls indicate that Trump right now has the support of about 1/3 of the US population, roughly 35%, so this far-right lunatic fringe makes up about 1/3 of Trump’s support base.
My first appreciation of how many hard-core rightists there were in the US population came during the time in 1973 and 1974 when I was a national coordinator of the National Campaign to Impeach Nixon. Toward the end of the two year process leading to his…
