EP 673 America Plays with Fire: The Dangerous Game of Insurrectionist Politics

The January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was at once an end-the culmination of long-simmering strain of violent American extremism–and a beginning.  In effect, it’s the origins of a new war on democracy by a fundamentally antidemocratic far-right movement that, cynically and ironically, calls itself a ‘”Patriot” movement.  They are anything but, according to our guest David Niewert an award-winning investigative journalist who has made right wing extremism his beat for over forty years.  In his new book, “The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right’s Assault on American Democracy” he details chapter and verse the forces at play in America that explain an anger and turbulence that has taken on many forms since the KKK in the early twentieth century and fueled by events like Ruby Ridge and Waco in another incarnation.  Yet it wasn’t until a sitting President, Donald Trump, gave legitimacy to conspiracy theories and these theorists that the movement took on a new, and more dangerous, dimension.  Adding to the mix are what he calls “conflict entrepreneurs,” like Alex Jones and Steve Bannon, fueled by social media, cooking up a more lethal toxic brew that cannot be ignored in 2023

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