The Alt-Right, The NRA, And The Culture Of Fear

Osama bin Laden believed the 9/11 attack on the US would result in the withdrawal of support for the authoritarian regimes in the Mideast and, without that aid, those governments would collapse to be replaced by fundamentalists like the Taliban. It didn't turn out that way as the US invaded Afghanistan, decimated al-Qaeda, weakened the Taliban, and actually increased its military presence in the Mideast in order to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But those terrorist attacks changed the United States in ways bin Laden could never imagine. George W. Bush, rather than trying to rally the Arab and Muslim populace that was largely opposed to bin Laden's fundamentalism and radicalism, protected the murderous regime largely responsible for bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the first place, namely Saudi Arabia and its almost fanatical Wahabi ideology. Bush then started a war in Iraq under false pretenses in order to take out a leader who had nothing to do with 9/11 and without a plan for the aftermath, creating instability that continues to plague the region and our country to this day. The Bush wars cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of non-Americans, and an estimated $6 trillion of direct and future costs, and a decade and half later we are still have significant forces in Afgahanistan, Iraq, and now Syria.

More importantly, it created a culture of fear in our country, fear that has been exploited to destroy much of the very fabric of our democracy. That fear led to the torture of prisoners and the concept of indefinite detention as we continue to hold people in seemingly perpetual legal limbo at Guantanamo. That fear led to warrantless wiretaps and spying on American citizens. These were not new violations for America in times of war, but, unlike the past, these wars never end and so the fear and the violations continue.

The fear led to billions being spent to protect soft targets like airports, government and office buildings, as well as untold hours and dollars wasted simply waiting to get through additional security measures. It led to the explosion of the security state where Wall Street and Eisenhower's military-industrial state fed at the trough, creating enormous opportunities for corruption.

That same culture of fear created the anti-Muslim backlash which then morphed with that ever-present American racism to create the general xenophobic, anti-immigrant fervor that Donald Trump was able to tap into with his birtherism. In addition, at the same time, that same anti-Muslim backlash combined with the concept of the clash of civilizations and the power of the Christian right to morph into white Christian nationalism. Together, they form the basis of the alt-right movement that Trump leveraged to win the Presidency and that has taken over the Republican party, as witnessed by the latest CPAC confab.

And the same fear created an enormous demand for guns in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and an environment which allowed the NRA to continually push to relax gun restrictions. According to the FBI, nearly half a million more background checks were requested in just the six months after the terrorist attack. And almost immediately the NRA began to push for relaxing any or all gun restrictions. Ever since then, every new atrocity, whether international or domestic terrorism, or mass murders of children or adults, simply increases the NRA's demand for more gun ownership. In addition, the security state that protects our airports and other gathering places has increased our familiarity and tolerance for weapons of war, helping feed the NRA's narrative. And now Trump wants to turn our schools into armed camps.

Richard Nixon, in his moment of contrition, said, "Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself". I would say say that it is the combination of hatred and fear that leads one to destroy oneself. As Senator Brian Schatz wrote yesterday about the NRA, "We don’t need to cut a deal with them, we need to beat them". It is more than the NRA that needs to be defeated; it is the climate of fear that our country has lived in for the nearly the last two decades that truly needs to be defeated if we wish to avoid destroying ourselves.