While Trump blames antifa, a menacing far-right ‘boogaloo’ movement rises
The result of this sort of pick-your-own-reality marketplace of news is a lot of myths, half-truths and confusion. Trump has long been known to spread paranoid theories and lies via speech and tweet, but his latest antifa crusade is running headlong into competing conspiracy theories from other sources, known and unknown.
Amid today’s social network explosion, a low-level media war has helped inflame antifa fears, particularly in the outer-suburban and rural reaches of Trump Country, where negative thoughts about city life abound.
One breathtaking example came this past week after fake news on a Facebook page for retired police announced a coming invasion of Idaho by “ANTIFA agitators.” Scores of residents in Coeur d’Alene and other towns took to the streets with rifles to stand guard. The information about an invasion was not true.
But my biggest complaint about Team Trump’s obsession with left-wing groups is the distraction from more clear and present dangers on the far right.
In midweek, for example, three self-proclaimed members of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, which purportedly dreams of a new racial civil war, were held on domestic terrorism charges in Nevada after federal prosecutors accused them of trying to spark violence during police brutality protests in Las Vegas.
According to the filing, the three former servicemen, who were charged with conspiracy to damage and destroy by using fire and explosives, had discussed “causing an incident to incite chaos and possibly a riot” in response to George Floyd’s death.
Yet an FBI task force memo leaked to The Nation magazine found “no intelligence indicating antifa involvement/presence” in the protests that broke out May 31 around the nation’s capital.
I don’t bring this up to suggest that the far left never does anything wrong. I only call for equal protection under the law for those of us who feel no less threatened by the far right.
(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2020 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
