“You can’t hold back the tide,” said the 70-something retired business man as he lifted his $12 craft beer for another sip. The air of defeat was deafening even in the midst of the bustling dinner crowd.
His 16-year-old granddaughter had just told him that she was gender non-binary that afternoon. He sat in his son’s living room opposite the girl with her bobbed hair dyed bright green. Her mother and father sat either side of her on the couch with arms behind her shoulders staring at the old man. His focus was the center of the girl’s face, where a silver barbell protruded from her nose. Their eyes never locked.
“I’m not like other girls,” she told him as he shifted his eyes briefly to register the smug composure of his son’s mouth.
“Not like other girls?” he thought. “Why, she looks just like every other girl on TV.”
She said some other things that didn’t register. The words “in touch with my sexuality” were strung together somewhere in there.
“We love and support them,” her mother added after the girl had gone silent for more than a moment. His son nodded in agreement.
“Them?” the old man thought. “Have they moved her girlfriend in?” He was looking at the carpet next to the coffee table instead of the girl’s lip now.
An hour later he’s sitting at the bar in the restaurant across the plaza from the courthouse reciting deathbed cliches to himself. “The whole country’s gone to hell.”
He’s right.
***
The news was crafted to make us gasp.
31 white supremacists were arrested in Idaho ahead of an attempt to disrupt a gay pride event. They were riding in a rented box truck stocked with riot shields, overlong flagpoles and AT LEAST one smoke grenade. They were obviously up to no good.
The group is Patriot Front. Their optics and slogans are strong. Public demonstrations in recent years have found these young men in uniform and in lockstep, clean cut, most faces covered and saturated in red, white and blue.
They come off looking so professional, in fact, that less visible right-wing activists are quick to scream, “FEDS!” I don’t think so.
Are they being monitored by the Feds? You bet. Are there infiltrators in their ranks or on their periphery? Likely. Is the whole thing being staged to entrap would-be “white terrorists?” I sincerely hope not.
It occurred to me at some point that Pelley’s Silver Legion was being used to lure political dissidents out into the open where they could be identified and observed. I don’t think Pelley was an intentional patsy, but his old friend Dr. Strath-Gordon was there from the beginning, whispering in his ear. Strath-Gordon deserves his own chapter, but briefly, he was a former head of British Intelligence in the US.
If the British and American authorities wanted to keep an eye on Nazi-friendly figures in the U.S., wouldn’t it serve them well to be on the inside of an organization like the Silver Shirts? Wouldn’t they encourage the very founding of such an organization?
The plan might work like this. Find a harmless charismatic figure and encourage him to go in for opposition politics. Give him a soapbox and see who comes out to listen. Pelley was used as bait. Patriot Front will be too. The trick with taking the bait is avoiding the trap knowing how to Reject Poison.
The fact that Pelley faced public legal opposition almost immediately after founding The Legion is testimony to my belief that it was a genuine and sincere organization. I think I’m seeing the same thing with Patriot Front. It doesn’t matter if you are breaking the law. If what you are doing is effective against a powerful adversary they will find a law… or make up new ones.
When I see a group like Patriot Front make the scene, I step back and see who is worried, who is shouting loudest against, who is slapping lazy labels on them. If they are pissing off the right people, then “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Patriot Front gives us a good modern counterpart for Silvershirt comparison. I will be watching. The optics are that good.
If you would like to see behind the headlines of the recent Idaho incident involving Patriot Front, enjoy this short, informative and well-produced video: tinyurl.com/pfid22
Familiarize yourself with the group at their official website: patriotfront.us
A Mostly Peaceful Assembly of Angry White Men
https://globalriskinsights.com/2022/07/our-tradition-is-revolution-patriot-front-and-the-future-of-far-right-extremism/