• “There’s this longstanding fantasy in the militia right in America that there would be an event, a spark, and the patriots, as they call themselves, would rise up armed and attack government, and also attack things like Hollywood, the University of California, things they think of as elements of the liberal elite” says Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair and lead researcher of the UC Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies.

• “Now they actually have hatched a plot to overthrow, in the most criminal way, the government of the state of Michigan. Rosenthal continues, “This puts Trump in an amazing dilemma. When he shouts out to the Proud Boys from the debate stage, he is acting as commandante of the militias, which sits side by side with his presidential role as the U.S. commander-in-chief. He establishes himself at once as both the head of the government and the head of the anti-government. It’s a remarkable status unseen in U.S. history.”

• Berkeley News: “Armed right-wing demonstrators massed at several state capitals in the spring, and in August one killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has just issued a report saying that white supremacists are the top domestic terror threat. Is the apparent plot in Michigan the tip of an iceberg?“

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