In the murky background of current American events, something deeply unnerving is taking place. The far-right is seeking to instigate a race war.
The far-right’s end goal, has always been a white ethno-state. The way they seek to get one, is through instigating, then winning a race war. This is no secret. Their strategy to get there, however, is something altogether more interesting. For some time now, they have been increasingly taking to something called accelerationism.
Originally a left-wing strategy centred around overthrowing capitalism, the far-right have adapted accelerationism to centre around democracy. As the name suggests, accelerationism seeks to ‘accelerate’ the demise of democracy. It does this by taking advantage of the inherent tensions in democracy, which then provide the leverage to collapse it.
The tension is that democracy lives on the participation of people. People who are influenced with increasing ease. If you can collectively fracture society along political lines enough, a drift begins to occur. People begin to repudiate democratic culture itself.
The strategy believes that by polarising discourse, through everything ranging from trolling to terrorism, you achieve two crucial preliminary objectives needed to secure the coveted race war.
First, they continually fracture society politically, until the tensions ripen it to the prospect of civil war. This situation provides the opportune cover to fight a race war.
Like any unruly child I enjoyed playing with elastic bands. One of the first things you learn, is that you can only pull them apart so far before they snap. If democratic culture is the elastic band, the far-right is the child gleefully anticipating the snap.
Increasingly, as people transition from the relative civility of face to face interactions, to the tumultuousness of the online sphere, a broader change occurs. With the added anonymity that the online world provides, much like a seesaw, civil political discourse has the abrupt tendency to repeatedly collapse one way or another. All too often crashing onto the social media of unsuspecting users. The growing spectacle of democratic decay becomes unavoidable. The first sign of the elastic beginning to fray.
There are broadly speaking, only two ways of solving problems. One is dialogue, while the other is violence. If you can be the architect of a situation in which public political debate is no longer worth the trouble; though abuse, mass trolling, false flags and even doxing (alongside dragging the opposition down to your tactical level), people invariably begin resorting to violence to settle differences. The more violence appeals, the more that elastic band begins to shred. Peppered with well timed terrorism from the far-right, the tension on the elastic soon becomes untenable.
Violence is far from the only variable they use to stress test society. Interestingly, some on the far-right welcome the expansion of the political spectrum leftward too. They believe that the more society is exposed to (what they perceive to be) fringe leftist ideas, the further the pendulum will reactively swing rightwards. Devon Authors, the Neo-Nazi (who intriguingly later transitioned to Islamism) even thought that a Jewish Democratic Socialist like Bernie Sanders could be “great” for the cause. This is accelerationism.
Secondly, the far-right need to reduce trust in the state. Since it is the main barrier to their goals, the state’s eventual removal is essential. When left-right public opinion drifts to the extremes, the state is gradually forced to make a choice.
Does it continue to work impartially, sensitively bridging the chasm between them? Or as the chasm widens, does the temptation to pick a side become too much? Once all pretence of impartiality in state institutions dissolve, you risk the prospect of mass-radicalisation on the losing side. As the rot of public mistrust in state impartiality spreads, the state becomes an emaciated husk of the entity it once was; conveniently leaving it vulnerable to attack.
The further to the left and right America is collectively driven, the more anti-state the public becomes. Anti-state sentiment is not bad in itself; a degree of state skepticism is healthy. But you should be keenly aware that the far-right have an auspicious interest in enflaming public tension with the state. Once the monopoly on power ceases to exist, the far-right’s race war can begin.
The situation is still tense. And the far-right know it. Amongst the riots there have been reports of bricks being conveniently left systematically across cities, of MAGA stickers placed on property to entice arson; even unknown figures suspiciously instigating violence with police, where it was otherwise peaceful. Regardless of who instigated these things along the way, the consequent increase in tensions is undoubtedly what the far-right wanted.
Across far-right infiltrated online platforms, it is no coincidence that we have seen the increasing proliferation of the word ‘boogaloo’. The boogaloo movement is more of a spectrum than most pundits appreciate. It includes everything from conspiratorial libertarians, who see themselves as natural allies of anti-police protesters, all the way to race war advocates. Boogaloo is fundamentally a code word. For the libertarian faction, it relates to civil war against government, for the supremacists, it’s race war. As outlined above, this begins with societal fracturing through political tension, then gradually heads towards the removal of the state.
It’s not my intention to be alarmist. The far-right is frequently inflated in the media beyond its real, much weaker proportion. Nonetheless, we should all remind ourselves, that more than anything the far-right want a widespread race war. If there was ever a moment to be concerned about their wish being fulfilled, it’s now.
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