Now QAnon Republicans Are Calling For Secession From The U.S.

The QAnon Queen, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promotes her mass violence fantasies of wanting to kill Democrats, associates with the domestic terrorist organization the Three Percenters. The “Georgia III% Martyrs” group  infamously provided armed, militia-uniformed “private security” for Greene during a Georgia campaign rally (above).

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s far-right militia ally now believes America is beyond saving:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s extremist allies back in Georgia are preparing for a new phase in their battle to remake America into a fascist state. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reports that militia leader Justin Thayer, head of the paramilitary “Georgia III% Martyrs” group is so “disheartened” by the arrests of Jan. 6 militants that he no longer believes the United States can exist “as one entity.”

Instead, Thayer claims to be partnering with other Georgia extremists to push for the secession of Georgia, either via constitutional amendment or via “the collapse of the American experiment.”

AJC cites experts to warn that this appears to be the beginning of a new chapter in far-right extremism, one in which violent militias put aside their internal divisions and band together for the sake of “tactical” alliances. That may well be true, but the results are difficult to predict. The violent far-right is divided into myriad small factions precisely because it is a den of conspiracy theory-obsessed gun-happy crackpottism in which every other group is looked upon with suspicion; groups like the “Proud Boys” and other violence-promoting groups are roiled by never-ending infighting and drama, lawsuits between rival would-be leaders, and the violence that comes with the groups’ frequent dabbling in drug trafficking and other organized crime.

So while these groups may be inspired to band together due to the imminent threat of federal law enforcement sweeping through the rosters of those who conspired to commit violence on Jan. 6, it may be a prelude to escalating violence within the far-right, not just violence directed outwards. This is especially true as each group ponders, in the grand froth of paranoia that fostered each cell and sub-cell in the first place, which of them are moonlighting as federal informants looking to engage in a bit of sabotage against enemies and rival militias.

None of these people have much sense, and all of them are devoted to the notion that the best approach to fixing their problems involves being able to shoot more bullets than their enemies can. As the standoff by far-right extremists at an Oregon wildlife refuge proved in sometimes-maudlin detail, their partnerships and grand plans both tend to collapse in spectacular fashion when law enforcement comes calling.

The latest New York Times analysis counts at least 21 of those now facing federal indictments for the Jan. 6 insurrection as having “possible ties to militant groups,” or a bit over 10% of those indicted. That’s likely to grow as federal probes begin to identify who assisted the insurrectionists either in actual execution or in prior planning. A similar number were current or ex-military members.

“QAnon” conspiracies have filtered through each of the far-right groups as well—or rather, the QAnon movement is merely a point-by-point reskinning of the same neo-Nazi conspiracies that permeated far-right groups to begin with, one that gained considerable heft by wrapping its claims about “Jewish” plots and dominance in new phrasings that, at least briefly, restored a hint of plausible deniability for those repeating the claims of last century’s Nazi propaganda.

More: QAnon builds on centuries of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that put Jewish people at risk: “12th-century anti-Semitic tropes alleged that Jews were responsible for kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood for religious rituals. Those claims, called blood-libel conspiracy theories, persisted throughout the 1800s and into the 20th century, according to the ADL.”

So these new supposed alliances are something to watch, but it’s not clear yet if it is a prelude to what Thayer and other extremists surrounding fascist Republicanism hope will happen—violent rebellion leading to the secession of conservative regions under a new, overtly white supremacist government—or if it is only prelude to a bloody civil war within the white nationalist militias themselves as each scrambles to dodge what can be expected to be an intense new focus by federal agents on potential domestic terrorism cells while tossing everybody else under the indictment bus.

[E]fforts by fascism-promoting Republican lawmakers to underminegovernment and justify electoral nullification and stochastic violence against political enemies remain far more dangerous and far more likely to succeed in toppling democracy in favor of the autocratic, white nationalist rule their host violent allies are clamoring for.

It’s not just in Georgia. What would any seditious insurrectionist movement be without the state of Texas? The Guardian reports, Texas Republicans endorse legislation to allow vote on secession from US (This is not an actual thing a state can do – see the American Civil War):

The Texas Republican party has endorsed legislation that would allow state residents to vote whether to secede from the United States.

In a talkshow interview, the party chair, [Florida transplant]  Allen West, argued that: “Texans have a right to voice their opinions on [this] critical issue.

“I don’t understand why anyone would feel that they need to prevent people from having a voice in something that is part of the Texas constitution,” the former Florida congressman said of the Texas Referendum Independence Act. “You cannot prevent the people from having a voice.”

You “don’t understand”? What black man in America doesn’t know the history of the American Civil War?

West is the latest Republican to come out in support of declaring Texas an independent nation. Last month, the state representative Kyle Biedermann confirmed that he will introduce the bill for a referendum as early as this week.

“Texit,” named after the British referendum to leave the European Union, refers to the process of Texas exiting the United States to become an independent, self-governing nation.

The endorsement drew intense backlash from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Many took aim directly at Allen as party chair, continuing a slew of criticism that has been levied at him since first he took on the role in July (2020).

Back then, Allen was immediately criticized for changing the political organization’s slogan to “We are the Storm,” in what the New York Times called an “unusually visible example of the Republican party’s dalliance with QAnon”, the conspiracy theory.

West later denied there is any connection to QAnon. Riiight. The Texas GOP’s new slogan echoes a conspiracy group. Its chair says there’s no connection.

West, a former Florida congressman, indicated he drew inspiration for the slogan from an unattributed quote that he likes: “The devil whispers to the warrior slyly can it withstand the coming storm. The warrior responds, ‘I am the storm.'” Others, however, saw something more nefarious: a dog whistle to the QAnon conspiracy movement — the one that President Donald Trump notably declined to denounce Wednesday, saying he did not know much about it while also speaking favorably of its followers.

So what’s going on at the state party?

The New York Times published a story that prominently featured the Texas GOP slogan, calling it an “unusually visible example of the Republican Party’s dalliance with QAnon.” The party pushed back on the story — pointing to the anonymous quote as the “provenance” of the slogan — and said it was never contacted for comment. Democrats, meanwhile, called on state GOP leaders to disavow the slogan, which West indicated he would not do.

This week’s endorsement also is not the first time the former Florida congressman has promoted secession.

Earlier he insisted that “law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution”, following a US supreme court ruling to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

The Flags of Treason: “Stars & Bars” and any Trump flag.

When corporate donors to the Texas Republican party were asked for responses, many companies stated that they had not made any recent political donations – some paused all corporate giving after the 6 January deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, the political news site Popular Information reported.

The Texas Tribune reported:

Last year (2019), the FBI identified the movement as a domestic terrorism threat. It is getting more attention than ever after Marjorie Taylor Greene, a GOP congressional candidate who openly supports the movement, won her primary runoff last week in Georgia — and after Trump’s comments Wednesday.

The concept of “the storm” is a significant part of QAnon vernacular, said Mark Fenster, a law professor at the University of Florida who studies conspiracy theories.

“The storm has been one of the metaphors that Q and his followers have used to describe the coming upheaval in which Donald Trump reveals himself to have been working heroically behind the scenes to expose and punish those who have been engaged in this horrible satanic child sex cult,” Fenster said. “Storms are longstanding metaphors going back to biblical [times] of how it is you cleanse what has otherwise been a sinful humanity.”

While it may not be entirely clear how the Texas GOP slogan plays into that metaphor, Fenster noted that QAnon followers are constantly trying to “seek out the breadcrumbs” in statements by public figures to discern solidarity with them.

“They view it as just part of the game,” Fenster said. “The classic QAnon move … is to take isolated anomalous sentences of Trump’s Twitter feed or press conferences and say, ‘See, this demonstrates that this is gonna come true.'”

* * *

The Texas Democratic Party did not buy the GOP’s explanation for the slogan.

“The Republican Party is being led by an internet cult that believes in dangerous, extreme far-right conspiracy theories,” party spokesperson Abhi Rahman said in a statement. “West can try to deny it’s connection, but it’s there in plain sight for everybody to see.”

Whatever the state party’s explanation, the slogan has created unease among some Texas Republicans. Among them is Chris Ford, former chair of the Dallas Young Republicans.

“I truly believe it’s not the intention of Chairman West to spread this QAnon message, but if someone like me, after a little research, can find there’s a bunch of QAnon accounts on Twitter saying, ‘We are the storm,’ and a T-shirt you can buywith ‘We are the storm’ and the letter Q, I think the Texas GOP should’ve done the research and said, ‘Do we even want to even appear that we’re pandering to this conspiracy theory part of the GOP?'” Ford said.

Ford added that he would like to see a “firm denouncement” from the state party, but he acknowledged it is “hard when you have [then-]President Trump not denouncing the movement.”

As Josh Marshall explains, QAnon is Not a ‘Conspiracy Theory’ (pay wall):

As the QAnon phenomenon becomes more central to critical political and public safety questions, I realize we need a new vocabulary to describe this and similar phenomena. Q is not a “conspiracy theory”. The faked moon landing was a conspiracy theory. Perhaps birtherism was a conspiracy theory, though one with similarities to QAnon because of its strong ideological valence. But Q is not a conspiracy theory. It’s a fascistic political movement which predicts and advocates mass violence against liberals (and everyone else outside its definition of true Americans) in an imminent apocalyptic political reckoning. What we call the ‘conspiracy theories’ are simply the storylines and claims that justify that outcome. They could easily be replaced by others which serve the same purpose.

Senator John C. Calhoun’s theories of interposition, nullification and secession were long ago rejected and laid to rest with the Confederacy’s defeat in the American Civil War. These “lost cause” revivalists are just domestic terrorists.