With the technology. Number one, were asking all videos to stay off so we dont get video bombed so that we use all of our bandwidth for the conversation as opposed to video. Number two, to ask questions rather than doing it orally, what we are going to ask you to do is to type your questions into the chat box commit to do that if youre familiar with zoom if you run your cursor across the screen you will see at the bottom of box that says chats, click on chat and you will see off to the right hand of your screen a line at the bottom where you can type it in your questions. As you go through this discussion with Larry Rosenthal, if youd be good enough to type in your questions as they happen they will come directly to me. They will not be shared with the rest of the group because we suspect there might be some trolls here who may want to bomb us with hatred and rage. We just assume not have to have all of you share that. They will come to me and thats fine, i dont mind being there psychiatrist for the afternoon. If you would simply put your chat comments and questions as they arise, as larrys talking just put them in there then what we will do is talk with larry for about 50 to 55 minutes. Then we will then take a five minute and come back and take your questions. We will leave as much time as possible for that so that its interactive as possible with you. Thats how we are going to do it today. Let me do the formal introduction of doctors lawrence rosenthal, the chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for right wing study which he founded in 2009. He taught at uc berkeley in the sociology and Italian Studies Department and was full professor in italy he studied the right in the United States and italy is currently working on a study of the contemporary american right in comparison to moments of the right in 20th century larry europe. Hes written several books hes appeared in many a periodical and the author of a book this fall from new press and listen to the title because its very interesting and may give us some direction for where we are going the title of his new book empire of resentment populisms toxic embrace of nationalism. Back by way of introduction, larry come the podium is yours. Thank you bill. And i think everyone taking the trouble to attend to this. What i like to do is an Opening Statement is talk about the cast of characters who is it we are finding in not only the current rightwingers in the current George Floyd Protests but also one of the extraordinary facts of this historic moment is weve had two movements with people on the streets in large numbers, consecutively, one after the other. The first was the antilock down demonstrations. The people who were fed up with being told to stay indoors and so forth. Then that is followed without any interruption by the George Floyd Protests. About the antilock down protests was that most of the people there were write what i think of as rightwing populists, those are the years are those who dont like to use the term populist to deal with rightwingers but if we go down that road we will never find their way back. The idea here is to the people, if you can think back to 2009 when suddenly the tea party emerged, these are largely the same people. In 2009 the financial crisis had hit and they were feeling economic insecurities. The same thing is true with the coronavirus. The sense of economic insecurity is very deeply felt. The way they argue about those things is in terms of their notion of freedom that their rights were being violated. Back in the tea parties callers used to call that point of view populist constitutionalism. What it meant was that these right wing populists argued that what the constitution managed to how long we understood it should not be simply in the hands of elites like lawyers and judges that individuals can make their own determinations about those questions. What happened in the antilock down demonstrations was essentially that populist regionalism as it was called by scholars. Populist regionalism so it mutated into populist epidemiology. Which was the assertion that these fancy doctors can tell us what to do like they dont know better than we do. A couple of things about the tea party and 2009 and some extent carried over what was at the very beginning of the tea party there were attempts by both White Nationalists and extreme gun enthusiasts. To take over the tea party or make the tea party to adhere to their particular point of view in their particular issue into the tea party and the mans credit to canada versus tibet. Things became different with the antilock down where you got guys, we will get to this, who tended to call themselves google boys. We will get to that. Who appeared in these rallies. So we have the tea party populist. The next category is, its funny because this used to be on everybodys lips and its not talked about all that much anymore. Is the owner to write. Im sure you remember the all to alt right. Its ideologically driven and their ideology is White Nationalism. Very selfconscious about that and selfconsciously in the tradition of fascist ku klux klan and nazi traditions. As a matter of fact, it was after what was called the battle of berkeley in 2017 in april that the head of the alt right, Richard Spencer, he declared after the streetfighting that things had changed for the alt right. It was no longer just going to troll people online, now they were going to fight on the streets. The way he viewed this was that, as he put it, abwhich means that he was making the analogy to prenazi germany. The weimar republic. In the way he characterized it was that you would have as he called the fragmentation of american politics was going to move to extreme polarization because you would have the left and the right fighting it out on the streets, as he says, for space and for ideological space. In this sense, as noam chomsky recently said, the antifor is a gift to this point of view. The position of the alt right in this is that increasingly people are going to have to choose and they will choose the right over the left. Whats important about this is the extent to which it has been echoed in effect by the Trump Administration the Trump Administration has given great credence to the idea that the violence was something only to nt for or as trump called it a couple years ago the alt left. Then it was equivalent. Now its, they are the ones. Displays very much into the strategy of Richard Spencer and the alt right. Third category of people are the blue people. Boogaloo is there were derived from 1980 so i dont know a great deal about that but boogaloo is essentially about civil war its about the time has come for civil war in america. These people are not as distinct, let us say, from the old to write in that White Nationalism isnt their explicit ideology. Their ideology is about guns. These are essentially gun rights activists who been extreme for many years. When theyve gone with this moment is sometimes called acceleration is him which is the idea that their time has come. The moment is ripe for the boogaloo as its now called. The coming of the american civil war. Interesting thing an important point to understand about the Boogaloo Boys as they called themselves. Not only are they gun rights extremists not only talking about civil war but very fundamental to them as being antipolice. So that the presence of police is a provocation to them as these demonstrations have gone on. Let me draw the analogy here or the way in which as with the right point of view this kind of dovetails a little bit with what we are getting from the Trump Administration. At one point, i have a quote here from trump he said, i can tell you i have the support of the police the support of the military the support of the bikers for trump he has conflated constituted authority with gangs. So this gives legitimacy to the boogaloo in a way that wasnt available before. He goes on, i have the tough people they dont play it tough unlike the nt for as he would say. They go to a certain point and it would be very bad. With that, i would say so much for the dramatics persona and lets talk. Great, thank you for opening it that way, larry. You open the pandoras box. He would go down and in. The first thing i want to ask you is, can you attach numbers to this . Are we talking about a small fringe . And in the george floyd demonstrations trying to create violence . Without a doubt the second point. They are in a number of false flag incidents that have been documented its always very hard to talk about the numbers. They are a relatively fringed phenomenon but they been mobilized in considerable numbers given their total in this. I dont know anyone whos in a position to attach this many people are that many people. They also belong to a tradition of not only gun enthusiasts and extremists but also this very idea of this civil war has a long history. At least 40 years there has been a rightwing militia fantasy of there would be an event, somebody would do something and with spark off the war, it was often thought of as a race war, for example, dylann roof and south carolina. Let me stop you right there, larry, you are raising the issue of race and i want to focus on that. In view of the george floyd demonstrations whats been happening for the last three weeks i noticed that you attach the label of kind of White Nationalist to the altar right but then with jewett when it came to the Boogaloo Boys. How sensual is White Supremacy and deepseated racism to the far right here in america . Its fundamental. There such a history of it and it doesnt go away. The alt right is devoted to it. The alt right believes the american white americans are being displaced by others. Those others tend to be dark skin and when they are feeling particularly nazi, jews. So there is that side of things which is firmly racist. The line is blurry between that and whats going on with the acceleration nests. But they are particularly emphasizing gun rights. And some of them are sympathetic to the george floyd story because it was at the hands of the police. Its not entirely clear cut but in answer to your larger question of the place of race, its fundamental. Now i want to try to say, as we talk about this Fringe Movement obviously something very different has happened with the arrival of trump in the presidency. The question is, is he one of them . Do we not now have the far white and control the white house or is he simply using them . I suppose thats the question. From the point in view of the alt right and presumably i dont know this for a fact but its likely from the point of the acceleration nests, trump is a vehicle for them. They understand trump is certainly from point of view of the alt right, not one of them but someone who had allowed their politics to come into the mainstream. Is that he inviting them and encouraging them to come to the mainstream . But he wants to use them which allows me to ask you, for halfcentury of so i avoid using the word fascism. I would say to my lefty friends is not fascism, fascism denigrates what fascism was and how horrible it was. Now it seems to me it may be time to start using that word and i want to ask you, as a historian of italian fascism as well as german fascism, can we start to use that term when we talk about trump and the far right here in the u. S. . Let me give you a little introduction to that answer which is, i agree with you that the word fascism was used loosely both on the left and the right. It was on either side the term of choice for dismissing people. Hes just a fascist. It wasnt analytical tool by and large. That has changed. As soon as donald trump came down his escalator you had the most serious discussion of fascism in this country in my lifetime. Its not just on the left, it was on the right. People like robert kagan he wrote a piece early on in the Trump Campaign which was this is americas notes to fascism. You had Madeleine Albrights book which is fascism a warning. There was a serious discussion of fascism during trumps campaign. But it wasnt fascism, it wasnt fascism because of fascism as a movement required a private militia which trump with all his talking about go knock the crap out of that person at his rallies or in hit his head on the car when you putting them in or get rid of that person, all of his summons to violence did not bring about an organized fascist like militia. Without bad, it wasnt fascism. What you need in addition to that militia to be considered fascist what does he have . What is militia we can come back to that. We show. Absolutely. The other is what comes about in the german case in the nazi case it was called the enabling law what the enabling law did was it allowed hitler to rule by decree. It essentially neutralized its entirety the German Parliament and hed come to power in a legitimate way it came as a result of the burning of the a which was likely a false flag done by the nazis themselves. So you have this movement where you have an emergency followed by, essentially, depriving the legislature of any power. Larry a thats the second line in the sand. The second to mix metaphors thats the second fascist group to come across. Okay. I guess you would argue trump hasnt yet had the emergence allows him to declare himself the allpowerful dictator but with respect to private ai wouldve agreed with you relatively recently that, right, he doesnt, but now he has two it seems to become not exactly private but isis now 2a s report directly to the executive branch. Neither congress or the courts have authority over him. They unilaterally says in the quarter become a course of a cobra demonstrations and then the george floyd demonstrations he says we are defending i. C. E. , not to deal with the border but to deal with unrest in los angeles and in the south and we can use i. C. E. As our troops. The second element i want to throw in for you to discuss lets do it separately. Lets leave the police aside. What about the fact he now has the brown shirt militia called i. C. E. It would seem like one step away, one emergency that gives him authoritarian control do we then call it fascism . I would say that more disturbing than even the place of i. C. E. Were there have been other ab bureau of arms. Alcohol tobacco and arms. Whats more disturbing are the guys they put on a street with no badges. And with no affiliation. That is closer to the dedicated militia than anything weve ever seen. There are athat refer to them as the little green men. Which comes from the description of russian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine while they are placed there is being denied. Thats very compelling. Thats very close to to the line of a private militia or a dedicated militia. When hitler came to power his ss was essentially made part of the state. The organs of the fascist party in italy became organs of the Italian Government under mussolini. So that there is something quite worrisome with respect to specter, if you will, of fascism about the developments, the recent developments of the militia. Get scarier and scarier down and down into the rabbit hole. We talked about the albright we talked about the Trump Administration relationship there. This is not a talk about police reform, what has to be done about policing. I imagine ali will address that with other people but i want to ask you, as the george floyd demonstrations continue, there been some 10,000 arrests across the country. There been 130 journalists arrested. Riverboats being used, people being rounded up when there peacefully protested so they can be arrested. How do you define the place of police force with respect to far right, White Supremacy, fascism. What we do with the fact that police are now seem to be not simply bad apples in the barrel but seems to be some kind of real unified action with trump of course meeting with the heads of Police Forces saying them with you 100 . Its interesting because in the longstanding fantasy on the militia right about the civil war there would be the spark and the need patriots would rise up when they rose up they would be joined by the police and by the military. To some extent, the distinction we are seeing, the difference we are seeing between the military and the police is raised. The statement by general mattis the other day, which really took trump down a peg, very seriously, about what he was doing with respect to the constitution in terms of the army as a potential or joining in the civil war or private militia, there is a kind of obstacle at the head of the armed forces. Its based on proper understanding of constitutional roles. Its interesting i think trump, its hard to know what is selfconscious because hes largely uneducated and not a person who understands political strategy in anything other than what appears to be what happens tomorrow. Or what i see on tv tonight. But if you take Something Like you remember the case of gallagher who was tried by a military court for homicides in iraq. Trump intervened during his courtmartial. There is an end run around the brass of the military which is going to support him. And perhaps therefore in developing among right wingers in the service. One of course remembers Timothy Mcveigh who was precisely that. With the police, there does not seem to be this constitutional bone work at the top that would resist the militarization all. But the place of the police as enforcing trump ideals and trumps policies. And so, that is the longstanding fantasy of what is going to happen. Not leery weve gone right weve talked about the right engine White Supremacy and we need to go in another direction now what you think is the role, connection, enter joining or lack of intertwining of the religious right . The evangelical churches that have always supported trump . I think historically correct me if im wrong neither german fascism depend on Close Relationships with the church but here it seems to me so we have this relationship between trum