These People Are Crazy

LR Net’s home office is (at the moment) in New Mexico. That means we tend to pay lots of attention to border-related stories. One of those that has been in the news lately is that of the ultra-right wing militia group that was patrolling the border and holding “illegal” immigrants (some of whom weren’t illegal or immigrants) at gun point. But, now there’s been a new development. The same group seems to have been plotting to assassinate liberals and prominent Democrats.

The Independent, among other news outlets, noted that the group in particular was targeting “Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and billionaire Democratic donor George Soros.” They were, in other words, planning to shed a lot of blood and leave a few bodies in their wake. Fortunately, the FBI figured that out and arrested the group’s leaders before anything particularly nasty could go down.

But what fascinates us here in New Mexico most about the incident is that it proves two things: first, that the anti-immigrant, “build the wall,” crowd aren’t just a bunch of patriotic men and women who merely wanted to save American jobs. These people have an awfully close link to serious nut-jobs. And, second, they are dangerous to us all. They don’t just plan to reserve their capacity for violence to non-citizens. They’d just as soon murder us all…everyone on the Left.

Which means that (if had any doubts) we need to rethink the Deplorables and the other die-hard supporters of Donald Trump. At least some of them, maybe many, are not just people with whom we disagree, and with whom we might debate. Rather, they are what Eric Hoffer called “True Believers,” committed and passionate, and heavily armed…

And so terribly, terribly eager…

To pull a trigger.