Another January 6? Experts fear unrest in Texas as extremists flock to Abbott's blockade

Could another far-right standoff with the federal government on the scale of the January 6 Capitol attack be brewing at the southern border in Texas? Experts fear it's a possibility, reportsThe Washington Post.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has refused to stop erecting razor wire to blockade portions of a state park in the border community of Eagle Pass to obstruct migrant crossings, even as Border Patrol agents warn it's impeding their ability to do their jobs and even after the Supreme Court gave the federal government permission to remove it. Former President Donald Trump has even encouraged GOP-controlled states to send their own National Guard troops to supplement Abbott's project.

"Extremism researchers warn that Abbott’s stand against federal orders is communicated in language that glorifies vigilantism and promotes white supremacist talking points, the latest example of the GOP’s hard-right swing in the Trump era," reported Arelis R. Hernández and Hannah Allam. Experts have sounded the alarm that this impasse is a "slow-motion secession," with the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism's Heidi Beirich saying, “This rhetoric, combined with Texas’s standoff with the federal government, is applauded by the same far-right movements that engage in hate crimes, domestic terrorism and were prominent at the January 6 insurrection.”

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Making matters worse, said the report, "Abbott and other GOP leaders use the same tropes about migrants as white-power groups and frequently echo the racist 'great replacement theory,' which imagines the engineered replacement of White people in western societies. Hate trackers say violent movements have wasted little time in seizing on the political opening."

Texas-based members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in January 6, are calling for people to "grab their guns" to defend against "brown immigrant invaders," and a truck convoy known as "God's Army" and "Take Back Our Border," modeled after a "patriot" convoy that spent months harassing drivers in D.C., has been organized as well to travel from Virginia Beach to Eagle Pass.

This convoy, however, has reportedly hit a snag as its recruitment was hampered by far-right paranoia that it might be an FBI sting operation.