Opinion

These days, most people — at least who follow the news at all — know who the Proud Boys are. After all, the far-right street gang was at the center of organizing the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, a crime that that many members have been facing serious federal charges for. But it wasn't long ago that they mainstream media was largely portraying the group as relatively harmless, more like a conservative drinking club than evidence of the resurgence of violent fascism that was inspired by Donald Trump.

Some journalists, however, were always certain that the Proud Boys were not harmless and were trying to raise the alarm early. (Including, ahem, yours truly.) Among those was investigative reporter Andy Campbell of HuffPost. His new book, "We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism," offers an in-depth look at this group, their ideology, their tactics, and their goals — the kind of coverage that was sorely missing from much of the media in the months leading up to January 6. "We Are Proud Boys" is an essential investigation of a group that has done so much to tear at the fabric of democracy while mostly being ignored by the mainstream press.

Another week, another totally bonkers ruling out of a federal court in Texas. Earlier this month, Judge Reed O’Connor (the same judge who tried overturning the entire Affordable Care Act in 2018 before being overruled by the US Supreme Court) decided that employers do not have to offer insurance plans that cover PrEP (drugs that prevent the spread of HIV) if they have religious objections.

Apparently providing healthcare to the poor, the sick and the vulnerable can be anti-Christian. Who knew? Kidding – those of us who need reproductive healthcare have known for a while.

Days before the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump stood before a throng of ecstatic followers and said, "I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win." Indeed he did pull out a narrow electoral victory, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. There was plenty of carping. There were street protests. But nobody stormed the U.S. Capitol or enlisted Democratic officials in various states to sign fraudulent elector statements in the hopes of getting Congress to overturn the result in defiance of the Constitution. Clinton conceded the next day, although no one's pretending she was happy about it. Democrats grumbled about the antiquated system that elected the last two Republican presidents with a minority of the popular vote, but everyone moved on.

There's no need to recapitulate what happened in 2020. We are all too aware of it, mostly because Trump and his allies won't let anyone forget it. He made it clear from the beginning that it was simply not possible for him to lose and now we can see that he's convinced a large number of candidates for office, as well as their voters, that it holds true for them too. The Big Lie is alive and well.

Federal agents boxed him in as he waited in a Hardee’s drive-thru last week. They handed Mike Lindell a subpoena and confiscated his phone. What does the FBI want with the My Pillow Guy’s mobile?

Lindell is the sugar daddy of the Big Lie. The eccentric pillow peddler claims that the nation’s voting machines hold proof of a stolen 2020 election. Since Trump’s defeat, he’s spent tens of millions of dollars bankrolling grassroots activists who pressure local Republican election officials to leak highly sensitive data from voting machines.

Whatever happened to government being the power that helped people, they want to know?

But it was entirely predictable. Even, recently, by actual medical scientists.

Days before the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump stood before a throng of ecstatic followers and said, "I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win." Indeed he did pull out a narrow electoral victory, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. There was plenty of carping. There were street protests. But nobody stormed the U.S. Capitol or enlisted Democratic officials in various states to sign fraudulent elector statements in the hopes of getting Congress to overturn the result in defiance of the Constitution. Clinton conceded the next day, although no one's pretending she was happy about it. Democrats grumbled about the antiquated system that elected the last two Republican presidents with a minority of the popular vote, but everyone moved on.

There's no need to recapitulate what happened in 2020. We are all too aware of it, mostly because Trump and his allies won't let anyone forget it. He made it clear from the beginning that it was simply not possible for him to lose and now we can see that he's convinced a large number of candidates for office, as well as their voters, that it holds true for them too. The Big Lie is alive and well.

America's democracy crisis will not end anytime soon. Donald Trump and his acolytes in the Republican-fascist party continue to incite acts of right-wing violence, including terrorism, on a nationwide scale as part of their plan to end American democracy and replace it with authoritarianism and one-party rule.

The Big Lie continues to spread across the United States. A majority of Republicans now subscribe to the repeatedly disproven theory that the 2020 Election was somehow illegitimate, that Trump is the "real" president and Joe Biden is a pretender and usurper. "MAGA" is American neofascism; it has fully conquered the Republican Party.

I voted for Donald Trump four times and Ron DeSantis twice, counting Republican primaries and general elections. I used to be an in-demand political pundit for Republican/conservative media; my work and writing appeared on sites and radio shows listened to or read by millions of Americans: Fox News, the Federalist, Real Clear Politics and elsewhere. I had frequent public speaking engagements. I was writing the obligatory hyper-partisan, fire-breathing book that was expected of somebody in my position. It was going to get me my own prime-time TV opinion show and professional podcast. I had a publisher interested in my manuscript.

This article first appeared in Salon.

As I spoke with historian and journalist Phyllis Vine, I kept thinking of Howard Zinn.

This article first appeared in Salon.