The US Is Now An Exporter Of Terrorist Ideology
The US Is Now An Exporter Of Terrorist Ideology
Here's what you need to know about an incredibly dangerous, fast growing far right movement you've probably never heard of.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Unfortunately there will no Banter Roundtable Podcast this weekend due to both Justin and myself coming down with very nasty colds (no doubt passed on by our respective petri dishes, otherwise known as “children who go to school”…). This was extremely unfortunate given the shocking Supreme Court leak on Roe vs Wade this week, so we do extend our sincere apologies. We’ll be back full force next weekend.
- Ben
by Justin Rosario
Right-wing crazy comes in a lot of different flavors in America. Most people are familiar with the loudest and most obnoxious; MAGA, QAnon, white militias, the Proud Boys, and so on who get all the headlines and attention.
One of the most dangerous, however, flies under most people’s radar. It’s called the “Sovereign Citizen movement,” and in America’s current political climate, it is growing like a tumor of steroids. The movement has been churning out terrorists for years, and has now spread to other countries — officially making the US an exporter of terrorist ideology. Vice recently published a report on how bad it is getting in the UK, and it is worth noting that their SC movement pales in comparison to our legion of violent, delusional, and well-armed anti-government terrorists.
Let me introduce you to a movement designed to produce violence, how bonkers it is, and the dark path it is heading down.
The basics
In a completely unpredictable turn of events, the origins of the SC movement have to do with racism and antisemitism. Started by White Supremacist William Potter Gale in the early 1970’s, the Sovereign Citizens movement shares roots with the John Birch Society (the crazies who tried take over the Republican Party for over half a century before arguably finally succeeding). Gale, a Birch society member and far right Christian, would very much fit in with today’s MAGA movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports:
Potter formed a group of antigovernment Christian Identity adherents who mistrusted state and federal officials. They believed that non-white people were not human, and that Jews possessed a satanic plot to take over the world. They identified themselves as Posse Comitatus, which is Latin for “power of the county” and centers on the idea that county sheriffs are the highest governmental authority.
2Posse Comitatus is based on the Sheriffs Act of 1887, which allowed sheriffs to form a posse that would assist them in hunting down and arresting criminals. Potter’s posse believed they served under common law (laws based on their interpretation of the Bible), rather than civil law (legitimate laws formed by the American legal system).
You may notice more than a few similarities between the Sovereign Citizens and QAnon; the antisemitism, the satanic plot, the government being illegitimate (unless controlled by them, of course), laws don’t apply to them, etc, etc:
The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. Sovereigns believe that the American government set up by the founding fathers, under a common-law legal system, was secretly replaced. They think the replacement government swapped common law for admiralty law, which is the law of the sea and international commerce.
Some sovereigns believe this perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933, when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that U.S. judges and lawyers, who they believe are foreign agents, know about this hidden government takeover but argue against it, denying the sovereigns’ motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces.
It’s all gibberish and it gets even worse when you cut and paste the entire mess onto other countries as Vice points out:
In the decades since, its spread in various forms around the world as a decentralised movement, with followers adapting the ideology to the country they’re in. In Germany, they’re known as “Reichsbuerger,” claiming to be citizens of the pre-war German Reich which they insist still exists, and has legitimacy over the modern Federal Republic. In the UK, they typically reference Article 61 of Magna Carta – the 800-year-old charter of rights signed by England’s King John to appease a group of disgruntled barons – falsely asserting it gives them the right to rebel against unjust laws.
Essentially, the Sovereign Citizen movement is a fig leaf for people who hate the government. They invented a myth for why they no longer have to follow the rules and then placed themselves above the law. The movement is about as nonsensical as it gets in terms of what they believe, but the lunacy attracts the most unstable personalities, creating a movement filled with walking powder kegs.
Where is it all leading?
Almost certainly a lot of violence and bloodshed. You cannot wind up this many people this tightly and not expect them to snap. As QAnon and the SC movement continue to spread their conspiracies of satanic cults, pedophile rings, and global satanic pedophile cannibal cabals trying to take over the world, the hysteria and willingness to do harm increases.
Sovereign Citizens used to talk about avoiding taxes and child support (unsurprisingly Sovereign Citizens are overwhelmingly male). Now they talk about mass murder:
“These dirty, disgusting governments, police, doctors, nurses – we know who our enemy is now,” a prominent anti-vax influencer known as Truth Pills Danny, ranted in a video posted to Telegram after attending an Alpha Team Assemble training session held in West Sussex, south-east England in December.
Sovereign citizens routinely issue threats of violent retribution, with many spouting fantasies of a so-called “Nuremberg 2.0” when the supposed architects of the pandemic will be put on mass trial and executed.
That should ring a bell as well. One of the core beliefs in QAnon is that “The Storm” will come, sweeping away all of their enemies in mass trials that end in public executions. Both movements operate on the principle that once their framework of absurdity is in place, anything from simple tax evasion to assassination and insurrection can be rationalized.
In the UK, the movement is looking to train hundreds of thousands of “peace constables” (Sovereign Citizen cops) in order to create a “police force” large enough to overwhelm the actual police and seize control. In other words, an insurrection. In the United States, the SPLC estimates that there are already at least 300,000 in the movement although they are not a single organized unit. Yet.
But even a small chunk of that movement is proving to be wildly dangerous as demonstrated by Ammon Bundy. The Guardian reports:
Bundy has adapted to new times in US politics as the Republican party has lurched right under the influence of Donald Trump, and far-right militia groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have dominated headlines, including after the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Bundy, however, has attracted far less attention as he built up a state-by-state-level, cell-like network that can host dinners to create a sense of community but also produce on-demand protesters.
Bundy’s People’s Rights Network aims to form a coalition of militia members, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, preppers and other far-right travelers. Its size eclipses most far-right groups put together. And many experts see it as a real threat to democracy.
With at least 33,000 members spread across 38 states, Bundy’s group is not entirely based on Sovereign Citizen ideology but has strong ties to it, particularly the idea that any government they do not like (meaning Democratic and democratic) is illegitimate. Bundy frequently summons his mob to terrorize elected officials. The national press has paid very little attention to this, and neither has local law enforcement.
You may recall Bundy from his previous standoffs with the government during which he and his family rallied extremists to point guns at federal officers and walked away. They also illegally occupied a federal building for a month and while several of their followers went to jail and one was killed, the Bundys themselves walked free again.
Even as right wing extremists complain about oppression, their freedom to openly wage war against the government is unparalleled.
At the first signs of serious civil unrest, Ammon Bundy will, if he feels like it, have an army at his beck and call to seize control of large swathes of rural territory under the aegis of “taking back America.” If you think it could not possibly happen, it is worth considering that armed militias in Oregon set up completely illegal roadblocks to weed out “suspicious” people and “Antifa” during the protests in Portland, and the local police let them do it. If large groups of armed and organized fanatics seize control of rural territory, can we be sure that local law enforcement will act?
Covid made it all worse
In times of stress and complexity, people look for easy and convenient answers. The Right preys on this and offers conspiracy theories and violence as a balm for confusion and fear. The UK has a very serious homegrown terrorism problem in the making because of it. America’s homegrown terrorism problem was already crippling and is now, perhaps, terminal. Covid made it all worse.
A deadly disease followed by economic catastrophe combined with strict social regulation was enough to send an already unstable movement into a tailspin of insanity. Cynical players used Covid to recruit an untold number of adherents, swelling the ranks of the radicalized, and now, in both the UK and US, the Sovereign Citizen movement is emboldened. They are breeding terrorists at a pace al Qaeda would envy. And they have access, in the US at least, to all the weapons they could ever hope for.
Even as Covid wanes and restrictions have all but disappeared, the right will simply find new plots against their freedom to “resist” with violence. After all, the global satanic pedophile cabal existed before Covid so why would it disappear now?
The good news is that the federal government is well aware of the SC movement and considers it a serious danger to the country. The bad news is that the press appears to hardly be aware of the movement, much less the danger it poses. In The Guardian’s article on Ammon Bundy, Sovereign Citizens are not mentioned once. I’d wager good money that most of you reading this right now were either completely unfamiliar with the term or had only heard it in passing. Even less of you knew what it meant. This is a problem.
The Sovereign Citizens movement is exceptionally dangerous because it is exceptionally insane. It has a several decade head start on QAnon for crazy conspiracy nonsense, and its entire premise is designed to promote violence against the government. In this particular moment in history, it cannot be stressed how deadly this can get with little effort. All it took was two botched FBI raids to trigger the Oklahoma City Bombing. The powder keg we’re sitting on now is orders of magnitude larger and far more organized.
It is a bomb that needs to be defused before it is too late. Because the Sovereign Citizens movement is just waiting for an excuse, or worse, permission.
Read an excerpt from the latest for Banter Members. Get a 60 day free trial today:
Letters To The Editor: Toxic Twitter, Falling Out With MAGA Family And Making Friends With Neocons
Welcome to the latest installment of our Letters To The Editor feature for Banter Members!
A reader responds to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter:
I can see this coming from a 100 miles away. If Musk does end up buying Twitter the right, who are already praising him despite the purchase not even close to being finalized, will flip on him the nanosecond he puts the kibosh on some horrible thing a person from the right tweets out. That WILL happen. Then he'll be called a liberal shill and part of the child abusing cabal who's really a lizard man from beneath the Denver airport wearing an itchy skin suit. I have a question for The Banter team. In the podcast it was mentioned that at some rally it was stated that people were expressing their desire to kill off liberals that enjoyed baby milkshakes and so on. Given the trajectory of politics and ultra right wing groups and their cultish adherence to shockingly awful disinformation, do you think it's fait accompli that there will be an incidence of severe violence across the U.S. or an incident that is so undeniably egregious (assassination, bombing, gassing, etc)- as if the terrorist attack on the Capitol wasn't enough- it really does snap people back to the reality of facts...that even the likes of Fox "News" is shamed into sobriety?
Ben: Great question. Sadly, I don’t think any act of violence, no matter how egregious it is, will bring the far right back from the brink. This is a country where elementary school children can be blown to pieces with high powered military weapons, and the Right refuses to even entertain changing gun laws….
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“… and the local police let them do it. If large groups of armed and organized fanatics seize control of rural territory, can we be sure that local law enforcement will act?”
Police departments, by their very nature, ate right wing organizations. And as they constantly demonstrate by their always strong opposition to any kind of oversight, don’t believe they should be subject to the very laws that it is their job to uphold.
How high a percentage of police officers are sympathetic to, if not actually members of, these groups? The Bundys walking free, (twice!) and the police doing nothing about the illegal roadblocks suggest the percentage is quite high if not very high.
An odd irony (and which irony isn’t?) is the more people realize they can’t rely on the police, the more they will feel like they have to fend for themselves. And drift closer to the “prepper“ mindset.
Very informative article. Never heard of Sovereign Citizen movement before. Better to be aware and on the look-out than to be caught off guard. Crazy takes so many forms these days.