Thanks to #Undertow I also learned about this 1949 race riot. Those who seek to polarize our nation have been doing this a loooooong time... and they are getting stronger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peekskill_riots

#civilwar #USA #Sharlet

Jeff #Sharlet asked everyone this litmus question.

Q: Do you think there’ll be a civil war?
A: (They all said) “Yes.”

Most thought it was coming, soon. Some said it was already here.

#undertow #civilwar #USA #fascism

Here's #Sharlet's take on creeping fascism from #Undertow

“... objections to describing militant Trumpism as fascist have fallen away. ... the movement his presidency quickened now cultivates paramilitaries and glorifies violence as a means of purification, thrives on othering its enemies, declares itself persecuted for “Whiteness,” diagnoses the nation as decadent, and embraces the revisionist myth of a MAGA past - as exemplified in its dream of adding Trump’s likeness to Mount Rushmore.”

Another section that made an impact was his decision to capitalize people who were White. I'll give his reasoning attached to this, but many writers / editors who choose to "racify" people by turning an adjective about their skin or ethnicity into a grand noun scares me. Black. Asian. Latino. If you do it to them, do it to EVERYONE. Please.

#sharlet #undertow #civilwar #racism

Sharlet goes a great job describing real people with a perspective very different from his own. Very scary perspectives. The recent death of #Bellafonte underscores how long the fight has begun. His first chapter is all about Harry and how he helped fund Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

#sharlet #undertow #civilwar #racism

Finished reading #Undertow by #Sharlet and I'll summarize it for you. Civil War in the USA has been simmering since its founding. And the one in 1860 never concluded.

#sharlet #undertow #civilwar #racism

‘I see this as a global fascist moment’: author Jeff Sharlet on interviewing far-right Americans

Sharlet, who spent a dozen years talking to ordinary people about their predilection for violence, has long sounded the alarm

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/30/jeff-sharlet-undertow-fascism-far-right-religion-trump?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
#USA #fascism #farright #Sharlet #Guardian