Historically, probably dealing with terms like fascism and populism and nationalism but before we do that i want to spend just a moment talking about what we are going to do with the technology. Number one, asking all the videos to stay off. So we dont get video bombed and so that we use all of our bandwidth for the conversation as opposed to video. Number two, to ask questions rather than doing it orally, what we are going to ask you to do is to type your question into the chat box, to do that, if youre familiar with zoom, if you run your cursor across the screen youll see at the bottom box that says chat, click on chat and you will see off to the right hand side of your screen a line at the bottom where you can type in your questions and comments. As we go through this discussion with Larry Rosenthal, if youd be good enough to type in your questions as they happen, they will come directly to me, they will not be shared with the rest of the group because we suspect there may be some trolls here who may want to bomb us with hatred and rage. We just assume not have to have all of you share that, they will come to me and thats fine. I dont mind being there psychiatrist for the afternoon. If you would simply put your chat comments and questions, as they arise as larry is talking put them in there and then we will talk with larry for about 50 or 55 minutes, we will then take five minutes we will come back and take your questions. We will leave as much time as possible for that so it says interactive as possible with you. Thats how we are going to do it today. Let me now do the formal introduction of doctor lawrence, hes the chair and lead researcher for the Berkeley Center for research studies. He taught at uc berkeley in the sociology and italian studies to prevent and was a abhe studied the right in the United States and italy, is currently working on a study of the contemporary american right in comparison to moments of the right in 20th century europe. Hes written several books, hes appeared in many periodical and he is the author of a forthcoming book this fall from new press, listen to the title because its very interesting and may give us direction for where we are going, the title of his new book empire of resentment populisms toxic embrace of nationalism. Back by way of introduction, larry, the podium is yours. Thank you bill. I think everyone whos taking the trouble to attend to this. But i would like to do as an Opening Statement is talk about the cast of characters. Who is it we are finding in not only the current rightwingers in the current George Floyd Protests but also one of the extraordinary facts of this extraordinary moment is that we have had two movements with people on the streets in large numbers consecutively boom, one after the other. The first one was the antilockdown demonstrations, the people who were fed up with being told to stay indoors and so forth. Then that is followed without any interruption by the George Floyd Protests. About the antilockdown protest that most of the people there were what i think of as rightwing populists. There are those who dont want to use the term populist to deal with rightwingers but if we go down that road, we will never find our way back. The idea here is through the people, if you can think back to 2009 when suddenly the tea party emerged, these are largely the same people in 2009 the financial crisis had hit and they were feeling economic insecurity. The same thing is true with the coronavirus, the sense of economic insecurity is very deeply felt, the way they argue about those things is in terms of their notion of freedom that their rights were being violated. Back in the tea party scholars use to call that point of view populist constitutionalism and what it meant was that these rightwing populists argued that what the constitution meant and how law should be understood, should not be simply in the hands of lawyers and judges that individuals can make their own determinations about those questions. What happened is the antilockdown demonstrations was essentially that populist original is him as it was called by sellers. Populist original is him so it mutated into populist epidemiology. [laughter] which was the assertion that these fancy doctors can tell us what to do they dont know better than we do. Couple of things about the tea party in 2009 and to some extent carried over one was at the very beginning of the tea party there was attempts by both white nationalists and extreme gun enthusiasts. They kind of take over the tea party or make the tea party adhere to their particular point of view and their particular issue into the tea parties and mets credit the counter resisted that. Things became different with the antilockdown where you got guys, we will get to this, who tended to call themselves booboo boys, well get to that, who appeared in these rallies, okay, so we have the tea party populace. The next category is, its funny because this used to be on everybodys lips and its not talked about all that much anymore. Is the alts right, the alts right is ideologically driven and ideology is quite nationalism. Its very selfconscious about that and they are selfconsciously in the tradition of both fascists, ku klux klan and nazi traditions. A matter of fact, after what was called the battle of berkeley in 2017 that the head of head of the altright a guy called Richard Spencer, he declared after that streetfighting that things had changed for the altright. It was no longer just going to troll people online. Now they were going to fight on the streets. The way he viewed this was that as he put it, abwhich means that he was making the analogy to free nazi germany. The way he characterized it was that you would have a as he called it the fragmentation of american politics was going to move to extreme polarization because you would have the left and the right fighting it out on the streets first space and for ideological space. In this sense as two chomsky recently said, the antifor is a gift to this point of view. Auntabthe position of the altright in that is it people are increasingly going to have to choose and they will choose the right over the left. Whats important about this is the extent to which it has been echoed by the Trump Administration. The Trump Administration has given great credence to the idea that the violence was something owed to antifa or as trump called it a couple years ago, the altleft, now its, they are the one. This plays very much into this strategy of Richard Spencer and the altright. The third category of people are the boogaloo people. Boogaloo is therethere word ab essentially about civil war. And its about the time has come for civil war in america. These people are not as ab distinct from the altright in that White Nationalism is it their explicit ideology. Their ideology is about guns. These are essentially gun rights activists who been extreme for many years. Where they have gone with this moment is sometimes called acceleration is him, which is the idea that the time has come, the moment is right for the boogaloo as its now called. The coming of the american civil war. An interesting thing and exporting point to understand about the Boogaloo Boys as they call themselves. Not only are they gun rights extremist, not only are they talking about civil war but very fundamental to them is being antipolice. The presence of police as a provocation to them as these demonstrations have gone on. Let me draw the analogy here or the way in which as with the altright point of view this kind of dovetails a little bit with what we are getting from the Trump Administration. At one point, i have a quote here from trump i can tell you i have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the bikers for trump. He has conflated aband instituted authority with gangs. This gives legitimacy to the boogaloo in a way that wasnt available before. He goes on i have the tough people, but they dont play it tough unlike the antifa, as he would say. They go to a certain point and then it would be very bad. With that i would say is so much. In the george floyd demonstrations trying to create violence . Without a doubt, the second point. Theres a number of false flag incidents that have been documented they are a relatively fringe phenomenon but they have been mobilized in considerable numbers given their total in this. I dont know anyone who is in a position to attach that many people are this many people, but they also belong to a tradition of not only gun enthusiasts and extremists but also this very idea of this civil war has a long history, at least 40 years there has been kind of the rightwing militia fantasy, there would be an event, somebody would do something it would spark off a war. It is often thought of as a race war for example, dylann roof in South Carolina a let me stop you right there, larry, you are raising the issue of race and i want to focus on that. In view of the george floyd demonstrations and whats been happening for the last three weeks, i noticed that you attached the label of kind of white nationalists to the alts right but then withdrew it when it came to the boogaloo bois. How central is White Supremacy and deepseated racism to the far right here in america . Its fundamental. There is such a history of it and it doesnt go away. The altsaltright is devoted to. The altright believes american, white americans, are being displaced by others. Those others tend to be dark skin and when they are feeling particularly nazi, jews. So there is that side of things, which is firmly racist. The line is blurry between that and whats going on with the xo acceleration asome of them are sympathetic to the george floyd story because it was at the hands of the police. Its not entirely clear cut but in answer to your larger question of the place of race in this, its fundamental. And now i want to try to say as we talk about this Fringe Movement obviously something very different is happened with the arrival of trump and the presidency. The question is, is he one of them . Do we now have the far right in control of the white house or is he simply using them . I suppose thats the question. From the point of view of the altright, and presumably i dont know this for a fact but its likely to the point of view of the xomp is a vehicle f them. They understand trump and certainly from the point of view of the altright, not one of them, but someone who who had allowed their politics to come into the mainstream. Is that he inviting them, encouraging them to the mainstream . He wants to use them, which allows me to ask you, for and a half century or so i wouldve used the word fascism. I would say to my lefty friends i would say, come on. Its not fascism, fascism denigrates how horrible it was. Now it seems to me it might be time to start using network. As a historian of italian fascism as well as german fascism, can we start to use that term when we talk about trump and the far right here in the u. S. . Let me give you a little introduction to that answer, which is, i agree with you that the word fascism was used loosely can both on the left and the right. It was on either side the term of choice for dismissing people, hes just a fascist. It wasnt an analytical tool by and large. That has changed. As soon as donald trump came down his escalator you had the most serious discussion of fascism in this country in my lifetime. Its not just on the left, it was on the right. People like robert kagan who is in the abof neoconservatism. Wrote a piece early on in the Trump Campaign, which was, this is americas owed to fascism. You head you are and allabyou h Madeleine Albrights book. It wasnt fascism because fascism is a movement required a private militia, which trump with all his talking about go knock the crap out of that person at his rallies or, hit his head on the car when you bring them in or get rid of that person, all of his summons to violence did not bring about an organized fascist like militia. Without that, it wasnt fascism. What you need in addition to that militia to be considered fascist . What does he have . As it were two red lines. One is militia and we can come back to that. We shall, absolutely. The other is what comes about in the german case in the nazi case, it was called the enabling law, what the enabling law did was allowed hitler to rule by decree. It essentially neutralized its entirety the german parliament. He had come to power and the legitimate way but neutralized it. In italy as well there was an equivalent quality abof the enabling act. The enabling act in germany it came as a result of the burning of the reichstag which was likely a false flag done by the nazis themselves. You have this movement were you have an emergency followed by, essentially, private any power. Mats the second line in the sand. To mix metaphors, this the second fascist rubicon to cross. Okay. I guess you would argue trump hasnt yet had the emergence allows them declare himself the allpowerful dictator but with respect to private abi wouldve agreed with you that relatively recently that he does it but now he has two it seems to me, not exactly private but he has private base and isis 20 to 30 brownshirts a report executive lee to the branch. The executive branch unilaterally says, in the course of the covid demonstrations and then the george floyd demonstrations he says, we are sending i. C. E. Not to deal with the border but to deal with unrest in los angeles and in the south and we are going to use i. C. E. As our troops. The second element i want to throw in for you to discuss, lets do it differently, and what abwhat about the fact that he now has the brown shirt militia called i. C. E. It would seem like where we are one step away one emergency that gives a thought authoritarian control to the court fascism . I would say more disturbing than even the place of i. C. E. Or that have been other aide pulled up, bureau of arms. Alcohol, tobacco, arms. And whats more disturbing are the guys they put on the street with no badges. With no affiliation. That is closer to the dedicated militia than anything youve ever seen today refer to that as the little green men, which comes from the description of russian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine while their place there is being denied. Thats very compelling thats very close to the line of a private militia or a dedicated militia. When hitler came to power his ss was essentially made part of the state. The way the organs of the fascist party in italy became organs of the Italian Government under mussolini. So that there is something quite worrisome with respect, the specter if you will of fascism about the developments the recent developments of the militias. We talked about the altright can we talked about the Trump Administration and the relationship there. This is not a talk about Police Reform what has to be done about policing . I imagine to address that with other people but i want to ask you as the george floyd demonstrations continue there been some 10,000 requests across the country. There been 130 journalists arrested, rubber bullets being used, people being rounded up when they are peacefully protested so they can be arrested. How do you define the place of Police Forces with respect to far right White Supremacy, fascism. When we do with the fact that police now seem to be not simply bad apples in the barrel but seems to be some kind of real unified action with trump meeting with the heads of police force saying im with you 100 . Its interesting because in the longstanding fantasy on the militia right about the civil war there would be this spark and then the patriots would rise up and when they rose up they would be joined by the police and by the military to some extent, the distinction we are seeing the difference between the military and the police the statement by general mattis the other day, which really took trump down a peg very seriously about what he was doing with respect to the constitution in terms of the army as a potential or joining in the civil war or private militia there is a kind of obstacle at the head of the armed forces. Based on proper understanding of constitutional roles. Its interesting that i think trump, its hard to know what is selfconscious because hes largely uneducated and not a person who understands political strategy in anything other than what appears to be what happens tomorrow. Or what i see on tv tonight if you take Something Like you remember the case of gallagher who was tried by the military court on my gosh abfor homicides in iraq. Trump intervened all during his courtmartial and afterwards he had the secretary of defense do this gallagher sentenced. Trump is actually going beyond hes making connection that goes around and does end run around the brass of the military which is not going to support him. Perhaps it is developing the constituency among rightwingers in the service will one remembers Timothy Mcveigh who was precisely that. With the police there does not seem to be this constitutional bulwark at the top that would resist the militarization or certainly the militarization of police at all but the place of the police as enforcing trump ideals and trumps policies. That is the kind of weighing end of the longstanding fantasy of whats going to happen. We gone altright, we talked about the White Supremacy trump white house, weve now talked about police we talked about the military, to go in another direction now, what do you think is the role or the connection or the intertwining or lack of intertwining of the religious right . The evangelical churches that have probably supported trump. Correct me if im wrong, neither german fascism nor italian depended on Close Relationships with the church yet here it seems to me that we have this relationship between trump and the right and the church or a portion of the church. I think you are right mussolini comes to power at the moment when the catholic church, but in 1920 for 50 years had refused to recognize the italians which took away the churches lands during the unification of italy in 1860 and 1870. Mussolini did come to terms with the ch