Accelerationists are Endangering the United States
Recently, the FBI foiled a plot concocted by right-wing militiamen, where they intended to capture the governor of Michigan and take down the state’s elected leadership in an audacious act of insurgency. State mask mandates are among the perceived slights against civic liberties which drove these individuals to plan to take up arms against a heartland state and stage an outrageous and highly publicized act of antigovernmental violence.
This wildly criminal act — a terrorist act, to be clear — would have shattered any sense of normalcy or rule of law for vast tracts of the population, undermining the citizenry’s trust and faith in public institutions. Particularly, it would be a harbinger of more chaos and lawlessness in America’s heartland, a call-to-arms for some. This plot illustrates a problem in the US — where nationalist militants have become far more dangerous to the public order than Islamist terrorists — a problem called accelerationism.
Accelerationism is a far-right political theory born in recent times. Essentially, white nationalists and alt-right message boards have romanticized the idea of The Purge and begun ruing the day where minorities, liberals, and deep state bureaucrats can be purged from the country in a second Civil War, so that white nationalist forces can exploit the chaos, ride out the conflict to its crest, take control and reconstruct America according to their designs. This is straight out of the fascist playbook, the hope to exploit unrest and fear to seize power and disenfranchise their opponents. An unknown number of militants have taken up this view to form what’s known as the Boogaloo movement.
The Boogaloo Bois are a decentralized network of far right-wing militants who intend to agitate for a second American Civil War, which they call ‘the boogaloo’ as a pop reference to the film Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Like the sequel film, these individuals seek a second American Revolution, a violent restructuring of the nation. While they are somewhat ideologically diverse, they agree that a second Civil War is on the horizon, and incredibly, that it will be good for the country.
The militants who sought to capture the governor of Michigan come from a new cell dubbed ‘the Wolverine Watchmen’ as a reference to the state animal. These individuals are but one part of this movement. The media covered some boogaloo presence at BLM protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, armed men in their trademark Hawaiian shirts watching over marching activists. The Oklahoma city bombing and Ruby Ridge shootings are acknowledged as watershed moments in the formation of their anti-government, pro-chaotic collapse narrative. These activists are only invigorated by President Trump’s tweets encouraging the ‘liberation’ of states under coronavirus lockdown orders as well as the President’s inability to condemn far-right extremism. What’s truly concerning about the boogaloo bois is their eagerness to engage in violence against the fellow citizens, the bubbling unrest of pandemic fatigue, and the capacity for lone-wolf actions spontaneously emerging from the Boogaloos’ decentralized organization. We need to beware of rogue actors seizing on crises as inflection points for their own insurgent goals. We should beware such malcontents trying to exploit the uncertainty of Election Day.
It’s shocking to think about Americans, many with military backgrounds, pontificating about how great it would be to send this country plummeting into chaos. The partisan divide has become dangerously deep. Our country needs to remember its greatness as one, the benefit we derive from the presence of other peoples’ perspectives, and how peace & rule of law is what should be the desired norm; not chaos. Our grandparents fought wars to preserve American peace and prosperity and that’s being undermined by pundits, politicians and provocateurs. It’s good that law enforcement is watching these extremist groups. But despite the trouble of the times, we should remember that we’re better off together, and our country is better served by chaos than by a bloody civil war. It’s time we come back to our common values of liberty, prosperity, and peace.
