I Read the Manifesto

There could be no clearer sign of the crumbling of American democracy.

The 18-year old neo-nazi mass-murderer who slaughtered ten Black people in Buffalo was not stupid or MAGA. He was in college and was in every way an over-privileged kid with his whole life in front of him.

In May 2020, stuck at home because of COVID, he went to 4chan and started looking at white supremacist memes. It took 24 months for his name to go on a list with the nazi mass-murderers in Oslo and Christchurch whose manifestos he emulated.

He has a sonnenrad or “Black Sun” on the cover of his 180-page screed — a symbol which has been appropriated by neo-nazis. He also — while he doesn’t use the word— is an “eco-fascist” which means he believes modern civilization needs to be dismantled to save the earth.

He’s also a “traditionalist” or “trad” which is a strain of regressive christo-fascism that pervades nazi ideology and is shared by Steve Bannon and his uber-fascist muse, Hitler’s philosopher, Julius Evola.

All of these are common themes on 4chan, 8chan and neo-nazi Telegram channels.

But it’s not just “exotic” racism he spouts, he uses charts and graphs from “The Bell Curve” by “scientific racist” Charles Murray who was funded by the Manhattan Institute, the same group that created the anti-CRT and Disney/grooming hysteria.

The Chairman of the Manhattan Institute is a major investor in Twitter who forced out Jack Dorsey last year. Peter Thiel is also deeply involved in the Manhattan Institute — which is nothing more than a racist propaganda generator in the guise of a “libertarian think tank.” It published articles defending the Christchurch murderer. It has been getting people killed with its racist psychological operations and causing vast amounts of racist hate for nearly half a century. It needs to get shut down.

But the most prominent theory put forth in this instruction manual for racist holy war is “Great Replacement” which used to be confined to a few nazis in dark chat rooms, but is now being spread daily by Tucker Carlson and nearly the entire GOP. There does not exist a more dangerous lie. It is nothing more than incitement to mass racial violence. I’m afraid we’re only seeing the start of the consequences of allowing neo-nazi propaganda to be pumped into the brains of millions of citizens.

Half the document is a detailed how-to manual for other nazis to commit similar crimes. It includes price lists and reviews of equipment you can legally buy solely for the purpose of hunting and killing as many people as possible. He extols the virtues of the Second Amendment, which has been intentionally misinterpreted by the right-wing in order to enable this exact outcome.

Unless we fix the Supreme Court, fix the lie of the Second Amendment, and enact laws against fascist propaganda, we will continue to slide into violence. The fascists are winning. As I keep saying, they will never stop. They must be defeated.