Thread: New America
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Old 11-24-2022, 06:12 PM
castlebravo92 castlebravo92 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus View Post
Yes, and a splash of David Duke. Dude was a Grand Wizard of the KKK, then a Democratic Party presidential [primary stage] hopeful, and, later, the Populist Party's candidate in 1988, before later emerging as a sort of elder statesman for the alt-right movement of the late 20-teens.

re FBI infiltration of extremist groups...

The internet as it exists today would not have been a feature of the mid-to-late 1990s of the Twilight War. That cuts both ways. Extremists groups couldn't use it to recruit and coordinate activities nationwide (and even internationally); the FBI/NSA wouldn't be able to use it to learn of threats, keep tabs on extremist groups, and begin infiltrating same.

Also consider the de-centralized nature of extremist groups then and now. They're like the Hydra of Greek mythology. The FBI may be able to sever a head or two, but it can't kill the beast, and those heads will eventually regrow anyways. Given the FBI's RL success in infiltrating domestic terror groups, IRL, there's still no shortage of same.
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Pre-internet, there were the classified ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine, subscription newsletters and mailing lists, dial-up bulletin board services, etc. The NSA (allegedly) had trunk level taps into the phone system and were recording calls way before the public internet was a thing.

That's not to say de-centralized groups couldn't fly under the radar, but it would necessitate them to be relatively small, relatively minor in capability (sans some other explanation).

Of course, if we take a certain narrative liberty (such that would be required to make Hughes a CIA asset in any event), we can spin things in a different direction - namely the Howard Zinn / left wing view of US history that racism and white supremacy has always been a/the driving force in American culture and politics, and thus rather than Hughes tapping into a group of marginalized whites living in the fringe of society, he was tapping into a core part of America that never disappeared and was never marginalized after the Civil Rights era ended.
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