This vision of God-fearing members of the business community and war veterans coming together to defend themselves against an onslaught of urban looters and general lawlessness was plainly a fantasy of purgation, focused on the violent elimination of “bad” elements of American society. In fact, you couldn’t even properly call it crypto-fascism: it was really just good old-fashioned original-style fascism. It didn’t seem necessary either to do a lot of racial decoding when it came to all the talk of “urban” versus “rural” America, of “city-style” gangs versus homeowner association posses. The
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