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**OCTOBER 8, 2020**

Meyerson on TAP

The Michigan Militia, Then and Now

The news that six Michigan militia members have been arrested for
planning to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the state's Democratic governor,
whose COVID precautions upset manly Trumpians, caused me to flash back
to a 1996 campaign event I was covering for the

**L.A. Weekly**. I was spending the better part of a week on the trail
with Pat Buchanan, the proto-Trumpian, Putin-loving nativist, racist,
and paleo-fascist (during his boyhood, his family supported Franco's
overthrow of Spain's elected government), who was running an
inflammatory Republican primary campaign against Bob Dole for the
party's presidential nomination. As Goldwater heralded Reagan, so
Buchanan heralded Trump.

The event that still stands in memory took place one afternoon in a
venerable auditorium in Bay City, Michigan. Like all of Pat's events,
the attendees were not only all white but quite a number of them showed
up in military fatigues, eager to show that they'd enlisted in
Buchanan's culture war. One fatigue-wearer was so eager to demonstrate
his zeal that he stood at attention, in the front row of the
auditorium's balcony seats, for the entirety of Pat's speech, behind
the American flag that he'd draped over the railing.

And like all of Pat's events, this one featured largely generic
obscenities that some in the crowd hurled at the traveling press when we
entered the hall.

Virtually no elected officials supported Buchanan's candidacy, so the
drill at Bay City, as at the other stops, was to have the campaign's
county chairman (they were invariably male) introduce the campaign's
state chairman (ditto), who'd proceed to introduce Pat. Such
introductions were generally pro forma, but not the one in Bay City,
where the county chairman had a gaunt, haunted look, much like a
half-lit John Carradine in some 1940s horror movie. That impression grew
stronger as he began to speak.

"The problem is socialism," he began-

**only, he said it in German**. Then, he quickly translated it into
English.

No one in the crowd blanched-the redder the meat, the better. Indeed,
they whooped and hollered their approval, though there was one group,
besides the press, that grew concerned. Buchanan's traveling staff was
a bunch of frat boys from right-wing colleges for whom such events had
become so routine they had long since stopped paying any attention to
what anyone was saying. The German introduction shook them up, however.
Their heads swiveled, they rushed to consult one another, they furiously
whispered into each other's ears. What if that guy did a
Heil-You-Know-Who salute? What if he led the crowd in a chorus of
"Deutschland Uber Alles"? Did anyone have a hook to drag him offstage?

After a few more nerve-wracking minutes of ranting against the socialist
threat-which Republican front-runner Dole obviously personified-the
county chairman finally relinquished the stage. The frat boys heaved
sighs of relief and went looking for whatever beer provisions were
handy. The guy in the balcony remained at attention.

Which is one reason why today's news of violent right-wing extremism
in Michigan didn't come as a total surprise to me.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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Kamala Bound (Willingly)

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MEYERSON

The Black Leader Taking Corporate Money to Write Phony Newspapers

The story behind California NAACP President Alice Huffman and
'Minority News' BY ALEXANDER SAMMON

Four More Years of Trump Would Be an Environmental 'Fiasco'

The administration has established a record of protecting polluters and
undermining regulation. BY BRITTANY GIBSON

Unsanitized: Late-Night Infomercial Trump Hawking Unapproved COVID
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Plus, Trump backs out of the next debate. This is The COVID-19 Daily
Report for October 8, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

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