In a 2009 interview with Buzzflash, Neiwert explained how the American right-wing (and even more so, today's Republican fascists) share core beliefs and attitudes that make eliminationism and political violence especially attractive to them: 

Well, it's simply become a cornerstone of conservative beliefs that all the world's ills can be laid at the feet of liberalism. It's also a built-in feature of right-wing ideology to construct an Enemy. So when the Enemy is something as broad and popularly embraced as liberalism, it's not too long before your world becomes narrow and enclosed, and everything outside of it is the Enemy.

What that's produced has been a nonstop harangue from the right demonizing liberals generally, and liberal politicians particularly. Remember that Bill Clinton was evil because he had "bad character." John Kerry "lied" about his war service. Barack Obama was a scary "Mooslim" brown man. And more generally, antiwar liberals have been dismissed as mere "Bush haters" and "America haters" and, in the early years of the Iraq war particularly, as "traitors."

This rhetoric is not simply dehumanizing — it also characterizes its subject as fit only for elimination, expurgation, exile or extermination. So we get frequent references to them as diseases and vermin, or carriers of them, as well as scum or filth of various kinds. We get spoken wishes to purge them, drive them out, do away with them — often couched as "jokes" for which it's only possible to see any humor if you share that wish….

I think a lot of it has to do with the psychological construct of movement conservatism, which is distinct from actual conservatism.... These folks are essentially authoritarians for whom a dualist worldview is natural and essential (almost always a product of individual psychological needs), and from it proceeds the need to construct an Enemy, an Other upon whom it can project all of its own worst fears about itself.

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Ultimately, right-wing political violence, potentially on a large scale, is the logical end result and likely goal of the Republican-fascist campaign to end America's multiracial democracy. That movement is making no effort to conceal that fact; many of its leaders and followers are direct and transparent about it.

To stare into the darkness and then confront that horrible reality would require acts of parrhesia (bold public truth-telling) that most of America's political class, the news media, and other elites are unwilling to face for reasons of personal and professional self-preservation.

In his memorial tribute to author and social activist bell hooks, philosopher George Yancy offered these observations about America in this moment of democracy crisis:

As the US stands on the precipice of undoing its fragile democratic experiment, as we bear witness to massive forms of disinformation, crude and rude political divisiveness, as we witness political cowardice, and as so many kowtow in the face of strongmen — who are actually morally weak, politically inept, and wanting in terms of a critically informed consciousness — I am even more saddened by the profound loss of bell hooks and the ethical and critical standard of courageous speech that her work and praxis exemplified. You see, I am under no illusions. Like bell, I refuse to be silent. What better way to remember her? This country, one founded upon the enslavement of Black people, the brutalization of their bodies, and the genocide committed against Indigenous people, is moving toward a massive social implosion. And from the spineless and reckless rhetoric and actions carried out at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, it is clear to me that there are many who are so enamored by false gods, idols, and barefaced lies — who have sold their souls to neofascism, and where anti-intellectualism, sycophancy, and lustful hatred are palpably in the air that we breathe — that they are prepared for a form of existential cleansing that will take no prisoners. They are more than ready to see blood run in the streets of this nation predicated on convictions saturated with lies.

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What if anything can be done to force Americans to confront the truth about the future of their nation, and society if they are determined to not do so?

In the months and years to come, we will ask and answer that question, along with many others. Who are we, and what are we in the process of becoming? If we are willing to stare into the fascist darkness, who or what will stare back? And what if we see ourselves in that darkness?

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Chauncey DeVega is a senior politics writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.