Most of us discount the dangers of fanatical extremism, even though many Americans now believe in some version. We believe the threat to be somewhere out there. However, fanatical extremism can arise from nowhere or reemerge even when we think it has been defeated.
Most Americans are largely uninvolved in politics. Despite the high-stakes tension in the 2020 Presidential election, only 62% of the voting-age population voted. For non-Presidential years, voter participation is around 50%. Extremists fill the silence vacuum created by the disaffected and moderates who work hard in their everyday lives. It is no wonder that extremists hold such sway over American politics.
Extremists make lots of noise, while complacent, non-voters are silent. Non-voters ignore politics and think voters are crazy or stupid. Voting moderates and independents are politically involved but do not attack or seek to mutilate their opponents like extremists. Unlike extremists, moderates are popularly portrayed as indecisive or polite nerds. Extremists want to see blood streaming from their enemies, while moderates want to prevent bloodshed. Granted, some peace-oriented extremists exist. Still, even these folks have been known to seek the destroy the political movements on the opposite magnetic pole.
Some fanatical extremists in America are like middle school bullies on the playground. Bullies continue to bully if not disciplined by the vice principal or busted in the nose by a bigger bully. While their short reign of terror lasts, bullies love the power they command. However, the freedom to bully others eventually ends. What happens to bullies or extremists when they are thwarted? What happens when they are known to be losers?
Fanatical extremists can also come from the ranks of the bullied. Instead of victimizing others, they are the angry victims of physical or cultural bullying. Due to their precarious position within the social hierarchy of their community, they tend to be loners and find kindred spirits at gun clubs, social media websites, etc.
The typical end game for extremists is a breakdown in their relationship with their community, culture, or society. They have been rejected, so they may no longer support or value the norms of their institutions. Their hatred multiplies, and they become alienated from virtually all social institutions. Their society becomes a foreign entity or an “other.” To overcome their isolation, some extremists join with kindred spirits to become some version of lawless anarchists. As anarchists, they attack authority, established order, particular institutions, or ruling power. Theoretically, there are other paths to anarchism, but most roads to anarchism originate from personal failure and fanatical extremism.
The evolution from extremism to anarchism is another feature of the horseshoe theory of politics. A possible link in the magnetic horseshoe theory is a highly magnetized anarchy suspended between the two energetic poles of extremism.
Anarchists can come from either of the two extreme political poles. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between left and right-wing anarchists. Similarly, there are cases in which anarchists originally from opposite poles fought together as comrades to destroy “the established order” of a democracy. Anarchists despise moderates and their democratic-loving culture so much that they “feed off” their mortal enemies on the opposite pole to destroy their native democratic culture. There also might be a certain naivete and gullibility among anarchists. They often have government informers in their anarchist cells.
Embracing Criminality and Anarchy
Baked into the complex culture of America is a secret love of scoundrels. This impulse was primarily imported from Europe in the form of pirates, Robin Hoods, and misunderstood monsters. In the 1600s, European monarchs licensed and approved sea captains outside their official navies to loot and plunder ships from opposing countries. They were privateers or pirates. The pirate life had the thrill of a warrior clan raid in the Paleolithic Age with a veneer of a civilized royal court in the Modern Age.
As a Brit might say, other types of dodgy behavior are not overtly supported by royal licenses. Undoubtedly, after someone like Hammurabi created the first law, some clever people tried to stay one step ahead of the literal law. These clever ones try to avoid the rules without breaking them. They hire lawyers to read a law’s small print to look for loopholes. A current example of a legal loophole is the sale of guns in the USA. To control guns, Federal law requires background checks before a commercial gun dealer can sell a firearm to a private individual. However, any private individual can sell to another private individual without a background check.
Some people stubbornly resist laws that clearly benefit society. These extremists will flaunt laws when first enacted and claim that their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon. For example, there were pockets of lawless smokers when anti-smoking laws first emerged. They claimed that it was their God-given right to pollute restaurants and offices. They screamed bloody murder and claimed the government was taking away their right to kill others with cigarettes and cigars. Like many lawless activities, these unrepentant folks eventually end up on the wrong side of history.
Other Americans openly support prominent criminals for a variety of reasons. Criminals like Al Capone, Ted Bundy, and Timothy McVeigh committed heinous crimes, but some Americans ignore the crimes and celebrate the person committing the crimes.
Hollywood has pumped out dozens, if not hundreds, of movies celebrating the life and times of gangsters like Al Capone. The gangster persona has evolved beyond a mere thug.
Ted Bundy was a handsome, misunderstood young college dropout. Even though Bundy raped and killed more than 30 women, women from all over the world sent him fan mail.
White supremacist and domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh’s actions are still popular with many in the MAGA crowd because of his sympathy with David Koresh’s last stand outside Waco and other cases of extremist conservativism. Hate-filled extremism is like the zombie apocalypse; it never seems to die. Its negative energy transfers itself from one martyred or criminal group to another.
When the larger society rejects the fanatic’s version of civil society, extremists have few options. Many former fanatical extremists become fragments of angry, magnetized anarchy suspended between the two poles of the political horseshoe magnet. They can slink off into history, become museum caricatures, lapse into criminality, are incarcerated, or go underground to become more active anarchists bent on destroying society’s institutions.
In 1924 Adolph Hitler failed to learn his lesson after the failure of his attempted coup. Instead, he used his jail time to draft Mein Kampf, a best-selling book that became the blueprint for World War II and the Holocaust. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself with any of the hundreds of presently incarcerated who attempted the coup on January 6, 2021.
The top of the horseshoe diagram on the last page shows the highly magnetic top of a horseshoe magnet. Between the right- and left-wing poles is a metal slug of anarchy. This anarchy is magnetically suspended between the power of the extremism of the right- and left-wing poles. The two poles feed off each other. As we learned earlier, the strength of a horseshoe magnet is also sustained by a metal “keeper” stuck between the two poles.
The diagram also shows the distance between the two magnetic poles’ extreme ends and the horseshoe’s magnetic bottom part. The less weakly magnetized bottom might not be the most exciting. However, the bottom half is better for society since it reduces tension, anxiety, and finger-pointing by creating a climate for solving society’s problems.
The photo below also shows magnetic energy at the two poles of the horseshoe magnet and the relative magnetic tranquility at the rounded end.
