Governor Kidnapping Plot Suspect Allegedly Anarchist

from The Federalist

‘White Supremacist’ Suspect In Michigan Kidnapping Plot Is Actually A Trump-Hating Anarchist

By Evita Duffy

A new video of one of the 13 men arrested and charged in an alleged kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shows the suspect is a Trump-hating anarchist despite media claims the plot was hatched by pro-Trump white supremacists.

“You know Trump is not your friend, dude,” said Brandon Caserta, with a large anarchist flag hanging on his wall behind him. “And it amazes me that people actually, like, believe that. When he’s shown over and over and over again that he’s a tyrant. Every single person that works for government is your enemy, dude.”

In another video from Caserta, the anarchist asserted, “[police] are oppressing you for a paycheck.” “If you’re still supporting law enforcement… you are supporting the people who are enforcing slavery on everyone else.”

Documentary producer Robby Starbuck, who discovered Caserta’s videos, blasted the integrity of the corporate media, writing on Twitter: “Why did it take me to pull all these videos to give people access to the truth about the ideology these guys have? It says a lot about the state of journalism that a director/producer had to dig these clips up because we all know we can’t trust mainstream news to do their job.”

The alleged kidnapping scheme aimed at Whitmer included plans to overthrow several state governments that the suspects “believe are violating the US Constitution.”

Immediately corporate media blamed “white supremacists” and President Donald Trump. “If the president read his intel briefings and understood the dogma of white nationalist groups,” wrote Politico’s chief political correspondent Tim Alberta, “he’d realize that language like ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN!’ is read as tacit permission — if not explicit encouragement — for militias to take action.”

In an interview with NPR, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said multiple white supremacists and anti-government groups in the plot acted “in concert based on a shared extreme ideology.”

Nessel said she believes racist militia groups across the country are taking advantage of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter unrest. “They’re using it to recruit and to formulate plots,” she stated.

“I think that those protests [of COVID lockdowns] were used actually as recruiting stations to add more members and to find people that were angry with the governor, angry with the government, and frankly, I think encouraged by the words of our president,” Nessel continued.

Whitmer also tied Trump’s rhetoric to the plot, saying on television she “wakes up every day with such hatred in her heart” for Trump.

The governor alleged “the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacist and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups.” That is false. Trump has repeatedly publicly disavowed white supremacy and racism.

Whitmer also said the “president’s words” during the debate were a “rallying cry” and “call to action” for “hate groups.” “When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions and they are complicit,” Whitmer said.

Turns out, at least one of the men involved in the thwarted kidnapping plot is not a white supremacist at all, nor was he inspired by Trump.

“Democrats and the media say President @realDonaldTrump inspired these idiots who plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,” wrote Starbuck on Twitter. “They’re lying. As this key member of the plot makes very clear, he hated Trump too. They’re government and police hating anarchists. Don’t fall for the lies!”

Democrats and the media haven’t only been disingenuous about this story. They have a history of not accurately representing Whitmer or her Michigan constituents. Alberta made another wild claim in an April Politico story. He wrote that in Lansing, “you cannot find anyone, Republican or Democrat, on the record or off, who does not admire the skills of the state’s 49th governor.” “Moreover, just about everyone likes her,” he said. “She is genuine, secure, quick to give a hug or share a dirty joke.”

This storyline is incredibly ridiculous considering a massive effort to recall Whitmer has been underway for months now. Eleven approved recall petitions are currently in circulation. Whitmer was also rebuked by the Michigan Supreme Court for violating the law in her abuse of emergency powers.

President Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday: “Governor Whitmer of Michigan has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband’s boating activities. The Federal Government provided tremendous help to the Great People of Michigan.”

Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evitapduffy@uchicago.edu

There are 38 Comments

This is embarrassing, and a reason why White supremacist and/or antisemite talk shouldn't be allowed a platform on media like this site.

I see there's been this abhorrent syncretic mix of anarchy and fascism lately, but this shit gotta stop now. Allowing more of it, for the sake of "anti-censorship", is just shooting yourselves in the foot.

in nature. This is a news aggregator site: basically anything that has anarchist ideas mixed into it is posted here as an article. Wouldn't you want to know if some racist "national anarchist" group bombed a church? All the ideological motives for the plot are already listed on the wikipedia page about it, it largely seems to be anti-covid-restriction (bugaloo), anti-cop (bugaloo), anti-trump (now that's very interesting...), and conspiracy theory. There does seem to be associations with confederate flag paraphernalia and 3%er, which is racist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot#Biographi...

I have to say thank you for the additional info about this wierd/creepy kidnapping plot that occurred over facebook...not sure why we need to be upset about "syncretism", which is the mixing of ideology, and happens on here all the time without the right wingers. Being opposed to it has a lot of similarities to white supremacy, this idea that we need to keep belief structures pure and un-adulterated. I'm personally happy that I can read a diverse selection of information on this website, unlike you I'm not trying to advocate the removal of every single thing that offends my anarchist points of views.

Now, you may call me a fascist if you choose.

anti-Trump isn't an indicator of a guy not being a neofascist. Some Neonazis and other Far Right became opposed to Trump on a few bases, including his hardcore siding with Israel and some Jewish orthodox groups, or not doing enough to get rid of non-Whites...

"Being opposed to it has a lot of similarities to white supremacy, this idea that we need to keep belief structures pure and un-adulterated."

Same old "antifa are the real fascists" bullshit?

No, syncretism like national anarchism or White supremacy + anarchism don't have their place here, or elsewhere on the internet. These are helping to cause misgivings or misinterpretations of antiauthoritarian ideas and positions, that always go in the favor of authoritarian agendas, making people potentially equate anarchy with fascism. It's the same as some authoritarian Leftists equating individualism with "right-wing" all the time.

I saw that before, and nobody here except the usual hostile commenters would want that.

the fascists, i think it's a little hard to deny that sometimes the anti-fascists behave in the same manner as the fascists. This goes beyond "anti-fa", remember WWII?

Syncretism is not wrong, it's just syncretism. Bugaloo is syncretist, they mix ideas. The problem with bugaloo is they mix right wing with anti-authoritarianism, which doesn't make any sense, they have the option just like the rest of us to chill out and defy the lockdown for their own purposes, they make the mistake as the usual street performers as in they act with a sense of urgency in some galactic moral battlefield that exists in their own heads.

Yes, purity is a theme in white supremacist ideology. It used to be that if you in any way were mixed with a "non-white race", you were not considered white.

It's like you can just ratter off about how disgusting it is that this article is here and then when someone pricks you with critique, then you get all defensive and say that i was saying anti-fa and fascists are the same thing. Tsk tsk. Remember, real humans wrote all of these articles, so if we rip apart their logics, we should expect that to happen to us.

also embarrassing in that these dumbshits were, well, dumbshits. can't even keep infiltrators and rats out. some ok with cops and sheriffs. the list of embarrassments go on. but yeah, he hung a circleA flag and likes the declaration of independence , that treasured anarchist manifesto.

sigh. post-left was insufficient it seems. who will write the post-right anarchy 101?

Fucking liberal anarchists can't give credit where it's due...

Finally an anarchist willing to take risks and make some sacrifice to Fuck Shit Up in the system...

But the anarcho-liberals easily brush it off with the "Nazi" label...again...

Shameful

Anarchism is fully recuperated in the year 2020.

of legit anarchist action?? Idk, if you ask me anarchists would have zero interest in holding somebody in the government hostage. Bugaloo certainly has some anarchist tendencies but overall they just have too much in common with american right wingers for me to take them seriously...i was the one who argued in favor of this being posted on anarchist news btw...i'm largely indifferent to the democrat governor they were kidnapping because i just don't know anything about her.

Also, kidnapping plot on facebook? That's just fucking dumb.

Killing politicians definitely qualifies as anarchism.

uuuh... yeah like, Pinochet was so anarcho... killed a lot of them libuhrulls to save the Nation against commies.

Pinochet also breathed air and preferred using a toilet to shitting himself. Just because our enemies do something doesn't mean it's off the table.

If you think killing politicians is anti-anarchist, then you don't know shit about anarchism. Think it's bad strategically? Doesn't align with your values or desires? Fine, don't do it. But to claim anarchists wouldn't do something like that or would disqualify themselves as anarchists for it is ridiculous.

"Killing politicians definitely qualifies as anarchism." was your comment. You're the first one to make the equation between "killing politicians" and anarchism, because in your douche fantasy world that's what anarchists are supposed to do.

Then I corrected you by giving you a clear and sharp and example of a fascist who killed plenty of politicians, especially Left politicians, and was definitely anti-anarchist.

So obviously no, political assassination isn't the staple of anarchists all over the world and through all of history, Furthermore, anarchists have been carrying assassinations or abductions of despotic politicians with the aim of breaking their rule, when their rule has become too omnipresent and oppressive to the freedoms of individuals and collectives carrying these acts.

And these days in the West there's actually far too little anarchists who've been "sticking it to the Man" like this.

I didn't say that, someone else did, in response to "Idk, if you ask me anarchists would have zero interest in holding somebody in the government hostage" (to be clear, the plan was to kidnap then kill). I didn't realize the problem was you didn't understand that the phrase "qualifies as" doesn't mean "is necessarily". Had I known that, I'd have just called you a fucking idiot and moved on. So here, let me fix that:

You're a fucking idiot.

you kill one politician, and bam, nothing changed...especially when there are many others who are arguably politicians who are not, shitty plan at least 99.99999999% of the time...

Maybe not 99,99999999% of the time. I've seen several cases where anarchists lacked the proper aim or resolve to go after real estate promoters, city councillors and police chiefs. We're no longer in a time where you can just go after the POTUS or after a Tsar, but the little despots may be more crucial to tackle that those big State leaders.

But over what cause or motive? That's the whole thing that defines an anarcho from a tankie or a fascist.

Like who else than Far Right fanatics would go after a liberal Leftist politician, because Trump literally called for action against them?

the topic of who to kill is an issue from the start, which is what i was saying, to me it implies some sort of valuation, like "this person is worse than the other", or, "this person is not morally worse than the other but they will serve our strategic ends if eliminated", that's why the whole EE thing took root is they realized there isn't much of a difference in who you kill, if it's a human might be good for "wild nature", hahahahahaha

but in all seriousness, i'm having a hard time understanding why bugaloo tried to kidnap this stateswoman...trump has been so much violence-whistling his whole term it had so many results, yet i don't believe he really wanted to be successful...he clearly does mean democrats harm since they are his rivals. He's been hate baiting just about every single person who criticized him.

Load of crap! Assassinate some one like archduke franz ferdinand and you'll start a WWI. Its about timing and national context.

change anything, and that in the US politicians foten aren't really anything more than these bootlicking servants, now donald trump is a pretty enormous exception to that. He's beholden to hardly anything except his own belligerence!

Events which almost led to a global revolution in 1917-18. Anyway. What's happening here is more similar to Spain in the 1920s

With that logic, can you then explain why everyone is hoping Trump dies from COVID?

its only my possession in the extent im "forced" to pay taxes and im allowed to choose mein fuhrers

as my earlier explanation was erased, this is the definition of "crucial":

"...decisive or critical, especially in the success or failure of something."

The way i used it was more along the lines of "politicians are not necessary for human suffering", there's that one political cartoon where the crowd of people in standing under a board that holds up a politician on a pulpit...politicians are more about flapping their mouths, power brokering, and casting votes than they are about the direct activities of domination and slavery. I'm not against killing politicians, never said that, yet i think understanding the cogs in a machine are crucial in any plot to kill any one of them. The biggest problem with killing politicians is they are super expendable.

You're a single fleshy mammal flying on a giant sphere of molten iron around a truly enormous 100% natural fission reactor that will one day collapse into a void of matter and energy. The Milky Way is a literally wheel. You're a cog and always will be. We all are.

then that has no bearing on the spinning of the milky way galaxy, so to say i am a cog in the milky way is false.

I do have to partially agree with you. This guy ain't a white supremacist. He's a radical republican(ideology not US party) with pro-western post-constitutionalist tendencies. Not my favorite type of anarchist by any means but not something to denounce. The anarchists of classical yore(with better ideas relative to the time) did much worse things.

The only form of government dude above advocated was the bill of rights. That's a less bullshit platform than most social anarchists would impose.

That being said, this is not B.F.

Literally no one:

Me: I think liberty is a philosophically-shoddy concept.

He points to the declaration of independence as an anarchist document. He allies with white supremacists. If that is the new anarchy, I will pass.

"Not my favorite type of anarchist by any means but not something to denounce."

i guess all things are permitted, yet i open-mindedly denouce bugaloo, it fucking sucks, made after a movie title, like those republicans i talk to in bars that are so fucking crazy that it feels painful to talk to them (im not even talking about all republicans...). The issue about whether they are white supremacists or not is not something even worth discussing. I posted the wiki page so that people can read about these fools and decide for themselves. Wiping tainted blood out of the gene-pool was not on their agenda, yet their's no way to know what they think. Maybe they were white supremacists or anti-Semites but they changed their mind.

Syncretism...arggghhhh...leads to such dumb shit sometimes but doesn't have to be bad. It is a little refreshing seeing these guys denounce donald trump, but doesn't make me respect them. They would have gotten a little further in their plans if they just used email and cell phones, LOL, but yeah recruiting a terrorist plot on facebook oh my god, it's like they're begging for informants.

"BULLETIN: Bring bomb parts down to the train station, don't let anyone see who you are, drop the circuit board in the trash can at 11am, thank you!"

Did these boys sniff glue growing up?

Grade A reporting here. Those anarchist just love trying to kidnap someone because of US constitution violations and try them for treason. Anarchists are totally in support of the state and cook up plans to kidnap people for not being loyal enough to the state. This totally makes 150% sense. OMG look he has an edgy anarchist flag on his wall and doesn't like Trump. Anarchist confirmed.

This article was a funny read.

who deleted our facebook accounts, most of my old friends haven't had one for a long time. And what about twitter? Twitter on the surface seems a little better as it has some of the features that attract people to @news, but it's just as bad, call out circuses, hot celebs, despair...fake love...

but yes much of the US is resorting to Fakebook to compensate their fears and hopes of the future. Pretty unfortunate, yet the media problem and legit epidemic of the virus left much of the sad world feeling more constrained in their options...I seriously wouldn't even be using the internet if it wasn't for my increased social sphere deficit, and the fact that people are always talking in RL about stuff they see on the internet.

Gotta say, didn't think @news would be the place to find the types of anarchists who disavowed Emma Goldman for refusing to condemn Czolgosz, but here we are.

And that's just not what happened here.

The plotter is a libertarian right-wing nutjob. He's got as much to do with anarchy than Biden has to do with communism.

Oh, a libertarian right-wing nutjob you say? So nothing at all like Czolgosz, who was instead, to quote Wikipedia: "an unemployed factory worker and registered Republican with a history of mental illness." You're right, completely different, my mistake.

Sure, but why condemn an enemy/neutral/ambiguous actor if they are attacking a bigger deadlier enemy of yours? I don't side with whatever wacky pseudo-right wing hodgepodge beliefs but I'm not going to get upset or denounce them when they attack the state & cops.

Karma comes in the end, even if in the form of bad health and a nagging inner voice, the manipulating powerhungry psychopath never enjoys life truly. The End
Noreply, nothing more can be said, this is the way of all flesh, and I'm not being religiously fanatic or wingnutty,

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