The United States’ hundreds of extreme right-wing groups are estimated to have tens of thousands of members and support from the so-called silent majority, especially in smaller cities and in the countryside. It is about hundreds of thousands of frustrated people among affected workers and peasants and farmers who oppose a liberal policy, immigration, the Washington elite and the supremacy of the state. They are riding on a wave of Trump-related hate propaganda and racism – and that the state should take away their weapons.

Here at home in Sweden, we can now watch television programs every day, which show deep contradictions in American society. Especially those who support Trump appear to be so aggressive and unpleasant that if one was in the United States, you would be careful not to have any discussion with them about social conditions and what they are doing.
What we see are a large number of groups and armed militias on the extreme right: Alt-Right, Boogaloo, Aryan Nations, Michigan Militia, Arizona Patriots, Texas Light Infantry, Free Militia, Defense Militia, Traditionalist Workers Party, Populist Party and many more . Alt-Right is an abbreviation of The Alternative Right. The Movements is an umbrella organization for right-wing extremist movements and groups. They celebrate Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election and are some of his main militant supporters. They have swastikas and have shown a Nazi-like greeting with the words ”Hail Trump” and ”Hail victory”. We Europeans know this well from the Nazis’ ”Heil Hitler”.

The extreme right-wing groups are often anti-state, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and openly racist. Common to them is the quest to restore white identity and white supremacy, which liberals have undermined with their policies and which the traditional conservatives have not prevented.
If you do not know about American culture and social conditions, you would hardly think that it is not true, when you see on television such groups marching and parading in the streets with military equipment and automatic weapons. That this is allowed and possible says a lot about American society and how different it is compared to Europe.

The emergence of extreme right-wing forces has been going on for many years. League of the South a nationalist southern state organization was founded over 20 years ago. They want the southern states to break away from the United States and use the southern state flag as a highly acclaimed symbol. The Tea Party movement, which arose in 2009, is a right-wing populist protest movement within the Republican Party, whose purpose has been and is to get the party to go to the right, which they have succeeded in doing. And with Trump’s victory in the presidential election, they have succeeded beyond expectations.

Now the fears among my many friends in the United States are that there will continue to be big contradictions in the country between right-wing forces and moderates (some socialists are hardly to be reckoned with, only Trump provocations and demagoguery). They see the worst case scenario if Trump loses by a small margin and does not admit defeat. It will probably not be a civil war but social chaos!

Alf Ronnby
PhD in sociology, associate professor of social work






































