Violence is acceptable tactics: White neo-fascists threaten death to police officers

The kerfuffle up in Coeur d’Alene, ID has led to neo-fascist death threats to the local police. As discussed here two days ago, 31 neo-fascists were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to riot at a gay pride event there. NBC News writes:

Idaho police said they've received death threats since arresting 31 men affiliated with white nationalist group Patriot Front near an annual LGBTQ+ event over the weekend.

Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White spoke to reporters Monday, saying that his department has fielded about 149 calls in the aftermath of the arrests. He said about 50 percent of the calls have been praise from the community, who offer their names and express pride in the department.

“And the other 50 percent — who are completely anonymous, who want nothing more than to scream and yell at us and use some really choice words — offer death threats against myself and other members of the police department merely for doing our jobs,” White said. “Those people obviously remain anonymous.”

Officers have also received threats of doxxing, a practice in which someone publishes personal information such as phone numbers or addresses online, White said. The majority of the threats being made appear to be from outside the Coeur d’Alene community, according to the chief.

Coeur d’Alene police with arrested neo-fascists

This is yet more evidence of the acceptability of violence to America's radical right and the Republican Party generally. As the 1/6 Committee hearings have pointed out, the ex-president said that he believed the people in the coup attempt who called for Pence to be hanged had the right idea. No wonder the GOP embraces violence and death threats when they don't like the way things go for them. 

From the Republican Party point of view, those 31 White supremacists were merely engaging in legitimate political discourse, not conspiring to break any laws or to riot or to kill anyone. As the RNC nicely put it about violence on their own side, the 1/6 coup attempt was just some innocent patriots engaging in harmless “legitimate political discourse.”[1]

Footnote: 

1. Washington Post on Feb. 8, 2022:

When the Republican Party voted to censure two of its own members of Congress last week at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City, it justified the move in part by declaring that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection amounted to the persecution of individuals engaging in “legitimate political discourse.”