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A review by dylanhenning
They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency by Malcolm Nance
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.5
This book was incredibly informative and helpful in learning about and understanding the history of these various groups of people that support the twice impeached, convicted felon, former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
It goes into the history and formation of each group and even using historical allegories to show just how dangerous these groups are and highlights that this threat of an American insurgency isn’t just going away because of the 2020 election. It’s not just going to go away after the 2024 election. Unless we as a nation take a hard look at these groups and take decisive action to treat them like the terrorists they are, nothing is likely to change for the better.
My biggest issue with this book is Nance kept mentioning gamers and LARPers in a way that implied that of course these people were radicalized because of these activities and hobbies. I didn’t like his blanket generalization of these groups of people. I’m a gamer. I know plenty of people that play video games that have violence or scenes of war in them and none of us are radicalized. We can separate reality from a work of fiction. We can understand morally what’s right and wrong in the real world vs actions in a video game with digital characters.
Aside from that issue though this is a great resource to understanding how we got to January 6th and where things could go from here depending on what actions we take as a society.
It goes into the history and formation of each group and even using historical allegories to show just how dangerous these groups are and highlights that this threat of an American insurgency isn’t just going away because of the 2020 election. It’s not just going to go away after the 2024 election. Unless we as a nation take a hard look at these groups and take decisive action to treat them like the terrorists they are, nothing is likely to change for the better.
My biggest issue with this book is Nance kept mentioning gamers and LARPers in a way that implied that of course these people were radicalized because of these activities and hobbies. I didn’t like his blanket generalization of these groups of people. I’m a gamer. I know plenty of people that play video games that have violence or scenes of war in them and none of us are radicalized. We can separate reality from a work of fiction. We can understand morally what’s right and wrong in the real world vs actions in a video game with digital characters.
Aside from that issue though this is a great resource to understanding how we got to January 6th and where things could go from here depending on what actions we take as a society.