Part of the reason I feel comfortable saying that fascists and other conservatives want the violence we’ve been seeing, is that they have been told, at every step of the way, what the result of their hateful rhetoric would be. It was true of the pro-life movement’s love of stochastic terrorism. It was true of the horrors we’ve seen since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade. It’s true of the current violence against LGBTQIA people.

Mass murder is the desired outcome. When I use terms like “genocide” for this, I mean it quite literally – they want queer people to stop existing.

In Abigail Thorne’s excellent video on the philosophy of Antifa, she says that while fascists can non-violently make themselves safe from anti-fascist activists by ceasing to “do fascism”, the targets of fascism cannot make themselves safe from fascists, because their mere existence is why they’re under attack. The only way to make the fascists happy is for them to stop existing.

This also means that as a fascist movement gains power and confidence, they will keep escalating attacks on the groups they’re scapegoating. You can’t claim that a group of people is causing the downfall of civilization forever, without doing something about it, and as we’ve seen, they’ve reached the stage where they’re openly saying, “if you don’t want to be murdered, follow my rules“.

The response to the Club Q shooting was an escalation. It marked the point at which many conservatives felt safe enough to shed the pretense of disapproval, and to openly support the violence. We’ve now had another escalation, in North Carolina:

Much of Moore County — more than 40,000 homes and businesses — remain without power following an attack to electrical substations. Authorities have confirmed that at least two substations were damaged by gunfire on Saturday night.

Damage assessments are still underway and estimates for the return of power to almost all of southern and central Moore remain uncertain. For now, Duke Energy has estimated restoration by 10 p.m. Sunday night, but that was before full estimates of the damage were available.

This coordinated attack coincides with rhetorical attacks on a drag show that was in one of the affected businesses, and has been followed, as with the Club Q shooting, by right-wing extremists making not-so-subtle implications:

In a follow-up post, Rainey tagged Sunrise Theater, where the drag show was being held, and wrote “God will not be mocked” above what appears to be a photo of the building tonight during the power outage. pic.twitter.com/wqsbmmo0t3

— [email protected] (@cmclymer) December 4, 2022

I’m worried for residents of Moore County who rely on life-sustaining medical equipment and just had the power go out. This attack has immediately put lives in danger, to say nothing of the campaign of terror being waged against LGBTQ people.

— [email protected] (@cmclymer) December 4, 2022

Unsurprisingly, they claim that their god is responsible – who knew he used guns?

Here’s Rainey’s update on being visited by the Moore County Sheriff’s Office after her post referencing the attack. pic.twitter.com/eoqrBYMfDp

— [email protected] (@cmclymer) December 4, 2022

As usual, their “all-powerful” deity needs fanatical zealots to interpret and carry out its wishes.

I’ve talked before about how bigots are more than willing to hurt themselves and those they claim to care about, if it means hurting the people they hate more. In this case, shutting down one drag show was apparently worth cutting off power to tens of thousands of people, no matter how much harm that does to anyone else. The long history of blaming natural disasters on “the gays” has primed them to accept massive amounts of collateral damage in their war on most of humanity. If “God” is angry about the drag show, then he’s punishing everyone who lost power for not being bigoted enough towards that show, and towards the people who are OK with such things.

It will not stop here.

This shouldn’t be required for anyone to fight back, but it won’t stop with trans people either, or gay people, or any other group. Fascism is a pyramid scheme fueled by hatred – it always needs new targets. They are coming for queer people right now, and the only way they will stop is if we make sure they no longer have the power to keep going.

The exact mode of opposition is going to vary from place to place. Anti-fascist action tends to be locally organized, and tailored to the needs of the moment. It may be that cancelling an event is the best course of action in a given moment, to avoid an armed confrontation. It may be that groups like the John Brown Gun Club will run a security operation to defend an event. If you think things are safe where you are, and you want to help out somewhere else, follow local leadership.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution here, beyond the importance of collective action. Work with others. Do not assume the police are on your side (they aren’t). This is dangerous. People are getting killed, and the trend is towards more violence, not less. The people who’ve been warning about fascism have not been exaggerating or making stuff up – it is happening here, and without real, organized opposition, it will keep happening.

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