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Stop Calling Them Y’all Qaeda, Vanilla ISIS, and Yeehawdists, Right Now
Comparing right-wing terrorists to Islamic extremists is not the argument you think it is.
Joshua Wood
Recently, a North Carolina man claiming to have a bomb live-streamed a litany of anti-government grievances from his truck near the U.S. Capitol. Police responded in force. He surrendered only after an hours-long standoff and the evacuations of numerous government buildings in the area.
The man, Floyd Ray Roseberry, had previously posted videos to Facebook of himself marching in a pro-Trump march shouting “stop the steal.”
As in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, epithets like Y’all Qaeda, American Taliban, Vanilla ISIS, and Yeehawdist were all trending on Twitter, popping up in Facebook posts, and on the lips of many.
The most charitable interpretation of these monikers is that people are saying that the MAGA crowd is more than just a bunch of clowns larping as revolutionaries. The names point to both the American South and international terrorism. The names gesture toward the idea that these people may seem like simpletons…
