Malcolm Nance

Wow! I finished this book yesterday and was too stunned to draft a review till now. I've read a lot of books on toxic U.S. politics but this one may be the scariest. The author is an expert in counterintelligence and an excellent writer. The story was gripping throughout. And he didn't end on a note of hope, like so many. This story is real and it is a warning.

Here are a few examples.

(My comment: I always thought that Gen Z would save us. But no.) Page 131: "Scholar of authoritarian show more government Sarah Kendzior notes that since the election of Trump, her academic peers have noticed the transformation of their students through social media radicalization." A prof friend said: "...in 2013 Nazis barely existed, and now" (book published in May 2022) "at least 15 percent or so of her students express some Nazi views."

Remember that in Nazi Germany, professors were among the first to go. When the students turn against them, there is no hope.

Page 260, the last page of text (and it's not a happy ending): The final piece of evidence that TITUS truly wants to start killing Americans is enshrined in the passionate words of former Wilmington, North Carolina, police officer Kevin Piner, who was fired in the summer of 2020 when he was caught on video saying terrible things about people of color to two other police officers. His most revealing words were, "We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them f---ing n--rs. I can't wait. God, I can't wait."

The fact that he was fired means nothing. He is a racist cop with weapons skills and plenty of time on his hands.

There's more. There's so much more.

Read it!!! show less

This is a must read book for anyone who loves America. Counter terrorism expert Nance, meticulously researches the threat of right wing terrorists pose to our way of life. From the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Q Anon nuts and their enablers in the Republican Party (and many smaller groups) he spells out the extremme threats these groups pose. It is really scarey and timely to know this stuff. As a liberal I will be on their hit list.

I finished Malcolm Nance’s newest book a week before the first televised hearing of the January 6th House Committee. Many (though not all) of the details of events on January 6th that were covered in that first hearing are also here in Nance’s book. The value of Nance’s book is that he digs deep into the white supremacist and QAnon history that lies behind the events of that day. The result is a book that is a stark warning of a clear and present danger to our nation.

Malcolm Nance show more first came to public notice with his critique of waterboarding - saying that he knew it was torture because he had administered it himself. He testified in front of the US House Judiciary Committee that “waterboarding is torture, period”. He is a former US Navy Senior Petty Officer who specialized in cryptology. He was an intelligence and security contractor post 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan. All of which is to say that Nance has a strong background in understanding and dealing with international terrorists.

Nance is an intelligence and foreign policy analyst for MSNBC. In the last six years he has focused his attention on Trumpworld and the actions and mindset of the ex-President’s followers.

The case he makes in this book, and it is a chilling one, is that we now face domestic terrorists bent on destroying American democracy, and that the Trump presidency helped to strengthen and accelerate the work of these terrorists amongst us.

Blending his expertise on al-Qaida and Trumpworld, Nance is particularly good at pointing out that the tools and methods that lead individuals to become radicalized are much the same whether the objective is extremist Islamic terrorism or QAnon fueled Trumpian insurrection. In both cases the result has been violent extremists bent on achieving their goals regardless of the cost to others. Thus we saw “Blue Power” Trump followers at the Capital last January 6th encouraging each other by shouting “Kill Him” about a Capital Policeman trying to keep them from storming the building.

The book is strongest at the beginning when Nance lays out the “TITUS” (Trump Insurgency in the United States) threat he sees by identifying the various groups that comprise the threat, and at the end, where the events of January 6th are described. In between the text wanders about from John Birch to Timothy McVeigh. It’s not always easy to draw straight lines between the examples Nance describes in the book’s middle, because so much of what white supremacist and militia groups have done between acts of violence and terrorism has been undocumented. But the documentation that Nance does bring forward is disturbing.

The book presents a convincing case that in America we now have “an openly fascist movement” that desires to “install Trump as dictator”, and threatens our democracy. Even if you believe, as I do, that Nance overstates the power of militia groups like the Proud Boys, and doesn’t distinguish enough between online rhetoric and real world actions, there is more than enough here to convince you that the threat is real. We all would do well to take it seriously.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

NOTE: This is an ARC review. The book is due to be available on July 12th, 2022. show less

Wow. Just wow. This book analyzes the contemporary American political conundrum with a judicious dollop of history. I have had an interest in conspiracy theory for many years, and Mr. Nance frankly nails it. His overview of Q-Anon as a LARP growing against the background of various Illuminati and Masonic scares and plots over the years is spot on. If his analysis of what's coming is as accurate, we're in deep doo-doo.
The style can be a bit bombastic and overblown, but the numerous footnotes show more make up for that easily, as does his obvious concern for the survival of the United States.
Get this book. Read it and weep. show less