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The Far-Right is not the Traditional Conservative Movement
First off, some history. This is somewhat personal. The United States has always had fringe movements. The far-right, not to be confused with mainstream conservatives, has given us the Klu Klux Khan, the John Birch Society, and starting in the 1990s, a rapidly growing militia movement.
Part of this soup were also neonazis, fascists, white supremacists, the Tanton Network, the Koch brothers, and many others. These were not even close to mainstream in the 1990s. This is when I started to pay attention to these groups, in particular sovereign citizens. These were, and still are, a large component of some of the militia movements.
These groups came together in some ways after the election of Bill Clinton. Two events hardened these people: Ruby Ridge and Waco. They became part of the legend of the modern far right. I suspect that if these events never happened, or went down differently, history would have taken a different tract.
During the 1990s my interest in these groups was chiefly for fiction. I mostly concentrated on the militias and sovereign citizens. Why? An attack on the government would likely come from these groups.
There were several characteristics of these groups.