What do you think?
Rate this book
The Storm Is Here: The Path to January Sixth
The New Yorker's award-winning war correspondent returns to his own country to chronicle its accelerating civic breakdown, in an indelible eyewitness narrative of startling explanatory power
After years of living abroad and covering the Global War on Terrorism, Luke Mogelson went home in early 2020 to report on the social discord that the pandemic was bringing to the fore across the US. An assignment that began with right-wing militias in Michigan soon took him to an uprising for racial justice in Minneapolis, then to antifascist clashes in the streets of Portland, and ultimately to an attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C. His dispatches for The New Yorker revealed a larger story with ominous implications for America. They were only the beginning.
This is the definitive eyewitness account of how—during a season of sickness, economic uncertainty, and violence—a large segment of Americans became convinced of the need to battle against dark forces plotting to take their country away from them. It builds month by month, through vivid depictions of events on the ground, from the onset of COVID-19 to the attack on the US Capitol—during which Mogelson followed the mob into the Senate chamber—and its aftermath. Bravely reported and beautifully written, The Storm Is Here is both a unique record of a pivotal moment in American history and an urgent warning about those to come.
After years of living abroad and covering the Global War on Terrorism, Luke Mogelson went home in early 2020 to report on the social discord that the pandemic was bringing to the fore across the US. An assignment that began with right-wing militias in Michigan soon took him to an uprising for racial justice in Minneapolis, then to antifascist clashes in the streets of Portland, and ultimately to an attempted insurrection in Washington, D.C. His dispatches for The New Yorker revealed a larger story with ominous implications for America. They were only the beginning.
This is the definitive eyewitness account of how—during a season of sickness, economic uncertainty, and violence—a large segment of Americans became convinced of the need to battle against dark forces plotting to take their country away from them. It builds month by month, through vivid depictions of events on the ground, from the onset of COVID-19 to the attack on the US Capitol—during which Mogelson followed the mob into the Senate chamber—and its aftermath. Bravely reported and beautifully written, The Storm Is Here is both a unique record of a pivotal moment in American history and an urgent warning about those to come.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 13, 2022
129 people are currently reading
1763 people want to read
About the author
Luke Mogelson
7 books32 followersLuke Mogelson has written for The New Yorker since 2013, covering the wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and Iraq. During the pandemic, he reported from across the US. Previously, Mogelson was a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Kabul. He has won two National Magazine Awards and two George Polk Awards.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
April 21, 2024
Mogelson (a journalist who writes about war for the New Yorker) opens his book on January 6, 2021. He was there, mixing with the insurrectionists as they breached the Capitol. They didn't know he was a journalist (of course) so they spoke freely. And then it's the following morning, January 7. A crowd of people in red MAGA and TRUMP 2020 hats assembles near the Lincoln Memorial. One woman is carrying a yellow Gadsen flag -- "Don't tread on me," written beneath a snake poised to strike. When a police officer tells her that such displays aren't allowed at the monument, the crowd angrily converges on the police, yelling at them, cursing them, giving them the middle finger, shouting "Christ is king!"
The woman with the flag was a pastor from Los Angeles. She tells Mogelson, "I know that had to be Antifa," she said of the attack on the Capitol. "I know it did. Because everyone here" -- she gestured at the livid crowd berating the police -- "there's such a spirit of community." She began to weep. "How dare they?" she demanded of the officers."What is wrong with this country? This is not my America? I don't understand." When Mogelson asks her what lies ahead she says, sobbing, "I will tell you this. I will not turn the other cheek to what's not right. This is not right. This is not right."
"The Storm is Here" is a book of reportage, not history. It has an immediacy -- particularly in its illumination of what was taking place at ground level -- most of the other works about the last 6+ years don't. Because he was able to become "embedded" among the various groups of angry Americans (much as he did with soldiers and police in Iraq and Afghanistan), Mogelson was able to see and hear things other writers couldn't. His talk with the California pastor will quickly give way to when he returned home from overseas utterly perplexed by what he was seeing in America's response to Covid. But this brief vignette captures so much of what will follow: the odd alchemy of fear, ardent religion, nationalist fervor, anger, rejection of institutions, and delusion. Most definitely delusion: people angrily, furiously, unshakably holding on to the most fantastic and irrational notions of what they were seeing. And, perhaps most infuriatingly, the more bizarre and impossible the conspiracy, the more it was likely to be endorsed by politicians, pundits, and celebrities eager to take advantage of their credulity.
“The Storm is Here” is Mogelson’s record of the year or more that he spent traveling from Minneapolis to Portland to Lansing, Michigan, to DC — covering the BLM demonstrations that turned violent, the growth of White supremacist groups (some cloaking themselves in Christian identity, others in neo-Nazi or Norse regalia, men dressed in military garb as they storm state capitols, men dressed in outrageous garb like buffalo horns and a shirt at the Capitol that read “Camp Auschwitz staff), dressed in black and smashing windows, setting fires.)
He summarizes his journey this way: Over the course of 2020, while on assignment for The New Yorker, I witnessed frustration with COVID-19 policies grow into a fanatical anti-government movement, which became a militarized opposition to demands for racial justice, which became an organized crusade against democracy. January 6 was not the apotheosis of that evolution: it was another stage.
How did it happen? What was behind the politicization of a deadly pandemic? What was it that angry people, particularly on the Right, believed they were seeing? “The longer I stayed in Michigan,” he says, “the clearer it became that many anti-lockdowners sincerely placed mask mandates and concentration camps on the same continuum.” Police who try to enforce mass mandates are not cops but Storm Troopers who by all rights should be wearing Nazi uniforms. Covid-19 was a hoax, a plot designed by Democrats and globalists and Jews (although, interestingly, a recurring motif in insurrectionist talking points was that they, the true Americans, will not 'acquiesce to their enslavement and murder as the pitiable Jews did to the Nazis.') -- all for one purpose: to get Donald Trump out of the White House and keep him out. The 2020 election was absolutely, unquestionably stolen by… well, by the very same nefarious bunch of globalists, child sex traffickers and “fucking Commies,” not to mention, as Trump attorney Sidney Powell informed us, Venezuelans, Italians, Serbians, Germans, and people in Hong Kong, and corrupt voting machine manufacturers like Dominion Voting Systems. “Globalists, dictators, corporations, you name it.” (Later, when Dominion sued Powell for defamation, she argued that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken any of her “outlandish claims” as “statements of fact,” pretty much the same defense used by Tucker Carlson’s attorneys in his defamation suit.)
Mogelson spent months crossing the country and talking to men and women on all sides of that terrible year: The crazies who say the world is being attacked by shape-shifting alien lizard people, the ex-cons who became online influencers in the Stop the Steal movement, the many people who feel themselves undeserving losers in life suddenly finding purpose and community in a 'noble' cause, the armed militant Christian nationalists, the outright racists and antisemites, Black citizens in Minneapolis and elsewhere drawn into action by the murders of George Floyd and others, the anarchists. We get insight into how they see the world, who they see as their enemies. (Mogelson draws the reader’s attention to certain telling commonalities in activity on the Right and Left.)
Several things became clear to Mogelson as he crossed the country: first, how genuinely terrified people on the Right are — of being erased, replaced, silenced, ignored; second, that a lot of people are willing to say anything in search of fame and prestige, no matter how outlandish and dangerously provocative; third, that the angry Right's world view has them living in a kind of mirror world where they are the true patriots trying to save America and the Constitution from usurpers and tyrants, that they are following in the path of the Founding Fathers, that they are acting as God's agents in the battle against evil, and that Donald Trump is the only person strong enough and honest enough to expose the conspirators on the Left.
Of course, there was/is no shortage of Republican office-holders willing to perpetuate the lies and conspiracies, and even call for violence. Mogelson quotes many of them.
Drawing on his experience in countries torn by civil war (the book offers some very interesting observations contrasting what he encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan with what he found here), Mogelson contemplates what violence might lie in our future, why makes the situation in the US different from what’s happened elsewhere. Were large-scale violence to erupt in the US, it would be something different: a war fueled not by injury but by delusion… When [insurrectionist groups] raised the prospect of civil war, there was no limit to the violence that might be perpetrated because there was no limit to the crimes that would provoke it. Both were products of the imagination… The problem for these men—and for the rest of us—is that, because the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms.
In a sense, “The Storm in Here” is a guided tour down the rabbit hole to a place in which truth, fact, and reason are all ephemeral; where people can cynically say whatever they like knowing full well they are lying but also knowing that the more agitated their followers are, the more prominence or celebrity they themselves will have; where lies can be promulgated and amplified for financial gain or political power or TV ratings; where men and women who feel powerless, unheard, passed by and demeaned, can find an explanation for their predicament and an enemy they can blame.
All this makes it a deeply distressing book to read — well reported, brave (I can’t imagine what it was like for Mogelson to be in the middle of the violence), and censorious in its coverage of politicians like Gosar, Cruz, Boebert, McCarthy, and others. There were times I found it almost gut-wrenching to read. Yet I couldn't put it down, couldn't turn away. The question it puts before us, I think, is how are we to respond to the conspiracy believers? How do we hold our emotional responses to the lies -- the outrage, scorn, feelings of superiority, etc. -- at arms length so we can hear what's being said behind and beneath the craziness? Not to validate or endorse the fantastical but to recognize that people who fall into this kind of thinking are hurting. Or have we reached the point where common ground and empathy are entirely tribal?
If I have one quibble about the book, it is this: I wish Mogelson could have offered some idea of how big the threat is. Are there millions of would-be insurrectionists willing to take up arms, or does reporting on these movements make them appear larger than they are? It may be that such estimations are unreliable beyond the scope of this book. But it would be nice to know how dire our situation truly is.
The woman with the flag was a pastor from Los Angeles. She tells Mogelson, "I know that had to be Antifa," she said of the attack on the Capitol. "I know it did. Because everyone here" -- she gestured at the livid crowd berating the police -- "there's such a spirit of community." She began to weep. "How dare they?" she demanded of the officers."What is wrong with this country? This is not my America? I don't understand." When Mogelson asks her what lies ahead she says, sobbing, "I will tell you this. I will not turn the other cheek to what's not right. This is not right. This is not right."
"The Storm is Here" is a book of reportage, not history. It has an immediacy -- particularly in its illumination of what was taking place at ground level -- most of the other works about the last 6+ years don't. Because he was able to become "embedded" among the various groups of angry Americans (much as he did with soldiers and police in Iraq and Afghanistan), Mogelson was able to see and hear things other writers couldn't. His talk with the California pastor will quickly give way to when he returned home from overseas utterly perplexed by what he was seeing in America's response to Covid. But this brief vignette captures so much of what will follow: the odd alchemy of fear, ardent religion, nationalist fervor, anger, rejection of institutions, and delusion. Most definitely delusion: people angrily, furiously, unshakably holding on to the most fantastic and irrational notions of what they were seeing. And, perhaps most infuriatingly, the more bizarre and impossible the conspiracy, the more it was likely to be endorsed by politicians, pundits, and celebrities eager to take advantage of their credulity.
“The Storm is Here” is Mogelson’s record of the year or more that he spent traveling from Minneapolis to Portland to Lansing, Michigan, to DC — covering the BLM demonstrations that turned violent, the growth of White supremacist groups (some cloaking themselves in Christian identity, others in neo-Nazi or Norse regalia, men dressed in military garb as they storm state capitols, men dressed in outrageous garb like buffalo horns and a shirt at the Capitol that read “Camp Auschwitz staff), dressed in black and smashing windows, setting fires.)
He summarizes his journey this way: Over the course of 2020, while on assignment for The New Yorker, I witnessed frustration with COVID-19 policies grow into a fanatical anti-government movement, which became a militarized opposition to demands for racial justice, which became an organized crusade against democracy. January 6 was not the apotheosis of that evolution: it was another stage.
How did it happen? What was behind the politicization of a deadly pandemic? What was it that angry people, particularly on the Right, believed they were seeing? “The longer I stayed in Michigan,” he says, “the clearer it became that many anti-lockdowners sincerely placed mask mandates and concentration camps on the same continuum.” Police who try to enforce mass mandates are not cops but Storm Troopers who by all rights should be wearing Nazi uniforms. Covid-19 was a hoax, a plot designed by Democrats and globalists and Jews (although, interestingly, a recurring motif in insurrectionist talking points was that they, the true Americans, will not 'acquiesce to their enslavement and murder as the pitiable Jews did to the Nazis.') -- all for one purpose: to get Donald Trump out of the White House and keep him out. The 2020 election was absolutely, unquestionably stolen by… well, by the very same nefarious bunch of globalists, child sex traffickers and “fucking Commies,” not to mention, as Trump attorney Sidney Powell informed us, Venezuelans, Italians, Serbians, Germans, and people in Hong Kong, and corrupt voting machine manufacturers like Dominion Voting Systems. “Globalists, dictators, corporations, you name it.” (Later, when Dominion sued Powell for defamation, she argued that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken any of her “outlandish claims” as “statements of fact,” pretty much the same defense used by Tucker Carlson’s attorneys in his defamation suit.)
Mogelson spent months crossing the country and talking to men and women on all sides of that terrible year: The crazies who say the world is being attacked by shape-shifting alien lizard people, the ex-cons who became online influencers in the Stop the Steal movement, the many people who feel themselves undeserving losers in life suddenly finding purpose and community in a 'noble' cause, the armed militant Christian nationalists, the outright racists and antisemites, Black citizens in Minneapolis and elsewhere drawn into action by the murders of George Floyd and others, the anarchists. We get insight into how they see the world, who they see as their enemies. (Mogelson draws the reader’s attention to certain telling commonalities in activity on the Right and Left.)
Several things became clear to Mogelson as he crossed the country: first, how genuinely terrified people on the Right are — of being erased, replaced, silenced, ignored; second, that a lot of people are willing to say anything in search of fame and prestige, no matter how outlandish and dangerously provocative; third, that the angry Right's world view has them living in a kind of mirror world where they are the true patriots trying to save America and the Constitution from usurpers and tyrants, that they are following in the path of the Founding Fathers, that they are acting as God's agents in the battle against evil, and that Donald Trump is the only person strong enough and honest enough to expose the conspirators on the Left.
Of course, there was/is no shortage of Republican office-holders willing to perpetuate the lies and conspiracies, and even call for violence. Mogelson quotes many of them.
Drawing on his experience in countries torn by civil war (the book offers some very interesting observations contrasting what he encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan with what he found here), Mogelson contemplates what violence might lie in our future, why makes the situation in the US different from what’s happened elsewhere. Were large-scale violence to erupt in the US, it would be something different: a war fueled not by injury but by delusion… When [insurrectionist groups] raised the prospect of civil war, there was no limit to the violence that might be perpetrated because there was no limit to the crimes that would provoke it. Both were products of the imagination… The problem for these men—and for the rest of us—is that, because the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms.
In a sense, “The Storm in Here” is a guided tour down the rabbit hole to a place in which truth, fact, and reason are all ephemeral; where people can cynically say whatever they like knowing full well they are lying but also knowing that the more agitated their followers are, the more prominence or celebrity they themselves will have; where lies can be promulgated and amplified for financial gain or political power or TV ratings; where men and women who feel powerless, unheard, passed by and demeaned, can find an explanation for their predicament and an enemy they can blame.
All this makes it a deeply distressing book to read — well reported, brave (I can’t imagine what it was like for Mogelson to be in the middle of the violence), and censorious in its coverage of politicians like Gosar, Cruz, Boebert, McCarthy, and others. There were times I found it almost gut-wrenching to read. Yet I couldn't put it down, couldn't turn away. The question it puts before us, I think, is how are we to respond to the conspiracy believers? How do we hold our emotional responses to the lies -- the outrage, scorn, feelings of superiority, etc. -- at arms length so we can hear what's being said behind and beneath the craziness? Not to validate or endorse the fantastical but to recognize that people who fall into this kind of thinking are hurting. Or have we reached the point where common ground and empathy are entirely tribal?
If I have one quibble about the book, it is this: I wish Mogelson could have offered some idea of how big the threat is. Are there millions of would-be insurrectionists willing to take up arms, or does reporting on these movements make them appear larger than they are? It may be that such estimations are unreliable beyond the scope of this book. But it would be nice to know how dire our situation truly is.
November 22, 2022
Mogelson, a New Yorker war-correspondent, based in Paris, comes back to his homeland in the final year of the Trump presidency to find out what is happening to his country.
In remarkable reportage he imbeds himself with Michigan militia, BLM protestors, and MAGA devotees.
The book is worth reading just for his description of the Capitol Riot, where he offers a eyewitness view of the madness and death on that day.
5-stars.
In remarkable reportage he imbeds himself with Michigan militia, BLM protestors, and MAGA devotees.
The book is worth reading just for his description of the Capitol Riot, where he offers a eyewitness view of the madness and death on that day.
5-stars.
September 19, 2022
Astonishing and deeply sobering
It’s hard to know where to begin in enumerating this book’s virtues. It is by far the most intelligent and comprehensive dissection of January 6 and what it means, and (most important) its context. Mogelson manages somehow to be everywhere—not only all across this country, but embedded with American and foreign troops in wars abroad—with an intent to drive toward some understanding of the horrors we’re currently enduring here. The intelligence and reportorial rigor that he brings to this endeavor is prodigious, to say the least. His is by far the best and most important book to be written on these terrible times. If you had any doubts about our democracy hanging in the balance, you won’t after reading this.
It’s hard to know where to begin in enumerating this book’s virtues. It is by far the most intelligent and comprehensive dissection of January 6 and what it means, and (most important) its context. Mogelson manages somehow to be everywhere—not only all across this country, but embedded with American and foreign troops in wars abroad—with an intent to drive toward some understanding of the horrors we’re currently enduring here. The intelligence and reportorial rigor that he brings to this endeavor is prodigious, to say the least. His is by far the best and most important book to be written on these terrible times. If you had any doubts about our democracy hanging in the balance, you won’t after reading this.
October 22, 2022
One of the most troubling aspects of the issues raised in this book is the close association between members of the law enforcement community and the cult of Trump. This was evident in the police response to January 6th, and convincingly outlined in this book. What I particularly liked about this book was the fact that the author was in the field and on the ground interviewing the participants. American politics is polarised,dangerously so,and this book tries to explain why this is the case. 2024 may be the next chapter in this deadly drama.
October 16, 2022
The Storm Is Here has to be the hardest book I have ever read. Half way through. I was thinking not to finish. Reading it and listening, and watching J6th was a hard thing to witness again. The book bares all with no punches.
How Mr. Trump and his minions bolstered the so called election fraud. Trump was using it since 2016. We just didn't pay attention.
How bad these Trump supporters were. How did it get this bad? I remember witnessing Timothy McVeigh in my 20's, Ruby Ridge, etc. Nothing was ever done to counter the military style commandos. Always wondered why in the Midwest this is happening. There are old resentments stemming from Washington.
At the same time I'm realizing the culture divide starts from and beyond the Ohio River. At the same time I have learned not everyone believed in democracy. My eyes opened. Not everyone believes the same.
Trump opened it up wide and left it exposed for everyone to see. Many Vets, Police officers, joined these militant groups to a call to arms. He and his political party knew to open it all up. From the beginning we should have known. If anyone knew Mr. Trump he was weaponizing the military, the police for his own means. But also the 3%, Oath Keepers had their own anger.
I have worked with these type of men in the 90's. Most with PTSD and other psychological difficulties while working on a psychiatric unit as a nurse.
If you want to see the behind the scenes of the J6th. The Floyd demonstrations, the Antifa, Leftists, GOP, Hard left groups, and the militants. How they coordinated and worked together to stop the certification and the J6 at the capital. This is the book to read.
How Mr. Trump and his minions bolstered the so called election fraud. Trump was using it since 2016. We just didn't pay attention.
How bad these Trump supporters were. How did it get this bad? I remember witnessing Timothy McVeigh in my 20's, Ruby Ridge, etc. Nothing was ever done to counter the military style commandos. Always wondered why in the Midwest this is happening. There are old resentments stemming from Washington.
At the same time I'm realizing the culture divide starts from and beyond the Ohio River. At the same time I have learned not everyone believed in democracy. My eyes opened. Not everyone believes the same.
Trump opened it up wide and left it exposed for everyone to see. Many Vets, Police officers, joined these militant groups to a call to arms. He and his political party knew to open it all up. From the beginning we should have known. If anyone knew Mr. Trump he was weaponizing the military, the police for his own means. But also the 3%, Oath Keepers had their own anger.
I have worked with these type of men in the 90's. Most with PTSD and other psychological difficulties while working on a psychiatric unit as a nurse.
If you want to see the behind the scenes of the J6th. The Floyd demonstrations, the Antifa, Leftists, GOP, Hard left groups, and the militants. How they coordinated and worked together to stop the certification and the J6 at the capital. This is the book to read.
February 5, 2023
The Storm is Here is immediately harrowing and gripping. Mogelson excellently covers the main events that led to the January 6th riots, and while he is no Andrew Callaghan, he generally lets the actors speak for themselves. I found the ending disappointingly pessimistic; there was a missed call to action, and it feels that everything is left in hopelessness. Perhaps Mogelson's experience as a journalist in war zones has left him with this Hobbesian view of humanity, but it seems like historical context (e.g., the feuds between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans in the early US and how they eventually stopped) could have provided some grounding.
Quotes:
"What makes him so frightening is that he is so frightened."
"Whereas the nationwide protest movement cast white Christians as the entitled profiteers of the historical status quo, Trump reassured them that they were its unacknowledged casualties."
"Seventy-eight percent of Black Americans surveyed by Gallup opposed abolishing their local police departments."
"Polls showed that most residents, and Black residents more significantly than others, opposed reducing the number of officers in the city, let alone eliminating them."
"They all seemed to be practicing the same kind of magical thinking that had become a staple of his presidency—the belief that if you insisted something was true with adequate conviction and persistence, you could will its reality."
"About seven thousand Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves."
“If you don’t fight like hell,” Trump told the Patriots, “you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
"one wonders how many officers at the Capitol believed that the people trying to kill them also loved them."
"147 Republicans voted to overturn the election."
"When no place is immune from haphazard demolition, more abstract structures—the invisible schema that holds societies together—also become precarious"
"In strikingly Trump-like fashion, Biden would characterize his catastrophic withdrawal not merely as an “extraordinary success,” but as an unprecedented military, diplomatic, and logistical triumph."
Quotes:
"What makes him so frightening is that he is so frightened."
"Whereas the nationwide protest movement cast white Christians as the entitled profiteers of the historical status quo, Trump reassured them that they were its unacknowledged casualties."
"Seventy-eight percent of Black Americans surveyed by Gallup opposed abolishing their local police departments."
"Polls showed that most residents, and Black residents more significantly than others, opposed reducing the number of officers in the city, let alone eliminating them."
"They all seemed to be practicing the same kind of magical thinking that had become a staple of his presidency—the belief that if you insisted something was true with adequate conviction and persistence, you could will its reality."
"About seven thousand Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves."
“If you don’t fight like hell,” Trump told the Patriots, “you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
"one wonders how many officers at the Capitol believed that the people trying to kill them also loved them."
"147 Republicans voted to overturn the election."
"When no place is immune from haphazard demolition, more abstract structures—the invisible schema that holds societies together—also become precarious"
"In strikingly Trump-like fashion, Biden would characterize his catastrophic withdrawal not merely as an “extraordinary success,” but as an unprecedented military, diplomatic, and logistical triumph."
put-aside
December 10, 2022There is zero wrong with this book - it's great on the ground reporting in the year leading up to January 6th - but I'm not looking for close, first person accounts of rising fascism (and the fight against it) right now.
Putting aside after 75 pages.
Putting aside after 75 pages.
December 5, 2022
Mogelson writes wonderfully well and reports thoroughly and insightfully. I have no idea how he could stand it, spending so much time with these election-denialist Qtons and ethnonationalists, but I'm grateful to him for it and just wonder how many showers he needed to take to get their stank off him at the end of each day. He seems to have been present at every riot and protest between 2020 and the book's publication.
His comparisons of police response to BLM protests vs the response to right-wing riots aren't news, but because he was in the middle of events from Minneapolis (the George Floyd BLM protests) to January 6, they have an immediacy that drier accounts might not. I also appreciated his sensitivity to his status as a white journalist talking to Black people about racism and how their country has betrayed them forever. By the way, here's a fun Civil War fact I didn't know: Robert E. Lee's Arlington estate was confiscated by the Union during the war. After the war, Lee's son demanded and got compensation for the seizure, millions of dollars in today's money. In case it needs repeating, Lee had committed treason -- this apart, of course, from the sin of pretending he had the right to own people in the first place.
This book would bear a couple of re-reads but here's something that will really stick with me, because it's so obviously right and so chilling. Mogelson talks about how in other war zones he's covered -- Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq -- the combatants, however brutally they may behave, have identifiable, describable grievances. But of the US right-wing crazies he says:
"The problem for these men -- and for the rest of us -- is that, because the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms."
And of course, no amount of factual information will ever convince them that they're wrong.
His comparisons of police response to BLM protests vs the response to right-wing riots aren't news, but because he was in the middle of events from Minneapolis (the George Floyd BLM protests) to January 6, they have an immediacy that drier accounts might not. I also appreciated his sensitivity to his status as a white journalist talking to Black people about racism and how their country has betrayed them forever. By the way, here's a fun Civil War fact I didn't know: Robert E. Lee's Arlington estate was confiscated by the Union during the war. After the war, Lee's son demanded and got compensation for the seizure, millions of dollars in today's money. In case it needs repeating, Lee had committed treason -- this apart, of course, from the sin of pretending he had the right to own people in the first place.
This book would bear a couple of re-reads but here's something that will really stick with me, because it's so obviously right and so chilling. Mogelson talks about how in other war zones he's covered -- Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq -- the combatants, however brutally they may behave, have identifiable, describable grievances. But of the US right-wing crazies he says:
"The problem for these men -- and for the rest of us -- is that, because the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms."
And of course, no amount of factual information will ever convince them that they're wrong.
April 21, 2023
4.5
The events of January 6th 2021 still feel like a fever dream but this book locates the symptoms that were rapidly worsening over the year leading up to this event. This book is excellent and blood-boiling, though my one critique is that Mogelson’s voice was very journalistic throughout (obviously, he’s a journalist) but a book grants a writer with more room for detail than an article. I would’ve loved more description but this is a personal preference and a nitpicky one at that. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to comprehend the current climate in America more clearly.
The events of January 6th 2021 still feel like a fever dream but this book locates the symptoms that were rapidly worsening over the year leading up to this event. This book is excellent and blood-boiling, though my one critique is that Mogelson’s voice was very journalistic throughout (obviously, he’s a journalist) but a book grants a writer with more room for detail than an article. I would’ve loved more description but this is a personal preference and a nitpicky one at that. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to comprehend the current climate in America more clearly.
July 15, 2023
There were several interesting sections in this book that attempted to explain the rise of MAGA, QAnon and white nationalism. However it jumped from topic to topic and I didn’t see how some of the segments added much to the thesis. The authors actual presence among the Jan 6th rioters was quite eye opening.
September 15, 2022
If you need any evidence that the events of Jan 6, 2021 had been developing for some time, this book will provide it, in spades, It helps that the writing is first-rate.
December 12, 2022
Really liked this. It was a very sober retelling of the events leading up to 6 January. Mogelson did a good job of talking to both left and right, while focusing the story on what was taking place: a country’s descent into madness that left us almost on the brink of civil war. There was a lot that I learned from this and it sorta scared me.
August 20, 2025
4.5. Possibly the best and most cogent exploration of current(-ish) American politics I’ve encountered. And it’s terrifying.
November 30, 2022
This book is a great meander through a sequence of interrelated events. It is also relatively dispassionate and that makes it even scarier. I recommend reading it because it is not just yet another rehash of Trump and January 6th, but rather an accumulation of happenings in our recent history that explain how we’ve managed to come to this place.
March 12, 2023
If you want to know why we’re not anywhere near out of the woods — in fact, we’re hiking further in — here’s your book.
April 18, 2023
A worthwhile read - Mogelson adds invaluable context to the current "post-truth" times.
September 25, 2022
Heel sterk boek in reportage-stijl over 2020/2021 in de VS
November 4, 2022
This is a gutting book. The basic outlines will be familiar to anyone who has been reading the news over the last several years, but Mogelson adds more than you'd think was possible in a book adaptation of the Trump and Covid-era doomscrolling we've all been doing. He has a real ear for personal stories, and brings a good deal of insight without gumming up the narrative. His comparisons of the modern US to the countries he has covered as a war correspondent are brutal. This is not an optimistic book.
October 25, 2024
An importand and (given the times) necessary examination of extremism, particularly as manifested by the Right. In line with other books, Belew's is the one I read, this is a man-on-the-street exposition of extremist groups roughly from 2016-22. It's dispiriting to acknowledge how many ingnorant, delusional and crazy people actually exist in this country. Morgelson does a good job contrasting the rationale and courage of what I'll call "real patriots," with the self-proclaimed patriots of White Supremacist, Neo Nazi, QAnon groups--that while one group bases its action on factual/historical bases, the other groups are mired in conspiratorial fantasies, lies and prejudices.
April 22, 2023
Libro fondamentale per leggere il mondo di oggi a partire dagli eventi legati alle proteste per la vittoria di Biden alle presidenziali americane. Con uno stile scorrevole e partendo dalle storie delle persone che ha incontrato l'autore ci presenta una galleria indimenticabile delle credenze (per lo più abbastanza strampalate) della galassia che appoggiava e appoggia ancora Trump. Leggere questo libro è davvero importante.
December 11, 2024
A first-hand account that interviews both sides of the story with honesty and intrusion. A devastating look at contemporary America, especially the Republican party, exploring a potential civil war based on delusions and quasipatriotism.
January 12, 2023
Luke Mogelson is a phenomenal war reporter who spent 2020 covering anti-lockdown protests in Michigan, the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, clashes between antifa and police in Portland, and the general tenor of rising civil unrest culminating in a gripping first-hand account of the January 6 insurrection.
The book was frequently stomach churning and vexing to read. The central fact of recent American history is the bifurcation of reality itself, two opposing worlds sustained by competing information ecosystems. Millions of Americans genuinely believe in the Qanon conspiracy theory. They believe that Trump won the 2020 election. They believe that Antifa and socialists are coming to groom their children and destroy the United States of America, and probably something about pedophiles and pizza parlors and Jewish space lasers.
To me, and all sensible Americans, this is batshit crazy. Yet how do you plead for sanity when the other side thinks you're the one who's really crazy—that you're living in the Matrix or you're sheeple or something? You can't, it's like arguing with a brick wall. It's the same mentality as a cult.
So the book is unsettling because you spent time among the Proud Boys and Three Percenters and militas and various Trump supporters that genuinely oppose multiculturalism, diversity, gay and women's rights, religious pluralism, and increasingly—the democratic process itself. Their vision of America is a white, Christian, ethno-state. And there's little hope of swaying anyone with reason or decency.
A few years ago I read Anti-social by Andrew Marantz, which was phenomenal. It covers much of the same territory as this book, but with the welcome addition of a wry sense of humor that leavens the dread. By contrast, The Storm Is Here is an unrelenting downer. Mogelson seems pessimistic about the future of America. The implication is that the right-wing militia/conspiracy/Qanon movement is only gathering strength and could result in American tipping into authoritarian fascism.
Incidentally, the reason I read this book in the first place is because I follow Marantz on Twitter and asked him directly if he had plans to write a follow-up to Anti-social, and he said no, but to check out this upcoming book by his colleague Luke Mogelson.
The book was incredibly well written, but Mogelson is first and foremost a reporter, and if I had a nit to pick it was that the book was almost too objective and straightforward. Much of it is simply journalism. The times when he inserts himself into the story or ventures an opinion are seldom, and I found myself wanting more of his voice in the story. I wanted to know what he thought. I wanted a bit more of an essay than a newspaper story.
Here's an example of an appreciated moment when he inserted his voice:
Increasing talk on both the left and the right about the possibility of civil war left me somewhat bemused. Every civil war I'd covered had been premised on real grievances, real oppression, real violation. When I asked frontline soldiers on any side of a given civil conflict why they were risking their lives, they almost always responded with concrete, rational answers, be it the Talib whose village had been occupied by foreigners or the Yazidi whose daughter had been enslaved by ISIS or the Syrian whom the regime had kidnapped and tortured or the jihadist whose family was killed by a drone.
But, he continues, when Patriots raise the prospect of a civil war, the motivations are "products of the imagination."
They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms.
The main attraction is is firsthand account of the January 6 insurrection, where he followed the crowd into the Capitol, and is filled with fascinating detail. In particular, he describes the contrast between violence and comedy, how at one end of the buildings protestors and police were battling for their lives, and at the other end, protestors and police where amiably chatting like tourists.
It's clear-eyed and lucid and a brave dissection of the paranoia and madness gripping our society. Let's hope that in the end cooler heads prevail. Let's hope it's not too late.
The book was frequently stomach churning and vexing to read. The central fact of recent American history is the bifurcation of reality itself, two opposing worlds sustained by competing information ecosystems. Millions of Americans genuinely believe in the Qanon conspiracy theory. They believe that Trump won the 2020 election. They believe that Antifa and socialists are coming to groom their children and destroy the United States of America, and probably something about pedophiles and pizza parlors and Jewish space lasers.
To me, and all sensible Americans, this is batshit crazy. Yet how do you plead for sanity when the other side thinks you're the one who's really crazy—that you're living in the Matrix or you're sheeple or something? You can't, it's like arguing with a brick wall. It's the same mentality as a cult.
So the book is unsettling because you spent time among the Proud Boys and Three Percenters and militas and various Trump supporters that genuinely oppose multiculturalism, diversity, gay and women's rights, religious pluralism, and increasingly—the democratic process itself. Their vision of America is a white, Christian, ethno-state. And there's little hope of swaying anyone with reason or decency.
A few years ago I read Anti-social by Andrew Marantz, which was phenomenal. It covers much of the same territory as this book, but with the welcome addition of a wry sense of humor that leavens the dread. By contrast, The Storm Is Here is an unrelenting downer. Mogelson seems pessimistic about the future of America. The implication is that the right-wing militia/conspiracy/Qanon movement is only gathering strength and could result in American tipping into authoritarian fascism.
Incidentally, the reason I read this book in the first place is because I follow Marantz on Twitter and asked him directly if he had plans to write a follow-up to Anti-social, and he said no, but to check out this upcoming book by his colleague Luke Mogelson.
The book was incredibly well written, but Mogelson is first and foremost a reporter, and if I had a nit to pick it was that the book was almost too objective and straightforward. Much of it is simply journalism. The times when he inserts himself into the story or ventures an opinion are seldom, and I found myself wanting more of his voice in the story. I wanted to know what he thought. I wanted a bit more of an essay than a newspaper story.
Here's an example of an appreciated moment when he inserted his voice:
Increasing talk on both the left and the right about the possibility of civil war left me somewhat bemused. Every civil war I'd covered had been premised on real grievances, real oppression, real violation. When I asked frontline soldiers on any side of a given civil conflict why they were risking their lives, they almost always responded with concrete, rational answers, be it the Talib whose village had been occupied by foreigners or the Yazidi whose daughter had been enslaved by ISIS or the Syrian whom the regime had kidnapped and tortured or the jihadist whose family was killed by a drone.
But, he continues, when Patriots raise the prospect of a civil war, the motivations are "products of the imagination."
They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms.
The main attraction is is firsthand account of the January 6 insurrection, where he followed the crowd into the Capitol, and is filled with fascinating detail. In particular, he describes the contrast between violence and comedy, how at one end of the buildings protestors and police were battling for their lives, and at the other end, protestors and police where amiably chatting like tourists.
It's clear-eyed and lucid and a brave dissection of the paranoia and madness gripping our society. Let's hope that in the end cooler heads prevail. Let's hope it's not too late.
January 5, 2023
This is one depressing book! Has the U.S. become this horrific?
The author describes in depth a tribal culture of anti-vaxxers, of various militia groups (right-wing and Antifa), of pro-Trump groups who deny the election results of 2020 (this includes several members of Congress), several people who believe outlandish conspiracies like a New World Order emerging from the U.N. to rule over the U.S. The list goes on. Many of the right-wing militias are racist with a Christian orientation. All are united in their hatred and distrust of the federal government – except the groups that want Trump as president.
The author begins with the heavily armed militia groups who attempted to take over the state government in Lansing, Michigan in April 2020. As he mentions, there is definitely a direct link between this and what happened in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.
The author speaks with many right-wing people, like the anti-vaxxers who congregated in support of the barber, Karl Manx in Owosso, Michigan. Karl Manx was defying the government pandemic lock-down. We also encounter many Black Lives Matter demonstrators and rioters in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd by police officers. He also journeyed to Portland, Oregon during the turmoil there.
Page 86 (my book) in the 1990s
The anti-government movement that emerged fatefully wedded white nationalism to gun-rights advocacy and apocalyptic survivalism… after Ruby Ridge, militia members began enlisting the Second Amendment to cast themselves as victims of persecution.
What is evident is the extremism of all the groups involved. There is no middle ground.
Page 131
I thought of Marlene, the elderly Tea Partier at Operation Haircut [in Owosso] who, gazing at a blue sky, had told me, “They’re trying to kill us.” It must be exhausting to live in such a world.
What the author does not bring up is the libertarian, almost anarchic mentality, that has always been pervasive and simmering in American society. A defiance of government and authority when it did not accord with the wishes of a community. The government is seen as violating free speech, the rights of gun ownership, the right to not pay taxes. In fact, it is a denial of responsibility to a wider society. Perhaps this is what happens when government does not provide adequate health care, good schools, or psychological help for returning war veterans who fought in far-off lands.
Page 210
Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves. [This is far more than the U.S. soldiers who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.]
The author outlines the growing belief in absurdist ideas and conspiracies – namely QAnon – or for that matter those that contest the 2020 election results. Where is a society going when significant parts of the population believe irrational ideas – including members of the government? Christianity is also inserting itself into this militant dialogue of a “White Christian Nation”.
Page 142
Beyond offering their followers the prospect of experiencing the apocalypse QAnon and ISIS both made the extraordinary claim that it was within their followers to help bring the apocalypse about.
The author contends that during the violent attack on the U.S. Capital on January 6/2021 that the police and security forces were far less aggressive than the forces that had been sent to confront Antifa demonstrators and rioters in Portland and Minneapolis. This is true. But as I was watching the seizure of the Capital that day, I was wondering how other governments across the globe would have handled this situation. Some would simply have had no hesitation to order their military and security to disperse the crowd, using all necessary force. If that would have happened in Washington, hundreds would have been killed. How would that have come across going live on TV world-wide?
This book outlines the growing contentions within the U.S. and how the nation is fragmenting. On a talk show I viewed recently, there was a debate on an imminent civil war in the U.S. – one respondent said that it had already started.
The author describes in depth a tribal culture of anti-vaxxers, of various militia groups (right-wing and Antifa), of pro-Trump groups who deny the election results of 2020 (this includes several members of Congress), several people who believe outlandish conspiracies like a New World Order emerging from the U.N. to rule over the U.S. The list goes on. Many of the right-wing militias are racist with a Christian orientation. All are united in their hatred and distrust of the federal government – except the groups that want Trump as president.
The author begins with the heavily armed militia groups who attempted to take over the state government in Lansing, Michigan in April 2020. As he mentions, there is definitely a direct link between this and what happened in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.
The author speaks with many right-wing people, like the anti-vaxxers who congregated in support of the barber, Karl Manx in Owosso, Michigan. Karl Manx was defying the government pandemic lock-down. We also encounter many Black Lives Matter demonstrators and rioters in Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd by police officers. He also journeyed to Portland, Oregon during the turmoil there.
Page 86 (my book) in the 1990s
The anti-government movement that emerged fatefully wedded white nationalism to gun-rights advocacy and apocalyptic survivalism… after Ruby Ridge, militia members began enlisting the Second Amendment to cast themselves as victims of persecution.
What is evident is the extremism of all the groups involved. There is no middle ground.
Page 131
I thought of Marlene, the elderly Tea Partier at Operation Haircut [in Owosso] who, gazing at a blue sky, had told me, “They’re trying to kill us.” It must be exhausting to live in such a world.
What the author does not bring up is the libertarian, almost anarchic mentality, that has always been pervasive and simmering in American society. A defiance of government and authority when it did not accord with the wishes of a community. The government is seen as violating free speech, the rights of gun ownership, the right to not pay taxes. In fact, it is a denial of responsibility to a wider society. Perhaps this is what happens when government does not provide adequate health care, good schools, or psychological help for returning war veterans who fought in far-off lands.
Page 210
Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves. [This is far more than the U.S. soldiers who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.]
The author outlines the growing belief in absurdist ideas and conspiracies – namely QAnon – or for that matter those that contest the 2020 election results. Where is a society going when significant parts of the population believe irrational ideas – including members of the government? Christianity is also inserting itself into this militant dialogue of a “White Christian Nation”.
Page 142
Beyond offering their followers the prospect of experiencing the apocalypse QAnon and ISIS both made the extraordinary claim that it was within their followers to help bring the apocalypse about.
The author contends that during the violent attack on the U.S. Capital on January 6/2021 that the police and security forces were far less aggressive than the forces that had been sent to confront Antifa demonstrators and rioters in Portland and Minneapolis. This is true. But as I was watching the seizure of the Capital that day, I was wondering how other governments across the globe would have handled this situation. Some would simply have had no hesitation to order their military and security to disperse the crowd, using all necessary force. If that would have happened in Washington, hundreds would have been killed. How would that have come across going live on TV world-wide?
This book outlines the growing contentions within the U.S. and how the nation is fragmenting. On a talk show I viewed recently, there was a debate on an imminent civil war in the U.S. – one respondent said that it had already started.
October 14, 2023
Slipping into Darkness
How did we get here?
If you have ever found the political crosscurrents and personalities leading up to and past the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection confusing, this is the book for you.
With great care and detail journalist Luke Mogelson’s eyewitness account and in-depth research in his 2022 “The Storm is Here: An American Crucible” provides a remarkable investigation into the origins leading to the event. It is rare to read such reportage and insights with such concise writing. It should be required reading for how these events came to pass… and continue to impact.
A field reporter for well-known publications such as “The York Times” and “The New Yorker”, Mogelson literally embedded with the different groups – Proud Boys to Antifa factions to nonaligned bystanders – to collect information and understanding of the motivations for the various conflicts leading to the fateful event.
Presented in four sections of five chapters each, the author recounts the history going back to Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidians and the Oklahoma City bombing events that fed into the attitudes and motivations fueling the multiple concurrent public protests over the George Floyd murder, Portland, Charlottesville and other “Black Lives Matter”/Antifa confrontations in addition to the January 6th “Stop the Steal” antics by Trump and his White House team.
Even as Mogelson charts each group – Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Wolverine Watchmen, QAnon, Groypers, Proud Boys, to name some – he writes: “I discerned no obvious pattern or through line.” As the story unfolds, it is evident that a major theme is white supremacy linked with nativism and a growing suspicion of who controls the government and their motives.
Throughout the work are interesting asides gained from the author’s experience reporting from overseas: “About seven thousand Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves.”
And quoting Kathleen Belew’s work, “Bring the War Home”: “’One catastrophic ricochet of the Vietnam War’ was a surge in KKK, neo-Nazi, and far-right militia violence as embittered veterans sought a ‘literal extension of military-style combat into civilian space.'”
As events build leading to January 6th, there is a noteworthy shift in tone the author may or may not have intended to convey: during early 2020 and before the confrontations seemed to be focused on a specific issue or event. Closer to the national election and thereafter, the protests shifted more to just plain violence and riot to tear down the government.
The later chapters detailing his on-site experience of the January 6th riot is simply mind-blowing. As the author observes: “One way to think about January 6 is as the consummation, in real time, of a tumultuous passage between two distinct eras of conservatism. Before 2020, most conservatives celebrated law enforcement as the protectors of a system that was, on balance, reliably favorable to their interests; by the end of 2020, many conservatives had come to see that system as corrupt and tyrannical – perhaps even satanic.”
And his own wry assessment of a national leader’s statement about January 6th at the time: “’For those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win,’ Pence said. ‘Violence never wins.’ The second claim is demonstrably false; the first looks increasingly doubtful.”
By comparison, Cassidy Hutchinson’s epiphany, “Enough”, seems somewhat tame, though still important to understanding the mindsets of the White House occupants, in contrast to Mogelson’s descriptions of people and events at the other end of the Mall on the fateful day.
It remains unclear where we go from here.
How did we get here?
If you have ever found the political crosscurrents and personalities leading up to and past the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection confusing, this is the book for you.
With great care and detail journalist Luke Mogelson’s eyewitness account and in-depth research in his 2022 “The Storm is Here: An American Crucible” provides a remarkable investigation into the origins leading to the event. It is rare to read such reportage and insights with such concise writing. It should be required reading for how these events came to pass… and continue to impact.
A field reporter for well-known publications such as “The York Times” and “The New Yorker”, Mogelson literally embedded with the different groups – Proud Boys to Antifa factions to nonaligned bystanders – to collect information and understanding of the motivations for the various conflicts leading to the fateful event.
Presented in four sections of five chapters each, the author recounts the history going back to Ruby Ridge, Branch Davidians and the Oklahoma City bombing events that fed into the attitudes and motivations fueling the multiple concurrent public protests over the George Floyd murder, Portland, Charlottesville and other “Black Lives Matter”/Antifa confrontations in addition to the January 6th “Stop the Steal” antics by Trump and his White House team.
Even as Mogelson charts each group – Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Wolverine Watchmen, QAnon, Groypers, Proud Boys, to name some – he writes: “I discerned no obvious pattern or through line.” As the story unfolds, it is evident that a major theme is white supremacy linked with nativism and a growing suspicion of who controls the government and their motives.
Throughout the work are interesting asides gained from the author’s experience reporting from overseas: “About seven thousand Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, more than thirty thousand veterans and active-duty service members have killed themselves.”
And quoting Kathleen Belew’s work, “Bring the War Home”: “’One catastrophic ricochet of the Vietnam War’ was a surge in KKK, neo-Nazi, and far-right militia violence as embittered veterans sought a ‘literal extension of military-style combat into civilian space.'”
As events build leading to January 6th, there is a noteworthy shift in tone the author may or may not have intended to convey: during early 2020 and before the confrontations seemed to be focused on a specific issue or event. Closer to the national election and thereafter, the protests shifted more to just plain violence and riot to tear down the government.
The later chapters detailing his on-site experience of the January 6th riot is simply mind-blowing. As the author observes: “One way to think about January 6 is as the consummation, in real time, of a tumultuous passage between two distinct eras of conservatism. Before 2020, most conservatives celebrated law enforcement as the protectors of a system that was, on balance, reliably favorable to their interests; by the end of 2020, many conservatives had come to see that system as corrupt and tyrannical – perhaps even satanic.”
And his own wry assessment of a national leader’s statement about January 6th at the time: “’For those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win,’ Pence said. ‘Violence never wins.’ The second claim is demonstrably false; the first looks increasingly doubtful.”
By comparison, Cassidy Hutchinson’s epiphany, “Enough”, seems somewhat tame, though still important to understanding the mindsets of the White House occupants, in contrast to Mogelson’s descriptions of people and events at the other end of the Mall on the fateful day.
It remains unclear where we go from here.
January 16, 2023
Like so many of us, I have been asking 'What the hell is happening in America?' It's not just the illusion that British hold about America in general, that we know the country because we see it in the movies and on TV. Some of us read American fiction as well. But it turns out that the people making those movies and writing those books in fact don't really know America themselves. They know the liberal, College educated, Democrat voting country, which is easy for people like me to understand. Of course they also know about Wall Street and their Republican voting relative but the more I read and watch, the more I think they only know about the other America that has always lived in the South, in the Southern Baptist and churches, in the Midwest and among the rural rednecks. They can't explain to me how that other America became central to the whole country under Donald Trump, or what really drives it.
I read The Storm is Here because I wanted to know how Trump got elected and maintained support when his faults are so evident, how January 6 could happen - and be allowed to happen - with racists carrying nooses and wearing swastikas beside their American flags, how the Republicans could rally behind the belief that the 2020 election was stolen, despite the verdict of every court that was asked, how QAnon could go so mainstream that believers include US Congressmen, how in a country where a million people died of Covid 19 so many people could believe it was a hoax, and how an establishment figure like Joe Biden can seriously be compared to Satan. Above all, I wonder what to think when I hear American speaking seriously about the possibility, or even inevitability, of a civil war. What the hell is going on?
I also have questions about the American left, perhaps starting with how College students can be fixated on their English professor misspeaking about trans rights when all this is happening, the planet is burning and people without health insurance face ruin or death. But, even when I disagree, I understand the viewpoint and there's something familiar about the discussions.
The Storm is Here didn't answer my questions about the American Right, but it does offer a vivid, firsthand view of what happened in the country in 2020. All year, Morgenson hung out with Proud Boys, stood behind the barricades with BLM protesters, got to know Antifa rioters in Portland, and wandered in with the MAGA mob to the Senate chamber on January 6th 20121. He is clearly credible to everyone and, as a veteran af numerous warzones, he's very brave. He's observant, knowledgeable, he listens attentively and he repeats here what is said in an even tone.
Morgenson clearly has a point of view, but it comes through the description. He sympathises with Black Lives Matters, he is much more wary of Antifa, and what he sees in the Trump supporters is that they are truly terrified. They think their identity is being overwhelmed – erased – by a liberal, multiracial society and, egged on by utterly cynical (and sometimes incredibly deluded) people, starting with Trump, who will say and do anything for the sake of power and celebrity, they are willing to do almost anything themselves. They are God's Army, patriots in the footsteps of the 1776 insurgents who will Make America Great Again.
There are crazies and extremists in every country. The Storm is Here may not analyse all the historical forces at work in bringing them to the cultural centre of the country that is culturally central to much of the world, but it evokes what is happening and how wrong we are if we think we know where it is all headed.
I read The Storm is Here because I wanted to know how Trump got elected and maintained support when his faults are so evident, how January 6 could happen - and be allowed to happen - with racists carrying nooses and wearing swastikas beside their American flags, how the Republicans could rally behind the belief that the 2020 election was stolen, despite the verdict of every court that was asked, how QAnon could go so mainstream that believers include US Congressmen, how in a country where a million people died of Covid 19 so many people could believe it was a hoax, and how an establishment figure like Joe Biden can seriously be compared to Satan. Above all, I wonder what to think when I hear American speaking seriously about the possibility, or even inevitability, of a civil war. What the hell is going on?
I also have questions about the American left, perhaps starting with how College students can be fixated on their English professor misspeaking about trans rights when all this is happening, the planet is burning and people without health insurance face ruin or death. But, even when I disagree, I understand the viewpoint and there's something familiar about the discussions.
The Storm is Here didn't answer my questions about the American Right, but it does offer a vivid, firsthand view of what happened in the country in 2020. All year, Morgenson hung out with Proud Boys, stood behind the barricades with BLM protesters, got to know Antifa rioters in Portland, and wandered in with the MAGA mob to the Senate chamber on January 6th 20121. He is clearly credible to everyone and, as a veteran af numerous warzones, he's very brave. He's observant, knowledgeable, he listens attentively and he repeats here what is said in an even tone.
Morgenson clearly has a point of view, but it comes through the description. He sympathises with Black Lives Matters, he is much more wary of Antifa, and what he sees in the Trump supporters is that they are truly terrified. They think their identity is being overwhelmed – erased – by a liberal, multiracial society and, egged on by utterly cynical (and sometimes incredibly deluded) people, starting with Trump, who will say and do anything for the sake of power and celebrity, they are willing to do almost anything themselves. They are God's Army, patriots in the footsteps of the 1776 insurgents who will Make America Great Again.
There are crazies and extremists in every country. The Storm is Here may not analyse all the historical forces at work in bringing them to the cultural centre of the country that is culturally central to much of the world, but it evokes what is happening and how wrong we are if we think we know where it is all headed.
March 14, 2023
A decent book. At its best moments, Mogelson draws you into the action and environment he is describing. As he mentions in his acknowledgement, the book is strung together from a series of articles he had written throughout the years. As a result, the book has stronger sections than others.
At its weakest, there is a general summary of events that readers following the "Liberate" protests in the spring of 2019 all the way to the January 6th insurrection are already familiar with. It is within these sections that Mogelson sometimes theorizes rather superficially about the causes of both Leftwing and Rightwing protests. He makes some reductive analogies between his war experiences abroad with what is occurring within the United States. He is particularly weak in understanding the Left protests in Oregon. He makes decent connections between the eco-activism that defined much of Oregon's Left politics and the Pacific Northwest in general. But he doesn't fully understand the anarchist links that run throughout them. As a result, he misinterprets some of their actions and its history. For example, he correctly identifies the notion of "diversity of tactics" stretching back to the 2008 RNC. He claims that they are about "strengthening militant activists," which is distinctly not what they are about. When I spoke with organizers who participated in the anti-RNC demonstrations from that time who devised these tactics, they were more to keep safe those who didn't want to participate in such radical actions by segmenting such actions from more family friendly forms of protest. The diversity of tactics strategy was also about activists and organizers working out their differences behind the scenes rather than airing their differences in public or policing each other in ways that abetted law enforcement. Did they always work this way? No. But it certainly wasn't used as a bulwark for the radical elements like those participating in Black Bloc actions.
But one doesn't necessarily read participant journalism for its analysis.
The strength of the book is when he documents actions taking place, with a particularly flair for writing about rightwing actions. Mogelson is a gifted writer who eloquently relays the feel of an event. The best chapter, and its longest, concerns Mogelson caught in the sway of the insurrectionist wave into the Capitol. This is where the book has similar elements to Bill Buford's brilliant classic book, *Among the Thugs*. (Not coincidentally, Mogelson's "New Yorker" article was called, "Among the Insurrections," which I can only imagine pays homage to Buford). It is during these moments that Mogelson captures all the fury, contradiction, and messiness that define them. Capitol police both battle insurrectionists and pose for pictures with them, caught between white supremacist beliefs, nationalism, and masculinity and defending the Capitol with a certain idealistic blindness to difference.
A book, however, can only be fueled so much by these eruptive moments, an identical problem Buford has in his book that largely fizzles out by its last third-- though Buford incorporates this fizzling out into his narrative structure with a great anti-climatic ending. The moments where Mogelson is embedded with the groups he writes about are notable in their careful attention to detail with precise writing. Definitely worth the read to catch those moments.
At its weakest, there is a general summary of events that readers following the "Liberate" protests in the spring of 2019 all the way to the January 6th insurrection are already familiar with. It is within these sections that Mogelson sometimes theorizes rather superficially about the causes of both Leftwing and Rightwing protests. He makes some reductive analogies between his war experiences abroad with what is occurring within the United States. He is particularly weak in understanding the Left protests in Oregon. He makes decent connections between the eco-activism that defined much of Oregon's Left politics and the Pacific Northwest in general. But he doesn't fully understand the anarchist links that run throughout them. As a result, he misinterprets some of their actions and its history. For example, he correctly identifies the notion of "diversity of tactics" stretching back to the 2008 RNC. He claims that they are about "strengthening militant activists," which is distinctly not what they are about. When I spoke with organizers who participated in the anti-RNC demonstrations from that time who devised these tactics, they were more to keep safe those who didn't want to participate in such radical actions by segmenting such actions from more family friendly forms of protest. The diversity of tactics strategy was also about activists and organizers working out their differences behind the scenes rather than airing their differences in public or policing each other in ways that abetted law enforcement. Did they always work this way? No. But it certainly wasn't used as a bulwark for the radical elements like those participating in Black Bloc actions.
But one doesn't necessarily read participant journalism for its analysis.
The strength of the book is when he documents actions taking place, with a particularly flair for writing about rightwing actions. Mogelson is a gifted writer who eloquently relays the feel of an event. The best chapter, and its longest, concerns Mogelson caught in the sway of the insurrectionist wave into the Capitol. This is where the book has similar elements to Bill Buford's brilliant classic book, *Among the Thugs*. (Not coincidentally, Mogelson's "New Yorker" article was called, "Among the Insurrections," which I can only imagine pays homage to Buford). It is during these moments that Mogelson captures all the fury, contradiction, and messiness that define them. Capitol police both battle insurrectionists and pose for pictures with them, caught between white supremacist beliefs, nationalism, and masculinity and defending the Capitol with a certain idealistic blindness to difference.
A book, however, can only be fueled so much by these eruptive moments, an identical problem Buford has in his book that largely fizzles out by its last third-- though Buford incorporates this fizzling out into his narrative structure with a great anti-climatic ending. The moments where Mogelson is embedded with the groups he writes about are notable in their careful attention to detail with precise writing. Definitely worth the read to catch those moments.
July 18, 2023
“The Storm is Here” reports on the unprecedented events in this country (at least in modern times) from the beginning of 2020 and culminating in the siege of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It documents the tumult, the protests and counter-protests that occurred during that period. I was familiar with many of the events but hadn’t realized how many had happened during that compressed time period.
The book begins in April 2020, describing a demonstration in Lansing, Michigan, against Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID lockdown policies. Many of the protestors were armed. They stormed the statehouse and entered the building’s rotunda. Later, the author sees a correlation between this and the attack on January 6th.
The author, Luke Mogelson, has been a war correspondent, and he treats these investigations much as he did when he was imbedded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the time, he embeds himself with the far right and many confide in him. He also gets to know people on the left side of the aisle. He describes a black firefighter who has armed himself, and encourages other to do so, because “they’ll be coming for us.” This book becomes real with the stories and viewpoints of people that Mogelson meets.
This period brought us COVID protests, George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, the ongoing protests in Minneapolis and Portland, the march on Washington where Trump appears flailing Bible – and January 6th. Mogelson is there on that day, entering the Capitol with a group, until it becomes clear he needs to disassociate himself.
The author describes prior events where it’s relevant, such as a history of discrimination in Minnesota, noting the suppression of native Americans there. He talks about the apparent indifference with which the US wreaks havoc on other nations, such as our indiscriminate bombing of the Syrian city of Raqqa. This occurred during Obama’s presidency.
But for me, the two most compelling parts of this book are his depictions of protestors on the right, both leaders and followers, and his descriptions of January 6th. He sees many of the same people from the right at various protests around the country. They are motivated by a variety of reasons.
Some are white nationalists. Some are self-serving. Some are supporters of Christian nationalism who no longer believe democracy will further their cause. But some are just afraid. They believe the many conspiracy theories bandied about. They believe there is a bogeyman called socialism that will destroy their way of life. “We will be put in camps,” one says.
Mogelson comments that instigators of civil war he met in Iraq had something real to rebel against – their families and friends had been murdered. But here, the right is rebelling against things that are imaginary. And this is truly frightening.
His graphic description of January 6th showed that it was far more violent than I had allowed myself to register. He compares the taking of souvenirs there with the pictures that were taken of lynchings in the old South or of photos taken of prisoners being tormented at Abu Ghraib.
This was a frightening book. And I am afraid.
The book begins in April 2020, describing a demonstration in Lansing, Michigan, against Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID lockdown policies. Many of the protestors were armed. They stormed the statehouse and entered the building’s rotunda. Later, the author sees a correlation between this and the attack on January 6th.
The author, Luke Mogelson, has been a war correspondent, and he treats these investigations much as he did when he was imbedded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the time, he embeds himself with the far right and many confide in him. He also gets to know people on the left side of the aisle. He describes a black firefighter who has armed himself, and encourages other to do so, because “they’ll be coming for us.” This book becomes real with the stories and viewpoints of people that Mogelson meets.
This period brought us COVID protests, George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, the ongoing protests in Minneapolis and Portland, the march on Washington where Trump appears flailing Bible – and January 6th. Mogelson is there on that day, entering the Capitol with a group, until it becomes clear he needs to disassociate himself.
The author describes prior events where it’s relevant, such as a history of discrimination in Minnesota, noting the suppression of native Americans there. He talks about the apparent indifference with which the US wreaks havoc on other nations, such as our indiscriminate bombing of the Syrian city of Raqqa. This occurred during Obama’s presidency.
But for me, the two most compelling parts of this book are his depictions of protestors on the right, both leaders and followers, and his descriptions of January 6th. He sees many of the same people from the right at various protests around the country. They are motivated by a variety of reasons.
Some are white nationalists. Some are self-serving. Some are supporters of Christian nationalism who no longer believe democracy will further their cause. But some are just afraid. They believe the many conspiracy theories bandied about. They believe there is a bogeyman called socialism that will destroy their way of life. “We will be put in camps,” one says.
Mogelson comments that instigators of civil war he met in Iraq had something real to rebel against – their families and friends had been murdered. But here, the right is rebelling against things that are imaginary. And this is truly frightening.
His graphic description of January 6th showed that it was far more violent than I had allowed myself to register. He compares the taking of souvenirs there with the pictures that were taken of lynchings in the old South or of photos taken of prisoners being tormented at Abu Ghraib.
This was a frightening book. And I am afraid.
February 16, 2023
* Required reading for every person who values humanity, including (if not particularly) their own.
* Something of a companion piece to Carl Hoffman's "Liar's Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey Into the Upside-Down World Of Trump's MAGA Rallies."
* Also, a corollary to Kristin Kobes Du Mez's "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation."
* This war correspondent's chronicle of life in the United States leading up to, and following, the 2020 presidential election clearly and objectively lays bare a simple, unpleasant, and tragic fact: not everyone who professes belief in the Bible, the Constitution, democracy, or law and order actually believes in their heart. Instead, these potentially guiding lights are their means to personal ends, quickly discarded if insufficiently effective.
* A precise embodiment of this ethos is one of their leaders, famous for wearing an eyepatch to cover a lost eye: "...it had not been taken by the deep state, the New World Order, Antifa, or any of the other chimerical villains who so oppressed him." In fact, he accidentally shot himself in the face in 1992.
* As reported in this book, many of these leaders have never experienced war, thus "the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms."
* As the cliché goes: hurt people hurt people.
* It is tragic on a historic scale that such people still have multitudes of followers, some of whom blame their socioeconomic straits on government and taxes and social safety nets, yet lavish their financial resources upon these charlatans and con artists.
During questions from the audience, a man brought up the recent coup in Myanmar, where the military had arrested the democratically elected leader, declared a state of emergency, and killed hundreds of protesters. “I wanna know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here,” he asked.
“No reason,” [Michael] Flynn responded. “It should happen here.”
The former national security adviser went on to auction off a signed baseball bat for eight thousand dollars.
"The incredible thing was that it felt very much like it might start all over again. That was why we were standing out there in the wind and cold – because it could still go either way, and because no one knew which way it would go."
* Like white Christianity in America, the only way back is to begin at home. Those who truly believe in democracy or the Constitution or law and order, just like those have truly opened their hearts to Christ, need to take an honest look at themselves first. "How can you say, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?"
* People who can honestly and accurately admit their own faults, and accept and love themselves nevertheless, have an infinite capacity to contribute positively to their families and their communities. Everyone, whether they think they are found in this book or not, would benefit from this starting point.
* Something of a companion piece to Carl Hoffman's "Liar's Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey Into the Upside-Down World Of Trump's MAGA Rallies."
* Also, a corollary to Kristin Kobes Du Mez's "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation."
* This war correspondent's chronicle of life in the United States leading up to, and following, the 2020 presidential election clearly and objectively lays bare a simple, unpleasant, and tragic fact: not everyone who professes belief in the Bible, the Constitution, democracy, or law and order actually believes in their heart. Instead, these potentially guiding lights are their means to personal ends, quickly discarded if insufficiently effective.
* A precise embodiment of this ethos is one of their leaders, famous for wearing an eyepatch to cover a lost eye: "...it had not been taken by the deep state, the New World Order, Antifa, or any of the other chimerical villains who so oppressed him." In fact, he accidentally shot himself in the face in 1992.
* As reported in this book, many of these leaders have never experienced war, thus "the only real thing about their war is their own belligerence, their own fear, they can never win. They can only rage endlessly against elusive phantoms."
* As the cliché goes: hurt people hurt people.
* It is tragic on a historic scale that such people still have multitudes of followers, some of whom blame their socioeconomic straits on government and taxes and social safety nets, yet lavish their financial resources upon these charlatans and con artists.
During questions from the audience, a man brought up the recent coup in Myanmar, where the military had arrested the democratically elected leader, declared a state of emergency, and killed hundreds of protesters. “I wanna know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here,” he asked.
“No reason,” [Michael] Flynn responded. “It should happen here.”
The former national security adviser went on to auction off a signed baseball bat for eight thousand dollars.
"The incredible thing was that it felt very much like it might start all over again. That was why we were standing out there in the wind and cold – because it could still go either way, and because no one knew which way it would go."
* Like white Christianity in America, the only way back is to begin at home. Those who truly believe in democracy or the Constitution or law and order, just like those have truly opened their hearts to Christ, need to take an honest look at themselves first. "How can you say, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?"
* People who can honestly and accurately admit their own faults, and accept and love themselves nevertheless, have an infinite capacity to contribute positively to their families and their communities. Everyone, whether they think they are found in this book or not, would benefit from this starting point.
October 14, 2022
This book is a look at the events and social currents leading up to the insurrection on Jan 6, 2021. The author is a reporter who has experience reporting on war-torn countries around the world. He has done a huge amount of research and "visited with" people on both sides of the aisle even entering the Capitol on Jan 6th as a reporter.
As a result, he has lots of names of MAGAt ring leaders, many of whom are making a financial killing off of spreading their lies and misleading comments along with their hatred of anybody not just like themselves. One has even been quoted as saying that "not all people need to vote" and since Blacks are often at the top of the list of those that this cabal wants to prevent from voting (see Georgia's and other states' new laws to suppress the vote in urban areas), it is apparent that they think that Blacks shouldn't be able to vote as thought by being Democrats they are somehow inferior or less intelligent.
However, I would respond to that with the answer that I am as intelligent if not more so than people who believe the big lie based on conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who has recently been bit, rightly, with a billion-dollar fine for his lies and slander against the Sander Hook parents in Connecticut. Then you have Erik Prince who has made billions for his firm by serving as "military" furthering the senseless involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Vos who made their money operating a pyramid scam called Amway.
Then there is the Kock family whose political doctrine is the uplift of what they call "property rights" over any sort of human rights.
The facts seem to indicate, and there is plenty of evidence, that the rank and file MAGAts are being led by the nose by these unscrupulous robber baron types and yet they THINK that they are the elite or the most American.
As he points out in the closing, if America ends up having a civil war, it will be the first one of its type. One based on lies and generated conspiracy theories by unscrupulous men and women wanting to make money for their own pockets at the cost of dissension and conflict and anti-government angst generated over very little if any actual cause. But then, the first civil war in this country was fought over the false idea that somehow white people deserved to own Black ones. (btw all attempts to compare slavery to indentured servitude are false because indenture lasted for a period of training or was meant to, and slavery was meant to be eternal).
I rated this book as I did because I found it hard to read and keep up with what was most important because there was so much information.
As a result, he has lots of names of MAGAt ring leaders, many of whom are making a financial killing off of spreading their lies and misleading comments along with their hatred of anybody not just like themselves. One has even been quoted as saying that "not all people need to vote" and since Blacks are often at the top of the list of those that this cabal wants to prevent from voting (see Georgia's and other states' new laws to suppress the vote in urban areas), it is apparent that they think that Blacks shouldn't be able to vote as thought by being Democrats they are somehow inferior or less intelligent.
However, I would respond to that with the answer that I am as intelligent if not more so than people who believe the big lie based on conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who has recently been bit, rightly, with a billion-dollar fine for his lies and slander against the Sander Hook parents in Connecticut. Then you have Erik Prince who has made billions for his firm by serving as "military" furthering the senseless involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Vos who made their money operating a pyramid scam called Amway.
Then there is the Kock family whose political doctrine is the uplift of what they call "property rights" over any sort of human rights.
The facts seem to indicate, and there is plenty of evidence, that the rank and file MAGAts are being led by the nose by these unscrupulous robber baron types and yet they THINK that they are the elite or the most American.
As he points out in the closing, if America ends up having a civil war, it will be the first one of its type. One based on lies and generated conspiracy theories by unscrupulous men and women wanting to make money for their own pockets at the cost of dissension and conflict and anti-government angst generated over very little if any actual cause. But then, the first civil war in this country was fought over the false idea that somehow white people deserved to own Black ones. (btw all attempts to compare slavery to indentured servitude are false because indenture lasted for a period of training or was meant to, and slavery was meant to be eternal).
I rated this book as I did because I found it hard to read and keep up with what was most important because there was so much information.
November 13, 2022
In wars all over the globe, Luke Mogelson has been there, done that. He certainly covers all the bases in this study of how the US has begun to slide toward fascism and how we all have been complicit in the changes that have been wrought. Complicit, because we have considered the militias and inane political stunts and outspoken craziness of recent years to be an aberration, easily remedied. Mogelson traces the development of the militant ultra-right from their roots in the American West to the Jan.6 insurrection; his description of that day is the best summary of it all that I have seen or heard. He covers all the events in the book personally and most of his narrative is that of the participants—male and female—who have been at the heart of rebellion and discontent for years. He visits Minneapolis shortly after the George Floyd killing and subsequent demonstrations. He analyzes who was saying and who was doing what during those troublesome days. He does the same in Portland and, of course, DC. The style and approach make for a most engaging and personal account of horrific events, yet his cool and balanced approach—talking to both demonstrators and police, for example—makes for engaging and at the same time infuriating reporting. The facts can drive you crazy since so many of the facts of action were based on complete and utter fictions, from the demented dreams of bombers and assassins to the Big Lie that Trump has sustained for so long. One wonders, in the light of the recent off-year election results, if the steam may eventually go out of the Trump mythology. What Mogelson demonstrates here, however, is that the roots of the ultra-right wing, crazy rebellion, go much deeper than Trump; that there is no shortage of men (and very few women) willing to spread any conspiracy they hear of as gospel. Where we in the middle are complicit is in accepting the nonsense on the Right as if there was nothing wrong with “free speech” that advocates overthrow of the government. To too many Americans, Jan.6 was a “tourist rebellion” and that the insurrectionists were merely expressing opinions—with pipes, knives, guns and bear spray. The storm may be here. If so, it is clear that it will pass without damage only if we are vigilant and stop accepting any right-wing crazy talk as legitimate. The book makes you tremble at what might have been but also tremble with anger that we have allowed this cancer to take root in our republic. Again, maybe the recent election results will help to stem the tide but vigilance remains necessary as Fox News proves every day and as Mogelson proves in this terrific book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews