The domestic terrorists are at it again:
threats from QAnon conspiranoids and radicalized Trumpsters have
forced the 100-acre National Butterfly Center, located in a
former onion field along the U.S.-Mexico border in Mission,
Texas, to close indefinitely. As reported by The Texas Tribune on February 2,
2022 and elsewhere, the 20-year-old
butterfly center has been targeted at least since 2019 by these
wackadoodle conspiracy-porn addicts, who have falsely tied the
organization to human trafficking.
Never mind that there are zero law enforcement investigations
into the organization, or any of its staff members, for human
trafficking. Facts don't matter to these zealots. The center's
executive director, Marianna Treviño-Wright, said, "They
tell these lies in a variety of forms through all of their
channels to promote stochastic terrorism."
The trouble most likely began in 2017 when the butterfly center
filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that
proposed construction of the infamous border wall would drive
through the center and decimate butterfly habitats.
Treviño-Wright suspects that this is what initially attracted
the attention of the conspiranoids. (The lawsuit is still ongoing
in federal court.)
But a Trumpster/con artist/troll named Brian Kolfage really got the
ball rolling in 2019, when he tweeted out false rumors accusing
Treviño-Wright of human trafficking. In November of that year,
Kolfage and his group, We Build The Wall, began clearing land next to the nature preserve to build
a private crowdfunded wall along the border. (In August of 2020, I published a post about Kolfage and his crowdfunding wallscam and
vicious trolling -- not to mention his indictment (along with
luminaries such as Steve Bannon) for the scam.)
The National Butterfly Center opposed the construction of the
wall, citing that it not only violated international treaties but
would also be detrimental to the center's ecology. And that's
when the attacks from Kolfage began. The following month, the
National Butterfly Center obtained a temporary restraining order
against Kolfage and his scammy hatriot organization, and then
filed a lawsuit claiming defamation and disparagement.
Not surprisingly, the harassment did not stop after the lawsuit
was filed. Treviño-Wright claims that she has been the subject
of threats via phone, email, and Twitter since then. And late
last month, a fringe right-wing congressional candidate from
Virginia, Kimberly Lowe, paid a visit to the butterfly center,
demanding that the center give her access to the river "to
see all the illegals crossing on the raft." Treviño-Wright
says that when she asked Lowe to leave the premises, Lowe tackled
her. The Daily Beast posted
an interesting report about this incident on January 28, 2022.
You need to read it.
This past weekend, the center closed during the We Stand America
border security rally after a former state representative
informed Treviño-Wright that the place could be a target during
the rally. She was advised that she should either stay well-armed
or that she should just get out of town. Avid Trumpsters
attending the rally did in fact stop at the butterfly sanctuary,
and a contributor to the ultra-right site Real America's Voice
posted a clip on Twitter, repeating the spurious sex-trafficking
claims.
Finally on Wednesday, February 2, the butterfly center closed
again, this time indefinitely, citing safety concerns for both
staff and public.
If that's not terrorism in your book, then clearly we are reading
very different books.
* * * * *
Arguably this saga really began in
2016 with "Pizzagate," the
well-known whacked-out conspiranoid narrative claiming that the
(nonexistent) basement of a Washington, DC pizza restaurant was
the site of a child abuse ring spearheaded by then-Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other demonic
Democrats. As stupid as that narrative was and is, it was enough
to get loads of folks fired up, including a North Carolina man who, armed with an assault rifle, paid a visit to the pizza joint in an effort to
investigate the matter.
In the wake of Pizzagate, the far-right conspiracy movement QAnon emerged from the fever swamps of the imageboard website
4chan, building on a narrative about a worldwide cabal of
Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles (especially Democrats and
liberal elites!) who operate a sex trafficking ring and who have
engaged in wicked conspiracies against #NotMyPresident Donald Trump.
And the rest, unfortunately, is history in the making, as QAnon
and a general conspiranoid, untethered-from-reality mindset have spread their poison across the right-wing political landscape. What once was fringe is now all too mainstream.
And it's not getting any better. Today a butterfly center,
tomorrow... who knows? More than ever, domestic terrorism is a
thing, and most of it exists on the right, not only in the US but
all across the globe. It would merely
be funny, if only it weren't so scary.
