Many people have drawn parallels between white mobs of today and the historical violence of lynch mobs at home and imperialism abroad. But what I keep thinking about is colonization. What we saw on January 6th is the uncivilized, unchecked, entitled violence of colonizers.

This is how colonizers behave. They storm, they invade, they steal, they defecate, they destroy and they do so under the banner of freedom, liberty and self-proclaimed superiority.

The unapologetic embrace of brute force in the name of liberty is exactly what our founding fathers advocated. It's what we celebrate with every national holiday. It's what the Capitol actually represents. It's the ugly truth that even Democratic "leaders" are determined to deny.

The sad reality is that even if Democrats had the ovaries to hold violent insurrectionists accountable for the ongoing coup, their efforts would be in vain so long as they continue to ignore or -- worse, celebrate -- the colonial rot at the heart of our nation's project.

White supremacist colonialism explains why none of the words we are using to describe the "mob" are effective. Even the word "insurrectionists" fails. Within this system, white men are not just ALLOWED to be violent insurrectionists, they have historically been celebrated for it.

Before the civil rights era, ALL presidential administrations in this country were both white supremacist and white nationalist. In the "modern" era, mainstream politicians learned to performatively eschew white nationalism and embrace what I call "rainbow white supremacy".

Some precisions might be helpful. White nationalism claims this country exists for the benefit of white people -- it's the legalization of white political power. White supremacy is closely tied to white nationalism, but is a broader assertion of white superiority and dominance.

From 1776 through the 1960s (roughly 200 years), the U.S. was an explicitly white nationalist and white supremacist society. After the 60s, many politicians abandoned overtly white nationalist rhetoric without redressing or dismantling centuries of white nationalist policies.

The most important thing to understand is that literally nothing was ever done by our political leadership during or after the civil rights movement to systematically uproot and dismantle the ideologies of white nationalism and white supremacy.

Instead, civil rights legislation and rhetoric were co-opted to *disregard* the white nationalist past and to *ignore* - or worse - *deny* the white supremacist present. (Cue the Bakke decision + every MLK quote used to undermine antiracist activism in the name of colorblindness)