Six Charged in Alleged Plot to Kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer

Something I noticed in the FBI interviews was the emphasis on how the group was using highly-encrypted communications to plan and discuss the plot.

It isn't hard to imagine US congressmen/women and senators looking differently at the EARN IT and Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act bills when the FBI laments how it hampered their investigation.

This looks more like some anarchists

https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1314267058339819520

I never really understood the concept behind American militias. Do people really look at Syria and Somalia think that's desirable?

Militias come baked into the Second Amendment. The concept is that militias are necessary for the defense of a free state - and the defense of the people from the state. Bear in mind that the US Constitution was written two hundred years ago and the US didn't even have a standing army, and the Second Amendment's primary purpose was to prevent the need for one.

This has led to a cultural belief within the US that the government's fear of its own armed populace is the only thing keeping it from degenerating into tyranny, and the establishment of the "militia patriot" as something of a romantic folk hero like the cowboys of the Wild West.