After the white riot in Charlottesville, and the president’s continued problematic response to the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched, no one can claim that our current day political dangers don't include a re-energized far-right that draws inspiration and solace from the current occupant of the White House. This piece in the New Republic offers solid evidence for why, at a minimum, these extremists see objective evidence that they have little to fear from this presidency. Presumably under the cover of trimming the budget, the Trump administration has terminated funding for the Countering Violent Extremism program, which “emphasizes community engagement over aggressive law enforcement,” and includes support for programs that target both Muslim radicalism and right-wing extremism. The administration has also canned grants that specifically target far-right extremism.
Does anyone else find this chilling? Why is the first instinct of Trump’s law enforcement team to take the heat off right-wing extremists? And of course, in the fight against Islamic extremists, it signals a fuller embrace of a militarized and counter-productive approach that sees all Muslims, including American citizens, as potential enemies, and refuses to recognize the primacy of non-military solutions to a fight that too many people who should know better would prefer to treat as a never-ending war.
Both pragmatically and politically, these problematic cuts to the Countering Violent Extremism program are obvious points of attack for Democrats and other opponents of Trump. Community-level programs to defuse right-wing extremism should be massively escalated, not put on the chopping block, even as law enforcement should be addressing any criminal activity with overwhelming resources. Once the president made clear his bizarre reluctance to criticize neo-Nazis and white supremacists, any and all legislative evidence of his ambivalence needs to be highlighted. This also provides a powerful opportunity to press for increased funding for those community-engagement programs that fight Islamic extremism. The message is simple: let’s de-energize extremism of all stripes through cost-effective, morally defensible approaches, not throw away some of the most powerful tools we have to combat violent ideologies.
We should make Donald Trump justify his coddling of right-wing extremists and incompetence at combatting Islamic extremism at every opportunity.
