We are now past the point at which congressional Democrats, and the party more generally, must place opposition to white nationalism, in both its political and its violent modes, as one of the party’s highest stated priorities. Two mutually reinforcing factors demand this: the escalation of white supremacist violence as the leading form of domestic terrorism, and the synergy between this violence and the Trump administration’s white nationalist rhetoric and policies. On the second point: not only is it irrefutable that the president’s language is giving aid and comfort to far-right extremists, and inciting violent acts, but we have learned in recent days that the Trump administration has opposed dedicating resources to fighting domestic terrorism, and sought to hide from both Congress and the public the evidence of this escalating threat.
Last week, CNN reported that “White House officials rebuffed efforts by their colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security for more than a year to make combating domestic terror threats, such as those from white supremacists, a greater priority.” This effort by DHS occurred during the construction of the National Counterterrorism Strategy, which was issued in the fall of 2018. One paragraph addressing domestic terrorism was eventually added; according to CNN, this bare mention is
all the more stark given that FBI Director Christopher Wray's July testimony that there have been almost as many domestic terror arrests in the first three quarters of the fiscal year about 100 – as there have been arrests connected to international terror. Wray noted that the majority of the domestic terrorism cases were motivated by some version of white supremacist violence.
A Trump administration official told CNN that they are “surging resources” to domestic terrorism matters, but that “they’re behind the curve because of a lack of support from the White House.” This source also pointed to Trump as being a major factor in why the White House resisted highlighting domestic terrorism; the source indicated that Donald Trump’s “reluctance to criticize white supremacists was part of ‘an overlay’ of all these discussions, and added, “"You know it will trigger the boss.”
In other words, setting the full law enforcement power of the United States government against terrorists who seek to kill Americans for the color of their skin or country of origin, and whose end goal is the overthrow of American democracy, is something that makes the president uncomfortable, or perhaps even angry. Now, these are the words of a single, anonymous source – but the larger story is more broadly sourced, and does any observer of this president really doubt at this point that investigating white nationalists might upset him?
Almost inconceivably, though, the story gets even worse, with new facts lending a yet more ominous cast to the behavior documented in CNN’s report. According to Raw Story:
The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programs that combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.
According to the blocked report, there were 32 domestic terrorist incidents in 2018. White supremacists were behind them all.
The Raw Story piece notes that Congress should investigate why the Trump administration blocked this date from Congress, to which we can only say: yes, and a hell of a lot more. There is now sufficient evidence in the public record to credibly suggest that the Trump administration is not only actively downplaying the threat of white nationalist violence, but actively resisting taking action against it. If true, these are impeachable offenses. The president took an oath of office to protect the U.S. against enemies foreign and domestic; a reluctance to defend us against the latter has emerged, and must be explored further.
Of course, the rise of white nationalist terrorism is only one half of the story, the other half being a president who has placed appeals to white nationalism at the dead center of his presidency and re-election effort. There really is no separating these two sides of what is actually a unified narrative: a growing terrorist movement that the White House is reluctant to take action against, and a president who promotes ideas that align with those of this violent movement, and whose words incite their violence.
The fusion of these two stories needs to be treated as the crisis it is by Democrats nationwide. The U.S. must be defended against these right-wing militants, and against a president willing to suppress the overwhelming evidence of the threat they pose. This is no time for caution or feeling out the political winds. As this New York Times piece out today reminds us, when a Homeland Security Department report came out in 2009 warning of “race-driven extremism,” the Republican Party went absolutely apeshit over it:
[W]hen the report was made public, it ignited a storm of protest, mostly from the right. Mike Pompeo, then a Republican congressman from Kansas and now secretary of state, said focusing on domestic terrorism was a “dangerous” undertaking born of political correctness that denied “the threat that radical Islamic terrorism poses [. . .] The multipronged Republican backlash included criticism of the term “right-wing extremism,” and a near disavowal of the existence of domestic terrorism. Republican politicians and pundits echoed Mr. Pompeo’s assertion that the idea of domestic terrorism was a feint, born of political correctness, meant to distract from foreign terrorism.
The story reminds us of how the Obama White House rescinded this threat assessment weeks later, partly out of “concern that highlighting the issue would only fuel white supremacist conspiracy theories or give unwarranted publicity to fringe figures, according to six former administration officials.” But the right-wing backlash was clearly decisive in the administration’s lamentable decision to essentially allow itself to be cowed into downplaying a threat, which, ten years on, has only grown, and is now amplified by our most despicable of presidents.
The Times report notes the political challenges to fighting right-wing extremism, citing the Obama administration’s backing down on the threat assessment and civil liberty concerns on the left in targeting domestic group, yet this history pales in comparison to the preponderance of facts and overwhelming current reality: the GOP has stuck up for right-wing extremists for a decade and more now, and is currently led by a president for whom these extremists are fine people. The idea that there is some sort of equivalence between the ACLU raising objections on the left and the president and leading members of the Republican establishment sticking up for white supremacists on the right is to manufacture a false equivalence out of the flimsiest of materials.
The fight against right-wing terror poses a political conundrum only for those unconcerned about defeating it. For those who look to defend the United States against political violence, there is no course forward but to commit fully do defeating violent extremists and their elected enablers.