Donald Trump, right-wing terrorism and the rise of the ‘white power’ movement

White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to others because of their race. Prior to the Civil War, racism and white supremacy had been common attitudes in both the North and the South. After the Emancipation Proclamation, when Union troops began to fight for the abolishment of slavery, Northern attitudes shifted slightly, and many felt that blacks deserved equal legal rights and equal protection, even if they were not considered socially equal.
In the South, however, white supremacists did not believe blacks should have any such rights. During Reconstruction, white supremacists formed political and social groups to promote whites and oppress blacks, and to enact laws that codified inequality. The Ku Klux Klan (founded in 1865) and the Knights of the White Camellia (1867) were secret groups, while members of the White League (1874) and the Red Shirts (1875) were publically known. All four groups used violence to intimidate blacks and Republican voters. Their efforts succeeded, and with the end of Reconstruction in 1877, white supremacy became the reality of the South.
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When a gunman died after killing three people and injuring 15 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival last weekend, authorities were left to discern a motive for his attack.
Then, on Saturday, a gunman went on a shooting rampage at a shopping center in El Paso, killing at least 20 and wounding at least 26.
As noted by  Suhauna Hussain in the Los Angeles Times, "Evidence compiled after the Gilroy shooting seemed to include some clues: Investigators recovered extremist materials during a search of 19-year-old gunman Santino William Legan’s home in Nevada, according to one law enforcement source, and Legan had posted a photo on Instagram urging people to read a novel widely associated with white supremacists.
The Instagram comments fueled speculation that the crime was motivated by racist ideology. If that turns out to be true — authorities have said a motive remained undetermined — it could mean that the Gilroy attack fell into into an increasingly common category of domestic threat: those associated with white supremacy.
A similar theme appears to have emerged in the El Paso massacre. The suspected assailant taken into custody, Patrick Crusius of suburban Dallas, is believed to be the author of a hate-filled manifesto posted online. El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said the manifesto indicated a potential connection to hate crime."

As is now well known, within 24 hours dozens of Americans were gunned down in two separate incidents. The first of these happened in El Paso, TX, close to the border with Mexico. The second event happened in Dayton, OH. The victims included Hispanics and Muslims, including people of other races. If these incidents were suspected to have been perpetrated by a Muslim, as rightly noted by Democratic Party Presidential hopefuls, President Trump and his 'Amen Corner' of white racists within the government and Congress would classify such acts as a work of Islamist terrorism. Consider the OpEd in the NY Times today that reads:

If one of the perpetrators of this weekend’s two mass shootings had adhered to the ideology of radical Islam, the resources of the American government and its international allies would mobilize without delay.

The awesome power of the state would work tirelessly to deny future terrorists access to weaponry, money and forums to spread their ideology. The movement would be infiltrated by spies and informants. Its financiers would face sanctions. Places of congregation would be surveilled. Those who gave aid or comfort to terrorists would be prosecuted. Programs would be established to de-radicalize former adherents...

In predictable corners, moderate Muslims would be excoriated for not speaking out more forcefully against the extremists in their midst. Foreign nations would be hit with sanctions for not doing enough to help the cause. Politicians might go so far as to call for a total ban on Muslims entering the United States “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Now that the criminals are white folks, President Trump and his surrogates are mum on identifying such evil men; these evil men are neither called Christian terrorists nor white supremacists/terrorists/bigots. Trump shies away from using the T word, which he is so fond of using anytime a deranged Muslim commits, or is accused of doing.
Trump tweeted today: "Today’s shooting in El Paso, Texas, was not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people..."
His surrogates have no problem that these terrorists are mentally sick! What differentiates them from Muslims who were accused of being terrorists? See the link here for a sample of Republican reaction to the latest tragedy: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/4/20753866/el-paso-shooting-white-supremacy-video-games
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC News Sunday that “sick people who are intent on doing things like this should not be able to buy guns legally”.
Why this double standard?
How should we describe these latest episodes of mindless violence?
 I share the links below, for our readers, that provide a good discussion on the complex subject.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/donald-trump-right-wing-terrorism-and-the-rise-of-the-white-power-movement/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/opinion/mass-shootings-domestic-terrorism.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/how-can-fbi-fight-far-right-extremism-ideology/595435/

The ADL in its January 2019 report stated: "Right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 extremist-related murders in the United States in 2018, making them responsible for more deaths than in any year since 1995, according to new data from the ADL.
In its annual report on extremist-related killings in the U.S., the ADL’s Center on Extremism reported that at least 50 people were killed by extremists in 2018, including the 11 individuals killed in the fatal anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The tally represents a 35 percent increase from the 37 extremist-related murders in 2017, making 2018 the fourth-deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970.
Last year saw the highest percentage of right-wing extremist-related killings since 2012, the last year when all documented killings were by right-wing extremists.
Right-wing extremists killed more people in 2018 than in any year since 1995, the year of Timothy McVeigh’s bomb attack on the Oklahoma City federal building.
“The white supremacist attack in Pittsburgh should serve as a wake-up call to everyone about the deadly consequences of hateful rhetoric,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “It’s time for our nation’s leaders to appropriately recognize the severity of the threat and to devote the necessary resources to address the scourge of right-wing extremism.”


Let's ponder on some more facts, as noted by the editorial board of the NY Times:

White nationalist terror attacks are local, but the ideology is global. On Saturday, a terrorist who, according to a federal law enforcement official, wrote that he feared a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” was replacing white Americans opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso. In a manifesto, the gunman wrote that he drew some inspiration from the white nationalist terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 people dead. The F.B.I. is investigating the El Paso mass shooting as a possible act of domestic terrorism. The motive behind another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio is under investigation.

In April, another terrorist who opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, Calif., echoed the words of the Christchurch suspect, too and appeared to draw inspiration from a massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last fall. The alleged Christchurch terrorist, for his part, wrote that he drew inspiration from white supremacist attacks in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

An investigation by The Times earlier this year found that “at least a third of white extremist killers since 2011 were inspired by others who perpetrated similar attacks, professed a reverence for them or showed an interest in their tactics.”

White supremacy, in other words, is a violent, interconnected transnational ideology. Its adherents are gathering in anonymous, online forums to spread their ideas, plotting attacks and cheering on acts of terrorism.

The result is an evolving brand of social media-fueled bloodshed. Online communities like 4chan and 8chan have become hotbeds of white nationalist activity. Anonymous users flood the site’s “politics” board with racist, sexist and homophobic content designed to spread across the web. Users share old fascist fiction, Nazi propaganda and pseudoscientific texts about race and I.Q. and replacement theory, geared to radicalize their peers.

These communities aren’t new. Stormfront, an early white supremacist bulletin board and website, was begun by Don Black in 1996. Communities like the neo-Nazi site, the Daily Stormer, have spread white nationalist ideas for years. Some of these communities’ most unstable users have moved their hate into the real world — Dylann Roof, who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015 had a Stormfront account under the name, “Lil Aryan.”

Yet, in recent months, conversations in one anonymous 8chan forum in particular have evolved. They increasingly focus on carrying out acts of white nationalist terror. In the wake of the Christchurch shooting, copycat killers have taken to the board to seek approval for acts of violence. They post hastily written manifestoes in the hopes that these rantings will be shared online and by the media —  and inspire more shootings. Posts actively incentivize the darkest impulses of the most dangerous users. In May, an anonymous user posted a screed on “Target Selection,” providing a blueprint on how to increase the body count during mass shootings. The community celebrates and compares the number of casualties from shooting to shooting — a gamification of mass murder...

While its modern roots predate the Trump administration by many decades, white nationalism has attained a new mainstream legitimacy during Mr. Trump’s time in office.

Discussions of Americans being “replaced” by immigrants, for instance, are a recurring feature on some programs on Fox News. Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, for example, return to these themes frequently. Democrats, Ms. Ingraham told viewers last year, “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants.”

“You will not replace us,” white nationalists proudly chanted at Charlottesville in 2017. (Mr. Trump himself proclaimed that there were “fine people” on both sides of that deadly event.)

In May, bemoaning an “invasion” of immigrants, Mr. Trump asked how immigrants could be stopped during a rally in Florida. “Shoot them,” someone in the crowd yelled. Mr. Trump gave a smirk and said “that’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff” as the crowd exploded in ghoulish laughter.

Far more Americans have died at the hands of domestic terrorists than at the hands of Islamic extremists since 2001, according to the F.B.I. The agency’s resources, however, are still overwhelmingly weighted toward thwarting international terrorism.

The nation owed a debt to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, to take action against the vile infrastructure that allowed the terrorists to achieve their goals that horrible Tuesday. We owe no less of a debt to the victims in El Paso and at the hundreds of other victims of white nationalist terrorism around the nation.

Moderate members of the political right must do more to condemn white nationalists, even if the president condemns them from one side of his mouth and extols ethnonationalism from the other.

Advertisers have a duty not to sponsor television programs that flirt with white nationalism or advocate it outright.

Banks have a duty not to help finance white nationalist organizations.

Religious leaders should feel called to denounce white nationalism from the pulpit.

Technology companies have a responsibility to de-platform white nationalist propaganda and communities as they did ISIS propaganda. And if the technology companies refuse to step up, law enforcement has a duty to vigilantly monitor and end the anonymity, via search warrants, of those who openly plot attacks in murky forums.

Those people who encourage terrorism anonymously online should be named.

Those who sympathize with the white nationalist ideology but who deplore the violence should work closely with law enforcement to see that fellow travelers who may be prone to violence do not have access to firearms like semiautomatic assault-style weapons that are massively destructive.

Most importantly, American law enforcement needs to target white nationalists with the same zeal that they have targeted radical Islamic terrorists. Ensuring the security of the homeland demands it.

There can be no middle ground when it comes to white nationalism and the terrorism it inspires. You’re either for it or against it.