Donald Trump’s white supremacist road to hell
Our white supremacist President, Donald Trump, is transforming the fundamental power dynamic of hate groups. Trump’s rhetoric, dogwhistling, actions and inactions all have and will continue to embolden the most dangerous Americans. A second Trump term would further cement this rot and let it grow deeper into the American system.
Far-right groups, which are nearly synonymous with “white supremacist groups,” have been a major concern for the FBI for quite some time now. In essence, the FBI recognized these groups as domestic terror threats long ago. Years of inadequate attention have allowed for far-right groups to grow in scale, sophistication, and danger. As acknowledged in The Guardian article linked above, plots by far-right groups to denotate dirty bombs have been foiled in Maine and Florida.
Time provides a harrowing statistic: “Since 9/11, white supremacists and other far-right extremists have been responsible for almost three times as many attacks on U.S. soil as Islamic terrorists, the government reported.”
Now, it’s being more widely recognized that far-right groups have penetrated police departments throughout the country. A report published by the Brennan Center for Justice written by former FBI agent Michael German outlines many examples of police being affiliated with far-right groups.
With Trump as their de facto Führer, the situation has worsened. Invigorated radicals, including a swathe of armed paramilitary militias, are not just menacing the public, they’re murdering the public. And guess what? Conservative media have given their seal of approval to the 17-year-old murderer (some trash insult to humanity named “Rittenhouse”). As reported in the linked KQED article, “On Wednesday, Tucker Carlson told his prime-time Fox News viewers that Rittenhouse ‘decided [he] had to maintain order when no one else would.’ Ann Coulter tweeted to her 2.2 million followers that she wants Rittenhouse ‘as my president.’”
Four more years of Trump wouldn’t just mean four more years of a license for these terrorists, it would be much more than that. A second Trump term—one in which he wouldn’t have to worry about currying political favor for reelection—would empower Trump to do far worse than his first four years. The same is true for far-right groups. A reign of terror from the White House would ride tandem with a reign of terror from armed white supremacists. Minorities, LGBTQ+, and political enemies of the far right stand to lose the most, and that means the nation as a whole has everything to lose. We are only as good as our worst, and I fear the worst will only worsen if Trump is reelected.
Democracy thrives in snarkiness