Succor for extremism
For all the interruptions, all the exaggerations, all the false claims, all the baseless allegations that President Donald Trump interjected into the first presidential debate against former Vice President Joe Biden, two words stand alone for what can only be called their horror. Stand by.
That, amid an embarrassingly uncivil performance no parent would tolerate in a four-year-old, was the message the president of the United States sent to a group of thugs known as the Proud Boys when he was asked to condemn and call for an end to violence by white supremacists and right-wing “militias.” His answer: “Stand back and stand by.”
With those words, Mr. Trump not only did not denounce the Proud Boys, which has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and whose members show up, sometimes armed, at Black Lives Matter rallies to clash with demonstrators. He positioned himself as their leader. He legitimized them, recognition they celebrated on the internet Wednesday. And he told
them to stand by for ... what?
This is all the more frightening in light of Mr. Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election. Does Mr. Trump see groups like the Proud Boys, heavily armed anti-government militias, the extremist Boogaloo Bois who yearn for a second civil war, and white supremacists who march in the streets to neo-nazi chants like “Jews will not replace us” as his personal army?
Compare this tender treatment with Mr. Trump’s threat to designate “antifa,” a loosely organized far-left movement that has its own share of violent members, as a domestic terrorist organization. This, despite the assessment of FBI Director Christopher Wray that antifa is more an ideology than an organization.
Let’s be clear what’s happening here: The president is singling out a nebulous left-wing group whose main tenets are opposing systemic racism, right-wing extremism, and him. Rather than let the criminal justice system do its job and prosecute the relatively few members who commit crimes, he is effectively outlawing the entire movement and putting all its adherents in fear of arrest. Meanwhile, groups that are at least as provocative if not more so, but whose members support him, are treated as allies.
The situation bears a disturbing resemblance to the post-world War I political scene in Germany, where parties had their own paramilitary security outfits, among them the Nazi’s Sturmabteilung, which grew into the millions and became known as the Brownshirts. They terrorized Adolf Hitler’s chosen targets with impunity, particularly Jews and communists.
That Americans have to even wonder whether this is the road Mr. Trump is taking this country down speaks to how far he already has. This nation’s real patriots — those who love America for its highest ideals — must send Mr. Trump and his ilk a strong message Nov. 3 — that they reject the kinds of extreme ideologies, far right and far left, that nearly consumed civilization over the past century, and the would-be dictators who would exploit them in their pursuit of power.