America’s ‘terrorist’ movements must be crushed
The terrorist attack in Washington, D. C., on Wednesday was as serious a wake- up call as 9/11.
Luckily, only a handful of people died this time. But what makes Wednesday’s events so significant was that the sitting president of the United States was a perpetrator, having used his office to legitimize America’s dangerous racist, misogynist and fascist underclass. What’s needed is a fullblown war against American terrorists.
I grew up in the United States and left behind its culture of violence, intolerance and guns when I moved to Canada. In the decades since, progress has been made, but it’s been accompanied by unrelenting pushback from malevolent forces.
Today, an army of angry, armed white men sporting beards and dressed in camouflage comprise a domestic terrorist threat so powerful that it now involves tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of maladjusted men. It has infiltrated the highest echelons of power in Congress, the White House and beyond.
This is rooted in America’s blood- soaked history. This week, rioters stormed the Capitol building and waved Confederate flags for the cameras. One shirtless man was photographed on the dais of the Senate, with a Ku Klux Klan tattoo on his abdomen.
Armed to the teeth, this American terrorist movement is able to mobilize quickly across the country to foment violence at rallies and protests. It is able to recruit and influence lone wolves who can cause further mayhem. It was this cadre of racist, misogynist anti- Semites who willingly became President Donald Trump’s “brown shirts” this week and attacked America’s equivalent of the Reichstag.
Trump has deployed racist dog whistles all along, from his pre- politics “birther” allegations against former president Barack Obama, to his policies directed at Muslims and Mexicans.
In 2017, he emboldened white supremacists after their Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where parades of neo- Nazis, Klan members and racists swarmed through the streets with tiki torches. Of the violent clashes that ensued, Trump later said there were “good people on both sides.”
Even more menacing is that America’s terrorists have foreign allies. This year, intelligence experts warned that the Russian Imperial Movement (which has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department) has ties with American groups. The Russians spread racist disinformation and conspiracies on social media and provide support to white nationalists to disrupt the United States and other Western democracies.
Just this year, the FBI arrested 13 men accused of plotting to kidnap and execute Michigan’s female governor, then overthrow the government. In 2020, a radicalized teenager was charged with allegedly killing two Black Lives Matter protesters and injuring a third in Kenosha, Wis. He pleaded not guilty, but captured the whole thing on camera and has since become a hero on right- wing sites, which have raised $ 2 million on his behalf.
Hate crimes are also increasing. Black churches and synagogues are frequent targets. In 2019, a gunman killed 23 Latinos, and injured 23 more, at a Walmart in El Paso, Tex., and in 2018 a white supremacist killed 11 people and wounded six in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
America’s quasi- military organizations recruit and equip this growing movement. The Proud Boys is a far-right, male-only organization devoted to political violence that helped organize the Washington riot.
Qanon believes that Satan- worshipping pedophiles have plotted against Trump, and fielded numerous of Congressional candidates last year. Its adherents have threatened politicians, broken into the residence of the Canadian prime minister and have been involved in kidnappings and at least one known murder.
This week, they have pulled off the biggest stunt thus far. Hopefully, Americans will comprehend the scale and danger they face and undertake a counteroffensive. This is no less than a war against what’s decent about American society.