Different white nationalists working toward same goal

Be warned: There is nothing soothing and uplifting in this column. I will not somberly mourn and point to our better angel and American resilience. This is not that kind of column.

I have a warning to deliver, a truth to tell, and it is as unsettling as it is obvious.

First, let’s consider the carnage that has unfolded in Gilroy, Calif., in El Paso and in Dayton.

Are these shootings a gun control issue? Of course. We have too many guns, and too many high-capacity guns. We sell guns first designed for soldiers to civilians. We don’t do enough to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and we do next to nothing to track guns once they are sold.

Is this terrorism in which rhetoric by some incites action by others? Possibly. There is no doubt that Trump and Republicans are making poisonous anti-immigrant rhetoric part of their platforms.

But, I think laying all the blame at their feet is too convenient and simplistic.

I think a better way to look at it is to understand that white nationalist terrorists — young and rash — and white nationalist policymakers — older and more methodical — live on parallel planes, both aiming in the same direction, both with the same goal: To maintain and ensure white dominance and white supremacy.

The policymakers believe they can accomplish with legislation in the legal system what the terrorists are trying to underscore with lead. In the minds of the policymakers, border walls, anti-immigrant laws, voter suppression and packing the courts are more prudent and permanent than bodies in the streets. But, try telling that to a young white terrorist who distrusts Washington.

As the writer of the El Paso manifesto points out, “The Republican Party is also terrible.” The writer goes on to explain:

“Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Pro-corporation = pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.”

This is a reason these groups are often at odds. The white nationalist policymakers are annoyed and even incensed by the terrorists because they believe they besmirch the mission.

These terrorists want to do quickly what the policymakers insist must be done slowly, so the terrorists stew in their anger — at women, at immigrants, at liberals, at blacks, at nearly anyone who is not like them.

It is not lost on me that this summer is the 100th anniversary of the “Red Summer,” when violent anti-black white supremacists rioted in cities across the country, killing many, just as the Great Migration — millions of black people from the rural South to the urban North — was getting underway. Violence is the way the white terrorists respond to demographic shifts and threats.

It’s not simply a matter of whether Trump’s rhetoric, or that of any other politician, led these shooters to do what they did. Maybe. It is also about recognizing that all of these people are on the same team and share the same mission and eat from the same philosophical trough. It’s just that their methods differ. The white supremacist terrorists and the white supremacist policymakers are bound at the hip.