GOP shares blame
Republicans in Congress do not want to explore the ideology behind the violent insurrection that took place on Jan. 6. But just because it makes them uncomfortable to crack down on people often self-identifying as MAGA followers, it does not mean the rest of the country can afford to ignore a rising threat.
The Washington Post reports on data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which finds that “domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the United States, driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right.” The ideology tilt of the domestic terror groups is stark: “Since 2015, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots or attacks and 91 fatalities, the data shows. At the same time, attacks and plots ascribed to farleft views accounted for 66 incidents leading to 19 deaths.”
Moreover, “More than a quarter of right-wing incidents and just under half of the deaths in those incidents were caused by people who showed support for white supremacy or claimed to belong to groups espousing that ideology.”
The rise in white-supremacist terrorism predictably took off after the 2008 election of Barack Obama, who was falsely painted as a foreign-born Muslim by the right-wing media and some Republicans, including Mr. Obama’s immediate successor. In hyping white grievances, demonizing immigrants, defending white militia groups, venerating Confederate imagery and attempting to disenfranchise African American voters (both in seeking to cast aside votes from heavily Black cities in 2020 and now passing Jim Crow-style laws), Republicans have continued to help to normalize blatantly racist tropes.
Moreover, as my colleague Michael Gerson points out, right-wing media figures such as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson have propagated “white supremacist replacement doctrine.” (Disclosure: I am an MSNBC contributor.) The head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, sent a letter to Fox News denouncing Mr. Carlson’s rhetoric:
“Make no mistake: this is dangerous stuff. The ‘great replacement theory’ is a classic white supremacist trope that undergirds the modern white supremacist movement in America. It is a concept that is discussed almost daily in online racist fever swamps. It is a notion that fueled the hateful chants of ‘Jews will not replace us!’ in Charlottesville in 2017. And it has lit the fuse in explosive hate crimes, most notably the hate-motivated mass shooting attacks in Pittsburgh, Poway and El Paso, as well as in Christchurch, New Zealand.
“In short, this is not legitimate political discourse. It is dangerous race-baiting, extreme rhetoric. And yet, unfortunately, it is the culmination of a pattern of increasingly divisive rhetoric used by Carlson over the past few years. His anti-immigrant rhetoric has embraced subtle appeals to racism and, at times more blatantly has put him on the same side as white supremacists. Furthermore, Carlson has suggested that the very idea of white supremacy in the U.S. is a hoax, earning him plaudits from former Klansman David Duke and white supremacist Richard Spencer, who have both praised Carlson’s show for echoing their own talking points.”
We cannot pretend there is no connection between the overtly white supremacist mind-set of the MAGA cult’s leader -- to whom the GOP still pays deference -- and the explosion of hate crimes and right-wing violence. Right-wing media provides the medium that joins the GOP with fanatical and often dangerous white supremacists.
Furthermore, the central role of white Christians in the MAGA movement has connected rightwing extremism with evangelical fervor. As the New York Times reported following the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol: “The blend of cultural references, and the people who brought them, made clear a phenomenon that has been brewing for years now: that the most extreme corners of support for Mr. Trump have become inextricable from some parts of white evangelical power in America. Rather than completely separate strands of support, these groups have become increasingly blended together.”
Americans should be deeply alarmed that the Republican Party still remains faithful to the instigator of that violence (who sent his “love” to the rioters during the attack). A political party that cannot repudiate the person who inspired insurrections and still brags about it (and to boot, spreads the lie that the insurrectionists were left-wing extremists) must be held accountable for its part in the normalization of these groups.
When the issue was foreign terrorism, the right certainly understood the connection between terrorism motivated by Islamist extremism and the incendiary language demonizing the West, especially on social media, that radicalized those extremists. (Indeed, who can forget when Republicans reflexively demanded that nonviolent Muslims denounce every violent incident involving an Islamist terrorist?)
Republicans have tried to absolve themselves of blame for the rise in right-wing violence by noting that they have denounced violence. But they cannot escape responsibility for helping to spread the ideology underlying white supremacy or giving the ideology of extremist groups the patina of respectability. When they constantly propagate the notion that the United States is facing an existential threat from immigrants or that their followers’ way of life hangs in the balance, Republicans and their right-wing media mouthpieces cannot be surprised when some Americans take them seriously and spring into action.