Right-wing nationalists committed nearly 50 murders last year linked to extremism. The Trump administration’s response has been to disband the Department of Homeland Security’s domestic terrorism intelligence unit.
It’s as callous as shutting down fire departments during wildfire season.
Of course, it’s also depressingly on-brand for a presidency that began its campaign for the White House excoriating Mexican immigrants, and has continually dismissed the violent white nationalism that has increased every year of President Trump’s tenure.
For its part, DHS officials say the domestic terrorism team has been “restructured,” but that sounds like little more than government jargon. These now-reassigned intelligence analysts had been charged with gathering information about white supremacist groups and domestic extremists for state and local law enforcement agencies, according to The Daily Beast, which broke the story.
However the administration wants to spin it, anti-bigotry advocates recognize that less scrutiny of right-wing extremist activity will lead to more mayhem and violence.
DHS “is depriving local police of valuable information about threats in their communities, and that puts lives at risk,” said Robert Trestan, executive director of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) New England office. “There’s clear data on where the threats are coming from. Forty-nine out of the last 50 extremist murders in the United States came from right-wing extremists. We know by our data where the threat is; at the same time, the government is basically ignoring the data. It’s dangerous.”
Despite the obvious threat to African-Americans, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and others, Trump has always ignored the data. During a “60 Minutes” interview shortly after the 2016 election, correspondent Lesley Stahl confronted the then president-elect about the spike in hate crimes that paralleled his campaign. After saying he hadn’t heard about it, Trump said, “I think it’s a very small amount.”
More than two years later, his see-no-white-extremism-evil blinders haven’t budged. After a white supremacist slaughtered 50 Muslims at a New Zealand mosque last month, Trump again downplayed a wider extremist threat. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” he told reporters.
In a manifesto, the suspected shooter cited Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
With his stream of racist rhetoric, Trump has emboldened extremists. A Florida man recently pled guilty to sending more than a dozen pipe bombs to the president’s critics. The man accused of murdering 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year echoed Trump’s comments about immigrants as “invaders.”
And when someone vandalized a Jewish cemetery in Fall River last month, one of the scribblings said, “This is MAGA Country,” a reference to Trump’s slogan.
Trestan went to the Hebrew Cemetery to survey the extent of the damage. Nearly 60 headstones were toppled or defaced with anti-Semitic comments. This “was not a graffiti situation,” he said. “They were statements of hatred.”
“When you write the words, ‘Expel the Jews’ on someone’s headstone, you’re making a statement against Jews,” Trestan said. “When you write, ‘Hitler was right,’ you’re making a statement. Everything that was written was a statement supporting the annihilation of Jews.
“It really wasn’t about the people who were buried there,” he added. “It’s really a statement against Jews who are currently living. It was deeply personal.”
Such heinous actions are “an indicator of empowerment to disseminate hatred,” Trestan said. “Very often the next step is violence.”
According to ADL statistics, last year was the fourth deadliest for domestic extremist violence since 1970.
Democrats are pushing for passage of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2019. Federal law enforcement agencies would be required to assess the threat of right-wing extremism, and aid state and local law enforcement agencies in training and resources to address such threats. In the current political climate, I can’t fathom this bill, however necessary, becoming a law. President Trump doesn’t care enough about white supremacist violence, and the GOP only wants what the president wants.
This nation is boiling over, especially with angry white men who behave with the kind of impunity that comes when a president ignores the hate and violence his own reckless rhetoric is helping to foment. We’re all at risk. And it’s hard to protect yourself when your government is deliberately choosing to look the other way.
Renée Graham can be reached at renee.graham@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @reneeygraham.