In the past month, GOP leaders and presidential candidates have celebrated bigotry and incited hate with unprecedented transparency. While the vast majority of such incitements have targeted Muslims in general and, more specifically, Syrian refugees fleeing terrorism, Republican leaders have fueled a culture of hatred for the ‘other,’ thus stoking an environment in which white terrorists, by far the nation’s greatest terror threat, have been moved to sudden action.
Within the past week alone, as GOP leaders have tried to convince Americans to fear Muslims, radicalized white men bearing assault rifles and wearing masks stalked a mosque in Texas, white supremacists shot and injured Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota, and now a white terrorist has shot up a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, murdering three.
And yet, barely a word of condemnation has been uttered by conservative leaders about these developments. Instead, we’ve seen Donald Trump suggest Muslims wear ID badges. We’ve seen Marco Rubio suggest all locations where radicalized Muslim-Americans gather, including cafes and diners, be closed. We’ve seen Jeb Bush, justifying his view that the US should only accept Christian refugees from Syria, say that “there are no Christian terrorists in the Middle East.”
Perhaps that’s because a majority of these Christian terrorists are housed here, in the US, and in ‘Western’ democracies around the world. And it’s these very terrorists GOP leaders are inciting to violence as they pander to racists and religious extremists within the Republican base.
However, now that white terrorism is striking at the heart of America, will GOP leaders call for the US to bomb white terrorist ‘strongholds’ in Colorado, close churches where white terrorists are radicalized, spy upon white communities or force white men to wear special ID badges?
No, for to do so would not only be anti-American, but an admission that a portion of the GOP base is the most dangerous element in American society.
There is an undeniable connection between the hatred GOP leaders have been stoking among extremists recently and the tragic flaring of white terrorism in the homeland, a connection Planned Parenthood acknowledged in its statement after yesterday’s horrific attack.
However, don’t expect these incitements to ebb. For bashing Muslims is considered good politics, no matter how many Americans fall victim to violence being perpetrated in this volatile environment.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, recently published by Oneworld Publications.
Follow on Twitter @David_ehg