
… This is happening:
Feds: White supremacists plotted to attack synagogues, black churches
The Washington Post reported, just a few days before Paris, on a plot by a group of Virginia white supremacists who intended to purchase land, stockpile weapons, and train for a coming race war. Two men were charged with attempting to buy guns and explosives from FBI agents posing as illegal arms dealers.
And it gets better. According to the FBI affidavit:
“[Robert] Doyle and [Ronald] Chaney and others known and unknown to the FBI, ascribe to a white supremacy extremist version of the Asatru faith,” alleges a five-page affidavit from FBI Special Agent James R. Rudisill. Asatru is a pagan religion.
Rudisill wrote that in September the FBI learned that Doyle and others were going to have a meeting at Doyle’s house “to discuss acting out in furtherance of their extremist beliefs by shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues, conducting acts of violence against persons of the Jewish faith, and doing harm to a gun store owner.”
It would be comforting to think that this sort of thing is unusual in the United States, but the reality is more unsettling. Since 9/11, right-wing extremists have been responsible for nearly twice as many deaths in the United States as have jihadists.
I wrote back in July that while our popular imagination conjures up terrifying images of ISIS militants around every corner, terrorism in America is far more likely to look like angry white men with guns than black-clad jihadis. And it is still true.
Late last night, five Black Lives Matter protesters were shot and wounded in Minneapolis by what witnesses described as a group of white supremacist gunmen who had been earlier taunting the crowd of demonstrators. Police are searching for three white men in connection with the shooting.
So keep this uncomfortable truth in mind as you watch Donald Trump spew racist bile on the campaign trail, and as Chris Christie tries to rekindle his failing campaign by exploiting a climate of fear by invoking memories of 9/11.