Three members of a Kansas terrorist cell have been convicted of plotting to carry out a car bomb attack on an apartment complex in the small town of Garden City.
You remember these guys — angry, middle-aged, white, Christian, men — and the Somali immigrants who were their intended targets:
The Kansas men called themselves “Crusaders: who planned to create a “bloodbath” by detonating vehicles laden with bombs the day after the November 2016 election. Day [an FBI informant] testified that [defendant] Stein called the Somalis “cockroaches.”
It’s the rare circumstance when I would utter praise for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but in his comments on this case he actually gets it right:
The defendants in this case acted with clear premeditation in an attempt to kill people on the basis of their religion and national origin. That’s not just illegal — it’s immoral and unacceptable, and we’re not going to stand for it. Today’s verdict is a significant victory against domestic terrorism and hate crimes.
The Kansas plotters followed an all-too-familiar trajectory of radicalization in these divisive times:
Evidence presented in the trial painted a picture of an all-American brand of homegrown terrorism: angry white men radicalized by Islamophobic memes and fake online news articles whose path to violent extremism was accelerated by a divisive election cycle and a candidate who sounded like them.
The jury’s verdict was unanimous. And now these three terrorists, who described Somalis as insects that had to be exterminated because “they keep coming back,” face life imprisonment. Here’s hoping they get it.