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DHS: White supremacists most persistent and lethal threat to the US

PORTLAND, OR - AUGUST 29: Portland police hold back a man who was with the victim of a fatal shooting as he reacts in minutes after the incident on August 29, 2020. Nathan Howard/Getty Images/AFP

The greatest threat to the United States does not come in the form of a foreign based terrorist organization, but more likely from an internally sown individual or group, DHS reports.

The death of George Floyd and Eric Garner, and the shooting of Jacob Blake all at the hands of US police, has sparked a wide range of protests around the U.S, as well as having a ripple effect around the world. It appears that the notion of racism in the U.S. has its roots far deeper than a set of right-wing thinking lone wolves who carry out racially motivated attacks on their victims.

It seems that the U.S. also has institutional racism at the very core of the government and services designed to serve and protect all the people of the United States. Whether systemic racism exists in US law and institutions, and that race is a social construct created for the benefit of white citizens is what is under scrutiny, something that the US is guilty of.

Right wing ideology most lethal threat to US

Examining major events that have rocked the US, and have been labeled as terrorism related, one does not need to look too deeply to realize that many of the culprits are from the US, from Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols role in the Oklahoma bombing, where 168 people were killed, to more recent mass shootings in Las Vegas, El Paso and Orlando, all of which had some form of right wing ideology as the common denominator.

It hardly surprising, in light of the recent racial tension in the now aptly named ‘Apartheid States of America’, that Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, has labeled white supremacists as the most persistent and lethal threat to the US.

“We judge that ideologically motivated lone offenders and small groups will pose the greatest  terrorist threat to the Homeland through 2021, with white supremacists presenting the most lethal threat.”

DHS Statement

As is the case in most counter-terrorism operations, the notion of intelligence is key to not only preventing the acts, but also finding the suspected instigators once the act has been committed. This hence brings the larger problem for law enforcement agencies to deter and detect lone actors and small groups such as white supremacists when it comes to dealing with homegrown terrorism.

Trump emboldens far right, stokes racial tensions

There is one critical flaw in the U.S. policy of dealing with homegrown offenders, namely, the very real notion that the flames of hatred are being flamed and fanned by the current U.S. President, which according to one former DHS official, see’s Trump as adding fuel to the fire in his clearly racist rhetoric

Trump pouring “fuel on the fire” of domestic extremism

Former DHS official

One only has to look back at his openly controversial statement following the tragic events in Charlottesville in 2017, when a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of anti-racism demonstrators, killing one, and injuring others, seeing the Commander in Chief allowing domestic extremism to flourish in the United States.

For the white supremacists that are responsible for the acts, the clear support from the White House has allowed them to become almost brazen in their approach, with the various groups openly holding and attending rallies around the U.S., and demonstrating their clear distaste for racial integration in the country.

Vigilante, USA, praised by cops

When the President of the United States appears to actively encourage the use of violence against anti-racial protestors in the U.S., the consequences are a group of far right leaning individuals who feel that they are above the law when it comes to dealing with the situation, as seen in the Kenosha shooting, in which a 17 year old vigilante, Kyle Rittenhouse, shot and killed 2 people, and was praised by police, and thanked for his help!

With the police clearly supporting young Rittenhouse on the day, is then the U.S. riddled with racism within the core of its police and law enforcement agencies? We have seen on multiple and tragic occasions that the law has shown this trait. Trump feels that by visiting those who hurt, patches will be placed over the eyes of the truth, yet the system is racist from within.

Subconscious institutional racism instrumental in police shootings

When one looks at the alarming statistics surrounding the use of fatal force by U.S. police enforcement agencies, the chances of being fatally shot by police is more than 6 times the rate for black people than it is for whites. This suggests a clear sub-conscious discrepancy against black people by US police.

For Trump, the upcoming elections is a chance for the closet-racist to gain much needed support from the white and redneck communities across the country, and his clear hatred of racial equality in the US is no hidden secret, as he fears the Black Lives Matter movement may hinder his luxury and white dominated empire, from New York’s 5th Avenue, to the hills of Hollywood and beyond.


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