Washington, DC – Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin about the “continued heightened threat environment across the United States…Threat actors have recently mobilized to violence due to factors such as personal grievances, reactions to current events, and adherence to violent extremist ideologies, including racially or ethnically motivated or anti-government/anti-authority violent extremism.”
Cutting through the DHS-speak, it’s a warning that white supremacist violence – such as we’ve witnessed in Buffalo and in earlier killings in Charlottesville, El Paso and Pittsburgh – remains a dire threat to the safety of Americans. (See this powerful letter signed by 140 civil rights, civil society and pro-immigrant groups.)
Yet, as we’ve seen since Buffalo, Republicans and the right wing media refuse to change their ways, let alone admit any culpability for mainstreaming such hate. As was on display yesterday via right wing cable news and in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the “‘Metastasizing’ Domestic Terrorism Threat After the Buffalo Attack,” instead, the GOP and right wing media are desperately trying to “both sides” the indefensible and continue to advance the same vile lies and white nationalist conspiracies that have helped motivate past violence.
As Dana Milbank recapped in his Washington Post column of the Senate hearing yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was particularly heartless and ugly yesterday:
Garnell Whitfield was testifying about his 86-year-old mother, Ruth, shot dead last month along with nine other Black people in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket, allegedly by a white supremacist motivated by the racist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory.
‘What are you doing?’ Whitfield demanded of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee at their hearing on Tuesday. ‘Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires?’
…Then, Republicans on the panel answered — with accounts of violence committed by Black people and antifa. ‘The Brooklyn subway shooter was a known Black supremacist who called for racial violence,’ said Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.). ‘The Waukesha attacker … was a viciously left-wing Black nationalist bigot. Another Black nationalist gunned down five police officers in Dallas.’
…Repeatedly, Whitfield asked the lawmakers what they would do about his mother’s death. Republicans, in their refusal to acknowledge the unique harm being done by Carlson, party leaders and white supremacists, gave their answer: not a thing.”
Meanwhile, despite the killings in Buffalo and the DHS bulletin underscoring the dangers of “invasion” and “white replacement” rhetoric and framing, Republicans and their right wing media allies are at it again, hyping fears of another migrant caravan that, like other recent caravans, is unlikely to reach the United States, let alone gain entry.
But the NRCC tweeted, “A new migrant caravan has formed in Southern Mexico and is heading toward the US with between 4,000 and 5,000 migrants. Migrants are still coming by the thousands because they believe the Biden admin will let them stay. #BidenBorderCrisis.” Similarly, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) tweeted, “15K migrants are headed to our southern border right now. Biden is doing absolutely nothing to stop this invasion.” They are joined by Fox News and other right wing outlets in hyping the fears over the caravan, even as the U.S. continues to quickly expel or detain 80% of those seeking entry.
The following is a statement from Zachary Mueller, America’s Voice Political Director:
“As the Department of Homeland Security issues an ominous report that domestic terrorism, led by extremist ideologies and white supremacists, is the greatest security threat to Americans, the leading voices in the GOP are looking elsewhere to distract from the threats they have helped nurture. Their target and subtext is not subtle: ‘scary Brown and Black people are the real threats,’ as the despicable reaction from Senator Ted Cruz and the Republican focus on migrant caravans make clear.
The Republican Party is advancing a radical, anti-democratic project that is predicated on racialized grievance politics and hyping nativist lies. It’s stirring and inspiring violence and, as the DHS bulletin makes clear, is likely to do so again. From guns to abortion to LGBTQ rights to voting rights to immigration, the Republican project is to prevent the majority of Americans from enacting or continuing policies favored by overwhelming majorities of Americans.
The GOP and their media allies refuse to own any of their role in seeding, spreading and amplifying the ideologies that are leading to increased acts of violence. Republicans refuse to take seriously their role and responsibility in mainstreaming the ideas that led to the killings in Buffalo and past instances of violence. Republicans are intentionally choosing to travel this dark path, but for the rest of us, defeating and holding to account their dangerous countermajoritarian project is the challenge of our time.”
