A Tallahassee ABC channel reported earlier this month on a local militia known as “Republic of Florida”. According to the ABC segment several Tallahassee residents have complained of harassment and threats on social media by Militia members. The group has an official website as well as a Facebook page and YouTube Channel.
Republic of Florida espouses an openly racist and homophobic agenda and exhorts Floridians to prepare for potential combat. They are armed and conduct training drills. Their stated goal is a “white ethnostate” and their code includes allegiance to a European lineage and rejection of interracial mixing. ROF was listed on the SPLC’s Hatewatch in 2015 but it is only in recent weeks that it has started to create a real buzz in right-wing circles.
Now here’s the thing: ROF is only a very minor example of an estimated 276 militias active in the United States. Some of these, such as the Oathkeepers and Three Percenters have active membership running into the thousands.
This is not to say that all militia members are racist or Islamophobic or even exclusively white. But going by their public demonstrations and rhetoric, far too many are.
These militias have historically tended to grow under Democratic Presidents and shrink or remain stable under Republican administrations. They showed unprecedented growth and recruitment under Barack Obama, a demonstration of the resurgence of racist and other prejudices in reaction to an African American presidency.
What we are witnessing under Donald Trump though seems to be the beginning of a new phase in the history of militias in the United States. Their rhetoric is becoming more unabashedly bigoted. Their actions are becoming more brazen and range from armed patrolling during BLM protests to assembling with firearms outside mosques.
Riding the current tide of anti-Muslim and racist sentiment encouraged by conservative media and the Republican party, these militias are pushing to become a mainstream phenomenon. They appear to have seen the opportunity to expand their sphere of influence-and therefore their power.
Another aspect of these militias is their focus on recruiting military veterans and retired police officers. This not only brings military expertise to these militias, it also brings the mindset of institutions trained to fight and kill.
The idea of neutralizing a dangerous enemy or criminal with cold rationality while suppressing empathy belongs in those domains. It does not belong among the citizenry where it will serve only to dehumanize further the minorities these militias demonize. As an already inordinately violent society we want to put more psychological barriers to violence and killing-not facilitate them.
The singular focus of the media-and therefore the public-on Muslim terrorists has resulted in a lack of attention and awareness about the extent of the right-wing extremist threat.
According to a study by the New America Foundation, in the fifteen years between 2002 and 2016 (excluding of course the two major statistical outliers of 9-11 and the Orlando Pulse shooting) right-wing terrorism killed 48 people-3 more than extremists who were Muslims. The number of foiled terror plots by right-wingers also far exceeded those from other sources.
In a 2014 survey of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent rated right-wing/anti-Government extremists as a top terror threat versus 39 percent for Muslim terror entities. Similarly, 7 percent rated right-wing/anti-Government extremism as a severe terror threat versus 3 percent who viewed Muslim extremists as such.
Another little known fact is that the closest anyone ever came to building a “dirty” radioactive bomb was a right-wing extremist named James G. Cummings. The Bangor, Maine resident had accumulated all the ingredients and instructions necessary to construct a dirty bomb by late 2008. He was shot and killed by his wife-whom he had abused for years-before he could assemble a workable device.
There have also been of course, high profile incidents involving right-wing extremists. The killing of 6 Sikhs at a Wisconsin temple by Wade Michael Page in 2012 and the murder of 9 members of a black congregation in South Carolina by Dylann Roof in 2015 are more recent examples. The most significant right-wing terror attack in modern times was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed 168 people and injured 680.
Right-wing militias often point to the second amendment as justification for their existence. They claim to be the nation’s safeguard against tyranny. The reality though, is that it took a black President and a nationwide wave of anti-Muslim animus for them to start recruiting in record numbers and to assert themselves more publicly.
Out came the confederate flags and the guns. All of a sudden minority protests needed to be patrolled and mosques needed to be intimidated. The truth is that the last two decades of propaganda by conservative media has emboldened racism, antisemitism and xenophobia-and therefore right-wing extremists.
It is conservative media that popularized the narrative of the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West.
It is conservative media that accused Obama of being a Muslim, questioned his loyalty and engaged in character assassination.
It is conservative media that turned Cliven Bundy and other gun-toting anti-Government criminals into heroes.
It is conservative media that demonized refugees and Mexicans.
And finally it was the campaign and Presidency of Donald Trump that affirmed all these old prejudices and hatred. And with his continued rhetoric of nationalism and exceptionalism, he continues to encourage these elements.
The danger of right-wing extremism was amplified by the exact same factors that have amplified terrorism by perpetrators identifying as Muslim. Internet and social media gave them the tools to disseminate their poison everywhere and conservative media provided them the fertile ground of widespread xenophobia and Islamophobia that would make their message appeal to more and more people.
By countering and undermining the broader appeals to hate and prejudice predominant in the media-including social media-we will be effectively weakening the case for both right-wing extremists as well as violent extremists who are Muslims.
The attempt by members and supporters of this administration to paint terrorism as an exclusively Muslim phenomenon must cease. The issue of right-wing extremism has been ignored for far too long and has allowed thousands of individuals with extreme views to arm themselves to the teeth and train for combat.
Before the trickle of right-wing terror becomes a flood, the media must cease its dangerously divisive narrative. Even more importantly, all political forces must work on a comprehensive strategy to combine law enforcement with a nationwide campaign to reach across political, religious and ethnic divides to prevent bigots from exploiting those divides to foment hate and violence.
Right-Wing extremists are pushing the envelope. They sense that the current atmosphere of fear, anger and mistrust is fertile ground to plant their ideology and further their agendas. They must be tackled and undermined at every front-from law enforcement to University campuses to the internet.