"[The Oklahoma City] bombing, the largest deliberate mass casualty on mainland American soil between Pearl Harbor and 9/11, is still not well understood by Americans. People still think of it as the work of lone wolves or a few bad apples. But the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people — including 19 young children — was the work of the white power movement, a coordinated social network that brought together Klansmen, neo-Nazis, skinheads, militiamen, radical tax resisters, separatists and others in outright war on the federal government. The evidence of the bombing as part of this movement is extensive and irrefutable.
I warned of right-wing violence in 2009. Republicans objected. I was right.
And it presaged the problem we face now. Twenty-five years later, the threat of white power domestic terrorism is inescapable. Experts agree. Watchdogs agree. Whistleblowers agree. Deradicalizers agree. Scholars agree. Everyone, it seems, but the upper echelons of the Trump administration, and the most unreachable corners of his base, agree: White power violence has been unleashed." (our emphasis) -- University of Chicago professor Kathleen Belew, author of "Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America."
In her Washington Post column, Belew looks at the other deadly virus plaguing America -- organized, violent white supremacist groups. To dismiss their threat to the fabric and even existence of the nation would be the most serious mistake. Mango Mussolini has symbolized their rise, but even when he's defeated in November, these domestic terrorists will remain and pose a direct threat to our democracy.
