Im-Politic: When Public Health Professionals Lose It

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African Americans, CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, George Floyd, Im-Politic, police brutality, protests, public health, racism, white supremacists, Wuhan virus

I didn’t believe it possible: One group of voices in the United States has just proven itself more flagrantly hypocritical and, frankly, deranged than woke religious leaders about the violence that has too often resulted from legitimate and needed protests about George Floyd’s killing and related racial injustice and police brutality issues. That group consists of the supposed public health experts who signed a letter claiming that the urgency of protesting outweighs the importance of maintaining the social distancing and other personal behavior curbs that they’d previous declared vital to fight the CCP Virus pandemic.

The letter, which was released last week, has rightly drawn widespread outrage, ridicule, and often both. (See, e.g., here.) For its message is clearly politically based rather than scientifically based. Unless you can think of another explanation for suddenly shifting from demanding sweeping curbs on personal and business behavior that have wreaked historic economic damage for the sake of preventing millions of virus-induced deaths, to claiming that the need to demonstrate is paramount even if the inevitable public crowding resulting from mass gatherings increases superspread risks?

And that description is no exaggeration. Here’s the core of the signatories’ message:

“To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy. However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders.”

Two particular points stand out here:

First, the public health specialists are backing only “the application of…pubic health best practices” to “the extent possible.” In other words, if it’s not possible…lah de dah. Indeed, the signatories explicitly consign six-foot social distancing itself to the intrinsically lower priority “where possible” category. And the most astonishing (or most predictable?) example of politicizing public health? “Prepare for an increased number of infections in the days following a protest.”

Second, even all of these logical and ethical backflips get the heave-ho when it comes to “white protesters resisting stay-home orders.” Their demonstrations should remain entirely verboten. The reason? The “public health response to these demonstrations” must be “clear and consistent in prioritizing” their unacceptability because they’re intrisincially racist. Even granted the assumption that about racism and anti-curbs protests, you couldn’t provide a clearer definition of a double standard.

Something else bizarre about the letter: It’s anything but clear that all the signatories are even public health experts. Right off the bat, we’re told that some of the signers are “community stakeholders.” Judging from the actual list, descriptions like “activist” and “indigenous health advocate” and even “African American” and “human” justified inclusion. Many more signatories didn’t bother to present any descriptions or qualifications whatever. Still others, like “Andrew H” and “Christine D” and “Diana A” wouldn’t state their full names. And two were permitted to sign (is that even the right verb?) by identifying themselves as “Anonymous JD” and simply “anonymous.”

But what strikes me as most striking about this manifesto is the argument that protesting despite the public health risks is praiseworthy because it’s part of an effort to end racial inequities in U.S. health care delivery that have taken countless African American lives. There’s no doubt that the black community has suffered from many dangerous health challenges that haven’t been nearly so serious  for other Americans. (Here’s one representative study.) Nonetheless, the logic of this position is remarkably similar to that of claims (made by me and many others) that the lockdowns themselves have created serious public health threats, and that these need to be weighed against the sickness and deaths caused by the virus.

Which brings us back to the public health signatories’ unequivocal condemnation of those who have protested these lockdowns. If all of most or a significant percentage of these protesters really are white supremacists, they have a point. If not, it’s time they start looking into some mirrors.

Im-Politic: Hyper-Partisans Across the Spectrum are Wrong; the Terrorist Threat is “All of the Above”

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gun violence, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, jihadism, left-wing terrorism, mass shootings, September 11, terrorism, Trump, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

As if we needed another one, the latest upsurge in the intertwined national debates about gun violence, mass shootings, and terrorism provides another example of how hyper-partisan, encrusted thinking is obscuring the road to dramatically improved policies – and greater public safety. Specifically, way too many Americans are still mired in a dangerously distracting debate over where the biggest terrorist threats come from, rather than admitting that the nation faces numerous types of violent groups that fit any sensible definition of terrorism.

And as a result, way too many (including most prominent political leaders) are ignoring a crucial lesson of America’s post-September 11 experience – that concerted, innovative, well-funded national campaigns against terrorist movements actually work.

After the attacks of 2001, the focus understandably was Islamic terrorism. And if you doubt the impact, ask yourself why else no hijacked jetliners have crashed into U.S. skyscrapers and similarly big targets for nearly 20 years. And why in 2018, the last full data year, exactly one homicide in America was connected with Islamism.

Dumb luck? But as golf immortal Ben Hogan once said to an exasperated less successful rival who accused him of getting the lion’s share of the breaks, “[T]he more I practice, the luckier I get.” In that vein, surely massive American anti-terrorism efforts abroad and at home have played an important role. If you’ve forgotten what they’ve been, here’s a quick summary (from the Los Angeles Times article linked above):

“Despite horrifying abuses and mistakes, from torture to secret prisons, [the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations] have largely destroyed Al Qaeda and its most dangerous offspring. The U.S.-led war against Islamic State has killed thousands of militants and broken the group’s hold on territory in Iraq and Syria.

“Domestic law enforcement has monitored extremists at home and interrupted dozens of plots (including some that turned out to be insubstantial). And common-sense security measures have made us less vulnerable; no U.S. plane has been hijacked since 9/11.”

I’d add that, despite numerous calls for sharp increases from Democrats and others on the Left, U.S. admissions of asylum-seekers from Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere around the world remained exceedingly modest under former President Barack Obama, and have dropped sharply under President Trump.

The clear meaning? Yes, as President Trump’s critics have claimed, Islamic-inspired terrorism has been on the wane. But it looks glaringly obvious that deserving much of the credit have been measures many of them strongly opposed – and still oppose, mainly because they’ve been so determined to smear Mr. Trump and others backing such hard-line policies as simple Islamo-phobes who have long been chasing a mirage.

But don’t think this lets the President and many of his supporters off the hook. For until recently, they’ve acted as if they’ve been so bent on defending the anti-jihadist campaign and on justifying its continuation that they’ve soft-pedaled its clear success, and have been slow to acknowledge the more recent emergence of an unmistakably serious violent white supremacist threat.

Chiefly, there’s compelling evidence that since his inauguration, the President has reduced funding for government efforts to fight domestic terrorism springing from racist and other extreme right-wing roots, and increased the resources devoted to fight violent jihadists. That shift might have been justified early during the Trump presidency – shortly after two major Islamist-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, California in December, 2015, and in Orlando, Florida in June, 2016. But since then, the domestic racists etc have been much more dangerously active, and it’s not enough for the President to condemn them explicitly and emphatically. His money needs to move where his mouth is.

Not that anti-jihadism budgets need to be cannibalized to achieve this aim. Vigilance on that front remains essential as well, lest America be caught by surprise again a la September 11. Washington also needs to move much more decisively against violent leftists – like the Dayton, Ohio shooter seems to have been, along with antifa. 

In other words, U.S. anti-terrorism policy needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time – and be as agile and continually evolving as the sources of terrorism themselves.

Im-Politic: Why White Supremacist Terrorism has Become a Top Priority Threat

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anti-semitism, Christchurch, Great Replacement, Im-Politic, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, jihadism, mosques, Muslims, New Zealand attack, social media, terrorism, Trump, white nationalists, white supremacist terrorism, white supremacists

The great 20^th century economist John Maynard Keynes is widely thought to have said in response to a challenge to his consistency, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?…” I’ve always thought that’s great advice in life generally, and in particular for anyone who spends much time commenting on public policy. As a result, I have no problem reporting that my views on the seriousness of the white nationalist/supremacist violence threat nationwide and globally are different now than when I last wrote on the issue a little over three years ago. Moreover, it’s clear that President Trump needs to get off the dime on this front as well.

Specifically, it’s now clear to me that these movements have developed into dangers to public safety that are comparable, or nearly so, to Islam-inspired terrorist movements, and that other national governments need to intensify their focus accordingly.

The proximate cause of course is Friday’s terrible massacre of Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. But the past year has also witnessed a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue, the letter bombs sent by a Florida man to Democratic Party politicians and officials as well as liberal mainstream media figures, and the arrest of a Coast Guard officer who was apparently stockpiling weapons with the intent of killing lots of liberal political figures and journalists.

My previous views on the differences between white nationalist (I know it’s a logically tortuous term, but it’s in widespread use, so….) violence and Islamic terrorism were based mainly on two observations: First, that, unlike the latter, the former had no general program (however loony in real-world terms) that it tried to push; and second, that unlike Islamic terrorists, the white nationalists didn’t seem to have an international network from which they could draw strength, inspiration, and even resources.

It’s now clear, however, that the Islamophobic, anti-immigrant hatred behind much white nationalist violence is motivated by a determination to stop what these extremists view as an effort by globalist-dominated national governments to replace their countries’ historically white populations of European descent with Muslims and other foreign non-whites. Some of this “Great Replacement” thinking (I hesitate to dignify it as anything as systematic as an “ideology”) of course also justifies anti-semitic violence by evoking the long-held belief that Jews are crucial members, and indeed masterminds, of a transnational (usually called “cosmopolitan” conspiracy to control all of humanity by dissolving all existing bonds among individuals, ethnic groups, and national populations and imposing a form of tyrannical world government).

Moreover, like jihadists, white nationalists undoubtedly the world over increasingly are using social media to talk to one another, share their poisonous bigotry, and whip themselves into a frenzy. As a result, it’s just as pointless to try distinguishing the two by contending that jihadists appear much more organized globally than white nationalists. It’s true, for example, that white nationalists haven’t demonstrated the ability to turn large chunks of physical territory into bases capable of promoting large-scale terrorist operations like September 11. But it’s also true – as noted by many alarmed by jihadism – that such capabilities aren’t needed for Islamic radicalism to deserve blame for inspiring “lone wolves” to go on terrorist rampages.

It’s also true, as far as we know, that, unlike the jihadists, white nationalists haven’t yet been able to foster the creation of and maintenance of cells that can carry out large-scale terror attacks like those Europe has suffered in Paris and Brussels. But why sit back and wait for this capacity to develop?

So President Trump obviously needs to stop denying that white nationalism is a burgeoning security threat. White nationalists may indeed be “a small group of people that have very, very serious problems,” but there’s now no doubt that however sparse their numbers, white nationalists can do tremendous harm. He also needs to stop committing the entirely unforced error of reacting to anti-Muslim terrorism in the blandest possible ways (when he reacts at all) while greeting violence by Islamic radicals with instant outrage.

But let’s also be clear about what burgeoning white nationalist violence doesn’t mean. Principally, it doesn’t mean that Mr. Trump and his rhetoric are responsible (unless you want to hold Never Trump-ers and their extreme rhetoric responsible for antifa-type violence). And it doesn’t mean that Islam-inspired terrorism can or should be downplayed – including with all that implies for policies toward immigrants and refugees from countries where reliable vetting information simply doesn’t exist. 

Instead, it means that we live in a depressingly and dangerously complicated world in which perils can come simultaneously in many different forms; in which governments need to target them all; and in which people of genuinely good will urgently need to realize that what they have in common, and what separates them from the violent fringes, is far more important than what divides them. Mr. Trump could help greatly by recognizing that his entirely correct claim that “to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name” applies to white supremacist terrorism as well as the Islam-inspired kind.

Im-Politic: Latest Charlottesville Polls Suggest a U.S. Race Relations Muddle

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ABC News, CBS News, Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, Harris, Harvard University, Huffington Post, Im-Politic, Marist University, Mark Penn, Morning Consult, NPR, Politic, polls, race relations, The Hill, Trump, Washington Post, white nationalists, white supremacists

Keeping in mind how flawed they are, and keeping in mind that the wording of their questions matters a lot, several polls are now in (out?) on the intertwined issues of what to do about the nation’s various (and variegated!) Confederate monuments, and how Americans viewed President Trump’s response to the recent Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally, the counter-protests it attracted, and the violence that resulted – which of course produced the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer. The findings seem pretty clear, if somewhat challenging to explain: Most Americans don’t want the statues etc, removed from public spaces, but at the same time, most Americans disapproved of Mr. Trump’s response to the controversy – which included a defense of keeping the monuments in place.

Huffington Post, a news outlet I rarely cite, just performed a useful service by compiling the results of seven surveys on the Confederate monuments question conducted this month by six organizations. In five of the seven (including the NPR-Marist poll I wrote about last Friday), majorities backed keeping the monuments exactly where they are. In one of the outliers, this position was backed by a big plurality (49 percent).

The only survey showing a widespread desire for change found that by a wide 58 percent to 26 percent margin, respondents supported “relocating monuments honoring the Confederacy from government property and moving them to museums or other historic sites where they can be viewed in proper historical context.” Unless it’s assumed that “proper historical context” would portray the Confederate cause in an overall less-than-flattering light, even this arguably moderate viewpoint doesn’t exactly demonstrate that most Americans view its links to slavery and treason as especially troubling. Which of course I find especially troubling.

It’s possible to explain how these opinions dovetail with the negative reviews drawn by the president’s Charlottesville-related words and deeds, but it’s anything but easy, as I’ll elaborate on in a moment. But first the actual findings.

The earliest survey on the matter yielded results that could be seen as ambiguous. It was the NPR-Marist poll, and it showed that by 51 percent to 31 percent, the public viewed the Trump “response to the violence in Charlottesville” was “not strong enough” (as opposed to being “strong enough). This poll, remember, came out on August 17, and was only asking respondents about the president’s remarks as of Monday, August 14 and Tuesday, August 15 – before his late Tuesday afternoon press conference, when he made much more controversial comments. So it wasn’t entirely clear of whom Mr. Trump should have spoken more “strongly” – if any group or individual.

Subsequent polls, however, have made clear that most Americans believe that the racial issues as well as that Trump performance lay at the heart of their criticisms. The first clue came in a CBS News poll that was released on Thursday, the 17^th. According to the pollsters, a strong majority disapproved of “Trump’s response to Charlottesville” attack and that “Disapproval of the president’s handling of events rose [in interviews conducted] following the [Tuesday] press conference.” Indeed, those interviewed by CBS Tuesday and Wednesday frowned on Mr. Trump’s remarks by a 58 percent to 33 percent margin. The Monday interviewees disapproved by a 52 percent to 35 percent margin.

On August 21, the Washington Post reported that a poll it conducted with ABC News found that that Mr. Trump’s Charlottesville comments earned a failing grade from Americans by a two-to-one ration (56 percent versus 28 percent). And three days later, a survey conducted by Harvard University and the Harris polling firm found that 57 percent of respondents viewed the Trump remarks as a missed opportunity to bring the country together, and 57 percent believed he should do more to promote racial unity. (And in case you’re wondering, 59 percent agreed that the President should be doing more in this respect.)

Moreover a similar Harris finding – that the Trump comments did more to divide the country than to unite it – was supported by data both from the CBS News poll and a separate Politico/Morning Consult survey released on August 23). 

Nevertheless, these polls all presented results that raise important questions as to exactly how their Charlottesville-related views are or aren’t influencing Americans’ views on race relations above and beyond the Confederate monuments controversy.

For example, despite the stated desire both for better race relations and for a greater presidential effort to bring them about, and even though Mr. Trump’s comments on Charlottesville were broadly unpopular, most of the polling evidence shows agreement with the President’s view that both sides deserve equal blame for the violence in that city. (CBS’ was the only poll I found with contrasting results.) Those two sets of views don’t easily jibe with the great dissatisfaction expressed with Mr. Trump’s comments ostensibly because they weren’t racially sensitive enough.

Moreover, fully nine percent of Americans, according to the Post-ABC poll, said that it is “acceptable” to “hold neo-Nazi or white supremacist views.” Another eight percent were undecided. (The NPR-Marist poll, held before the heated Trump press conference, found support for “white supremacist” and “white nationalist” groups at only half these levels.)

The best explanation I’ve found for these apparent inconsistencies comes from Mark Penn, a well known pollster who helps direct the Harvard-Harris operations. Penn centered on that Trump press conference and contended, “His arguing the point about the violence is a Pyrrhic victory as he still gets the blame for the polarization in the country. The voters are looking for a uniter and he is coming off as a divider.”

I fully agree that Mr. Trump’s big post-Charlottesville problem has been being too argumentative (on top of firing off inconsistent comments seemingly from day to day) and that most Americans want a unifier in the White House. Yet the polls and Penn’s observation leave me less convinced that a critical mass of the country agrees on what it wants this unifying message to be, especially when it comes to race issues.

Im-Politic: Charlottesville & Trump: A Never-Ending Story?

Tags

American South, anti-semitism, Charlottesville, Confederate monuments, free speech, hate groups, Im-Politic, neo-Nazis, racism, Trump, white supremacists

And so President Trump has stepped in it once again, and guaranteed that, unless something major changes, self-inflicted wounds will become the hallmarks of his presidency.

Of course, I’m talking about his impromptu remarks at yesterday’s press appearance, in which new, explicit denunciations of racist and anti-semitic hate groups were accompanied by descriptions of some of their individual members present in Charlottesville, Virginia as “very fine people” – along with comments that at least could reasonably be read as establishing a moral equivalence between the marchers and those who came to the region to protest their planned rally.

Among the least defensible:

>The contention that the torchlight marchers last Friday night included “people protesting very quietly the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee”;

>The charge that supporters of removing Confederate memorials are “changing culture” – which closely resembles the specious claim that the memorials were erected to honor the American South’s distinctive “heritage.”

As per the views I expressed on Saturday, I still don’t believe that Mr. Trump is a racist or an anti-semite. I still believe that his behavior mainly reflects a “pathetically mistaken” belief that a big chunk of his largely white, working class base will take offense at overly harsh attacks on bigoted, fringe figures like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

But upon reflection, I’d add that he’s stunningly inarticulate, and terminally – and in many ways childishly – argumentative. And although I’m not concerned that his verbal indiscipline will needlessly spark a war or some other kind of domestic or global crisis, those are worrisome traits in a figure whose every syllable is (understandably) put under a microscope. Nor is much simple common sense visible on the President’s part, or at least not often enough.

After all, how difficult would it have been to draw up sometime over the weekend and deliver on TV a statement along the lines of:

“My fellow Americans [or whatever standard presidential speech introductory wording you like]. I loathe the Charlottesville protesters and everything they represent. The neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and their ilk have deliberately associated themselves with historical atrocities and injustices that are not only appalling. They are uniquely evil in nature. It is indeed infuriating to see them openly displaying their perverse and destructive views in our streets and parks and squares. In fact, I am personally infuriated that they keep invoking my name, and portraying my efforts to reinvigorate the ideal of a practical, healthy nationalism as an endorsement of racism and anti-semitism and xenophobia.

“But we also must remember something crucial about our democratic values – which of course are values that the hate groups’ evil historical idols have tried to destroy. They demand that even loathsome figures and voices enjoy the freedom to exercise their Constitutional speech rights. So in that respect, attempts to disrupt their activities, or the First Amendment freedoms of other unpopular speakers, must be condemned, too.

“Therefore, law-breakers will be prosecuted – whatever their political views and associations.

“But much more important, I hope that the vast majority of Americans angered by the disgraceful Charlottesville marchers and their supporters understand, and take to heart, that the best way to counter, and defeat, the hatred they spew is not by joining them in the gutter and resorting to violence – unless it’s a matter of self-defense. The best way is to expose their sick lies with the power of reason. The best way is to remember our love, compassion, and respect for each other, and take every opportunity to show it. The best way is to strengthen our nation’s unity of spirit. And the best way is to fulfill our sacred duty each and every day to keep our great national experiment in self-government a beacon for all of humanity.”

Now the President is reaping the whirlwind. I have no idea whether this latest uproar will simply blow over (as with the Access Hollywood video episode), or become superseded by another headline news development, or will doom Mr. Trump to a single term, or will erode his political support so drastically that his presidency becomes impossible to continue. What does seem certain is that the prospects of a successful Trump presidency, and especially of promises kept to economically struggling middle class and working class Americans, have taken a body blow, and that something on the order of a dramatic display of executive competence, an equally dramatic display of contrition and/or explanatory eloquence – plus a tidal wave of dumb luck – will be needed for even a partial recovery.

Following Up: Republican Optimism on Trump and the Black Vote

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2016 elections, African Americans, Ben Schreckinger, Bernie Sanders, black clergy, blacks, Democrats, Donald Trump, Following Up, Frank Luntz, Hillary Clinton, Hispanics, illegal immigration, Immigration, Jobs, Politico, pollsters, racism, Republicans, voters, white supremacists

Big reasons for skepticism still abound, but I couldn’t help but noticing a piece on the Politico.com website today quoting Republican election strategists – and one genuine big shot by name – as claiming that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump could win enough African-American support in a general election to beat Democrat Hillary Clinton. This new article echoes a post I wrote last September, which focused on Trump’s possible appeal to a black population that has lost lots of jobs and job opportunities thanks to the political establishment’s love affair with mass immigration.

There could well be a big wishful-thinking component at work in the Politico piece. Indeed, who can forget how badly many Republican pollsters and consultants mis-judged the makeup of the electorate during the last presidential election and were stunned by Barack Obama’s victory by a very healthy electoral vote margin. And there’s no doubt that political prediction has been an especially hazardous business during this campaign.

At the same time, Politico has become a go-to source of elections-related information and analysis. So its decision to run this article indicates that lots of the powers-that-be in national politics take seriously the chance that Trump could lure significant numbers of black voters away from Clinton or her chief Democratic rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. At least, consider the evidence presented by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.

Most notably, he quotes leading Republican political guru Frank Luntz as claiming that if Trump won the GOP nomination, “he would get the highest percentage of black votes since Ronald Reagan in 1980 [14 percent]. They listen to him. They find him fascinating, and in all the [focus] groups I have done, I have found Obama voters, they could’ve voted for Obama twice, but if they’re African-American they would consider Trump.”

Schreckinger quotes another pollster (anonymously) who has allegedly “tested Trump’s appeal to blacks and Hispanics and come to the same conclusion. ‘He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave….He’s not a white-bread socialite kind of guy.”

The author adds that “Already, Trump has been laying groundwork in the African-American community that could pay dividends in a general election. With the help of his political and business adviser Michael Cohen, Trump has spent years cultivating black faith leaders. Last year, he held meetings with black pastors in Georgia and at Trump Tower in New York. Trump’s team has also made a pair of black female video bloggers, Lynette ‘Diamond’ Hardaway and Rochelle ‘Silk’ Richardson, prominent surrogates online and on the trail.”

Further, some independent polls have found that a Trump candidacy would win a not-negligible share of the combined black and even Hispanic vote. Given Republicans’ poor recent performance with these groups, any substantial improvement could tip certain key states.

Of course, it would be a big mistake to overlook the obstacles to such Trump successes (other than the 800-pound gorilla in the room of Hispanics punishing Trump en masse for his strong opposition to illegal immigration and especially his deportation proposals – which I continue to think he’ll back away from in favor of curbs on employments and government benefits opportunities that will both produce significant ”self-deportation” and weaken America’s attraction to prospective newcomers).

After all, some of Trump’s outreach to African-American clergy hasn’t gone swimmingly. He’s also on record as having made several remarks widely considered racist. And the backing Trump has gotten from white supremacist groups, however unwanted, can’t help.

Nonetheless, so far during primary season, anyone betting against Trump has been a big loser. The general election of course won’t be exactly the same, or even close. But neither will it be 100 percent different.

Im-Politic: Roof and Terrorism, Take II

Tags

Al Qaeda, Charleston shooting, Dylann Roof, Im-Politic, ISIS, racism, terrorism, white supremacists

Returning to the “Is Dylann Roof a Terrorist?” controversy:

First, I’m glad that my first offering spurred so much commentary and discussion – and nearly all of it civil. So thanks to all RealityChek readers.

Second, at the risk of over-simplifying some, it seems that those who disagree seem to be focused on the ideas that (1) any attack this savage and ideologically (i.e., racially) motivated must by definition be intended to terrorize and frighten and (2) that the violent white supremacist movement in America, and its global connections, are much bigger and more extensive than I recognize.

These are all valid points, but I believe that they are outweighed by the following considerations (some of which I’ve already addressed briefly either on Facebook or on Twitter):

> “Logically,” anyway, Charleston-style violence can just as easily be explained by simple race hatred, or by the desire for revenge, as by a wish to instill fear in victim populations or (presumably) their sympathizers. In fact, if you read Roof’s on-line “manifesto,” you’ll see how obsessed he was with the ideas that black murders of whites were being ignored while white on black incidents – like George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida – were supposedly filling the media instead; that all southern whites were being blamed for slavery even though only a minority were slave-owners; that school integration was exposing white students to black counterparts and their allegedly bigoted attitudes, etc.

It’s true that the manifesto speaks of “taking back” America from…what exactly is not clear, though it seems that he’s referring to the post-civil rights era, or even the post-emancipation era, and all of the legal equality and other forms of black progress they’ve fostered, however incompletely. At other places, Roof seems as if he’s talking about dramatically reducing the black population of either “the South” or of the nation as a whole. But there’s not much of a coherent agenda here, or any type of an agenda.

Although at one point, Roof writes that “It is far from being too late for America or Europe,” more of his rant focuses on how hopeless he believes the current situation to be.

In fact, here’s how he ends his polemic:  

“To take a saying from a film, ‘I see all this stuff going on, and I dont see anyone doing anything about it. And it pisses me off.’ To take a saying from my favorite film, ‘Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society.’

“I have no choice. I am not in a position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

It’s possible to interpret these words as a call to action. But in my view, they’re best read as a suicide note from someone determined to carry out a kind of racist kamikaze mission.

>Just as important, his complaint that his fellow white supremacists are simply “talking on the internet” at the least signals his own belief that the movement is not a force that threatens society in general, and certainly not one that’s willing to generate nearly enough violence to create significant nation-wide panic, much less move America any closer to its aims.

Of course, Roof’s words alone don’t prove the point. But let’s ask ourselves, starting with me and my fellow Jews (who probably wouldn’t be real well off in an America run by the Dylann Roofs): How many of you live in fear of attack or even any contact with members of white supremacist groups? I’ll ask the same question of black Americans and members of other minorities. And although I can’t genuinely put myself in their shoes, I’ll bet the vast majority would answer in the negative.

Do white supremacist groups exist? Of course? Do they communicate with each other? I’m sure they do. Are they growing in numbers? According to the Department of Homeland Security, yes. Nonetheless, this report specifically states that the agency’s intelligence bureau “has no specific information that domestic right wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence….” Further, a New York Times op-ed article today cited by one commenter, which claims that “attacks like the mass murder in Charleston” can no longer be viewed “as isolated hate crimes…unconnected to a broader movement” mentions no other such domestic incidents.

In other words, for all the claims to the contrary, the evidence that these individuals and even groups are capable of affecting the climate of public opinion, much less the rhythms of our daily and national lives, on any ongoing basis looks to be lacking. 

And in this crucial respect, unlike Al Qaeda and various Palestinian Arab groups, the IRA for decades starting in the 1960s, and the KKK earlier in American history, Dylann Roof and his white supremacist counterparts don’t qualify as terrorists. Because context – and its accurate assessment – matters vitally.

At the same time, Roof and his ilk are clearly dangers to society, and need to be monitored closely and neutralized as soon as criminal intentions become clear. In other words, they’re supporters and have been perpetrators of hate crimes – which are detestable and intolerable acts. But they don’t pose nearly the threat of genuine terrorists, and America’s law enforcement and security apparatus should set its priorities accordingly.

By the way, the more I think about ISIS, the more I’m leading toward classifying it as a hostile state rather than a terrorist group, although the jury may still be out. ISIS has been fomenting activity beyond its main base of operations in Syria and Iraq, but the aim seems to be overthrowing existing governments and replacing them with branches of the so-called Caliphate it’s started to carve out in the Fertile Crescent region. In this respect, the group may more closely resemble the Soviet Union and Maoist Communist China and their efforts to stoke global revolution, than Al Qaeda. Or perhaps the main difference between Al Qaeda and ISIS is the latter’s greater success lately at seizing and holding big chunks of territory.

In any event, the potential of each to consolidate a terrorist training base and record of attacking Western targets puts them doesn’t put genuine terrorists in a different moral category than Dylann Roof and his fellow haters.  But it does to date justify government putting them in a different – and lesser – operational category