From Courting to Countering the Alt-Right
Is there a “kinder, gentler Donald Trump waiting in the wings?” Someone, perhaps, more Presidential? Hillary Clinton asked a year ago today. The truth is, she said, there is not.
It has now been a year since Hillary gave her famous Alt-Right speech in Reno, Nevada. Since then, virtually everything she has said has come true.
Like many, even Hillary, I wanted to give Trump a chance. I still do.
He is our President and I have deep respect for the office and our country. I have not given up hope on him, but I have many significant reservations.
When President Donald Trump tweeted on after the Charlottesville incident that “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!” he was rightfully met with outrage and suspicion.
It is commonly suggested that Trump, if not sympathetic to White Nationalism himself, at least profits politically from courting its adherents. While to his general supporter this may seem absurd, there is rational justification for being suspicious of their courtship.
Within the first weeks of Donald Trump’s inauguration, it was reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) task force would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism.” The federal CVE efforts would shift from an all-encompassing approach to countering extremism in the broadest sense to countering what is commonly associated as the biggest terrorist threat: Islamism.
While that was speculation at the time and the name has not changed, it was reported in Politico that the DHS was restarting its $10-million dollar grant program sans efforts to specifically counter right-wing violent extremism. Life After Hate, an organization focused on the deradicalization of Neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists was scheduled to receive $400,000 of that massive block, but it is absent from the new line-up of recipients.
This would make sense given the basic narrative of global terrorism. Radical and violent Islamists are manifestly the greatest threat to global security, correct? Increasingly well understood by the public is that in the United States this is not the case.
A report put out by the United States Government Accountability Office on CVE initiatives in April stated,
White supremacists, anti-government extremists, radical Islamist extremists, and other ideologically inspired domestic violent extremists have been active in the United States for decades. Examples of attacks include the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by radical Islamists, in which 6 persons were killed; and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building by anti-government far-right individuals, in which 168 lives were lost. The September 11, 2001, attacks account for the largest number of fatalities in the United States in a single or closely-related attack resulting from violent extremism in recent decades. While the September 11, 2001, attacks were perpetrated by foreign violent extremists, from September 12, 2001 through December 31, 2016, attacks by domestic or “homegrown” violent extremists in the United States resulted in 225 fatalities, according to the ECDB. Of these, 106 were killed by far-right violent extremists in 62 separate incidents, and 119 were victims of radical Islamist violent extremists in 23 separate incidents.[1]
Put into context, far-right violent extremists accounted for 73% of deadly terrorist incidents from September 12th, 2001 onward — although Islamists were responsible for more deaths.
The events in Charlottesville proves we need to rethink doubling-down on Islamism at the expense of other forms of violent extremism. Right-wing extremism generally and white supremacy specifically must become one of the main targets of domestic CVE policy.
The United States has a long and sordid history with violent extremists of all kinds, from the anarchist bombing of Wall Street in 1920, the bombing of the Pentagon by the Weather Underground in 1972, the many bombings and three deaths caused by the Unabomber, the anti-government far-right extremists in the Oklahoma City bombing, to the events of September 11th.
While indeed it is true that Islamists have caused the most deaths in the post-9/11 context, it is absolutely false to suggest they are the single greatest threat at the expense of all others. More than this, in the post-election landscape it appears as if the problem of right-wing violent extremism is getting worse and not better.
Linked by many White Nationalists is an essential relationship between Christianity and American patriotism.
In April 2016, Matthew Heimbach made the news for physically assaulting protestor Kashiya Nwanguma at a Trump rally while wearing a Make America Great Again hat. Heimbach — a principle organizer of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and the co-founder of the Traditionalist Workers Party — first entered the national consciousness with a Vice documentary on Towson University’s White Student Union who invited Jared Taylor — famous for in-part radicalizing Dylann Storm Roof — to speak at their campus. In that documentary Heimbach stated clearly, “you’ll never get anywhere waving a swastika in America.”
Working within the framework of identity politics, it was Heimbach’s assertion that whites must — as the deplorable 14 words say — secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. To him, securing the existence of white people is about the defense of white family, folk, and faith — a form of Orthodox Christianity.
Katherine Kelaidis, writing in Religion Dispatches, wrote about “How Orthodox Christianity Became the Spiritual Home of White Nationalism,” using Heimbach as her vehicle to demonstrate this. Heimbach, friendly to the Greek fascist party the Golden Dawn has also embraced Vladimir Putin and the symphonia theory of Byzantine imperial policy.
It cannot be stated more clearly: Heimbach and the TradWorkers are not American patriots, and they do not follow the Christian faith which is frequently said to be at the founding of our Republic. In 2014, Heimbach said, “the best form of government, I would say at least in the interim, would be some form of fascist government.”
Heimbach also stated in a 2014 lecture,
WE NEED TO BE GETTING AWAY FROM SYMBOLS, LIKE THE AMERICAN FLAG. THIS IS THE SYMBOL OF OUR OCCUPATION, THIS IS THE SYMBOL OF OUR GENOCIDE, THIS IS THE SYMBOL OF THE NATION, THAT HAS ALREADY SAID THAT THEY WILL USE DRONES TO DROP MISSILES ON POLITICAL DISSIDENTS. DO ANY OF US THINK, SITTING IN THIS ROOM, WE’RE NOT CONSIDERED POLITICAL DISSIDENTS?… WE ARE AT WAR WITH THIS SYSTEM, AND IF YOU THINK FOR TWO SECONDS THAT GEORGE W. BUSH OR RONALD REAGAN WOULD BE FRIENDLIER TO US THAN BARACK OBAMA IS THEN YOU HAVE NOT BEEN READING YOUR HISTORY.
Matthew Parrott, Heimbach’s collaborator and co-founder of TradWorker, stated his rationale for the “rejection of the American identity altogether in favor of this radical alternative.”
Bluntly, he states “Death to America.”
Parrott continues, “The American Revolutionary War was a regicidal revolt of greedy merchants against throne and altar, a Masonic plot contrived by wealthy peasants and Jews contemptuous of traditional aristocracy and ecclesiastical stewardship.” And, “America is antithetical to faith, family, and folk. It always has been, and it always will be.”
Heimbach frequently describes himself as an “American loyalist,” implying he prefers British imperial occupation. Is this the rhetoric of an American patriot?
Many of these supposed patriots in the Alt-Right are in fact the opposite of American patriots, they are self-professed enemies of the state.
Heimbach, at the Unite the Right rally, has since condemned Donald Trump as a “neo-con” and a warmonger. Surely Donald Trump knows about these types, surely he is aware of the severity of this broad White Nationalist movement. Why did it take him so long to condemn them?
If Heimbach can counter Trump, why can’t Trump counter Heimbach? Donald Trump has with this event, and the upcoming planned rallies of a similar sort, a unique opportunity to make it clear what his tweet implied. There is no place for this kind of hatred and violence in America. And we must come together to counter it.
There is still hope for the people attracted to these ideas — possibly even Heimbach himself. Could Trump pivoting away from a feint flirtation with White Nationalism in fact help unravel its surging popularity in the United States? Perhaps there can be Life After Hate.
It is time for Trump to take a stand on the right, and not the Alt-Right, side of history. He must stop courting violent extremists and start countering them.
If he cannot do this, he had his chance.
[1] U.S. Government Accountability Office, Countering Violent Extremism: Actions Needed to Define Strategy and Assess Progress of Federal Efforts, April 6th, 2017, 3
