The Sham of White Supremacy

According to President Biden, “terrorism from White supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today”, as he put it in an address to Congress. Attorney General Merrick Garland agreed, noting that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists“ are the most dangerous element of domestic violence. Garland declared that we must “bring federal resources to bear“ and “adopt a broader societal response“ to the threat of white supremacy.

But it’s a slur to claim that Americans live in fear of White supremacists like the brown shirts of yore. In reality, White supremacists are a small fringe group of pathetic losers who are despised by all.

Their gatherings often attract more attackers than members. No one raises money for their bail when they get in trouble like Kamala Harris did for BLM when their “mostly peaceful“ protests produced burning buildings and mass looting.

The Left media faithfully performs its task of propping up this imaginary threat. Incidents of white-on-black violence make headline news for days while pundits emphasize the role of systemic hate. Similar incidents with different racial dimensions are often underreported or ignored.

In early May, five outbreaks of violence occurred within a few days. A California Taiwanese church was shot up by a black man. Another black man killed workers in a Dallas salon. A white man killed shoppers in a Buffalo grocery store. Pro-life offices were fire-bombed in Wisconsin and Oregon.

President Biden, as usual, only paid attention to the one that fitted his white supremacy narrative. He seized upon the Buffalo incident as “proof of the poison with which White supremacy threatens America“. He vowed to not “let hate win“.

Even though the media’s over-reporting makes them seem more numerous, incidents like the Buffalo shooting are, statistically, isolated events. But the Buffalo murders don’t even qualify anecdotally as an example of right-wing-inspired terror.

C.E. Cupp on CNN explained the horrific incident by noting how “far right-wing media…stir up racial animus, ethnic animus, religious animus…getting people angry and afraid”. Another CNN expert compared Republicans to 1930s fascists and current Islamic dictatorships. “What these people want is a Christian white nationalist version of what you have in Iran today and Saudi Arabia“.

But the perp’s own 80-page manifesto reveals no hint of any such causation. Yes, he was deranged, a psychopath with an intense hatred of Blacks but no connections to White supremacy groups or ideology. He despised Fox News specifically and said he “wanted no part of conservatism“.

Though he was clearly not inspired by right-wing influences, commentators latched on anyway to the killer’s advocacy of “replacement theory“. The New York Times called it a “racist, fringe conspiracy theory“, but it’s nothing of the sort.

It’s simply the fact that the US white population is shrinking while the population total is growing, mostly due to immigration. The concern isn’t skin color but whether this demographic shift will contribute to the decline of America’s culture and values. Recent trends in minority support of Republicans give hope that this may not happen, but at any rate the observation is immaterial to White supremacy.

The Big Lie of pervasive White supremacy is deeply harmful. First, it serves as the pretext for our overgrown government to react to the “threat“ with a series of banana republic-style measures to suppress opposition.

The so-called Ministry of Truth was paused, but the DOJ has created task forces to counter “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists”, including members of the military and parents advocating before school boards, but not Antifa, BLM, or Muslims.

Second, the Big Lie precludes a serious discussion of realistic remedies for interracial violence and the ongoing carnage of young black men. We should do away with gun-free zones, which only reassure potential killers. We should work harder to keep guns out of the hands of the clearly deranged without a wholesale sacrificing of civil rights. We need to stop the push to decriminalize crime and denigrate police officers. And much more.

While we chase the chimera of White supremacy, real people continue to die.

Note: This column was written before the school shooting in Texas. Its conclusions are not affected.

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Thomas C. Patterson, MD is a retired Emergency Medicine physician, Arizona state Senator and Arizona Senate Majority Leader in the ’90s. He is a former Chairman, Goldwater Institute