EDITORIAL
A Year of Living Dangerously
BY MARK POTOK
Anyone who read the newspapers last year knows that
2015 saw some horrific political violence. A white supremacist murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C.
Islamist radicals killed four U.S. Marines in Chattanooga,
Tenn., and 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. An antiabortion extremist shot three people to
death at a Planned Parenthood clinic in
Colorado Springs, Colo.
But not many understand just how
bad it really was.
Here are some of the lesser-known
political cases that cropped up: A West
Virginia man was arrested for allegedly
plotting to attack a courthouse and murder first responders; a Missourian was
accused of planning to murder police officers; a former
Congressional candidate in Tennessee allegedly conspired
to mass-murder Muslims; a New York white supremacist
blew his own leg off as he built bombs; and three North
Carolinians were accused in a plot to attack the military.
There’s more. A Pennsylvania man who ran a “White
Church” pleaded guilty to manufacturing 20 bombs; a
New Yorker allegedly collected heavy weapons to murder Jews and African Americans; three Georgia militiamen went to prison for plotting to attack utilities
and start a war with the government; a West Virginia
“sovereign citizen” was accused of attempting to overthrow the state government; two white supremacists
in Virginia were charged with buying explosives from
undercover agents in order to attack black churches and
synagogues; and a racist Minnesotan was arrested for
shooting five Black Lives Matter protesters.
Although the number of deaths attributable to
domestic terrorism still was very small compared to,
say, cancer or traffic accident deaths, such killings cause
far greater social damage because they produce shock
waves in targeted communities and also tend to split
Americans along pre-existing fault lines like race.
The violence arose in a landscape dominated by
losses for those on the political far right. Hardliners
were enraged by the Supreme Court’s legalization of
same-sex marriage; pressure to accept Syrian refugees; President Obama’s executive orders meant to stall
deportation of many undocumented workers; the attack
on the Confederate battle flag that resulted from a flagenthusiast’s mass murder in Charleston; and the demographic browning of the U.S. population.
At the same time, numerous studies have shown that
the white working class in America is under increasing pressure. Real wages have been declining for years,
suicide and drug overdose deaths are way up, less educated workers increasingly are finding it difficult to earn
a living, and income inequality is at near historic levels. Of course, all that and more is true for most racial
minorities, but the pressures on whites who have historically been more privileged is fueling real fury.
It was in this milieu that the number of groups on
the radical right grew last year, according to the latest
count by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The numbers of hate and of antigovernment “Patriot” groups
were both up by about 14% over 2014, for a new total
of 1,890 groups. While most categories of hate groups
declined, there were significant increases among Klan
groups, which were energized by the battle over the
Confederate battle flag, and racist black separatist
groups, which grew largely because of highly publicized
incidents of police shootings of black men.
In the second half of the year, a new factor came
into play: a presidential race that grew more ugly by
the month, beginning with Donald Trump’s description
of undocumented Mexican immigrants as rapists and
drug dealers and culminating, arguably, with his call for
a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Even as more
establishment Republicans held back from most criticism, Trump and other candidates increasingly injected
real hate into the electoral contest.
The pace of radical activity did not slow down as
the new year began. On Jan. 2, 2016, two sons of Cliven
Bundy — the extremist Nevada rancher whose 2014
armed showdown with federal officials ended with the
government backing down — broke into and occupied
a federal wildlife refuge near Burns, Ore. Ammon and
Ryan Bundy, who led some two dozen armed militiamen in the occupation, said they would remain until two
local ranchers serving time for arson on federal lands
were freed and federal lands were handed over to the
county. Later, one of their number told reporters that the
refuge would “never” be returned to the government.
At first, these kinds of assertions drew some lukewarm support in the area. But locals quickly tired of
the occupiers’ antics and self-absorbed claims. In late
January, The Oregonian editorialized against the “delusional behavior” of “Ammon Bundy’s gang,” saying it had
“mugged democracy.” It went on to cite a Democratic
congressman describing the men as “terrorists.”
It’s time for others to speak up, too. As our country grows increasingly polarized and angry, politicians,
pundits, preachers and other leaders should be working to bring us together — and to battle the anger and
hate that surrounds us. ▲