White Supremacists Are Terrorists, Too

After the automotive attack in New York City last week, Donald Trump called for the death penalty for the perpetrator. “Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system…” he tweeted. “There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!”

It’s hard not to compare this response to his “both sides” response to the automotive attack in Charlottesville. Trump has built his political career on demonizing Islam, but neither he nor his staff have condemned white-nationalist terrorist organizations, whose ideology they continue to openly espouse.

When Trump was asked whether or not James Alex Fields, who police say drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and seriously injuring 12 others, was a terrorist, he dissembled. “And there is a question. Is it murder? Is it terrorism? Then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer, and what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing."

By calling Fields a murderer, rather than a terrorist, Trump is able to maintain the myth that white supremacist terrorists are bad actors in a field of otherwise “fine people.”

Read more: http://flagpole.com/news/democracy-in-crisis/2017/11/08/white-supremacists-are-terrorists-too