Are We All “Domestic Terrorists” Now?
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (DTPA) of 2021 defines “terrorism” by reference to ideas or beliefs.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act (DTPA) of 2021, introduced into both houses of Congress on January 19, defines “terrorism” by reference to ideas or beliefs—in particular, the ill-defined term “white supremacism,” which is less an idea than a smear. The proposed legislation is an innovation not only in the United States, but for most world bodies, too, where “terrorism” has been defined strictly in terms of violent criminal acts.
One sponsor of DTPA says the “threat that reared its ugly head on January 6th is from domestic terror groups and extremists, often racially-motivated violent individuals …”
Another says DTPA is “to combat the threat of violent white supremacists and other domestic terrorists …”
Another says: “Homegrown, violent domestic terrorism from white supremacists, and other racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, remains a serious ongoing threat that demands the full coordination and efforts of our federal law enforcement agencies.”
Another says: “White supremacy and domestic terrorist organizations have no place in America. Rhetoric from the outgoing president and right-wing political leaders have emboldened white nationalist groups to pursue violence as a means to an end.”
The act now before Congress declares a viewpoint—one capable of infinite elasticity and only subjective “proof”—to be part of the nature and definition of “terrorism.”
And: “DTPA directs DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Department of Defense to establish an interagency task force to combat white supremacist infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement.” Infiltration? Surely terrorists must be outed from the police, military, and intelligence agencies?
These statements usually couple the term “white supremacism” with “violence,” but it could hardly be more obvious that “domestic terrorism” is violence connected with white supremacist and “other racially motivated” beliefs and ideas. The act now before Congress declares a viewpoint—one capable of infinite elasticity and only subjective “proof”—to be part of the nature and definition of “terrorism.”
Only laws of totalitarian nations like China today, and National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Republics in their time, have made political ideas part of the definition of crime.
The FBI definition of domestic terrorism specifies only “violent criminal acts” intended to frighten a population into demanding certain political changes. So does all earlier legislation on terrorism in America and similar documents of the European Union and United Nations. Only laws of totalitarian nations like the Peoples’ Republic of China today, and National Socialist Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in their time, have made political ideas part of the definition of crime.
A precedent for DTPA, of course, is U.S. legislation defining “hate crimes.” Hate crimes are not only “violent” and “criminal” but are regarded far more “serious” because of the ideas and intentions of the criminal. “Domestic terrorism” and “hate crimes” often are mentioned together in discussions of DTPA because obviously the idea of “white supremacy” and crimes committed by persons who supposedly embrace the idea are now “terrorist crimes.”
An article in Forbes on January 10 warned that the net would have to be cast wide: “There is this false narrative that white supremacists are these outspoken extremists; domestic terrorists that are seen protesting the removal of confederate monuments or committing horrific acts of violence and treason. These are extreme examples, but white supremacy is more common than we think. By personifying white supremacists as these types of individuals, we overlook the white supremacists lurking in our workplaces, our schools, and within our communities. Nice people can also be white supremacists. Relinquish the idea that there is a prototype for white supremacy.”
So those “that are seen protesting removal of confederate monuments …” are domestic terrorists.
So those “that are seen protesting removal of confederate monuments …” are domestic terrorists as are others who commit “horrific acts of violence and treason.” But white supremacists (that is, those with terrorist ideas) can be “lurking in our workplaces, our schools, and within our communities.” If there is no “prototype for white supremacy,” then identifying potential terrorists is going to be a subtle matter. The author explains that they are “shapeshifters.”
The idea of white supremacy is not new. And its home always was the Democratic Party until the 1950s (at least). But at that time, it had an objective reality in the Jim Crow legislation, legal segregation of all kinds, legally enforced racial inequality in voting, laws against miscegenation, and much more. In addition there was the widespread criminality by the Ku Klux Klan and others that was clearly racially directed.
“White supremacy” today is not legal suppression, not workplace discrimination, not discrimination in education, not prejudice against electing Black politicians, not prejudice against Black-white marriages. Indeed, there are racial quotas favoring Blacks in higher education, affirmative action in hiring, overwhelming favoritism for Black artists and performers, and trillions spent over decades to “eliminate inequality” of Blacks in every field. It is tempting to say that today’s only true “white supremacism” is an unshakable conviction that only whites can solve the problems and ensure the progress of Black Americans.
“White supremacism” no longer describes a serious, widespread reality. That it exists is certain.
“White supremacism” no longer describes a serious, widespread reality. That it exists is certain; racism is not going to be eradicated from the human species in any foreseeable future. But to view “white supremacism” as a dominant social and cultural phenomenon in America, shaping how we live, is delusional.
Or, to be more specific: It is a powerful ideological delusion or dogma, or worse, a ploy. The philosophical worldview that now dominates our colleges and universities is “postmodernism.” And, of course, it dominates those products of liberal arts, social sciences, the arts, and law coming into careers in the past three decades or so. Postmodernism can be said to be the new and increasingly dominant outlook, the conventional wisdom, of educated America—a reason that they view themselves as alienated from and hopelessly misunderstood by “under-educated” Americans who still experience postmodernism as bizarre “political correctness”—which it is.
The concept of “white supremacism” is integral to the entire dynamic of postmodernism. Postmodernism views all human social and political interaction as understandable in terms of power relations: “oppressors” and the “oppressed.” And unlike Marxism, which defines those groups in economic terms as exploiters and exploited, postmodernism sees oppressors and oppressed in racial, ethnic, and sexual terms.
This then is what we have come to call “identity” politics. Dominated by postmodernist intellectuals and politicians of the left, today’s Democratic Party has made recent elections all about race, ethnicity, and sex. The mainstream media churns out thousands of stories and columns that repeat the same political paradigm: whites-male-citizens versus people of color-women-illegal immigrants-the disabled.
Most plausible of “oppressions,” of course, is racial. Slavery, decades of legal discrimination, widespread racism, and lingering racial discomfort are part of America’s history and present. But today, the best polling organizations report that only small minorities of whites oppose, say, electing a black president, or oppose “mixed” marriages:
The percentage of Americans who say they would vote for an otherwise well-qualified person for president who happened to be black has risen to 96%, up from 38% in 1958. And the percentage of Americans who approve of marriages between blacks and whites moved from 48% in 1965 to 87% the last time Gallup updated the measure in 2013.
We already have had a Black president for 8 years. In 2008, Obama won 43 percent of the white vote. In 2012, the white vote spilt only about 60-40 in favor of Romney against Obama.
These sweeping improvements have forced the definition of “white supremacism” to undergo serious alterations to force it to fit today’s society. Today, three-quarters of Black Americans tell pollsters that they believe the federal government should pay major cash “reparations” to all Blacks who had slave ancestors. (Some 15 percent of whites agree.) Universities face demands that admissions standards, courses, grading, use of standard English, and dismissal of “racist” professors must make it possible for Blacks to succeed. When Blacks and their ideological supporters riot in cities, looting, setting fires, attacking police, throwing bombs, and beating passersby, we are urged to consider their provocation, their history of “powerlessness,” their understandable “rage.”
And so “white supremacism” continues everywhere—as so-called “systemic”—because it has morphed into the core of postmodernist political analysis. Of course, we did have the #MeToo alarm at sexual oppression of women. And certainly, the ongoing alarm at the southern border with “children in cages.” The prioritizing of these problems, and the hysterical moralizing, were driven by the ideological perspective of postmodernism. These are all it has.
And now, with the excuse of the violence that erupted among some January 6 demonstrators, and because of the symbolism of the Capitol Building (I share that feeling), and the tragic deaths—but also the obsessive politics of “Get Trump”—“white supremacism” will become “terrorism” and will be treated as such.
As we have seen, given the elasticity of the term “white supremacism,” it is used to mean “any racially or ethnically motivated” belief. Like opposing reparations. Or attacking quotas in university admissions. Or opposing defunding the police. Or opposing riots in cities. Or opposing the government funding of abortions. Or drawing negative conclusions about the disintegrating American family structure. Or opposing prioritizing Blacks for the COVID-19 vaccine. Or opposing removal of public statues. Or opposing the growth of the welfare state. All are now seen to contribute to the “white supremacist” atmosphere that fosters terrorism’s violence.
DTPA portends a new and virulent leftwing McCarthyism. Allegations will be enough to destroy careers. The search will be on for “a terrorist under every bed.”
At a very minimum, DTPA portends a new and virulent leftwing McCarthyism. Allegations will be enough to destroy careers. The search will be on for “a terrorist under every bed.” One atrocity story, January 6, will be enough to cast all republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and objectivists under a pall. Periodicals, TV networks, social media sites, publishers, employers like universities and schools will all feel patriotically justified in excluding ideas they view as politically incorrect. And with almost everyone involved with ideas and opinions now on record and easily “searched” online, it will take five minutes to identify those against whom “our whole country must unite”—as against the “radicals,” the “commies,” and their “fellow travelers” during the McCarthy era. Mostly, the “Reds” were deemed unpatriotic, not American. This time around the designation is “terrorist” and the penalty is potentially decades in prison.
As usual, the first cases will have some plausibility. On January 15, Justin Stoll, a 40-year-old man from Wilmington appeared in court … He had posted on YouTube and elsewhere videos from the Jan. 6 riot, some allegedly including himself yelling aggressive comments. A woman online responded online that she had “saved” his video. Stoll took that as a threat and responded: “… you ever in your f—— existence did something to jeopardize taking me away from my family [sic], you will absolutely meet your maker…. And I will be the one to arrange [it].”
That could be five years for “interstate communication of a threat” and another 20 years for “intimidating a witness”—the woman “saving” the video. But this, of course is pre-DTPA and the charge is not terrorism. And whether the woman threatened is Black was not “of the essence” in the charge. But, notably, Stoll was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
I offer this as the kind of plausible case with which DTPA prosecutions might begin. There was no violence, but there was a clear threat—although it sounds like a bit of swaggering and most death threats are not made as part of YouTube threads. But if “white supremacy” was clearly involved (again, say the woman threatened was Black), I think Stoll would be facing charges of terrorism.
The legislation could well pass; co-sponsors include Republicans. The New York Times almost daily runs front-page stories about the Jan. 6 violence to keep the crisis alive until the vote on the legislation.
If it does pass, it might be instructive for anyone—including journalists—writing about the kind of issues enumerated above to send a copy to President Biden (cc. Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer) politely asking if publishing it will be legal under DTPA or might constitute domestic terrorism. And then publish either with a note that it has been approved by the White House or that approval had not been received at press time. A few hundred thousand letters, faxes, and emails might clog the system, a bit, but no one said it would be easy to censor 328 million Americans—or even 74 million Trump voters.
About the Author: Walter Donway
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