What Could Possibly Go Wrong If the Feds Stop Protecting Us From the Homegrown White Violent Fringe

On this anniversary remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination, I want to point out a situation that should be getting a lot more coverage in the national media than it is (via Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast):

The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who focused on domestic terrorism, The Daily Beast has learned. Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism—including white supremacist terrorism—is growing.

In the wake of this move, officials said the number of analytic reports produced by DHS about domestic terrorism, including the threat from white supremacists, has dropped significantly. People in and close to the department said this has generated significant concern at headquarters...

It's probably been greeted at trump's Mar-A-Lago parties with the popping of champagne bottles. Just as we're seeing in public more evidence that the angrier, more heavily-armed factions of the Far Right are striking out at the targets they hate the most - sending bombs to trump's public enemies, stockpiling weapons and plotting attacks on Congressional Democrats, growing reports of American Nazis vandalizing Jewish and Muslim communities - and getting none-too-subtle prods from their idol who refuses to condemn their bloody rampages.

Back to Woodruff:

Former officials pointed to a spate of domestic terror attacks in recent years as evidence that DHS erred by shuttering this branch. From the massacre that left 11 people dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue to a shooting targeting Republican members of Congress in June 2017 to bomb threats that a deranged Trump fan directed at prominent Democrats and CNN, violent attacks informed by homegrown hatred have left Americans increasingly terrorized...

Pressed on whether DHS disputes this reporting, a senior DHS official pushed back.
“The same people are working on the issues,” the official said. “We just restructured things to be more responsive to the I&A customers within DHS and in local communities while reducing overlap with what the FBI does. We actually believe we are far more effective now.”

But Sgt. Mike Abdeen with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told The Daily Beast that his office used to receive a significant amount of material from I&A, but that the communications have dried up in recent months. For the last six months, he said, I&A has been mostly silent. He added that this has been consistent with broader changes in how the department communicates with his office.

“It’s been very quiet lately,” Abdeen said. “It’s changed with the new administration. It doesn’t seem to be as robust, as active, as important—it is important, I’m sure, but it’s not a priority. It doesn’t seem like engagement, outreach, and prevention are seen as a priority as we used to see in the past. There were roundtable meetings in the past, there was more activity, more training, more seminars. Now it seems like it’s gone away.”

There's a reason for that.

trump has made it clear before he likes being the Bully in the room. Even with the Mueller Report in his pocket, he wants his revenge on everyone he thinks isn't being fair (i.e. worshipful of) to him. trump enjoys the idea he has a rabid mob literally at his command, and has been baiting his crowds into increasing hatred towards the enemies - Media, immigrants, Blacks, libruls, anyone not wearing a MAGA hat - he knows are out there.

he also knows his time is limited. Despite his efforts to silence the Mueller Report, nobody is buying his and Attorney General Barr's "Summary" trump claims EXONERATES ME WOOHOO. House Democrats are starting to rev up their investigations into trump's multiple misdeeds, finally requesting his tax returns for examination (under an unusually-worded investigation into the "auditing of Presidential taxes" in the first place). They've also voted to use subpoenas on Barr and the DoJ for the full unredacted version of Mueller's Report, which the leaks from Mueller's staffers - people who haven't leaked in two years - are telling us did not exonerate trump at all and may be worse than what Barr's Letter suggests (leading up to the possibility of BARR getting charged with Obstruction on this... ooooo).

What's happening is that trump is doing whatever he can to tie one arm behind the collective backs of our federal, state and county level law enforcement agencies ahead of any upcoming hate rallies by the White Nationalist types that are sure to spawn when (not if) trump is directly threatened with arrests or impeachment. I don't wanna be the guy to throw conspiracy theories like this out there... BUT...

I'm someone old enough to remember the worst terror attack before 9/11 in the United States was pulled by a determined wingnut with a handful of friends.

I'm enough of a history student to remember not just the Klu Klux Klan behind lynchings and attacks on Blacks and Jews across the nation post-Civil War, but involved in mass raids into Black communities from Rosewood to Tulsa to Wilmington. We had attacks on Civil Rights marchers and Birmingham teens recorded on our television broadcasts. Today is the anniversary of the death of Civil Rights' staunchest and most eloquent defender for God's sake.

I'm enough of an American to recognize that we Whites persecuted and rounded up Native tribes into forced marches and unwanted lands, that we excluded Asians and attacked their communities, that we shipped Japanese into internment camps.

Our nation has a sordid history of race relations that almost always turns on white mobs arming themselves and attacking The Other on any pretext: mostly out of fear, and mostly driven by rage.

It isn't paranoia to think this. It's history.

And trump is trying to repeat that history as a means of keeping himself in power.

The best way to do that is to rig the game. After all, cheating is the only trick trump knows.