Peter Montgomery: U.S. right-wing terrorism on rise in the Trump era

Harassment, intimidation, and physical violence against religious and ethnic minorities is on the rise. And some experts worry that the Trump administration is making things worse.

The attack on a Portland, Ore., commuter train by a knife-wielding white nationalist who was screaming anti-Muslim insults overshadowed other recent crimes apparently motivated by bigotry — including a machete attack against a black man in California and the killing of a Native American man by the driver of a pickup truck who was terrorizing a group of picnicking friends.

Just outside Washington, D.C., recently, an African-American student on the verge of graduating from college was murdered by a white student who was reportedly a member of an online “alt-Reich” {neo-Nazi} group. Nooses have been placed in a number of prominent locations, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Southern Poverty Law Center documented almost 900 reports of harassment and intimidation in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election. “Many harassers invoked Trump’s name during assaults,” the SPLC reported, “making it clear that the outbreak of hate stemmed in large part from his electoral success.”

Similarly, the Anti-Defamation League reported that anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. jumped 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017. There’s also been a surge in violent attacks on Indian Americans and Sikhs, sometimes by people mistakenly identifying them as Muslims or Arabs.

What’s going on?

Violence motivated by bigotry obviously didn’t begin with Trump. But there’s no question that Trump’s rise has inflamed racial resentments and unleashed something dangerous. His campaign excited white nationalists, beginning with his first speech vilifying Mexican immigrants and continuing with his call for a ban on Muslims entering the country.

Trump’s suggestion that the Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel couldn’t rule fairly because of his family’s Mexican origins sent a signal: Real, trustworthy Americans are white. Trump’s close alliance with some conservative Christian leaders sends another signal: Real Americans are Christians.

Some hateful people take these signals as permission to openly express and act on bigotries that were previously understood to be unacceptable.

Indeed, by putting Steve Bannon in senior campaign and White House positions, Trump made it clear that promoting bigotry is no bar to service in his administration. Bannon’s leadership of a right-wing website was praised by a prominent neo-Nazi leader for making the site “hardcore.”

These signals were amplified by the appointment of Jeff Sessions, a Voting Rights Act critic and promoter of anti-immigrant policies, to be U.S. attorney general.

In the face of a growing bipartisan consensus on criminal justice reform, Sessions is trying to take the country in the opposite direction, pushing aggressively for mass incarceration and undermining previous Justice Department efforts to hold police accountable for racially motivated violence.

Arlie Perliger, a Massachusetts professor who works with West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, argues that right-wing violence grounded in white supremacist ideology should be treated as domestic terrorism.

But the Trump budget proposal released in May zeroes out funding for a Department of Homeland Security program that gives grants to communities to counter violent extremism. Reuters reported that the administration has also frozen $10 million in grants that had already been allocated.

Generations of Americans have struggled and continue to struggle to make liberty and justice for all a reality in our increasingly diverse society. But with Trump as their leader, opponents of pluralism are demanding a return to some undefined period when America was “great.”

They’re at war with what America has been becoming. And while the Trump administration may give proof to the axiom that truth is the first casualty of war, it’s sadly not the last.

Peter Montgomery is a senior fellow at People For the American Way.

David Warsh: The other hundred days

SOMERVILLE, Mass.

Almost everyone I know complains of Trump fatigue in some degree or another.  An under-covered story of Trump’s first hundred days in office has to do with the differential coverage of his presidency in the four national newspapers I read, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, in particular. (I don’t see USA Today.)

The question bubbled just below the surface last week. In "Living in the Trump Zone,'' columnist Paul Krugman, in the NYT Friday, issued “a plea to my colleagues in the news media: Don’t pretend this is normal.” The same day, columnist Peggy Noonan, of the WSJ, wrote that "Trump Has Been Lucky in His Enemies''. that while “Mr. Trump has struggled so colorfully in the past three months, we’ve barely noticed his great good luck – that in that time the Democratic Party and the progressive left have been having a very public nervous breakdown.” Noonan studiously didn’t mention it, but among of the enemies she presumably thinks Trump has been so fortunate to acquire, none has been more relentless than the NYT, with The Washington Post not far behind.

The Times Saturday published an inside page listing 99 front-page headlines from Trump’s first hundred days; the hundredth story presumably is to appear today.  It was a judicious selection; Omitted were countless other Trump news stories that have appeared in the paper, including some written mainly to hold him up to ridicule.  But the editors’ sense of play stands up.  It would be interesting to see a comparable selection of WSJ page one stories over the same hundred days. The NYT editorial pages have often gone overboard, of course; that’s what editorial pages have learned to do since 1972, when Robert Bartley took the reins at the WSJ after Vermont Royster’s 20-year term on “the Page.” The president can count on receiving two or three solid knocks from the Times’s editorial and op-ed pages on normal day, most of them well-placed.

The WSJ, on the other hand, has treated the Trump presidency in a decidedly low-key way, pretty much business as usual, which would be relaxing, if you didn’t notice the lengths to which they have gone to make its first three months appear normal.  Exhibit A was a front-page story in March headlined “Steve Bannon and the Making of an Economic Nationalist.” This credulous as-told-to story by reporter Michael Bender related that Bannon’s views were galvanized when his 88-year-old father, a Bell Telephone retiree, sold his treasured shares of AT&T into the panic of 2008.  It’s long been known that Bannon’s view were well established many years before.

Mind you, this is not the once-familiar difference between the WSJ’s famously fair-minded news pages and its over-the-top editorial pages.  Now it’s the news pages that are shading right. The editorial pages are having a meltdown.  During the campaign their enthusiasm seemed about evenly distributed among Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Trump.  Since the election the editorialists have regularly reminded readers of their traditional support of trade and immigration, but their real passion continues to be for tax cuts, and never mind the deficit.  Kimberly Strassel wrote Friday, “Here’s how to know a Republican president has scored big on a proposed tax reform: Read The New York Times – and chuckle.” Trump’s “big swashbuckling vision for enacting pro-growth principles” was his “finest moment (so far).”  Meanwhile, the NYT took advantage of the extreme disarray to hire Bret Stephens, the WSJ’s star op-ed columnist, who increasingly strenuously opposed the Trump candidacy throughout the campaign. Stephens had been a leading candidate to succeed editorial page editor Paul Gigot; instead he has made his debut in the Times. Holman Jenkins Jr. stepped up to the plate in the Journal.

In general, the WSJ stance seems to be a tendency to reserve judgment as much as possible, on the theory that Trump is worth a try. “[T]he more important period [of his presidency] starts on day 101,” its editorialists wrote Saturday.  “The next 200 or 300 days will determine whether Mr. Trump is a successful president or a Republican Jimmy Carter.”  Noonan put a finer point on the matter when she wrote:

"If this thing works—if the Trump administration is judged by history as having enjoyed some degree of success—it will definitively open up the U.S. political system in a wholly new way. Before Mr. Trump it was generally agreed you had to be a professional politician or a general to win the presidency. Mr. Trump changed that. If he succeeds in office it will stay changed. Candidates for president will be able to be . . . anything. You can be a great historian or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. You can be a Silicon Valley billionaire. You can be Oprah, The Rock, or Kellyanne. The system will attract a lot of fresh, needed, surprising talent, and also a lot of nuts and poseurs.  But again, only if Mr. Trump succeeds. If he doesn’t, if he’s a spectacular failure, America will probably never go outside the system like this again, or not in our lifetimes.''

Meanwhile, The Washington Post is in the hands of a master campaigner, executive editor Martin Baron.   Evidence of his rhetorical skills can be seen in reporter David Fahrenthold’s Pulitzer Prize-winning articles on the loose practices of Trump’s Foundation.  I don’t see the WPost’s newsprint edition, so I am unable to guage the cumulative power of its coverage of the administration, but to judge from the Web site, the WPost, like the NYT, regards the Trump administration as anything but normal. Its scrutiny has been no less penetrating for being more tightly focused.

The same can be said for the fourth paper I read, the Financial Times, which, as usual, floats lightly above the fray, analyzing it except when it has got something distinctive to add. It was the FT that reported that, after the election, before the inauguration, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng had persuaded First Daughter Ivanka Trump to become a trustee of a nearly $300 million fortune Murdoch set aside for their two children.  That was not long after Deng was reported to have been dining with, first, Tony Blair, then Vladimir Putin. Demetri Stevastopulo, the FT’s Washington bureau chief, wrote Saturday,

Since the inauguration, Washington has become obsessed with parlor games that try to predict the next plot twist to emerge from Trump’s White House…  At the moment, neither the political surprises nor the palace intrigue show any signs of settling down.…

It seems so to me as well. Look for the very instructive war between the NYT and the WSJ to continue. I once worked for the Journal, but, or the most part, I’m with the Times on this one.

David Warsh, a veteran financial, media and political journalist, is proprietor of economic principals.com, where this piece first appeared.

James P. Freeman: With the Trump vaudeville show, it's back to 'Laugh-In'

John Wayne and Tiny Tim helped Laugh-In celebrate its 100th episode in 1971. Co-host Dan Rowan yucks it up in his tuxedo.

“… let’s go to the party!”

                    — Dan Rowan

Without a trace of transgression, Time recently described Donald Trump and his nascent administration as “a vaudeville presidency.” The other week, with absurd appearances by several of the president’s principal architects, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) unwittingly staged this politically charged vaudeville act, replete with comedy, contortion, and commotion that, at times, resembled the television program Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In  that ran in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“Groovy!”

Hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, the unique variety show was, says tv.com, “a fast-moving barrage of jokes, one-liners, running skits, musical numbers as well as making fun of social and political issues” of the period. And so was, CPAC 2017.

Writing for The New York Times Magazine in 1968, Joan Barthel observed that “whatever else it is — and at one time or another Laugh-In is hilarious, brash, flat, peppery, irreverent, satirical, repetitious, risqué, topical and in borderline taste — it is primarily and always fast, fast, fast! And in this it is contemporary. It’s attuned to the times. It’s hectic, electric …”

And so is the Trump administration, which, in its first month has proven to be a series of recurring, improvisational sketches, careening with disorder. Hence, the surreal Laugh-In connection.

“You bet your sweet bippy!”

In the television program, “guests” at the “Cocktail Party” would mill around with drinks in hand or dance to music that would suddenly halt when a party-goer would face the camera to deliver a one-liner or a quick joke. (Today’s party stops and starts again after President Trump transmits on Twitter his version of one-liners. (Remember the infamous tweet about the “so-called judge”?)

CPAC was, without a hint of hysteria, hijacked by a few of its guests vicariously reprising several popular segments of Laugh-In: “Mod, Mod World,” (Russian sabotage?); “Laugh-in Looks at the News” (fake news?); and the “Joke Wall” (the great Wall of Mexico?). With life imitating art, these cameo appearances made this year’s CPAC disturbingly memorable. And laughable.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, a few weeks ago on Meet the Press said that the White House press secretary used “alternative facts.” (Of which Rolling Stone rightly said, “the Trump presidency had its first laugh line.”) Telling attendees on Feb.23 in anticipation of Trump’s appearance the next day of the conference — stop the music! — “Well, I think by tomorrow this will be TPAC.”

But what was lost among the intermittent laughter was this stunning punchline: “Every great movement,” Conway said, “ends up being a little bit sclerotic and dusty after a time.” That line was directed at Reagan conservatives. Just as Laugh-In had obliterated conventional variety show boundaries, Trump World is eschewing traditional conservatism, simultaneously ransacking it and redefining it. Even as Conway formally announces the end of the Reagan Revolution, President Trump cleverly says his victory was a “win for conservative values.”

“Verrrry interesting!”

Apparently, Vice President Mike Pence was never let in on the punchline.  After finishing his introductory remarks to CPAC with the jab, “all kidding aside,” Pence delivered this bizarre, if not ridiculous comparison: “From the outset, our president [Trump] reminded me of somebody else. A man who inspired me to actually join the cause of conservatism nearly 40 years ago. President Ronald Reagan.” Later, Pence quoted Scripture. Stop the music, again!

And then there was the question-and-answer session with the dynamic duo, Steve Bannon, White House chief strategist, and Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff. Trying to convey a patina of unity and order to this “fine-tuned machine,” Priebus said, “the truth of the matter is … President Trump brought together the party and the conservative movement.” And Priebus also compared Trump to Reagan saying the former also sought “peace through strength.”

Gannon (who led the crusading “alt-right movement” while at Breitbart, used to host his own counterprogramming conference to CPAC, called the “Uninvited”), straight faced, said, “The reason why Reince and I are good partners is that we can disagree.” Hilarious.

Laugh-In fashioned its aesthetic from the counterculture of the 1960s (“sit-ins,” “love-ins,” and “teach-ins”), reasons britannica.com. The show “tapped into the zeitgeist in a way no other show had, appealing to both flower children and middle-class Americans.” And Bannon, a counterculture conservative, likewise believes that “the power of this movement” will appeal to a broad spectrum of people too. Or will it?

One board member of the American Conservative Union (CPAC’s host) told The Daily Beast that, “‘The craziest elements of the [party] have managed to get every single thing they wanted over the past year … This is the shape our movement is in today.’”

“And that’s the truth!”

But first, a few words from our president, who openly mocked CPAC in his monologue-cum-speech Feb. 24 by declaring, “You finally have a president.” (Read President Reagan’s elegant 1981 CPAC speech, and his 1987 CPAC speech in which he imagined the future of conservative values; “a vision that works.”) Trump in his stand-up said, “We’re going to put the regulation industry out of work and out of business. And, by the way, I want regulation.” On his Cabinet: “I assume we’re setting records for that. That’s the only thing good about it, is we’re setting records. I love setting records.”

Recalling his first CPAC speech years before, with “very little notes, and even less preparation,” Trump quipped, “So, when you have practically no notes and no preparation, and you leave and everybody was thrilled, I said, ‘I think I like this business’.”  

During the 1968 presidential campaign, candidate Richard Nixon taped a six second clip for “Laugh-In,” reprising one of its signature gag lines. Nixon won the election and Dick Martin jokingly confessed, “A lot of people have accused us.” After CPAC 2017, Reagan conservatives are the butt of the joke and target of that gag line:

“Sock it to me!”

James P. Freeman,  an occasional contributor to New England Diary, is a writer and financial-services professional.  He’s a former columnist for The Cape Cod Times. This piece first ran in the New Boston Post.

Llewellyn King: Mr. Bannon, this is journalists' tough and essential mission

-- Photo by Kai Mork

At a news conference.

No, Steve Bannon,  counselor to President Trump, the news media are not the opposition. Nor are they a monolithic structure acting at the behest of some unseen hand, in conspiratorial unison. {Editor's note: Reminder: Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial page, Mr. Bannon's former employer Breitbart News and many, many other   large and small  news and opinion media outlets that the right-wing Mr. Bannon favors are part of "the media''. }

I am of the media and have been for 60 years  -- in fact from long before it was known collectively and misleadingly  as a blob called "the media''.

We are an irregular army, an array of misfits, disciplined by deadlines and little else. We eat irregularly, are sustained on coffee and, at times, something stronger. We love what we do and we do it in the face of shifting threats, from death on the front lines of war, to the excesses of media owners and the difficulty of making a living at it. We do the same job and do our best, whether it is for the smallest newspaper, newsletter or some great news outlet, such as The Washington Post or a TV network. John Steinbeck once said, “No one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it.” So do we.

My friend Dan Raviv, of CBS News, once summed up what it is about — during another one of these periods when journalism was under attack — by explaining his own motivation, “I like to find out what’s going on and tell people.”

Why, then, are the media seen as monolithic, conspiratorial and of one mind? I will suggest it is because of an immutable law of the work that is beyond explanation, but is indestructible and essential: news judgment. It is to journalism what perfect pitch is to musicians. You have it or you do not; and while it can be cultivated, it cannot be inculcated.

In play, it makes us look collaborative: Journalists appear to belong to some secret order, such as the Freemasons. Whether we are from the smallest outlet to the mighty networks, if we are reporters, we will tend to pick the same things from a speech or an event. As an example, different newspapers will find the same news in the Sunday news shows and report it their Monday editions.

That is why when Kellyanne Conway uttered the words “alternative facts,” in an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press, we pounced. We did so not because we are of one mind, but because the enormity of such a concept demanded our attention. No conspiracy, no political agenda, no common purpose beyond the news, just  Conway's extraordinary concept that facts are fungible, somehow legitimately subject to manipulation for political purpose. That is news. Big news.

Conway has complained that none of the other things she said in that interview were headlined. If she feels that way, clearly, she does not grasp the import of her own words; it was not the messengers, it was the message.

Why are so many journalists considered to be ''liberal''?

I am not sure  that so many  are liberal, but if I concede the point, consider this: We see the soft underbelly of society, whether we are covering refugees or police courts. People come to us seeking redress for real grievances and, mostly, all we can do is sympathize. If you have seen children dying of starvation or families sleeping on the street, you are unlikely to be worrying about the property rights of the rich. What you see conditions you.

I interviewed my first refugees in 1956. They were escaping the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian Revolution. That and later having seen thousands of refugees in Jordan, Pakistan, South Africa and Turkey, has indelibly informed me; those images are etched into my being.

When  President Trump suspended the trickle of Syrian refugees we are taking into the United States. It seemed again to be the powerful denying the humanity of the weak, most pitiable.

History is not to be denied and facts are just that. Journalism shows us the world out there, not the world in a leafy suburb. If knowing something of the pain of the world and wishing for justice is liberal, then indict and convict us.

Surprisingly, we are not very political. Congress is stuffed with lawyers, not journalists. We do not, in general, run for office.

Remember, Steve, if you know anything about the world, science or even politics, you learned a lot of it from journalists. We are the messengers, but we do not write the message.

Our essential job is to keep a wary eye on authority: Here’s looking at you, Steve

Llewellyn King, executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, is a long-time publisher, editor, columnist and international business consultant.