Republican Party is White Supremacist

I’m fairly certain that the Top’s Supermarket massacre in Buffalo, NY last weekend will generate more arguments about the Second Amendment but all I’m going to say about that is; what about the right 13 people shot to live their lives and shop for groceries safely? Oh, and one other thing, the “good guy with a gun” argument doesn’t hold water since retired police officer Aaron Salter shot the perpetrator but since the perpetrator was wearing body armor it was ineffective and then Salter was shot down.

The massacre was planned and prepared for over a period of months. The perpetrator carried a rifle and fired upwards of 50 rounds, wore a bullet proof vest, a tactical helmet with a video camera mounted on it so he could live stream the murder of innocents. The shooter was apparently radicalized online by white supremacist/neo-Nazis. In March 2021 the Director of National Intelligence warned that racially-motivated extremists posed the most lethal domestic terrorism threat. It said the menace was now more serious than potential attacks from overseas.

Don’t think for a moment that this is just some loons winding each other up online. White Supremacist ideology and rhetoric has a large presence in the Republican Party nation-wide. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cited the "domestic supply of infants" as reasoning for overturning Roe v. Wade while the Buffalo shooter's manifesto focuses on "white birth rates." This isn’t a coincidence.

Representative Elise Stefanik replaced Liz Cheney as the #3 Republican in the House when Cheney demanded the truth about Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Stefanik launched a Facebook ad campaign pushing the same “white replacement theory”, aka “great replacement theory”, cited as impetus for the Buffalo mass murder.

Like Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, Stefanik uses violence-provoking conspiracy claims to further her own career but refuses to take any responsibility for the deaths caused when violent believers decide that terrorism is the only solution. The "great replacement" conspiracy is now widespread in Republican rhetoric; there is now no great difference between the conspiracies of neo-Nazism and those of Republican Party "leadership".

The theory has been cited by several other mass shooters since 2018, including Robert Bowers who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018 and Patrick Crusius who murdered 23 people in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart.

Last December, the Associated Press and NORC conducted a large national poll and found that nearly half of Republicans agree to at least some extent with the white supremacist/neo-Nazi propaganda that there’s a deliberate intent to “replace” native-born Americans with immigrants.

Republican leaders are making a direct attack on our democracy using white supremacist propaganda to motivate voters to vote for them. This is how fascists came to power in Europe in the 1930’s.

Where does the country go from here? The people of this country must decide is if we want to live in a world where fear and division are able to take root, because after you dehumanize everybody that’s when the killing start. Do you remember the 1994 Rwandan genocide? It started much like what we’re seeing now in the United States with the majority ethnicity blaming a minority group for their problems. Then the finger pointing turned into murdering their neighbors.

Inciting a riot is a federal crime with a penalty of 5 years in prison, shouldn’t there be a penalty for inciting mass murder?

In my book anyone who votes for Republicans is aiding and abetting the enemy of the people of the United States.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - May 18, 2022

Trump Shares Responsibility for Murder of Heather Heyer

The terrorist act committed in Charlottesville, Virginia by a right wing, white supremacist makes me angry, sad and afraid for a number of reasons. The senseless murder of Heather Heyer, a young woman lending her voice to those protesting the ugly bigotry of the Unite the Right rally being held by white nationalists, neo-nazi’s and Ku Klux Klan members, is first among them. The President’s disgusting “all sides do it” response is another reason.

With a trio of white supremacists among the senior White House staff it’s no wonder Trump can’t be bothered to make a statement condemning the words and deeds of the leaders of the rally. There’s Steve Bannon, formerly of Breitbart News which by his own description is a website that caters to white supremacists/white nationalists. There’s his friend and fellow white nationalist Stephen Miller, who on national television stated “Our opponents, the media and the whole world, will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned” when discussing Trump’s attempted Muslim travel ban. And there’s Sebastian Gorka, another Breitbart News alumnus, who though lesser known is no less vile, he wears a Nazi pin to work every day at the While House.

If one of President Obama’s senior advisors had worn a Black Power pin you can’t tell me there wouldn’t have been tens of thousands of protesters marching on the White House. My Dad and three uncles, like most young men their age, joined up to fight the Nazi’s in World War II. While all my family members returned home, some with life long health problems, many of their friends didn’t. It sickens me that after the sacrifices all those men and women made in the 1940’s this nation’s current president embraces the philosophical descendants of Adolf Hitler and the treasonous, secessionists like Jefferson Davis.

Event organizers and speakers like former KKK grand wizard David Duke and Richard Spencer, one of the founders of the alt-right movement, as well as president of the National Policy Institute white nationalist think tank are an ugly reminder that this nation still hasn’t gotten past the sins of its founding fathers. It’s even more frustrating that Donald Trump ascended to the presidency with the vocal support of people like them. He got that support by using their hate filled racist language to arouse white voters. They’re some of the few who still support him so it’s no surprise he hasn’t called them out on their hateful actions.

Trump has used the megaphone that the mainstream media have given him since he announced his run for the presidency to activate the pathetic excuses for humanity that make up the white nationalists and he rode it to the top. Since his candidacy we’ve seen people once on the fringe come to the fore and be outspoken about their racist beliefs. After one high school student was informed that flying the Confederate Battle flag from his bumper was unacceptable on campus he came to a city council meeting to defend his right. I was stunned and disappointed but at the time I hadn’t realized what Trump had unleashed, now I know and it saddens me for the country and the people who will suffer.

I was proud of this country when we elected our first black president by a substantial margin. I was sickened when we elected his anti-thesis as his successor. Since he didn’t win by a majority of the votes perhaps there is still hope.

Published in the Seguin Gazette, August 18, 2017

Our country is endangered by neo-Nazi infilitrators in our armed forces

July 12, 2009

The Honorable Henry Cuellar
336 Cannon H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515
phone: 202-225-1640
fax: 202-225-1641

Dear Congressman Cuellar,
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a continuing surge in racial extremists infiltrating our military. It’s imperative that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists. We must not wait for another terrorist action like the Oklahoma City bombing by Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh to wake up to the fact that a rising number of bad apples have joined the U.S. military for this express purpose.

What I find truly disconcerting is that the Pentagon appears to consider homosexuals who serve honorably more of a threat to the good order of the military than neo-Nazis who reject our Constitution's most cherished principles. While the military has discharged more than 12,500 service members because of their alleged homosexuality since 1994, it has refused to adopt a true "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to extremists in the military.

There is no place for neo-Nazis in our military as they endanger their unit members as well as those of us at home when they return. The overwhelming majority of our courageous men and women in uniform reject extremism and are dedicated to our nation's highest ideals. We owe it to them — and to the American public — to ensure that the ranks are as free of extremists as possible.

I urge you to support an immediate investigation of the military’s induction standards and push for adoption of a “zero tolerance” policy regarding extremists of any type.
Sincerely,