More White Right-Wing Shooters, More Silence From Conservatives

As we broaden the conversation about radicalized white men, one can’t help but notice the silence when terrorists are right-wing

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

Recent mass shootings over the weekend continue to highlight the radicalization of white men while also pointing to how political extremism isn’t isolated to younger generations. With growing nihilistic and misanthropic movements on various social media sites, the most recent attacks on the heels of Charlie Kirk’s murder and the attack on an ICE facility expose how broad right-wing extremist campaigns have become and how they manipulatively incite people to act violently.

As the White House wants to blame as many attacks as possible on so-called “antifa-aligned” leftists, the silence from Trump’s broad white nationalist cabinet is deafening. Interestingly, the administration’s Christian nationalist “religious liberty” efforts are also proving to be another false narrative to usher in fascism, as noted by the White House’s silence about the storming of a Mormon church by a MAGA supporter in Michigan. The attack left at least four dead and eight wounded. The church was also set on fire and was destroyed after burning for hours.

Another mass shooting occurred just hours before the Michigan attack. In Southport, North Carolina, another white man in a boat fired a weapon into a crowd at the American Fish Company. The shooter killed at least three people and injured five. While the Michigan attacker was killed in a shootout with police, the North Carolina shooter was taken into custody by the U.S. Coast Guard after fleeing the scene in a boat.

Both attackers are ex-Marines, and both are 40 years old.

While conservatives continue to paint benign rhetoric, such as calling someone a fascist (something they have done for years), as inciteful, violent rhetoric, the country can ill afford to allow them to gloss over the hate and bigotry promoted by far-right influencers that have become so prevalent in conservative politics after the election of Barack Obama. The country exposed its blatant societal and systemic racism after Obama was elected. The system has been weaponized to target those they believe are responsible for his election: nonwhite people.

From racist conspiracy theories suggesting migrants are being paid to migrate to the U.S. and create more Democratic voters to creating false narratives around so-called “black on black crime,” conservative politics are about vendettas more than anything else. Republican voters willingly voted against their own interests because they felt Latinos and Black people would suffer the most. Meanwhile, they ignore that many immigrants are conservative and that violence is more prevalent in white communities, especially sex crimes, which non-white women are more likely to be subjected to.

They have argued that Black people kill more white people than anyone else, a thoroughly debunked narrative since 2020. They’ve been promoting these false statistics with memes that are also seen throughout the far-right and hate group recruitment process. The memes highlight how easily people can be manipulated into believing what they see on social media and falling into the trap of fear, thus creating a more racist and bigoted ideology.

The truth is, other white people kill more than 80% of white people. What they fail to recognize is that most murders occur based on proximity, and most murder victims know their attacker.

Much of this decades-old propaganda was rehashed at the onset of COVID-19 and the spike in violent crime, which was most likely due to isolation, with domestic violence being the majority of cases. What conservatives again fail to acknowledge is that violent crimes and property crimes during that time grew across every demographic, especially in suburbia.

If not for influencers weaponizing ignorance and disinformation to promote hate toward all marginalized groups, conservatives would be forced to confront their failures. Instead, they employ billionaire-funded hacks like Kirk to keep people divided while both parties allow oligarchs to rob taxpayers to generate more wealth for themselves. Weaponizing hate and bigotry comes easy for Republicans and is too often treated with kid gloves by Democrats.

The last thing we need to do is meet extremism in the middle. Regardless of a domestic terrorist’s motivations, the country must face the fact that white people are being radicalized to hate others faster and faster each year. This exponential growth must be addressed by white folks primarily due to the proximity and access they have compared to nonwhite groups. While much can be learned from each other, access to people is the most crucial ingredient.

As this problem continues to grow, the White House is focused more on “protecting” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from a manufactured enemy (Antifa) than it is on stopping the growing violent extremism that results in so much death every year and increased under both Trump presidencies. The administration certainly isn’t concerned with the people ICE has killed, nor is it worried about police brutality. Instead, they’re funding more of it.

The Trump White House has been able to gloss over the atrocities it has committed through its very own policies and weaponized federal agencies as the backstop (corporate legacy media) has seemingly been happy to oblige Trump by reporting on sensationalized nonsense instead of his and his staff’s blatant human rights abuses and out-in-the-open corruption.

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I’m an independent investigative journalist who enjoys digging deeper into the stories you see on the news. Find my work at Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, Latino Rebels, and more. I’m also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a donation via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.