Thread by @pleasesaveour

Not long after Obama took office a DHS (on who's orders?) analyst produced a report presciently predicting that the deep economic downturn, the rise of social media and the election of the first black president would combine

nytimes.com/2019/08/11/us/…

to make race-driven extremism a growing and serious threat to national security.

But when the report was made public, it ignited a storm of protest, mostly from the right. Mike Pompeo, then a Rep from KS said focusing on domestic terrorism was a “dangerous” undertaking born of

political correctness that denied “the threat that radical Islamic terrorism poses.”

Yup that's our Secretary of State folks, you know, the one waiting for the rapture?🙄

Inside the Obama admin there was concern that highlighting the issue would only fuel white supremacist

conspiracy theories or give unwarranted publicity to fringe figures

Within weeks, Janet Napolitano, then the homeland security secretary, rescinded the threat assessment. The report’s primary author left the government, and the department’s unit dedicated to tracking domestic

terrorism was essentially disbanded. 🤬

Now, the question of how the gov should address dom ext, especially white supremacists remains as politically fraught as ever, if for far different reasons, under Trump.

But a look at the exp of the DHS, shows how political consideration

have constrained efforts to give the problem more prominence and counter it.

During Obama years, the pressure to min the prob came from outside the admin, primarily from Rs who saw it as a diversion from fighting Islamic extremism but also to a lesser degree from people on the

left concerned about the implications for the civ libs of Americans.

Under Trump the skepticism is rooted inside the WH.

So while both parties are at fault for the rise in Dom Terr for seemingly reasonable reasons, now it's being stopped purely by ideology from Trump et al.