A "Witch's Brew" of an Election

US intelligence agencies are warning of the threat of extremist violence in the runup to the November 3 elections. From Reuters:

U.S. security officials are warning that violent domestic extremists pose a threat to the presidential election next month, amid what one official called a “witch’s brew” of rising political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns. 

 

FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos say threats by domestic extremists to election-related targets will likely increase in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. 

 

Those warnings so far have largely remained internal. But New Jersey’s homeland security office took the unusual step of publicly highlighting the threat in a little-noticed report on its website last week.

“You have this witch’s brew that really hasn’t happened in America’s history. And if it has, it’s been decades if not centuries,” said Jared Maples, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, which published the threat assessment.

And the threat isn't Antifa as Trump constantly claims.

Trump officials have pointed the finger at left-wing anarchists and anti-fascists during protests against police brutality and racism over the summer, but federal court records provide little evidence showing those arrested for violent acts had affiliations to far-left groups.

Last week, the top two DHS officials acknowledged in congressional hearings, however, that white supremacists have posed the most lethal domestic threat to the United States in recent years. 

 

FBI Director Christopher Wray said during congressional hearings earlier this month that his agency was conducting investigations into violent domestic extremists, include white supremacists and anti-fascist groups. He said the largest “chunk” of investigations were into white supremacist groups. 

 

White supremacist, anti-Semitic, anti-government, and related ideologies were tied to 77 percent of 454 alleged domestic extremist murders in the past decade, according to data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York City-based anti-hate advocacy organization, and presented at one of the congressional hearings last week.

Most of the terrorism plaguing the United States is domestic, not foreign, and is rooted in the far-right, not the left. However anti-semitic, white supremacists recognize the president as a kindred spirit and Trump values their support. He's heard "they love their country" after all.