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john boehner
Watchdog Argues Obama Admin's Cave on White Supremacy Helped Pave Way for Jacksonville Shooting
"We must not be fooled into treating each massacre as its own tragedy," said one civil rights advocate. "The tragedy first lies in the unchecked proliferation of the violent racist ideology coupled with the unchecked access to weapons of war."
Aug 30, 2023
As the community of Jacksonville, Florida reeled from the killing of three Black Americans by a white supremacist at a Dollar General store last Saturday, a government watchdog said that the "lion's share" of blame for the proliferation of racist, white nationalist violence in the U.S. can be placed on Republican politicians including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump—but noted that the Obama administration helped allow white supremacy to fester by caving to the GOP at a crucial moment more than a decade ago.
Chris Lewis, a senior researcher at the Revolving Door Project, pointed to the Democratic administration's response when Republican lawmakers complained about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report in 2009 that warned of the growth of right-wing extremism, including the white supremacist movement, and the danger it posed to communities across the United States.
The report prompted calls for then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's resignation from Republicans including then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who said the report could be about "two-thirds of Americans, who, you know, who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities"—suggesting this was evidence that the threat should not be addressed rather than a dangerous sign of the influence of white supremacy across American life.
Instead of defending the report, Napolitano told journalists that the document "was not well-written" and "should not have gone out in the form it did," adding that she had formally apologized to veterans who were offended by the document's warnings about white nationalism in the military.
But as Napolitano withdrew the report and, according toThe New York Times, "essentially disbanded" DHS programs aimed at fighting white supremacist domestic terrorism, the problem was in fact intensifying within the military and other institutions. One 2020 Military Times poll found that "more than half of minority service members say they have personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideologically-driven racism within the ranks in recent months."
"In the 14 years since the report was released and then quashed, right-wing groups have increased the size of their ranks and unleashed violence against marginalized individuals with growing frequency," wrote Lewis. "In addition, they have increased their presence in the nation's military and policing institutions. Far-right extremists' infiltration of the armed forces and law enforcement now poses an internal threat to the state's security apparatus."
After withdrawing the report, Lewis noted, DHS reduced the number of staffers analyzing all domestic terrorism that was unrelated to Islam, canceled state and local law enforcement briefings about the threat of white nationalism, and declined to publicize more than a dozen reports on the matter.
"There was some talk in the administration about the potential harm it would do to turn a blind eye to those groups," he wrote. "And yet, that's precisely what the White House did, deferring to Republicans and ultimately contributing to this dangerous moment in history."
The shooter in Jacksonville last week perpetrated just one of at least 267 right-wing domestic terrorist plots that have been planned or carried out since 2015. More than 90 people have been killed in those attacks, with the majority murdered by white supremacists who targeted Jewish people, Black people, immigrants, or people in the LGBTQIA+ community.
The Biden administration now has "an opportunity to rectify this problem," said Lewis, by declaring white supremacist violence a national emergency and allocating federal resources to fighting the threat.
Following the attack, Sherrilyn Ifill, a senior fellow at the Ford Foundation and former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, called for "a federal investigation into white supremacist violence, using the power and investigatory tools available to every federal agency."
"We cannot be expected to live like this," said Ifill. "It is not 1877. We must not be fooled into treating each massacre as its own tragedy. The tragedy first lies in the unchecked proliferation of the violent racist ideology coupled with the unchecked access to weapons of war."
The Obama administration, wrote Lewis, silenced a report that "could have saved lives."
"Instead of ignoring House Republicans crying wolf over the Department of Homeland Security daring to scrutinize right-wing extremists, and brushing off the falsehoods of conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh who claimed that 'there is not one instance they can cite as evidence where any of these right-wing groups have done anything,' the Obama administration bowed its head to the mob and neutered its own ability to combat domestic terrorism," he added in a statement. "Now, a decade later, here we are. The Biden administration should not repeat this mistake and should allocate resources to this."
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law,
noted that the "broader context" for the Jacksonville shooting includes "elected officials like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other state legislators are intent on implementing racist policies and passing anti-Black legislation designed to stoke racial animus, which inevitably leads to violence."
"Congress must allocate more funding and resources to investigate and prosecute hate crimes on a national scale," Hewitt added, "and to provide more training for state and local law enforcement to effectively police hate crimes—which must include stronger regulations on the ability to obtain firearms."
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A Quashed Obama-Era Report on Right-Wing Extremism Could Have Saved Lives
The Obama administration bowed its head to the Republican mob and neutered its own ability to combat domestic terrorism, helping to bring the country to where it is today.
Aug 30, 2023
A few days ago, a white supremacist murdered three innocent Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville. Like the shooter in Buffalo and Dylann Roof in Charleston, he had a manifesto that espoused white nationalist talking points and conspiracy theories. The prevalence of racist attacks in recent years underscores the alarming rise of right-wing domestic terrorism in the United States. The problem I want to address is: Who at the highest levels of government is to blame for this?
In this instance, you can place much of the blame at the feet of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made it his mission to erase the country’s history of anti-Black violence in his state’s education system. The Biden administration could surely utilize the bully pulpit more to attack domestic terror (after all, their FBI director, Chris Wray, has stressed that one of the greatest threats to U.S. democracy is right-wing extremism). And of course, you cannot talk about the surge in right-wing terror without discussing Donald Trump, who famously refused to denounce white supremacy. But an overlooked source of the problem is that the Obama administration kowtowed to Republican lawmakers and talking heads as soon as they criticized a 2009 report sounding the alarm about the threat of right-wing extremism.
The prescient report angered a slew of House Republicans who called for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano to be fired. Then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) described the report as including “about two-thirds of Americans, who, you know, who might go to church, who may have served in the military, who may be involved in community activities.” (As an aside, imagine what Boehner must think of himself a decade later describing actual terrorists as church-going community leaders. It is darkly amusing.). After the backlash from Republicans, the Napolitano-led DHS rescinded the report and the department dedicated to tracking domestic terrorism was, as The New York Times described, “essentially disbanded.”
Let’s not mince words here: The Obama administration caved to GOP pressure. And because of not wanting to anger Republicans, over a decade later, that analyst’s fears have materialized.
Yes, that’s right, the Obama administration continued to give Republicans exactly what they wanted by peeling back much of its work on countering political violence. DHS cut the number of personnel studying domestic terrorism unrelated to Islam, canceled state and local law enforcement briefings, and held onto almost a dozen reports on extremist groups. There was some talk in the administration about the potential harm it would do to turn a blind eye to those groups. And yet, that’s precisely what the White House did, deferring to Republicans and ultimately contributing to this dangerous moment in history.
Let’s not mince words here: The Obama administration caved to GOP pressure. And because of not wanting to anger Republicans, over a decade later, that analyst’s fears have materialized. Rather than ignoring the cries from House Republicans as well as conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh—who claimed that “there is not one instance they can cite as evidence where any of these right-wing groups have done anything”—the Obama administration bowed its head to the mob and neutered its own ability to combat domestic terrorism.
The results of that ill-advised decision? In the 14 years since the report was released and then quashed, right-wing groups have increased the size of their ranks and unleashed violence against marginalized individuals with growing frequency. In addition, they have increased their presence in the nation’s military and policing institutions. Far-right extremists’ infiltration of the armed forces and law enforcement now poses an internal threat to the state’s security apparatus.
A Washington Post analysis explains that since 2015, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 domestic terrorist plots or attacks, resulting in 91 fatalities. The Post shows that a majority of those deaths were caused by white supremacists who targeted Jewish people, Black people, immigrants, and those who identify as LGBTQIA+. Republicans in 2009 fully mobilized themselves against the DHS’ foresighted report warning of the mounting potential for reactionary violence. In the face of that pressure, the Obama administration rescinded the report and then largely ignored the threat of right-wing terror.
The Biden administration has an opportunity to rectify this problem. As the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill pointed out in the wake of the killing in Jacksonville this past weekend, the administration could declare white supremacist violence a national emergency. With nothing more than the president’s signature, the administration would be able to direct federal resources to combat the threat posed by far-right extremists. Congress can end a national emergency, but imagine the sheer backlash congressional Republicans would face for attempting to force a vote to eliminate an effort to correct a problem… they quite literally created.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the tragic shooting of three innocent Black people in Jacksonville. Again, Ron DeSantis’ crusade against minorities in his state and the Trump administration deserve the lion’s share (full stop). But the DHS’ silenced report from 2009 could have saved lives. People would still be here, white nationalists would likely not be marching in the streets, and we would have actual protocols in place to fight against this form of domestic terrorism. However, that is not the world we live in. We are here and now we must learn our lesson about what happens when well-meaning people lack sufficient political spine to fight with the malignant cancer known as right-wing extremism.
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John Boehner: The Man of the House Never Did Man Up
Beneath his blustering pretense of candor, the former Republican House Speaker is as craven and self-serving as ever.
Apr 22, 2021
Since we're talking about the Republican Party and its descent into an authoritarian leader cult, we might as well invoke Godwin's Law straightaway. Suppose you were conversing with a German in the early postwar years, and the man said that he supported Hitler's policies, in fact he voted for him in 1933? And suppose he said the only thing that tore it for him was Hitler's personal conduct, and how the Fuhrer "abused the loyalty and trust" of supporters like himself?
You might conclude that the man had no more moral sense than a hyena, and that he only regretted the fact that things did not turn out well. Such thoughts passed through my mind on the publication of former Speaker of the House John Boehner's memoir, On the House. The mainstream political media, on the other hand, have mostly bought into the author's narrative frame that it's a book of unguarded truth-telling by a profane and hard-drinking Regular Guy.
Despite that caveat, there are elements of Boehner's tale that add to our knowledge about just how it came to pass that the so-called party of Lincoln inexorably was degenerating into madness well before Donald J. Trump became president.
Let us consider the case of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), he of "Bridge to Nowhere" fame. After Boehner made a speech denouncing congressional earmarks in 2011, Young (a master practitioner of pork barrel politics) confronted the speaker just off the House floor and, according to Boehner, held a 10-inch knife to his throat.
This anecdote has a couple of salient angles. First, if most of us had been threatened in such a manner, we would have filed a police report, and there would have been repercussions involving either criminal law or the legal disposition of a mentally unstable person. That the man who was second in line to the presidency, a constitutional officer who normally has a security detail, did nothing, shows either a saintly forbearance or, more likely, a strange, Stockholm Syndrome-like passivity beneath his facade of manly bluffness.
Second, having myself worked on Capitol Hill until 2011, I already had Young pegged as a mean, nasty old geezer. But I had never credited him - if that's the word - with homicidal impulses. How many more of those vain, insecure, tightly wound specimens that the American people in their wisdom have elected to Congress are as potentially dangerous as Young? Could that possibly have something to do with the crisis of democracy that currently besets us?
The other revealing episode involves deceased Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. When Boehner suggested that Ailes knock off some of the more outlandish conspiracy lies that Fox News was peddling, the TV mogul responded thus, according to the speaker's memoirs:
But he did go on and on about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, which he thought was part of a grand conspiracy that led back to Hillary Clinton. Then he outlined elaborate plots by which George Soros and the Clintons and Obama (and whoever else came to mind) were trying to destroy him.
"They're monitoring me," he assured me about the Obama White House. He told me he had a "safe room" built so he couldn't be spied on. His mansion was being protected by combat-ready security personnel, he said. There was a lot of conspiratorial talk. It was like he'd been reading whacked-out spy novels all weekend.
Many Americans who have not drunk the Fox Kool-Aid have surmised that the TV "news" network consists of moustache-twirling Svengalis who don't in the least believe the childish nonsense they are peddling. Rather, their theory holds that Fox management has cynically and scientifically confected a visually arresting montage of dog whistle-infused propaganda to deliberately addict the poorly educated and senescent viewership that Fox News targets.
Assuming that Ailes wasn't putting on an impromptu performance in order to gaslight Boehner, this vignette suggests that, on the contrary, even the wire pullers of the far right largely buy into their own lies. We can at least tentatively conclude that the source of all those conspiracy theories that the credulous Fox Nation clings to consists not of an inner conspiracy of coolly rational and self-serving manipulators, but of something even more alarming - of unhinged true believers, as Ailes appeared to be.
The anecdote rings true; Ailes's safe room, for instance, has been widely reported elsewhere before. Where Boehner withholds the truth concerns his own motivation, and the media have not done a good job smoking this out. In an NPR interview, Boehner explains his capitulation to the extremists in his party in the period 2011-2015 as a necessary attribute of good leadership:
A leader without followers is just a man taking a walk... There were a couple of times where I found myself taking a walk. And I was going one direction, the team was going some other direction.
And even though I didn't really want to go the direction where the team's going, they were the ones who elected me to be the leader and I had an obligation to go lead them... So that means I had to go jump out in front of them, even if I thought what they were trying to do really made not a whole lot of sense.
Curiously, this discourse elicited no follow-up question about his strange conception of how to lead. Because what he said was the antithesis of true leadership, which means persuading followers to go places they don't want to go. Good luck to teachers in front of their classrooms, or sports team coaches, or military commanders, who "lead" simply by doing what their charges would prefer to do. Boehner was a mere windsock, a ventriloquist's dummy for the Republican Freedom Caucus and its menagerie of loonies.
Boehner's comments about the January 6 riot at the Capitol have received broad coverage. He said Trump "incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November." But there is a big problem with that account.
In reality, Trump was shoveling the same bullshit several months before the election, saying that that if he were to lose the vote count it could only be due to fraud and that he would not relinquish power. Thus, he gave fair warning to all American voters--including his deranged followers, such as the Proud Boys--of his dictatorial mindset and his intent to resist stepping down. Under the circumstances, it was hardly a stretch to infer the potential for violence.
In the face of all this, Boehner voted for Trump a second time. "I voted for Donald Trump. I thought that his policies, by and large, mirrored the policies that I believed in."
So now we get it. John Boehner was pretty much always in favor of Trump; his objections were just a stylistic thing. That is to say, he had no problem sitting of an evening with his cronies in the Speaker's office, downing a glass or three of Merlot while cogitating on how to deprive Americans of health care or give Republican donors an unmerited tax break. If deliberations went into the night, a functionary could be dispatched to Schneider's Liquor of Capitol Hill for another case of the grape.
It was this cozy, clubbable atmosphere that Trump and his fan club of face-painted yahoos disturbed. Even if the former president made all the "right" picks for the judiciary and followed the Republican playbook for screwing the American people to a T, he was still a parvenu who didn't care what Boehner and other members of the Old Guard thought. Worse, Trump's perpetual nastiness could put off respectable suburban women, and even corporate plutocrats would hesitate to pull out their wallets for the GOP if they thought it might damage their brand reputation with younger consumers.
So now Boehner has written a book about all of it, courageously timed to hit the Amazon warehouses and airport bookshops now that Trump is safely out of office.
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