Trump’s vice signaling continues to appeal to Mr. Jon Buss’ fear and sycophancy (“Antifa is a threat, whether you acknowledge it or not,” published Nov. 18).
One of the memories that I have from the protests in Seattle in the summer of 2020 was a security camera video shown on the news of a young white male about to throw a brick into the glass window of a downtown retail store. A young Black male hastily and aggressively pounced on the would-be brick thrower. The Black male shouted strenuously at the white kid and took the brick from him. Thankfully, no broken window this time. A nice photo-op.
“Antifa” is short for anti-fascist. It is not a non-profit organization. “It has no centralized leadership, membership list, or national structure. Instead, it is a loosely connected movement or set of local groups that oppose fascism [see Trump], white supremacy [see Trump], and far-right extremism [see Trump].” Antifa is also one of Trump’s go-to terms that he ignorantly likes to spout to rile-up the gullible and low-intellectual people in order to deflect and to divert attention to his [Trump’s] venality and misuse and abuse of his oath and office.
The people in this nebulous Antifa organization show up and insert themselves and cause havoc and destruction during peaceaful protests.
I don’t pretend to defend Antifa. I was happy and hopeful to see the would-be brick thrower stopped before he had a chance to give peaceful protesters a bad reputation.
Trump, a convicted felon (remember?) pardoned over 1,500 convicted felons for their violence that caused the incidental deaths of six police officers in the J6 violence and caused $2.7 billion (GAO) in repair costs to the Capitol. Why isn’t Buss outraged?
In 2017, at a reprehensible rally in Charlottesville, one peaceful counter protester was killed when she was murdered by a white nationalist who ran her over in his car and 35 people were injured in the melee. Trump said that there were “very fine people on both sides.” This is just one of many examples where Trump emboldens and gives people a license to act on their racism. Buss couldn’t be more outraged.
Political violence in America is evolving and flourishing.
In 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that racially motivated violent extremists were elevated to a national threat priority, on the “same footing” as ISIS.
Mass shootings and political violence by white males: Thomas Crooks, Timothy McVeigh, Sean Grayson, Stephen Paddock, Payton Gendron, Curt Andersen, James Hodgkison, Austin Nieneker, Gregory Timm, Austin Robert Drummond, Shane Devon Tamura,, Vance Boelter, Wess Roley, James Holmes, Adam Lanzer, Dylann Roof, Patrick Crusius, Conner Betts, Nikolas Cruz, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and 1,500 January 6th insurrectionist are the real threat to our homeland security and not Antifa.
Buss’ manufactured outrage is clearly misinformed, misguided, ad hominem and troglodytic. Buss needs to lighten-up with the hysteria, hyperbole and especially with the irresponsible wayward misinformation he posits here.
Stanley McKie
Enumclaw
