Newsweek says Biden is to blame for rise in violent extremism

Less that two weeks after Donald Trump suggested that General Mark Milley (former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) should be executed, Newsweek published an article titled "Donald Trump Followers Targeted by FBI as 2024 Election Nears." Here's the point they're trying to make:

The revelations that some Trump supporters are being specifically targeted by the FBI fits with accusations from among them that the Bureau has them in its sights and is the political tool of a repressive deep state in Washington, D.C., bent on preserving the hold of the political establishment at the cost of democracy.

In the end, they suggest that President Biden into blame for the rise in violent extremism.

The senior intelligence official who works at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Biden's rhetoric on domestic terrorism could goad his opponents into taking more extreme action—particularly those who have now lost their faith in elections or believe the system is rigged against them.

"So we have the president increasing his own inflammatory rhetoric which leads Donald Trump and the Republicans to do the same, which influences the news media, which influences the rhetoric," he said.

Just in case you haven't heard, in the run-up to the 2020 election, Newsweek took "a marked radical right turn" and is now dedicated to supporting so-called "National Conservatives." As such, they've become part of the right wing news echo chamber. So it's no surprise that the piece cited above has been picked up by The Federalist, Red State, Laura Ingraham, and many other right wing publications.

Weeding through the entire Newsweek article it becomes clear that the data they are reporting doesn't support the narrative they're trying to sell (ie, "the FBI's data shows a dip in the number of investigations since the slew of January 6 cases ended"). 

But the focus has been on the fact that in October 2022, the FBI created a new sub-category of "anti-government, anti-authority violent extremists," which they defined as: "individuals motivated by a desire to commit violence against those with a real or perceived association with a specific political party or faction of a specific political party."

So the FBI included violent extremists who target people because of their political party. But Newsweek and the other right wing publications turned that into the FBI is targeting Trump supporters for their politics. Do you see what they did there? 

The truth is that we have a Republican presidential candidate who in recent months has suggested that the Chair of the Joint Chiefs should be executed, warned of death and destruction if he's charged with a crime, declared that the FBI, Department of Justice, and Democratic Party collectively comprised a “cancer” that was killing the country, suggested that shoplifters should be shot, and promised to investigate news organizations for their "country threatening treason." 

As a result of this kind of rhetoric, the New York Times reported that since the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for classified documents last August, threats against federal law-enforcement employees and their families have increased by 300 percent. And let's not forget that it was Trump supporters who, at his direction, stormed the Capitol on January 6th amid cries of "Hang Mike Pence."

But according to Newsweek, it is Biden's warning about the danger of violent extremism that is to blame and the FBI is "weaponizing" the government by targeting Trump supporters merely for their politics. 

I remember the days when I'd see these kinds of lies and assumed that eventually the truth would become clear - proving that the purveyors of propaganda were wrong. But the gulf between right wingers and reality is so enormous now that I've had to accept that a day of reckoning isn't going to come. All I can do is hold fast to the truth and work to ensure that enough of us are doing so to defeat the liars in the long run.