This was a comment I originally made on a post about those in the new US administration attempting to treat this as 9/11. As such, it might not be the best format for this, but I feel that it's really important to discuss this in public someplace given how quick it seems that Blue MAGA-like liberals seem just as willing as republican liberals to ignore the last two decades of history at least in favor of owning their opponents. (Note: I am using European definitions of liberals). No good can come from attempting to give the US government a mandate to wage war against people on their own soil, even if those people are condemnable. I hope this sparks some discussion, I might tune it out, but if it gets people thinking about how the rhetoric of "terrorism" is harmful to everyone, and how we will never be able to address white supremacist extremism if the method taken is to blindly condemn all republican voters, or similar.

I am personally more afraid of either party manufacturing a mandate to label people terrorists and wage no-quarter war against the USA's own citizenry with no regard for their failures as a government over the last century than I am of any of the well-known and documented white-supremacist groups with terroristic intent.

Also, if I could apply the Political History and Political Theory flairs to this as well, I would.

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As much as the Capitol Riot was dumb and dangerous, and despite those people that should probably receive charges for their involvement in it, instituting another round of 9/11 fear mongering and terrorism rhetoric is even more stupid and dangerous.

We already know the names of the white supremacist groups with terroristic intent and those who comprise them.

It's fine to do something about them.

But the patriot act took away a great number of people's rights to free speech and privacy. Terrorism rhetoric has resulted in disasterous wars in the middle east because our country insists on one response: overwhelming, indiscriminate violence toward anyone that it deems a threat.

I am terrified of Democrats and others using this as an excuse to curb civil liberties further, institute more "anti-terror" laws that are deleterious to democracy, and attempt to take away people's rights to bear arms.

We know what happened on January 6th: The ineffectual white-supremacist police force of Capitol hill predictably allowed a mob of white supremacists into the building which effectively granted them to do whatever they wished on the premises before the secret service and a few others got it under control.

What needs to happen is a curbing of state control, the abolition and replacement of police forces, and a period of reconstruction and deradicalization.

Demonizing run of the mill republican voters; calling them cultists; and attempting sweeping reforms to take firearms away from the right, the left and liberals that have firearms solely to defend themselves against the right, libertarians; is only going to make the chances of an actual reconstruction and deradicalization even worse at best, and at worst give right-wingers real reasons to be upset at the state:

And frankly, if the democrats started using flimsy excuses to arrest Republican voters on terrorism charges I would have a hard time not sympathizing with them.

Federal cops under the Biden admin are still beating and teargassing protestors, and taking firearms away from black people who undoubtedly need them.

Every single law that has been passed for anti-terror or other purposes has been used on a bipartisan basis against BIPOC people in the USA. The Democrats are equally responsible for undemocratic actions worldwide, and ICE concentration camps.

And because those actions are condemnable, and I damn both parties for them, I have to say that the proper solution is to stop doing those things to BIPOC people protesting for their rights and apply the laws we already have properly to white supremacist groups with true terroristic intent.

None of this requires an expansion of cops, or anti-terror laws. It requires noticing that burning down a target and police precinct and protest in the capitol are all acts of protest and applying that evenly.

It requires treating individual actors as individual actors.

I do, unfortunately have to say - despite honestly believing that we have a right to shut down protests by Illinois Nazis - that overreacting and treating every Republican in the US as a terrorist, that overreacting and doing dumb overreaching shit is dangerous to our democracy and ourselves.

Doing what BLM and other groups have been demanding: an end to the policing and police that enable white supremacy, socialized healthcare, the reform of education into something truthful and educational, voting reform (this new bill is a start, but we need to move on to ranked choice), a massive shift to green energy and assistance on giving oil people new jobs, and loads of other social and economic reforms would be far more effective in combating white supremacist extremism than blowing up republican voters.

I don't want the government to blow up Republican voters, I want the government to educate them and deradicalize them, and give them free mental and physical healthcare, so they don't feel the need to blow me and my friends up.

We have decades of data showing that meeting extremism with blind and overwhelming violence just makes things worse, because you can't fight deeply rooted cultural issues - or in the case of the middle east, a deeply rooted want for yankee to go home - with machine guns and indiscriminate carpet bombing.

And also, I think the government should give those things to everyone because it's the right thing to do, too.