The Long and Tangled History of Law Enforcement and Right-Wing Violence

In a similar vein, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have a history of simultaneously documenting and obscuring right-wing involvement in domestic terrorism. In 2009, for example, a unit within the DHS created a report on domestic extremists for law enforcement, which was leaked and then quickly withdrawn under pressure from conservative legislators; DHS subsequently gutted the domestic terrorism unit that produced the report.^[4] In 2017, just days before the “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia, the FBI released a report on “Black Identity Extremists” as a potential terror threat, inventing a category that explicitly targeted Black organizing against police brutality.^[5] More recently, in the summer of 2020, the first draft of an internal DHS report explicitly described White supremacists as the most serious terror threat in the U.S., but subsequent drafts replaced that with the non-specific phrase “domestic violent extremists,”^[6] which seems to invite inclusion of racial justice activists. The recent news that the FBI and DHS had substantial evidence of right-wing planning for January 6, but failed to share it outside those agencies in the expected ways,^[7] including with Washington law enforcement, continues this pattern. FBI officials told reporters that they and DHS decided against sharing a bulletin about the threat out of concern for protecting the First Amendment rights of pro-Trump protesters, although there appeared to be no similar concern regarding the release of intelligence bulletins ahead of Black Lives Matter protests last summer.^[8] All of this makes clear that federal law enforcement both knows about and systematically downplays the risk of politically motivated violence by White supremacist and other far-right movements, and that conservative legislators have played a role in this at times.

The recent insurrection makes visible these longstanding patterns of complicity, but the event itself, and its aftermath, lead us into new territory. This time, White supremacists and the Far Right invaded and shut down Congress, killed a member of the Capitol Police, and threatened to murder the vice president—all at the instigation of the sitting president. This level of assault cannot be covered up or downplayed the way previous far-right actions have been. The presence of armed groups in Michigan, Colorado, and other state capitals in 2020 were largely framed in terms of political polarization and resistance to public health measures such as masks and business closures, but these explanations collapse in the face of the Capitol invasion.

The law enforcement and media have responded to the gravity of the invasion and pressure from politicians who were legitimately horrified by what took place. There has been ongoing coverage in mainstream media exposing the links between far-right movements, law enforcement, and the military, as well as the failures of federal law enforcement in response to events that were openly planned on social media. Probably related to this, there have also been highly visible nationwide investigations and arrests, including of police and members of the military, as well as significant vetting of the National Guard troops brought in for the Biden-Harris inauguration.^[9]

The central challenge now is to consider the implications of this moment going forward. Right-wing movements grew significantly under the Trump administration, and that may continue over the next few years. Their successful invasion of the Capitol, with the encouragement of President Trump and perhaps multiple legislators, may well enhance their numbers as well as their sense of power and entitlement; the arrests and heightened scrutiny from—and of—law enforcement may strengthen the power of anti-government militias within the Far Right. The very elements many Americans find shocking, such as the participation of law enforcement and the middle class, may destigmatize the Far Right for some people and aid recruitment for a time. During the 1920s and early ‘30s, the Ku Klux Klan functioned as a national fraternal organization without changing its ideology or rejecting violent terrorism; many White American Protestants who joined the Klan didn’t see its violence as disqualifying, even if they did not engage in it themselves.^[10] In 2020, just over 74 million Americans voted for Trump; the White nationalism central to Trumpism has the potential to accept and promote violence as a response to societal changes and the (slowly) increasing representative diversity within the executive and legislative branches.

U.S. society has normalized very high levels of violence, much of it linked to right-wing actors and groups. There is the relentless violence towards abortion clinics and providers; mass shootings largely perpetrated by White men; the militarization of police forces and their structural violence towards communities of color. Similarly, the reality of far-right violence has been sidelined within operational understandings of “domestic terrorism”—something that both results from and enhances the normalization of White, right-wing violence overall.

A powerful response to what happened on January 6, and the risks we face as a society, would be to challenge the normalization of violence in the U.S. We don’t need new laws or police powers focused on domestic terrorism, or to further restrict access to public space; we certainly don’t need to further militarize law enforcement or expand the carceral system. Any increase in the violence of law enforcement will only increase other forms of violence in society, and will undoubtedly impact the vulnerable more than the powerful. As a society, we need to de-normalize violence, and this process would support the creation of a more just and equitable society.