Glenn Greenwald writes that the June 4 warning from the Department of Homeland Security, alerting Americans that the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre could be an occasion for violence by “domestic extremists” was at least the fourth such bulletin issued in 2021 by the DHS, and none of the fears that agency has stoked has materialized. [https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-new-domestic-war-on-terror-has]
Threats issues with essentially zero specificity serve to put people in fear about their fellow citizens and to justify expansive deployments and budgets by security agencies.
Greenwald argues that with a new administration coming in on January 20, 2021, it was necessary to invent a new enemy, as Russia-mania was becoming old hat with Trump’s departure. That new enemy was undesired political activism — “domestic extremists.” Some of the worst excesses of the Global War on Terror launched by George W. Bush have returned. As an example, members of Congress have proposed adding to the due-process-free no-fly lists not only those arrested for actions on Jan. 6 but even U.S. Senators Cruz and Hawley.
While under Bush’s GWOT, “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” was the guiding concept, today the hunt for domestic extremists under every bed might be “either you are with us, or you are a racist, sexist, transphobe.”
