Militia madness

Predictably, defeat has neither silenced Donald Trump nor deterred him from outrage. Yet amidst all the noise, the country cannot afford to normalise recent madness about militias. Whatever the framers of the Constitution had in mind about militias in the Second Amendment, the “militias” Trump has unleashed are domestic terrorists and must be treated as such.  

During a crackdown on protests in Portland, Oregon, during the summer of 2020, Trump-mobilised federal agents arrived on the scene in unidentifiable military-style camouflage, using unmarked vans. In an interview with broadcaster Michael Smerconish at the time, the first serving US secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, said the Department of Homeland Security was established to protect the country “from the ever-present threat of global terrorism.”  It was not, he says, “established to be the president’s personal militia.”

In fact, Ridge, who served two terms as the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, added that were he in office now, it would be a “cold day in Hell before I would consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention in one of my cities”.

Nothing better illustrates the dangers of normalisation than Judge Roger Benitez’s ruling earlier this month overturning California’s ban on assault weapons. In supporting AR-15s, he actually compared them to a Swiss army knife and affirmed their use as “perfect” as militia service weapons.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, this latest turn in militia madness is the culmination of Trump’s history of encouraging hate groups and calling for political violence. His 2020 campaign website, Army for Trump, ostensibly encouraged supporters to sign up and help him win re-election. Yet some of its language seemed an invitation to a MAGA militia, asking supporters to “enlist” and “join the frontlines” to work alongside battle tested Team Trump operatives.”  In that context, the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 were hardly surprising, nor was Trump’s equivocation, first encouraging the crowd, then making little attempt to stop the violence.

On June 15, the Biden Administration laid out its new national strategy for countering domestic terrorism, to guard against future events like January 6. As Attorney General Merrick Garland put it: “There is no place for violence in resolving political differences in our democracy…We will never take our eyes off the risk of another devastating attack by foreign terrorists. At the same time, we must respond to domestic terrorism with the same sense of purpose and dedication.”

Or in President Biden’s words: “This is a project that should unite all Americans. Together we must affirm that domestic terrorism has no place in our society. We must work to root out the hatreds that can too often drive violence.”  

The current Administration’s condemnation of violence, and the association of the violence to domestic terrorism is in stark contrast with the inciteful language used by the 45th President in the autumn of 2020. It is a beginning that militia madness is not normalised. The events of January 6 were not an exercise of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. They were an insurrection, perhaps an act of terrorism. They deserve to be called as such. And treated accordingly. 

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