Where were you 9/11/2001?

[Rev. Rye]

It does point to them not trying anything on that scale again.

Thanks to the security measures we've taken since a tragic attack where 2,977 people died at the hands of Islamic extremists. 

And still, what you're saying is pure speculation. It sounds good, and I hope you're right. But it's just that.

And the fact that the Islamists' guerrilla warfare is a double edged sword that works well for them in the Middle East (because their way of thinking might be easier for the local culture to appreciate) and doesn't work so well in America (because for all our diversity of thought, a caliphate isn't something most Americans aren't likely to consider a decent goal?

And while I did try to compare numbers earlier, I think that a better point of comparison is to ask "how alien is the ideology they're working for to the general populace? How popular is it likely to become?" In America, at least, the whole idea of an Islamic theocracy is not really mainstream (a Christian theocracy is another story, but ISIS ain't fighting for Gilead). Hell, even the increasingly visible population of Muslims knows that this is not a good thing. At the very least, they know it puts a lot of negative attention on them, and thus, when asked, they condemn them in no uncertain terms:




Far-right terrorism? Well, America has had a history of racism for as long as a concept of "race" has existed, and it was practically the default until over half a century ago. And after that, questionable attitudes towards other races kept being smuggled in, and I think the first seeds for explicit, politically-sanctioned racism to come back in American political life came with Bush II. After 9/11, it became acceptable to insult Muslims/Arabs (yes, I know in theory not all Arabs are Muslims, and vice versa, but in practice, the religious-ethnicity question is intertwined.) After all, we don't know jack shit about Muslims except they attacked us. Well, that and Aladdin. Also, Dubya decided to get tough on immigration, which helped raise vitriol against Hispanics and make the prejudice, which already existed, more visible. And, of course, when Obama got elected, the right lost its shit and occasional use of racialised language towards Obama (and eventually other black people, once Trayvon Martin got shot) started to become mainstream. And thus, when Donald Trump runs as a dark horse candidate for the Republican Party, building his entire campaign on bigotry, he eventually becomes not only the front-runner, but also the fucking President. Why? Because his race-baiting really resonates with a depressingly large part of the American population.

And that's why I think far-right terrorists are a bigger threat than Islamist terrorists.