GOP twists hearing on white nationalism away from topic

Sorry, Republicans, but your defense of white nationalism isn't becoming for the GOP

SCREEN CAPTURE

Conservatie activistCandace Owens and Rep. Ted Lieu

If there is anything we learned about white nationalism from the House Judiciary Committee's hearing, it's that some conservative members of Congress have become defenders of white nationalism.

Instead of a hearing on white nationalism, the Tuesday hearing turned into a tit-for-tat as conservatives maneuvered the discussion about zioni,  antifa attacks against Mis;o, vocto,s pf jate.

“The fact that Dr. Abu-Salha who had lost two of his daughters and his son-in-law, and then for two of the three questions to be about whether your kids were taught to hate as Muslims — for that to happen is so traumatizing,” said Darakshan Raja of the Justice for Muslims Collective. “This was supposed to be about white nationalism and hate, and it ended up being not about that at all. It ended up being about the people who were being targeted by hate violence the most.”

Muslim Americans were a favorite target. During the heaering, Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America and a staunch Trump supporter, proceeded to lecture Abu-Salha about Islam. “I am confused when the good doctor says that Islam does not promote hatred of Jews,” Klein said. “We need to have Muslims step up.”

Klein, who previously refused to apologize for using the term “filthy arab,” also spent his moments on the soapbox railing against Rep. Ilhaan Omar, a Muslim congresswoman. He called her out by name at least three times.

“I was horrified to see Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer defend Rep. Omar after her vicious anti-Semitic remarks,” Klein said. “That was unfair.” Klein also suggested that the white supremacist accused of murdering 50 Muslims at mosques in New Zealand was “left-wing.”

Many of the Republicans yielded their time to panelist Candace Owens, a conservative commentator in the mold of Ann Coulter: Make ridiculous statements with no evidence; the more ridiculous, the better.

It seemed that the Democrats were reluctant to attack Owens because she is black. They would be falling into a clever trap to prove her oft-quoted statement, "Democrats are racists.

In fact, when Rep Ted Lieu, D-CA, replayed a tape of Owns praising Hitler, she launched her trap: “I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety. He purposefully presented an extracted clip,” she said, before committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) interrupted.

“What I think the hearing illustrated is just how deep the political divisions are: so deep that we can’t have unanimity about hate crimes and white nationalism,” said Brian Levin, a national expert in hate crimes who heads the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. 

“We’re on thin ice with all kinds of extremism — white nationalism in particular — and we missed a real opportunity to explore the risk,” he told Vox.

The hearings first heard from the tech companies, Google and Facebook and what they have done to remove hate speech and writings for their social media platforms.

As if to underscore the spervasiveness of the issue, YouTube shut down the comment section on its livestream of a congressional hearing on white nationalism Tuesday after the section filled with hateful comments, underscoring the problem lawmakers had gathered to discuss.

Many of the comments expressed anti-Semitic views or decried multicultural societies. Others expressed white pride.

Donald Trump for his part refuses to acknowledge that white nationalism is a rising terror threat, preferring to downplay these men as lone attackers with mental illnesses who have nothing to do with him and his divisive rhetoric.

Recently FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that white supremacy is a "persistent, pervasive threat."

What today's hearing unveils is the urgency to have  that the difficult and uncomfortable conversation on race before white nationalists d that conversation with their twisted beliefs and stir up the fears of other whites who feel threatened by the population shift that's occurring wherein people of color will be in the majority by mid-century. 

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