What to Make of the Attacks in El Paso and Dayton?

Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Last Friday, August 3^rd, two horrific shooting attacks occurred in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Combined, 32 people were killed, and dozens more were hurt and wounded.

The El Paso attack, ostensibly, was motivated by anti-Hispanic sentiment. The manifesto posted by the gunman before the shooting indicated his worry about Hispanics “invading" the US, “replacing” white people over time, especially in Texas, leading to a single-party dictatorship in the US. These are standard racist tropes used by white power groups to demonize and justify violence against non-white populations, whether Hispanics/Latinos, Jews, Muslims, African-Americans, etc. The motive for the Dayton shooting is less clear. That shooter has expressed left-wing sympathies, though with no note or manifesto or any other corroboration, it’s unfair to directly tie his politics to the murders he committed.

These attacks have roiled the US, and, as you might expect given the current political climate in America, the political fallout has been particularly dramatic.

Republicans—the party of gun rights—and their supporters have been on the defensive. They’ve blamed mental health issues, violent video games, and the lack of God in people’s lives as prime factors in the attacks—traditional conservative arguments that the right trots out to explain away gun violence. They’ve also attempted to score points by linking the Dayton shooter to left-wing causes and ideologies. Trump himself stated, “The Dayton situation, he was a fan of Antifa, he was a fan of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, nothing to do with Trump, but nobody ever mentions that.”

As expected, Democrats of all stripes have renewed with vigor their calls for stricter gun control. They’ve also come out strongly against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for blocking various gun bills in Congress. In fact, Ohio Congressman (and long shot for the Democratic nomination for president) Tim Ryan announced plans to lead a caravan to Kentucky, McConnell’s home state, to raise awareness of existing gun bills on the table and to put pressure on McConnell to take action. Additionally, Democrats have intensely criticized president Trump for his incendiary rhetoric (both on the campaign trail and while in office). Presidential contenders Beto O’Rourke and Elizabeth Warren, for example, have taken the gloves off, labeling Trump a white supremacist who deserves some of the blame for the violence.

Quite a bit of left-wing commentary has argued that Trump is directly connected to the recent spate of right-wing violence and attacks. Which begs a good question: Is this true? Is Trump to blame for these attacks? I’m sure for many Americans, including some conservatives, it sure feels like Trump has something to do with the spike in right-wing violence. After all, trump has routinely lampooned and launched verbal attacks against Latinos, Muslims, African-Americans, women, Democrats, the media, among many others. But does all this mean that Trump’s to blame or responsible for last weekend’s violence? What do we make of Trump’s role? Let’s take a clear-eyed look at this issue.

Well, to begin, white power attacks and violence long pre-date Trump. The US has a sordid and violent history of race relations—with minorities receiving the brunt of the very negative economic, political, security consequences. The slavery era, reconstruction, internment camps, the rise of the Klan, the backlash against civil rights legislation, the prominence of extremist militia groups, deportations—all of these things span from before the founding of the US republic and run right through to today. The virus of white power and supremacy—and the attendant demonization of and violence against the so-called non-white “other” in society—hasn’t been removed from the US body politic and it in fact still thrives in dark corners of American life. And while Americans—both citizens and politicians—became preoccupied with Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, the white power movement, forgotten and overlooked, continued to gather steam. Indeed, the leading cause of violent mass extremist attacks on American soil since 9/11 have been committed by white power individuals and groups. So this is something that’s been on the rise well before Trump arrived on the political scene.

And even when we look at the specifics of recent individual violent hate crimes and attacks, especially those committed during the Trump era, it’s difficult to clearly and definitively attribute causal force to Trump—even though many want to do so. For starters, it’s hard enough to discern motives and intentions, especially without any kind of manifesto or public statement. And even in cases in which such a document is present, that’s no guarantee we can identify a clear motive. Mass murderers, like people more generally, often lie and dissemble and exaggerate for their own purposes. Plus, the white power movement presents its own difficulties. Even though the El Paso killer seemed to use language about minorities that’s consistent with what Trump has used in the past, it’s also language that’s often and easily found in white power circles—circles that aren’t only American, but are increasingly transnational. The “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which the El Paso shooter discussed at length in his manifesto, actually originates from a French writer, Renuad Camus, and has been picked by other infamous white power types, like the Christchurch, New Zealand shooter.

To be clear, all of the above is not meant to absolve Trump of any and all responsibility. Instead, it’s meant to say that Trump is not a singular direct cause of the white power violence in the US. In my view, it’s better to view the Trump-white power connection as a complex set of forces.

In Trump, white racists have found an once-in-a-lifetime president who publicly espouses views and policies, particularly on race relations, trade, and immigration, that fit with their political preferences. At the same time, pockets of white Americans have become disaffected and angry and fearful, because of globalization, automation, US wars, 9/11, and the drug crisis, among other factors. In Trump, the disaffected and angry, desperate for any politician to relieve their burdens and crises, have found someone who proclaimed to championed their cause and felt their pain. And a booming economy, conservative Supreme Court justices, along with biased and fake news disseminated by Russian trolls, mainstream news sources, social media, and POTUS himself, have kept them loyal to Trump. This is the context in which not only white racists but also the disaffected and angry have opted for Trump and continue to support him.

Trump, in turn, seeing these white voters as his core base of support—one that’s indispensable to his reelection—has gone out of his way to appease them and keep them activated by telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether his statements bear any resemblance to truth or decency, and implementing policies, such as the Muslim ban, the wall, and family separations, they favor. Overall, Trump’s goal has been to create continual domestic chaos, which keeps his core base ginned up and willing to go to bat for him—online, at public rallies, and at the polls. One salient way he’s done this is by making race/ethnicity a key animating feature of us politics and policymaking. This is the gamble he’s made. Of course, he might be wrong, in that the chaos and coarseness could turn off just enough independents and fringe members of the core to turn the election to the Democrats in 2020.

In the meantime, though, all of this has led to a very combustible political environment. In short, Trump has fostered a political climate in white power extremism and violence can flourish. And white racists and their sympathizers are more prominent than they’ve been in decades. Certainly, since 2015, they’ve been mainstreamed. And with someone they see as one of their own in the White House, and with the overwhelming majority of the GOP (which is in control of the Senate) indefatigable in its defense and support of Trump and his views and policies, they’re now politically ascendant. They have representation in both the executive and legislative branches of the US government. Moreover, it’s evident they feel free to say what they want and to organize publicly. The fierce confrontation in Charlottesville in 2017 is one of many sad contemporary examples. 

Or look at Trump’s political rallies. They’ve been marred by fist fights against anti-MAGA folks, chants of “lock her up” and “send her back,” and even a reference by a crowd member to shooting “invading” Hispanics—which generated applause and laughter from both the crowd and Trump. To which Trump responded, “That’s only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.”

It’s a troubling situation. What if Trump is reelected in 2020? Maybe he moderates a bit on racial/ethnic issues, just because he doesn’t have to worry about another political campaign and can focus on burnishing his legacy as president. Maybe, but maybe not. Perhaps what we’ve seen and heard from Trump isn’t a political act, but a roughly accurate representation of his worldview. And if he’s not re-elected? That doesn’t necessarily portend better news, frankly. The fires Trump has lit won’t burn out once he leaves office, whenever that is. The US will deal with the political, social, and cultural ramifications of Trump’s rule well after he leaves the presidency. Healing the nation will take up considerable time for the next few presidents, much like it took the US years to recover from the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Moreover, there’s another issue. There are kids, likely living in MAGA households, who parrot Trump’s heated rhetoric in schools. These kids will probably grow up to be MAGA adults. What then? These are rough times with no easy answers.