Extremists in the Military Have a Friend in Fox

As the Biden administration tries to weed out white supremacists in the ranks, right wing media runs interference.

On Tuesday, the Daily Beast reported that, '“An active-duty U.S. Marine came under federal investigation for allegedly plotting with at least two others to assassinate minorities, drug users, and employees of the Democratic National Committee with explosives, rocket launchers, and automatic rifles.” Along with two non-military friends, this one-time Marine named Travis Owens, now drummed out of the service, talked committing Timothy McVeigh-style massacre.

The Daily Beast adds, “one of the suspects had links to the Atomwaffen Division, a violent neo-Nazi group linked to at least five murders. A handful of active service members and veterans have been identified as being members of Atomwaffen, which calls for the armed overthrow of the U.S. government.” One of Owens’ confederates, an Arkansas-based mechanic named Jason D’Juan Garfield, has been convicted of illegal gun possession. The investigation into Owens is ongoing.

The details in The Daily Beast article are disturbing:

The trio seemed to be preparing for a full-blown race war. Their goals were laid out in group chats underneath exhortations such as, “WISDOM: WE CAN ACCELERATE TODAY FOR A NEW WORLD TOMORROW,” and, “SP**CS AND NI***RS NEED TO HANG FROM TREES,” the warrant states. In one conversation, Garfield allegedly wrote, “Racism isn’t real, whites are the only humans.” In another, he discussed assassinating Arkansas state Sen. Stephanie Flowers, who is Black.

“Just fucking McVeigh the DNC,” Garfield, who boasted of his Atomwaffen connections, wrote in one message.

The story of Owens is evidence that white supremacist extremism remains a problem in the American military. The full extent of the problem is difficult to gauge. After the January 6 insurrection, the Biden administration made confronting the issue a top priority, spurred by the fact that military veterans and current military men were over-represented in the insurrection.

On June 23, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, told congress he wanted to “understand white rage” as one of the cause of the January 6 insurrection. As I’ve noted before, these remarks sparked outrage on the right.

What I want to underscore now is that the attack on Milley and the so-called “woke military” are based on denying that white supremacist extremism even exists as a problem, let alone something serious enough to warrant an investigation.

On Fox News, Laura Ingraham responded to Milley by saying:

The idea that we are sending our tax dollars to this military to an attempt to weed out so called extremists, which just means conservative evangelicals, as far as I can tell. We’re paying for that? Why is Congress not saying we’re not going to give you a penny until all of this is eradicated from the military budget?

Tucker Carlson has been criticizing what he calls the “woke military” since March, repeatedly arguing that racism is a non-problem in the services. Last Friday, a Carlson guest said, “We have been a colorblind culture in the United States military for almost 200 years.” (In fact the military was segregated until 1948 and has had to grapple with racism since).

On Monday, Carlson argued, “Americans are, in fact, much more likely to die from a lightning strike than at the hands of a white supremacist. White supremacy may be ugly, many opinions are, but it is not a meaningful threat to the nation.” Carlson went on to describe the claim that white supremacy is a threat to America as a “racial lie.” (In reality, contrary to Carlson’s claims, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, neither agency run by particularly liberal folks, consider white supremacist violence to be a genuine threat).

VoteVets @votevets

Oh nothing, just @TuckerCarlson defending white supremacists, saying they’re not the problem. In other words, that he’s not the problem.

The exact scale of danger posed by organized violent racists in the military is hard to estimate, but Carlson and his Fox news buddies are wrong to say it is nonexistent. One can disagree with Biden’s counter-terrorism strategy (which I myself have criticized) without the sort of absurd denial that Ingraham and Carlson are spouting.

Violent white extremists are real. Some are in the military. The danger of racist extremists with access to military training and equipment doesn’t need to be underscored. The name Timothy McVeigh stands as a warning to us just as it is also an inspiration to violent racists.

By denying that white supremacists political violence, both inside the military and out, is a problem, right-wing voices like Ingraham and Carlson are engaged in a dangerous form of whitewashing. Whether intentionally or not, these right wing voices are running interference for the extremists.

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