It Will Happen Here

It will happen here. It has already happened in Canada. Someone will get killed by a racist Trump supporter. In Canada, Alexandre Bissonnette shot six people to death and injured 19 in an attack on the Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec. The attack occurred just a day after Trump's Muslim ban went into full effect. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the shootings a"terrorist attack on Muslims." Bissonnette was described as a supporter of Trump and Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right National Front in France. According to Salon, he "has expressed far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, and pro-Israel view" and a friend said "He really liked Trump and had a permanent grudge against the left".  Initially, Bissonnette was arrested along with a Muslim who police later determined had nothing to do with the attacks and was even attempting to save some of those shot. But that didn't stop Fox (Faux) News from running with the story that it was a terrorist attack by a Muslim, proving Trump's Muslim ban was needed. Justin Trudeau had to shame the network into retracting that story. Even Trump's Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried to capitalize on the shooting to support Trump's Muslim ban.

In the US, in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of Trump's Muslim ban, the Islamic Center of Victoria, Texas was destroyed by a fire that is still under investigation. Three weeks earlier, an Islamic Center in Austin that was under construction was also destroyed by fire.

But it is not just Muslims who are under attack, although they seem to be the primary target. Simple opposition to Trump is enough to get you attacked. In Seattle, a man who was protesting the appearance of a right wing flamethrower at the University of Washington was shot in the stomach by an angry Trump supporter. Incredibly, the shooter turned himself in but was released "in consultation with the prosecuting attorney’s office". Meanwhile the victim has undergone multiple surgeries.

In New York City, two people protesting another right wing provocateur, James O'Keefe, were choked, stomped, and thrown down a flight of stairs. In addition, one of the two protesters had his phone and camera stolen. Again, according to the Huffington Post article, "Police made no arrests and a spokesman said the injured men were not assaulted at the location of the O’Keefe party. The spokesman said police were called to settle a harassment complaint, not for an assault".

Finally, Trump's Holocaust denial in his statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day has brought the anti-semites out in force. White nationalist Richard Spencer praised Trump for his "de-Judification" of the Holocaust and saying that Jewish activists refuse to recognize the Holocaust was "just another genocide".

In the few months since Trump's election, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes around the country, has documented over a thousand incidents. Trump is the darkness that has let the roaches come out from the shadows. And someone will die because of it. Don't tell me that the threat of fascism is overblown.