Dip the Fuse in the Kerosene

On being labeled a party to terrorism by the government.

Last week the Media Research Center released a report (PDF) on material it had obtained from a FOIA request, revealing a taxpayer-funded, $40 million campaign conducted through the Department of Homeland Security that has been co-opted by the Biden Administration to target American conservatives. The MRC’s executive summary reads:

Under the Trump administration, the “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program” (TVTP) was used to prevent terrorism, but it was revamped under the Biden administration and renamed to provide funding for localities to combat “all forms of terrorism and targeted violence.” Instead of focusing on preventing actual violence and terrorism, the program is now being used to target the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other so-called training seminars as part of a coordinated effort to make America into a one-party system.

That sounds hysterical but the hysterics are developing the same admirable track record as the conspiracy theorists these days. Current year joke: What’s the difference between conspiracy theory and news? Six months.

As Josh Christenson reported, $352,109 of that kingly sum went to a program in Ohio to “develop and implement modules on the risks of and protective factors for radicalization to violence related to media literacy and online critical thinking for students.”

The PREVENTS-OH program at Dayton received the grant after a seminar held at the Ohio university’s Human Rights Center tied groups such as the Republican National Committee, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, and Fox News to known hate organizations including the neo-Nazi paramilitary group The Base and the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer.

One of the presenters at the seminar was University of Cincinnati postdoc Michael Loadenthal, who, along with DHS agent Joseph Masztalics, illustrated their talk with this rubric.

I have written for Quillette, grouped in the second, “alt-lite” tier of the pyramid, under Infowars and the Gonzales flag.

Loadenthal dissembled to Fox News that “The chart is meant to show that what is termed ‘the right’ is not monolithic and that some individuals travel to a path of radicalization, beginning with more mainstream sources. This point is not controversial nor is it deterministic; it is NOT meant to imply that engaging with level 1 inherently leads to level 4. That would obviously be false.”

That is all beside the point. It is meant to imply that Quillette sits along a route that passes from the Heritage Foundation to the Atomwaffen Division, which is slander. Furthermore, another seminar in Dayton was recorded, and Loadenthal was heard to say this:

[A]t a separate seminar titled "White Nationalism Workshop," Loadenthal also spoke and explained how “antifascists” could “pressure” financial services, retailers, service providers, and various platforms to “kick people off,” promoting the “de-platforming” of alleged fascists who he compared to the mainstream political right. 

“A lot of things we’re doing are illegal,” he said. “A lot of it involves breaking the law.”

Loadenthal also described hate speech as an act of war, calling it the “strategic deployment of organizational energy and power,” and called for shutting down forces deemed extremist.

“To deny people that, to shut down their websites, to close their meetings, [and] to physically prevent them from assembling in public — this is the belief,” he said, also displaying an infographic of how “antifascists” can “infiltrate,” “surveil,” and “disrupt” far-right forces….

“We organized largely through networks — today people would call Antifa, at the time it was known as anti-racist action — to follow white supremacists where they go, to outnumber them, and then to physically confront them and deny them the space to physically meet in public,” he said. “This is the idea of de-platforming. I worked in that realm for a long time.”

All this might have a background glow of morality if they were careful about who was a white nationalist. But no, thus they have designated me, a libertarian Jew writing about a self-described liberal, Jewish art critic for a self-described center-left publication. That sloppiness is deliberate, because the vaunted fight against white nationalism is a cover project. The real project is crushing dissent from progressive orthodoxy, dissent of which Quillette can genuinely boast.

Yes, they label it “antifascism,” but writing “caviar” on a can of cat food doesn’t make it fancy. These thugs are calling for criminality to thwart their political enemies, and they are being rewarded with academic appointments and millions of dollars from the Biden Administration. They regard “hate speech” - which has no legal meaning in this country - as not only violence, but an act of war, in turn justifying not only violent responses, but violence in excess of reciprocity.

The only path to a normalcy and peace befitting a free people in this country entails:

• The defeat of Biden in the next presidential election. It doesn’t matter by whom - Biden and his administration represent the worst tendencies of weaponized governance and progressive excess. As one supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said anonymously to

  The Free Press
  about the Democrats in a story from this morning, “Their science is shit, and they’re war-mongering, racially- and gender-obsessed lunatics at this point. It’s madness.” Part of the madness is their mandate to characterize all dissent as white supremacy.

• The termination of the Department of Homeland Security, who put themselves on the record to the New York Post regarding this story that the aforementioned seminar “was not funded, organized, or hosted” by DHS. Which again was beside the point, having rewarded the organizers $350,000 for doing it themselves. The Twitter Files revealed that DHS monitored the social media accounts of journalists, influencers, and activists who were critical of the Trump administration, creating dossiers on said critics and monitoring their interactions and collaborations. They subsequently turned their attention to attacking true information critical of the regime concerning Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. This, having failed to stand up a Disinformation Governance Board, the work of which continues covertly. DHS cannot be reformed or made useful and must be dissolved.

• Total federal defunding of American higher education. As demonstrated by Loadenthal, academia is crawling with advocates for criminal mayhem working with government spooks to undermine dignities enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Like the DHS, academia cannot be reformed or made useful, but Loadenthal could be made unemployed. Absolutely no dollars in any form should transfer between the federal executive and institutions of higher education. The collateral damage to legitimate students of legitimate subjects would be an unfortunate but justifiable price to pay to stop the assault on intellectual freedom and the proper operation of the First Amendment.

To those thinking that the above goes too far, I reply that I just felt the bullet graze my scalp. The current situation is not only dangerous to libertarians and conservatives, but to the remaining progressives who believe that tolerance and reason are worth preserving. I point out too that the above recommendations would at least be legal. Now that it has come to light that the Biden Adminstration is funding advocates for illegal politics, you should consider that you’re better off with political enemies in power who respect the rule of law, and thus respect your rights, than political enemies who have understood that criminality has fallen into the Overton Window and have decided to act accordingly.

Content at DMJ is free but is made possible thanks to paid subscriptions. Please consider one for yourself and thank you for reading.