Right-wingers are America’s “deadliest terrorists” if you exclude the deadliest, most catastrophic terrorist attack ever perpetrated on U.S. soil, according to data highlighted Wednesday by CNN anchor John Avlon.
Avlon’s overall point is confusing enough, and it is not entirely clear why he and his producers thought it would be a good idea to air this comparison of jihadi and right-wing body counts on the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which claimed some 3,000 innocent lives.
It began Wednesday with Avlon’s warning of America’s collective “9/11 amnesia,” which he arguably went on to demonstrate with what followed.
“It has been 18 years since 9/11,” he said. “So, children born on that day are now old enough to serve and fight in America’s longest war. In New York City, there are 13 members of the next graduating class from the fire academy who lost their fathers in the destruction of the World Trade Center. For many Americans, there is an absence of memory about 9/11, but for others, it persists because of the memory of absence.”
He continued, saying, “Even this year, we see first responders have to fight for health benefits they were promised by politicians who swore they would ‘never forget.’ Aided by a comedian who was just trying to give back a fraction of what they sacrificed for us. We’ve seen a president from New York float the truly awful idea of hosting the Taliban at Camp David for withdrawal talks within days of the 9/11 anniversary.”
Avlon added, “9/11 amnesia is naïve in the extreme because terrorism is always one bad day away from being the number one issue in America. But we’ve been able to forget not simply because of the passage of time, but because of the success of law enforcement and intelligence services, who have stopped so many would-be attacks that they have become background noise.”
This is where the segment finally reached its point and then, of course, went off the rails.
“In the past year, we’ve also been forced to confront a growing threat from another form of violent extremism: white nationalist terrorism,” said the anchor.
He then cited the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and at synagogues in both San Diego and Pittsburgh.
“These terror suspects echoed white supremacist talk about ‘replacement,’ hatred towards Jews, immigrants, refugees, and that’s not including the would-be attacks thwarted by law enforcement,” Avlon said. “Here’s a startling statistic,” he added, citing the liberal think tank New America, “since 9/11, right-wing terrorists have killed more people in the United States than jihadist terrorists.”
That is one hell of a qualifier to say that right-wingers are the deadliest, as long as you don’t count the deadliest. The figures Avlon cites come from New America’s terrorist activity database, which reports the “far right-wing” has murdered 109 people in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks. The “far right-wing,” according to the database, includes everything from sovereign citizens, to neo-Nazis, to a gunman who once “expressed hatred towards liberals and gays.” In comparison, jihadists have murdered 104 people in America since 9/11. In other words, “right-wingers are America’s deadliest terrorists” by a difference of five, and only if you exclude the nearly 3,000 people who were murdered on Sept. 11, 2001. New America’s terrorist activity database, by the way, is headed by its vice president for global studies and fellows, Peter Bergen, who also works as a national security analyst for CNN.
Also, I cannot be the only one who caught the irony of Avlon citing a claim that requires the exclusion of the 9/11 death toll during a segment that was supposed to be about “9/11 amnesia.”
“There are some folks for their own political purposes would like to keep the focus on only one form of political violence over another, but that would be unwise,” Avlon said, nearing his conclusion, “because we don’t have the luxury of choosing which threats we face. And there’s a case to be made that these threats actually echo each other.”
He added, “They’re weaponized versions of tribalism, motivated by fear and finding identity in their hatred of the ‘other.’”
Avlon ended with this: “To mark the 18th anniversary of 9/11 is to reflect on how we are all the children of 9/11. That attack unleashed destructive forces that we’re still wrestling with. But to truly learn the lessons of 9/11 is to resolve not to let hate win or fear define us.”
At this point, I am not entirely sure if the segment is about New America’s list or the Sept. 11 attacks. It seems like Avlon wanted to talk a little bit about both, and in the process failed to make sense of either.
