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Not that there were no warning signs, on the contrary. Gretchen Whitmer had been the subject of criticism all spring. Criticisms that ignited the harsh crown regulations she had imposed as governor of Michigan. There were the protesters with signs that read “Stop tyranny.” There were the men armed with riot gear who stormed the state parliament. There was Donald Trump, who fueled the protests as much as possible. “FREE MICHIGAN!” The President of the United States tweeted. Even then there were voices asking where this would lead.
They received a response on Thursday. When the FBI announced that they had foiled the planned kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, many were dismayed, but not necessarily surprised. That says a lot about the mood prevailing in America a few weeks before the presidential election. On the fear of politically motivated violence, growing in the hot atmosphere this year. And about the fear that armed groups will go to extremes. “This is a sickly attempted attack, as we know it from the Islamic State, but now we have the problem at home,” said Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Gunmen in riot gear in the Michigan Parliament. (File image)
(Photo: Seth Herald / REUTERS)
What the FBI established in its indictment published Thursday sounds like a movie, but it was apparently very real. Investigators accuse a group of “violent extremists” who have since been arrested of conspiring against the Michigan government, starting a civil war and kidnapping the governor. Earlier this year, the FBI said it was aware that the group was referring to its revocation plans on social media. In June, the men specified their plans. They conducted joint weapons training, manufactured explosives, and located the private Whitmers vacation home, where they wanted to kidnap the governor.
Apparently there were plans to relocate Whitmer to find lodging in a neighboring state and to bring her to trial for “treason.” The group was also in contact with another Michigan militia, which they hoped would lead 200 armed members to storm the state parliament and take hostages there.
The plans were exposed because the FBI had smuggled informants who reported it to authorities in a timely manner. 13 men can now await charges. Regarding the political orientation of these men, the accusation limits itself to affirming that they are guided by an attitude hostile to the State. The suspects described Whitmer as a “tyrant” in conversations between them, using phrases that were often heard by right-wing groups during protests against the shutdown.
Whitmer himself, like other Democrats, established a direct link between the arrested extremists and Donald Trump. He was asked last week during the television duel with Joe Biden if he distanced himself from white racists, and he did so half. “Sure,” Trump said when asked by the moderator, then added to the leadership of a far-right group: “Stand back and get ready.” Extremists of all stripes heard very well what the president meant by that, Whitmer said Thursday: “This was not a reprimand, but a call to go into battle.”
After the suspects were arrested in Michigan, Trump was not heard from for several hours. The president tweeted a multitude of things about all sorts of things before speaking out later that night and attacking Whitmer. He said he “did a terrible job” dealing with the Michigan pandemic. Instead of thanking him for “my Justice Department and law enforcement agencies” preventing his abduction, Whitmer called him a racist. Unlike the Democrats, he does not tolerate any extreme violence. “
That was a variation on what Trump has been doing since the beginning of his term: equating left-wing extremists with the violence of right-wing extremists. Both are a problem in America, but the danger from the right is clearly greater, not only in the eyes of Democrats, but also in the eyes of the US government. He was “particularly concerned about violent racist extremists who have become exceptionally deadly in their targeted attacks,” Chad Wolf, the Trump-appointed acting Homeland Security Minister, wrote in a recent report on the situation.
“Racially motivated extremism” is the nation’s greatest terrorist threat, FBI Director Christopher Wray recently told Congress. So the warning signs are there. Not for the first time.
