Will Bunch on rightwing terrorism in Germany and the USA

Will Bunch calls attention to the Hanau, Germany, terrorist attack last week and scolds the American media's neglect of the growth of violent far-right in the US (Can we talk about the Trump-loving, QAnon-type who slaughtered 10 people in Germany? Philadelphia Inquiry 02/23/2020):

Trapped in a psychological void on the other side of the world, a German killer was very much influenced by his understanding of politics in the United States. Echoing other mass-murder manifestos, he was fascinated by the rise of Donald Trump and what that said about white supremacy. In addition to supporting Trump’s scheme to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the Hanau gunman argued the 45th president should "take the helm since his personality makes him the person most capable of setting the agenda in the U.S.” ...

It can’t happen here? It already is. This weekend - during a Google search for something completely different - I stumbled across a gob-smacking phenomenon also getting zero, or close to zero, coverage in national media. In rural Virginia counties, in a state where control of the legislature has flipped to Democrats during the Trump era, armed men are walking into country commission meetings demanding permission to form militias, urging sheriffs to resist any gun-control laws, and calling for secession into more conservative West Virginia.

In Wise County, Va., about 50 members of an outfit calling itself the Wise County Patriots Group, many of them wearing stickers readings “Guns Save Lives” (paging Mr. George Orwell), flooded the county board to demand creation of a militia that would be, in the words of one activist, “a thumb in the eye” of Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam. In nearby Charlotte County, Va., two brothers armed with rifles and wearing camouflage stormed into the commissioners’ meeting to make the same type of demand.

Given Trump's repeated hints - threats, really - that he won't leave office even if he loses the election in November, groups like this are especially likely to commit terrorist acts after the election. Will Bunch is right: "We really need to be talking about the mayhem that a Trump-loving conspiracy freak unleashed in Hanau."