Steve Bannon and British neo-fascist Nigel Farage (Michael Vadon)

I had planned to write about gangster President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash the police, military and geriatric bikers on the left.

“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” said Trump in a Breitbart interview.

That was bad enough, but that story was supplanted by news of the awful New Zealand terrorist attack that left 49 people dead. However, the stories are linked. Brenton Tarrant, an Australian far-right terrorist, attacked two mosques in Christchurch. He also live streamed his attack and left a lengthy manifesto, titled “The Great Replacement,” detailing his white nationalist views.

In his publication, he named checked American far-right figures such as Trump, black white supremacist Candace Owens and domestic terrorist Dylan Roof. Tarrant also called Trump a “symbol of renewed white identity.”

Tarrant was also motivated by Anders Breivik, a Norwegian domestic terrorist who killed 77 people.

According to Nance’s book, “The Plot to Destroy Democracy,” resurgent white nationalism is a bigger and more complex problem than most people understand. White nationalism has been seen in Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece and Hungary. (Brexit was partly motivated by a desire to rid Britain of foreigners.) Far-right political operative Steve Bannon, who spread white nationalism through Breitbart, has been traveling across Europe organizing neo-fascist groups around an anti-immigrant, pro-white message.

This is a key link. Former NSA officer Malcolm Nance says Breivik’s terrorist attack, kicked off the wave of white nationalism and violence that has spread across the globe. Breivik, who saw himself as a crusader knight, wanted to spark a race war that drove Muslim immigrants out of Europe.

That didn’t happen, but he has become a cult figure among white nationalists. Lt. Christopher Hasson, the Coast Guard officer who wanted to massacre Trump enemies, was a Breivik fanboy. (Trump’s comments have been linked to at least three domestic terror attacks. Hasson, the MAGA bomber and the attack on the Wisconsin Jewish center.)

According to Nance’s book, “The Plot to Destroy Democracy,” resurgent white nationalism is a bigger and more complex problem than most people understand. White nationalism has been seen in Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Greece and Hungary. (Brexit was partly motivated by a desire to rid Britain of foreigners.) Far-right political operative Steve Bannon, who spread white nationalism through Breitbart, has been traveling across Europe organizing neo-fascist groups around an anti-immigrant, pro-white message.

I watched a VICE report on neo-fascism in Europe and was shocked to see far-right groups in Sweden use the exact same message as the Trump campaign. They chanted “Sweden First” and handed out Trump bumper stickers.

Nance says many of these groups are linked to Russia, which also promotes a far-right, white nationalist message. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-term goal is to weaken the European Union and NATO and he’s using white nationalism as a way to get his foot in the door and sew disunity. Putin has also managed to get many neo-fascists, including Bannon and former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to buy into the belief that Europe must ally with America in an impending war with Islam.

However, this message is also spreading across the world as far as New Zealand and Brazil. The title of Tarrant’s publication, “The Great Manifesto,” is a reference to the white nationalist belief that Jews are secretly replacing white people with brown-skinned immigrants. However, Australia and New Zealand are both countries largely created by mass immigration from Europe. He’s the descendant of immigrants himself! According to census figures, Muslims make up 1.2 percent of New Zealand’s population.

However, the fear of being replaced was also chanted by Neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, N.C. and has been repeated by FOX News neo-fascists Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.

Former professor Amy S. Kaufman, who runs the Public Medievalist website, says Nance has been shockingly accurate in predicting the rise of violent white nationalism.

“Unfortunately, Nance has turned out to be exactly right. For example, the same anti-Muslim, white nationalist propaganda that caused Breivik to think he was reviving the Crusades drove Alexander Bissonnette to murder six people at a mosque in Quebec last month. Like Breivik, Bissonnette imagined himself as a neomedieval warrior,” said Kaufman.

Tarrant is just the latest white nationalist terrorist. But he wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last.