Michael Hari (Photo provided by the Ford County Sheriff’s Office)

Writing about Donald Trump’s presidency is exhausting. There are daily scandals and you have to decide which outrageous lie to debunk. Trump lies so much it’s impossible to keep up.

A lot of times it seems as if you’re writing the same story over and over again — especially when it comes to far-right domestic terrorism. I’ve written about Cesar Sayoc, Lt. Christopher Hansson and Brenton Tarrant, who carried out the recent mass murder in Christchurch, New Zealand. All of these terrorists have been linked to Trump’s white nationalist rhetoric. I’ve talked about how there are more out there and discussed how the president is inspiring violence against his own people.

However, The Intercept’s in-depth article on Michael Hari, and a band of domestic terrorists who tried to blow up a Bloomington, Minn. mosque, is truly blood chilling. The article describes how Hari went from being an angry white man, who was frustrated with his lack of economic opportunities, to a fully-fledged, bomb-making terrorist. The Intercept article also details how Trump’s rhetoric played a key role on his road to radicalization.

“Anybody with a fundamentalist mindset has this ‘we-have-to-keep-our-ways, this-way-is-threatened’ mentality,” said a man who knew Hari but wished to remain anonymous according to The Intercept. “They look at Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and it’s a lot of what they’re saying. I don’t think Trump’s rhetoric is getting people to commit violence. It’s not like he’s saying, ‘Go bomb a mosque!’ I think it’s subtler. I think he’s flipping the switch in certain people. And I think he flipped that switch in Michael Hari.”

Hari fit all the check marks of a Trump supporter, he was a rural dweller, he worked in law enforcement, he was both a gun and QAnon enthusiast and more importantly, he was a religious fundamentalist. Hari belonged to an arch-conservative Baptist sect. In many ways, Hari sounded a lot like the ISIS recruits who fled the West to join the Caliphate. Hari and ISIS recruits were both afraid of the changing modern world. However, Hari fully bought into Trump’s rhetoric of wanting to go back to the “good old days.”

“Anybody with a fundamentalist mindset has this ‘we-have-to-keep-our-ways, this-way-is-threatened’ mentality,” said a man who knew Hari but wished to remain anonymous according to The Intercept. “They look at Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and it’s a lot of what they’re saying. I don’t think Trump’s rhetoric is getting people to commit violence. It’s not like he’s saying, ‘Go bomb a mosque!’ I think it’s subtler. I think he’s flipping the switch in certain people. And I think he flipped that switch in Michael Hari.”

In 2017, frustrated by several failed business opportunities, Hari turned to violence. He started directing his anger towards local Muslims who he didn’t think should be in the country. Another group of domestic terrorists, who tried to bomb a Kansas apartment complex that housed Somali refugees, called them “cockroaches.” This is the same dehumanizing language that was used just before the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. Trump also said “Islam hates us,” and tried to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Hari was part of a domestic terrorist cell who called themselves “the White Rabbit Three Percent Illinois Patriot Freedom Fighters Militia.” They started targeting local mosques with acts of vandalism and eventually tried to bomb one. The group also targeted women’s clinics.

Finally, Hari’s violent acts drew the attention of local law enforcement and the FBI who managed to place informants in Hari’s cell and arrest him.

So thanks to brave informants, including Hari’s brother, and good police work, we dodged a bullet again. But we can’t keep getting lucky. The police are not going to be able to stop all these attacks. And they’re not helped by the dopes in the White House who are trying to gaslight us into believing white nationalist terrorism isn’t a growing problem. This comment was made by not only Trump, but also by his Black Best Friend Dr. Ben Carson!

Dr. Erroll Southers, a professor of the Practice in National and Homeland Security at the University of Southern California (USC), said the Trump White House seems to be reluctant to take action on domestic terrorism.

“We have a White House that is not supportive,” said Southers in an Our Weekly interview.

Southers also said the Trump administration cut funding to the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program that encourages neo-Nazis to leave the movement.

This climate reminds me of the early 1990s, which also saw a rise in militia group activities. They were motivated by President Bill Clinton’s “liberal policies” and economic stagnation.

And that culminated in Timothy McVeigh, a disaffected Gulf War vet, detonating a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City.

It seems history is repeating itself.