Photo: Newark, Delaware Planned Parenthood vandalized by Samuel James Gulick

By Ben Robinson

Earlier this month, 18-year-old Samuel James Gulick was arrested for vandalizing a Newark, Delaware Planned Parenthood with fascist graffiti and throwing an incendiary device through its window.

The explosive device started a fire but burned out on its own after causing minor damage. For this, Gulick was charged with maliciously damaging a building and intentionally damaging a reproductive health services building. Additionally, he was charged with possessing an unregistered destructive device.

Gulick’s graffiti featured crude religious imagery co-opted by fascists and the slogan “deus vult,” Latin for “god wills it.” Originally used by Christians during the First Crusade, the phrase along with Crusader imagery is now used by many within the ‘alt-right’ to encourage violence against Muslims and is also associated with Christian fascists generally.

Gulick targeted Planned Parenthood specifically due to his far-right beliefs. On his since-deleted Instagram page, he compared abortion to the holocaust, among other anti-woman and white nationalist sentiments consistent with his brand of Christian fascist ideology. He also voiced support for those killed during the Waco and Ruby Ridge sieges, both far-right Christian separatists who have been hailed by white nationalists and more traditional rightwing militia movements to this day.

Young, petty bourgeois, white men such as Gulick are radicalized online by fascists who blame various oppressed groups for the problems caused by imperialism and assert white nationalism and reactionary violence as the solution.

Gulick faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines if found guilty, but his punishment will not change the conditions that gave rise to the fascist movement of which he is a part. Only a centralized, organized, and disciplined antifascist movement can combat fascists like Gulick and the ideology he represents.