H/T VDARE

The Derb makes an excellent point about Charleston shooter Dylann Roof who wanted to incite a “civil war”: in 1859, the abolitionist fanatic and terrorist John Brown succeeded in creating so much polarization and ill will between the North and South that he successfully “divided America.” Brown’s terrorist attack on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, its reception in the North, and the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia in the South it created was the single most important factor in breaking the Union.

Also at VDARE, Alexander Hart observes that the media was quick to dismiss Ismaaiyl Brinsley’s assassination of two New York City police officers as the actions of a mentally ill fanatic. Mark Potok of the SPLC dismissed the actions of Floyd Corkins and accused his critics of “attack[ing] perfectly legitimate criticism by saying the critics are responsible for any mentally ill or otherwise unhinged person who decides that the matter needs to be settled at the point of a gun.”