The attack against Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and his family in early April appears to be a hate crime. The attacker who torched the governor’s mansion, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, who has a history of posting hatred for Democrats on social media, told a 911 operator that Shapiro, who is Jewish, put his people “through too much” and called him a monster. Balmer, who is white, appears to reference parts of the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory.
While it’s too early to tell what Blamer was specifically referencing, the hypotheses in the conspiracy theory revolve heavily around the idea that Jewish people are behind every perceived problem that ails the so-called “white race.” Essentially, everything from equal rights to the perception that white men are no longer centered, they suggest, is because of a campaign by Jewish elites to eliminate white people, either through mass migration or social equity for Black people, women, the LGBTQ community, etc.
“I wish no harm on anyone. But that man, that man, he is doing serious, serious harm,” Balmer told a 911 operator after firebombing Shapiro’s house. “Our people have been put through too much by that monster. All he has is a banquet hall to clean up.”
In early February, 17-year-old Nikita Casap allegedly killed his mother and stepfather and was plotting to kill President Donald Trump to “foment a political revolution in the United States and ‘save the white race’ from ‘Jewish controlled politicians,’” according to his manifesto as described in court documents and obtained by ProPublica. The documents reveal that Casap was inspired by Terrorgram, an international designated terrorist network I’ve previously covered that is linked to several mass shootings and dozens of violent crimes across Europe.
While the Terrorgram network isn’t as prominent as it was in 2019, when dozens of Telegram channels and chat groups were focused on inciting white supremacist violence, the network is still active despite U.S., Canadian, and European authorities disrupting its platform. In Casap’s three-page manifesto, he encouraged people to read the work of Juraj Krajčík, a prominent figure in the network who killed two people in an attack on an LGBTQ bar in Slovakia in 2022.
According to charging documents, a witness told investigators that Casap “was in touch with a male in Russia through the Telegram app and they were planning to overthrow the U.S. government and assassinate President Trump.” Ideas of race wars and the collapse of U.S. society are prominent fixtures in various domestic white supremacist movements.
“Do absolutely anything you can that will lead to the collapse of America or any country you live in,” Casap allegedly wrote in his manifesto, according to an FBI affidavit. “This is the only way we can save the White race.”
Last week, 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner opened fire at Florida State University, killing two and injuring six. Ikner reportedly had an obsession with the Nazis and seemed to be fascinated by hate groups, according to his online activity. Local reports say people who knew Ikner said he had a history of promoting “radical” conspiracy theories and hateful ideas. He was allegedly removed from a student politics group on campus over his “white supremacist rhetoric.”
That Ikner is the stepson of a sheriff’s deputy highlights how susceptible young white men are to being influenced by hateful ideas online, regardless of their background
In San Antonio in mid-March, the ”Quintana Road Memorial” to the 53 migrants who died in the back of a semi truck in 2022 was destroyed in what is being referred to as a hate crime by Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales. In a statement on Facebook, the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, encouraged people to “look to the future with hope instead of distress.”
“I encourage everyone to pray and look to the future with hope instead of distress,” said the Archbishop. “That city and civic leaders have spoken out publicly and forcefully regarding the destruction of this site again illustrates that this is a community that unites and comes together in times of challenge.”
Earlier this month, an armed Texas woman in Dallas went on a threatening anti-immigrant, Latinophobic rant using myriad racial slurs against her neighbor. The woman accused her neighbor of having a stolen car in her driveway, demanded to see her “papers,” and kept yelling that the victim had no rights, accusing her of being an “illegal” immigrant while calling her a wetback in both English and Spanish.
Many more cases like these are being reported daily, from people claiming to be ICE agents or police to people falsely reporting U.S. citizens to the authorities, many on the far-right, that is, Trump supporters, are being emboldened by the racist authoritarian speech coming from the Trump camp, both during the election and after. In the struggle to prove the lies they’ve been telling are true, they’re targeting innocent people and claiming they’re gang members and terrorists with blatant lies to circumvent people’s rights.
Using dubious determining factors like speech, tattoos, and skin color to dictate who should be snatched up off the street and potentially sent to terrorist prisons like Guantanamo or CECOT in El Salvador has only left racists to use similar qualifiers based on their individual questionable observations about Latinos in their proximity. Because of the administration’s rhetoric, Latinos are their base’s primary targets for oppression along with Black people, women, and the LGBTQ community.
Race relations in the U.S. continue to go downhill, not just because of the Trump administration spreading hate, but because too many people willingly fall for it. Make no mistake, those who choose to get suckered do so voluntarily. They await the next talking point to justify their bigoted beliefs, no matter how wrong you prove them to be. There is no meeting them in the middle or finding common ground. It’s what they want and nothing else. They don’t care who they screw over, inlcuding themsleves.
Remember, they may be loud. But they are the minority.
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