Seeing the Forest

 ELIZABETH NEWMAN, a career national security professional, was an assistant director of the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, having worked for the DHS since nine eleven. Her job description was assessing and reducing the threat of domestic made in America terrorism. Her thorough, assiduously researched assessment, verified by the FBI, is that by far the greatest internal threat to American national security comes from right wing extremist groups of the sort which ardently support Donald Trump, refuse to accept the reality of his election defeat, and planned the Capitol insurrection on the internet, a confirmed fact. Right wing extremism, irrefutably, demonstrably dangerous to America. Newman served for three years in the Trump administration where she, a conservative Republican Christian, tried to make this dangerous situation clear to the administration. All her warnings fell on deaf ears, as if nobody in the White House wanted to hear or believe it. She finally became convinced that Trump and his administration, instead of fighting domestic terrorism were fomenting and encouraging it, after compiling massive evidence of this by simply listening to Trump. She resigned in April of 2020, and is now out of government, and speaking and writing about the topic. Having reentered her Christian community, she is also trying to convince it that its marriage to the Trump movement and the far right wing is malign, and inappropriate to their faith.  We arrive now at the larger point. Far right extremism, the illegal militia movement, the Proud boys and other white supremacist groups, and the Trump movement, and the Republican party itself, are all embedded in the same movement, under the same big tent: American conservatism. The conservative evangelical Christian community is a threat to secular democracy, hence the country. The republican party, with its denial of climate change and the election results, and it current voter suppression crusade, is a dire threat to the United States. Donald Trump, with his attempt to overthrow the government after refusing to accept his election defeat, and his potential for further  political activity, remains a dire threat to America, as long as he lives, or goes to prison. but the big picture is the damage modern conservatism in its extreme form, embraced by millions, is the greatest threat to our country's future, because conservatism is rapidly trending towards fascism.