The War on Terror Came Home: Manufacturing a Right-Wing Boogeyman

Before switching parties during the second Obama term, there was a time when I actually liked Joe Biden. In a moment that defined his character to me, the then-Vice President in 2014 spoke at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics forum. During that event, Biden made unusually and refreshingly frank remarks about U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, saying they had funneled money and weapons into Syria that ended up in the hands of jihadists. At the time, these off the cuff comments represented the most candid and honest take listeners would hear from the administration during the repugnant affair that would lead to mass anarchy via destabilization and the death of millions of Syrians. When Biden emerged victorious in 2020, after an unprecedented late-night resurgence, the word “gutted” accurately describes my feelings. In an attempt to cope, I tried to remind myself of the characteristics I once appreciated in Joe Biden. Partly aided by alcohol, I settled down days later to watch his inaugural address, trying to convince myself that everything would be okay.

That hope would be crushed within minutes of the divisive screed beginning, when it became clear that the war on terror was to be reframed. The focus was no longer groups like al-Qaeda or ISIS abroad, but on “domestic threats at home.” “And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat,” the still cognizant present President Joe Biden would proudly state. Anyone who had paid attention to left-wing rhetoric knew exactly what this spokesperson for a sinister directorate meant. For years, words like “right-wing extremist” or “white supremacist” had lost all meaning. What was once used to describe members of the KKK or National Socialist organizations would become attached to run-of-the-mill Republicans who dared to challenge the idea that America could absorb ever-increasing numbers of English-illiterate hordes from developing nations without negative consequences. The message Biden was stating was clear: anyone right of center would now be viewed as an extremist threat that required neutralization.

By the time June came around, the administration released the very first National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The statistically derisory groups of white supremacists and right-wing extremists would be identified as the nation’s top security threat. This carefully crafted theater was produced for two reasons. The first, from a rhetorical perspective, was to strengthen the unjustified claim that Donald Trump had significantly made the country more racist through his rhetoric. As we saw in the aftermath of Charlottesville, the actions of a few would be used to color the entirety of the Republican Party as Nazis. Secondly, the political establishment had discovered an extremely convenient and ill-defined phantom to present to the public to justify surveillance, censorship, and the prosecution of dissidents under the guise of national security. Essentially, this strategy offered all the authoritarian perks of the War on Terror at a fraction of the human and financial costs.

This domestic shift marked the first time in U.S. history that counterterrorism policy explicitly pivoted inward… READ THE FULL ESSAY ON SUBSTACK. 

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I’m a marketing strategist with a psychology background, focused on exposing how media, government, and corporate propaganda shape public perception in America and the West.

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