The bad news is only one Republican bucked his increasingly radical party in supporting the bill. The worse news is that it wasn’t Rep. Chris Jacobs of Orchard Park, who represents a neighboring district. He voted against it.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which faces long odds in the evenly-split Senate, would create domestic terrorism offices within the Justice and Homeland Security departments and in the FBI. It focuses special attention on threats from white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including those inside law enforcement agencies.
The Republican vote is transparently and shockingly political. As Rep. Bradley Schneider, D-Ill., observed in pushing for the vote, a previous version of the bill passed the House by a unanimous voice vote in September 2020. This time, though, partly leaders urged members to vote no, arguing, only days after the murders in Buffalo, that the legislation is suddenly unnecessary.
The midterm elections are coming up in less than six months, and Republicans smell a majority. The party’s leaders don’t want to antagonize its base, which includes a large segment that supports the poisonous idea that Democrats are seeking to replace white citizens with people of color.
It is a vile manipulation, yet a national poll conducted by Associated Press and NORC in December found that nearly half of Republicans agree to at least some extent that there is a deliberate intent to “replace” white, native-born Americans with immigrants. Like the lie that Donald Trump really won the 2020 election, a large number of Republicans have bought into it. It is a big voting bloc.