U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Arrested After Planning Mass Violence

[Content Note: Threats of mass violence; white supremacy; misogyny; stochastic terrorism.]

In yet another chilling reminder that the most urgent terrorist threat in this country is conservative white men with seething resentments and personal arsenals, U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, a 49-year-old self-proclaimed white nationalist with a massive stockpile of weapons and ammunition, was arrested by federal investigators after planning a large-scale terrorist attack targeting Democratic politicians and journalists.

Lynh Bui at the Washington Post reports:

Christopher Paul Hasson called for "focused violence" to "establish a white homeland" and said, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since at least 2017, developed a spreadsheet of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and searched the Internet using phrases such as "best place in dc to see congress people" and "are supreme court justices protected."

"The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," the government said in court documents filed this week, arguing that Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.

...Hasson was arrested Friday on ­charges of illegally possessing weapons and drugs, but the government said those charges are the "proverbial tip of the iceberg." Officials with the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland outlined Hasson's alleged plans to spark chaos and destruction, describing in court documents a man obsessed with neo-fascist and neo-Nazi views.

"Please send me your violence that I may unleash it onto their heads," Hasson wrote in a letter that prosecutors said was found in his email drafts. "Guide my hate to make a lasting impression on this world."

Naturally, because white supremacy and toxic masculinity go together like rancid chocolate and poisoned peanut butter, Hasson was also a fan of violent misogynist Anders Behring Breivik: "Hasson had been studying the 1,500-page manifesto of right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who unleashed two attacks in 2011 that killed 77 people in Norway, and echoed Breivik's attack preparations."

Hasson is responsible for his own vile views and his violent urges to act on them.

But this didn't happen in a vacuum.

Since the day he announced his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has been waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, rhetorically putting targets on the backs of his "enemies" and hoping that shamelessly violent wrecks among his cultists will do the rest.

And here is a man who decided to go on a mass killing spree, aimed at some of Trump's most frequently-invoked targets: Marginalized people, Democrats, and members of the press.

As I have said many, many, many times before: Trump did not invent white supremacy, but he sure as fuck is doing everything he can to empower it. And that has consequences.

No one knows that more keenly than Trump.