Senator Elizabeth Warren seems to have a plan for almost everything. This week the Warren Administration rolled out a plan to tackle the increasing threat of white nationalist violence and related acts of terror.
“In a Warren administration, combatting white nationalist crime will be a top priority for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security,” read a statement shared with ESSENCE. The 2020 Democratic candidate also vowed to “use every tool” within her presidency to combat the domestic terrorists.
This includes collecting data from state and local governments on incidents of bias-motivated crimes and tasking the FBI with investigating these crimes. Furthermore, the administration will encourage states to pass hate crime statutes that cover “race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity,” according to the press release.
Warren cites a number of mass shootings by white terrorists as a reason for her focus on this particular issue. One of which was the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, which was carried out by Dylann Roof, a white supremacist. He killed nine Black worshippers at the religious center in June 2015 and was reportedly given Burger King after his arrest.
In addition, the Massachusetts senator cites the growing list of hate crimes in the US, saying that the FBI logged more than 7,000 in the last year, and pointed to Donald Trump’s ties to white supremacy as a reason little has been done about the growing threat.
“Donald Trump has openly stoked these fires,” Warren contends. “He has cozied up to white nationalists — even hiring some, like Stephen Miller, into his White House.”
Warren promises that if she becomes president she will take a much different approach. For starters, under a Warren administration, hate crimes will be consistently designated as acts of domestic terrorism.