ASPEN, Colorado—Every summer for a decade, some of the nation’s top national security leaders have been gathering at the bucolic Aspen Institute to talk shop, discussing everything from nuclear proliferation to NATO to space wars. You name it, they’ve talked about it—with one glaring exception: white supremacist violence.
This weekend, for the first time, the group of National Security wonks focused on the often-overlooked threat, which is both growing and deadly.
Talking about white supremacist terrorism makes many people in the national security space uncomfortable, and for a host of reasons. Department of Homeland Security officials say it’s the FBI’s problem, and they recently disbanded a domestic terror intelligence unit. Trump administration officials, meanwhile, are loath to zero in on groups the president once described as “very fine people.” And Congress, which can barely pass legislation to keep the government’s lights on, has proved basically ineffectual in the face of the threat.
