Trump eliminated funding for group countering white radicalization prior to Charlottesville
E.A. CRUNDEN at Think Progress
https://thinkprogress.org/before-charlottesville-trump-eliminated-funding-for-group-countering-white-supremacists-2be06e9432ad/
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Founded in 2009, Life After Hate is run by former members of racist extremist movements who now work to counter and reform white nationalists. Under former President Barack Obama, the organization received $400,000 as part of its Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) program—the only anti-white nationalism group given funding under the program. After Trump’s election, Life After Hate reportedly saw a 20-fold increase in calls for help from those reporting signs of radicalization in themselves or others.
But that uptick seemingly did little to convince the president’s administration that Life After Hate’s work was valuable. Reuters reported in early February that the government was looking into shifting the CVE program’s focus, honing in on extremism connected to Muslim groups exclusively. The administration also froze $10 million in CVE funding. Only a few months later, Life After Hate was dropped from the program’s list of funded groups.
While the Department of Homeland Security has not explained its decision to drop funding for the organization, Life After Hate co-founder Christian Picciolini told ThinkProgress in February that he feared Trump’s move to pivot away from countering extremism more generally set a dangerous precedent.
“It sends a message that white extremism does not exist, or is not a priority in our country, when in fact it is a statistically larger and more present terror threat than any by foreign or other domestic actors,” Picciolini said. “We have hundreds of thousands of homegrown sovereign citizens and militia members with ties to white nationalism training in paramilitary camps across the U.S. and standing armed in front of mosques to intimidate marginalized Americans.”
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