Islamophobia and the insurrection: Law enforcement focused on Muslims for years, and then ...

Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson excused one of the leaders of the extremist Oath Keepers organization implicated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection by describing him as "a devout Christian." Even non-governmental far-right groups like discredited ex-journalist Steve Emerson's "Investigative Project on Terrorism" have spied on Muslim Americans. In other words, this country's worries about violence should be focused most on the right-wing extremist fringe, exemplified by groups like the Oath Keepers, 11 of whose leaders were arrested by the FBI in mid-January for "seditious conspiracy" in their paramilitary invasion of the Capitol in 2021. Still, this country's security agencies continue their laser focus on monitoring Muslim Americans, even as they grossly underestimate the threat from white supremacists. In such a world, even Muslim Americans active in peace centers become inherently suspicious, but heavily armed white nationalists in motels just outside Washington aren't.