Now that it’s clear that the Nashville Christmas Day bomber was Anthony Warner, many folks have asked: Was this terrorism? And should we call him a domestic terrorist?

My answer: Yes and yes.

But also: It depends on who’s asking, and why.

Another thread 1/x

We call people “terrorists” for many different reasons. And we have many different definitions we use when we do so.

Seriously: In the U.S. government alone, there are *at least* 109 different definitions of “terrorism” with 22 distinct elements.

2/x

The term “terrorist” or “terrorism” pops up in American laws related to things like defining crimes, encouraging coordination in natl sec, sanctioning terror groups abroad, providing subsidies for insurance, and so on. This is true both at the federal *and* state level.

3/x

The elements these laws use to define terrorism often differ.

Taking one example: Under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, it isn't qualifying "terrorism" if it doesn't cause more than $5 million in losses.

That seems like an odd qualifier, but it makes sense in context.

4/x

The purpose of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act was to provide government subsidies so that insurers would offer terrorism insurance to places like NYC after 9/11, which caused $40 billion+ in insured losses.

For that statute, a money threshold makes sense.

5/x

But asking how much monetary damage an attack caused isn't really useful for any other purpose.

And that's true of basically *all* formal definitions of "terrorism." They're generally useful only for the purposes for which they're deployed.

6/x

So why do people care so much whether one act of violence or one attacker or group earns the label "terrorism" or "terrorist"?

**Because the term carries immense political and cultural power and stigma.**

7/x

Especially since 9/11, terrorism -- including the threat it poses, the fear it inflicts, and the consequences when it occurs -- has dominated our collective psyche.

No matter who we are, we believe that we are the good guys, and the "terrorists" are the bad guys.

8/x

Because of this, it matters who we call a "terrorist."

A "terrorist" is a person or group who has deployed or threatened violence, and who we as the community clearly rebuke and oppose.

Terrorists are bad! Terrorism is bad!

9/x

So, when President Trump calls a group of protestors "domestic terrorists," he doesn't care about any of the 100+ definitions of terrorism in federal and state law.

He simply wants to label the protestors as a group worthy of universal scorn.

10/x https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1270923257844301836?s=21

If the President calls protestors "terrorists" and we hesitate before saying the same about a suicide bomber who destroyed two blocks of Nashville on Christmas morning, then we've got our priorities backward.

This is an easy call: Warner is a terrorist.

Call him one.

11/x

Because Warner is dead, and apparently acted alone, there won't be criminal charges that result from the bombing. So those definition of "terrorism" don't matter much.

It may matter to the victims and insurance companies. But, again, that's only a fight over money.

12/x

For the rest of us, we should call large-scale violence against our community by the name we've known it to be: terrorism.

And, instead of debating what to call Warner, we should spend our time trying to prevent another version of him from ever doing this again.

13/end