Donald Trump was elected president while employing white supremacist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim rhetoric. Now the U.S. executive branch is actively seeking to reduce federal efforts to fight right-wing extremism by removing white supremacist groups from U.S. government countering violent extremism (CVE) programs.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration proposed it would repurpose the Countering Violent Extremism task force to focus only on Islamic extremists, considering renaming it “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Islamic Extremism.”

It’s hard not to see the hand of Steve Bannon—the White House chief strategist and senior counselor whose close ties to white nationalist and far right-wing groups are well-documented—at play. If the change in the CVE task force is implemented, it would mean that hate groups like the KKK would no longer be subject to federal…