When a CIA memo begins with a trigger warning, there’s a good chance the contents “fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned.” Thus, CIA Director John Ratcliffe dismissed a Biden-era memo “Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment,” which the CIA published (with redactions) and retracted on February 20.

The memo warned that women were joining a movement it called “white racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist,” or “REMVE.” Or, more accurately, it warned of women becoming “white REMVE-sympathetic,” which it defined as people who do “not openly advocate violence but amplify white REMVE narratives.”

From there, the memo proceeded to warn about “the white REMVE view of traditional motherhood” and that one group of concern, whose identity was redacted in the final report, “has lauded motherhood and homemaking as women’s most important responsibility.”

If any analyst had ever bothered to read this paper aloud before circulating it, he or she would likely have tossed the whole thing in derision. Seriously, who in their right mind puts “motherhood,” “homemaking,” and “violent extremism” together in the same sentence? Who ever feared that the frazzle-haired woman patiently towing three tots through the taco aisle on a Tuesday morning is planning to lob a Molotov cocktail at the nearest federal courthouse?

Indeed, the whole project was built on the “REMVE-sympathetic” category, an absurdly self-defeating term. The essential feature of “REMVEs” is violence; without violence, “REMEs” (without the V) would merely be racists. On the other hand, this CIA memo creates the “REMVE-sympathetic” category to classify those it would like to label as “REMVEs,” but who have, by the memo’s own admission, not even advocated violence.

The only reason given for connecting the two categories is that they make some similar points. The memo announces, in effect, “Guys, we noticed that some violent people and some non-violent people hold the same racist opinions. And, what’s more, the non-violent ones endorse motherhood. Viola! A vast conspiracy!” Real groundbreaking stuff there.

Keep in mind that this memo was circulated by and in the Central Intelligence Agency, which means national security intelligence analysts wasted their time writing and reading this twaddle. Additionally, since the CIA has an international focus, they wasted their time informing Americans about foreign, non-violent racists (but only the white ones).

The ideological motive behind the document’s quack terminology was hardly concealed. “We define ‘white REMVE-sympathetic’ actors as individuals or groups who may not openly advocate violence but amplify white REMVE narratives regarding their perceptions of racial and ethnic hierarchy, as well as perceived threats from those they see as advocating multiculturalism and globalization” (emphasis added).

Aha, now they tip their hand. The real purpose of this exercise was to try and legitimize the “white REMVE-sympathetic” category as a label that would pollute any opponent of “multiculturalism and globalization” with the stench of violent extremism, even if they never dreamed of advocating for or committing violence. In other words, this is weaponized language the far-Left tried to use to cast one-half of the American political spectrum as “beyond the pale.”

The memo was released on October 6, 2021, the same week as the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote a letter to the Biden administration — later revealed to be orchestrated with the White House — complaining that parents protesting progressive school board policies constituted a domestic terror threat. The letter, which the NSBA later retracted after losing half its membership, pretended to give a dozen examples, not one of which involved actual violence by parents.

The CIA memo sang from the same songbook. After opening with the trigger warning, “This product contains references to racial, sexual, and gendered violence,” it contained nearly nothing of the kind. Aside from a few redacted paragraphs that cannot be analyzed, the 15-page document contains only one account of actual violence, a 2018 white supremacist terror attack in Germany. Nevertheless, terms like “violent extremism” or the acronym “REMVEs” ran throughout the memo.

Instead, the memo compiled a handful of examples where female influencers expressed allegedly racist views through popular social media trends. “Some white REMVE-sympathetic women have produced blogs, videos, or other online content under the guise of cooking tutorials, which feature discussions about the importance of organic food alongside subtle narratives about racial purity and the defense of white European heritage,” according to research the memo cited from a German nonprofit.

In another instance, the memo recorded, Canadian media personality “Lauren Southern … posted a makeup tutorial interwoven with anti-Muslim sentiment to her US-based video streaming platform channel.”

Cooking videos and makeup tutorials? Where will the violence end?

Utter ignorance constrains this author to form no opinion at all of Southern as a political commentator or a person, but it’s worth noting several points about her inclusion on this list. First, the inclusion of a Canadian commentator with an American show was the closest the memo came to commenting on domestic American politics — close enough to suggest the authors knew how their report might have a domestic influence.

Second, a woman’s “anti-Muslim sentiment” may be as legitimate as a black American’s anti-segregation sentiment: “I sure am glad I live in a country where the makeup I work so hard to apply will actually be seen, not like those places governed by Sharia law.” Whether Southern’s sentiments were of this nature or something more offensive, the memo neglects to specify. But those who pretend to obsess over the rights of oppressed groups should at least remember which groups are actually oppressed.

Third, strictly speaking, “anti-Muslim sentiment” falls outside the “REMVE” category because “Muslim” is not a race or ethnicity but a religion. The authors likely meant “anti-Arab sentiment,” a term that usually overlaps but not always. The oversight is of small importance, but the fact that the authors committed such an oversight shows that this memo was not written (or edited) with a careful eye for accuracy.

In fairness to the authors, however, they did take care, on the whole, to cite actual racists or members of white supremacist groups, even if the narrative they crafted cast a much wider net. “White REMVEs and their sympathizers have claimed in online posts that it is essential for white families to have as many biological children as possible to counter the rising birthrates among non-white populations,” the document continued. “White REMVEs allege that this rise is a conspiracy, which they have termed the ‘great replacement.’”

It is true that the white supremacist fringe has imbibed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and views the West’s racially diversifying population as a threat. It is also true that imputing belief in this conspiracy theory to any and every natalist (some who think having more babies is a good thing) is also a conspiracy theory.

Indeed, of the many good reasons why people want to see more babies born, racist fears don’t even make the list. There are sociological reasons: a national birthrate below population replacement (approximately 2.1 babies per woman) results in population decline, causing empty cities and a crisis of elder care. There are historical reasons: healthy and successful nations and civilizations have cherished their young instead of eliminating them. There are biblical reasons: God instituted childbirth as a blessing (Genesis 1:28) and imbued every person with the dignity of his image (Genesis 1:27).

Note that none of these reasons distinguishes by race. Those who adopt these reasons want to see families of all races and ethnicities have children, simply because children are good.

Beyond all these, there are a host of more personal reasons why people embrace having lots of children, or why women, in particular, embrace motherhood. There are instinctive reasons: responding to deep-seated desires in our very nature. There are familial reasons: understanding oneself as part of a multi-generational legacy. There are even prudential reasons: seeing offspring as a natural defense against solitude and isolation in old age.

On this point, it’s fair to wonder whether the memo’s tremulous tone even matched its own assumptions. Momentarily assume, for the sake of argument, that there really is a vast conspiracy of violent extremists, motivated by pro-white racism, with plans to engage in terrorism or insurrection. Imagine you then learn that these white racists, far from plotting a terrorist attack, commit themselves to the peaceful tactic of having lots of babies, motivated by their racist beliefs.

From a security analyst’s perspective, wouldn’t this hypothetical scenario induce a sigh of relief? Congratulations, the long-dreaded wave of violence has been postponed by at least a generation! Given that people with racist beliefs do exist, what course of action would you have them take?

To view this as a problem, we must first leave behind the perspective of a neutral security analyst and adopt the perspective of a leftist operative, who wants to determine the country’s future population every bit as much as the racists do, but in the opposite direction — who is committed, in fact, to stamping out racist beliefs by any means necessary. White racists committing to have babies would be a problem.

The whole document could be summarized this way: a handful of women have joined European or Canadian white supremacist groups and sought to craft a role for themselves in online recruitment. But, the document adds, these women ultimately faced barriers to participation and advancement because it turns out the racist group leaders are also misogynists — to no one’s surprise.

We hardly needed an intelligence memo to tell us these facts; yet the Biden administration poured resources into this harmless burrow in an attempt, amid the culture wars of late 2021, to spin these simple but uninteresting facts into a broader narrative about a vast, right-wing threat that echoed throughout any proponent of conservative or national values.

“There is absolutely no room for bias in our work,” CIA Director Ratcliffe insisted, “and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record.”