TWE’s annual essay about the United States’ commanders-in-chief.

While at prayer on April 13, 2007, the prominent Salafi scholar, Shaikh Jaafar Mahmud Adam, was assassinated at his mosque in Kano. At the time, the murder made a deep impression on mainstream Muslims, many of whom revered Adam. The murder took place in the final days before the 2007 presidential elections, and many observers, including those at the U.S. embassy, thought that the murder was somehow related. But it now seems more likely that Adam was assassinated by a vengeful former member of the Nigerian Taliban. His murder was an early manifestation of the deadly battles among Boko Haram’s competing factions that continue up to the present.

In addition to minority communities and those on the political left, far-right and white supremacist extremism threatens violence against Republicans as well.

Yun Sun is a senior fellow, codirector of the East Asia program, and director of the China program at the Stimson Center. 2020 witnessed tension across the Taiwan Strait unseen since the 1996 miss…