An Idaho man who pledged himself to ISIS and planned a Easter-weekend massacre of Christians inside Coeur d'Alene churches was sentenced Tuesday to 18 years in federal prison — a story that should have dominated every front page in the country but barely made a ripple.

Alexander Scott Mercurio, 21, plotted to incapacitate his father with a metal pipe, steal his firearms, and carry out a mass-casualty attack on churchgoers using guns, knives, a machete, and improvised incendiary devices. The FBI arrested him April 6, 2024 — one day before the planned attack. He pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State. Judge David C. Nye tacked on lifetime supervised release.

The stakes are plain: an American citizen swore loyalty to a foreign terror army and nearly butchered his neighbors for the crime of going to church. If the target had been any other group, the coverage would have been inescapable. When Bible-believing Christians are the mark, the institutional press looks the other way.

According to court records, Mercurio created an online repository in early 2023 to distribute pro-ISIS propaganda. Days before the planned attack, he recorded himself standing before an ISIS flag, holding a knife, and pledging allegiance. Investigators searching his home found butane canisters, lighters, handcuffs, a knife, a machete, and his father's firearms.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General M. Scott Proctor stated it squarely: "America's founders wanted our Nation to be a place where the faithful of any denomination could exercise their religious beliefs freely and without fear of violence. Alexander Scott Mercurio planned to attack that fundamental freedom by bringing death and destruction to several churches."

The New York Post, to its credit, reported the defense's narrative — that Mercurio was a "depressed teen" raised in a "dysfunctional family" exposed to white supremacist ideology, isolated during COVID, and ultimately befriended online by a government informant who found him already spiraling through extremist ideologies. His attorneys claimed the attack plan was "as horrific as it was unlikely to succeed" and asked for nine years. They say he has since renounced extremism and poses a low risk.

Maybe. Or maybe a man who stood under a black flag and plotted to burn alive his own father and random churchgoers means exactly what he said. The Post Millennial noted that Mercurio initially faced up to 20 years; he got 18. He'll be out before he's 40.

The broader pattern is unmistakable. The Post Millennial reported that in Maryland, Michael Sam Teekaye Jr. was sentenced to 15 years for attempting to support ISIS and discussing attacks against Jews and Israel supporters. In Washington, Elvin Hunter Bgorn Williams — who also discussed attacking Seattle's Pride parade — got just four years for trying to join ISIS overseas.

The courts are handing out sentences that let these operatives walk while they're still young enough to act on their convictions a second time. And the press treats the targeting of American churches as a local crime blotter item unworthy of sustained attention.

The question isn't whether Mercurio's plot could have succeeded. It's how many others like him are sitting in basements right now, staring at the same flag — and why the institutions charged with informing the public can't be bothered to sound the alarm when the targets are Christians.