tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/white-nationalism-41863/articlesWhite nationalism – The Conversation2024-01-29T15:44:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211572024-01-29T15:44:46Z2024-01-29T15:44:46ZFrom Twitter to X: one year on, are white supremacists back?<p>On 28 October 2022, just one day after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk published a message that summed up his vision for its future: “The bird is free”.</p>
<p>The social network’s emblematic blue colour quickly gave way to the black X – reminiscent of the dark web – when Musk’s X Corp, took control. Soon after, the billionaire announced the <a href="https://www.platformer.news/p/why-some-tech-ceos-are-rooting-for">restoration of 62,000 previously suspended accounts</a>, including – and this was to make headlines – that of Donald Trump.</p>
<p>The technology mogul clearly stated his intention: to transform Twitter into a platform where freedom of speech would approach the absolute. In so doing, he <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outsourced-content-moderators/">gutted the site’s moderation mechanisms</a>, intended to reduce hate speech and counter the epidemic of misinformation on the platform. Put in place at the encouragement of the <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46662">US Congress</a>, Musk felt that they had no place in the brave new world of X.</p>
<p>Predictably, this new direction generated polarised reactions in the United States. Some feared a rise in extremism, in particular supremacist movements, due to the spread and possible normalisation of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/21/great-replacement-theory-antisemitism-racism-rightwing-mainstream">racist and anti-Semitic content</a>. At the same time, others saluted the new “freedom of expression”, and even called for the accounts of white nationalist leaders to be reinstated.</p>
<p>Just over a year later, Musk retweeted his original message on the anniversary of his takeover, embellishing it with the word <em>freedom</em>. So what is the actual state of white nationalist accounts on the social network, and what are the foreseeable implications for the evolution of extremism in public discourse?</p>
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<h2>The persistent suspension of white nationalist leaders</h2>
<p>X carried out an initial wave of restorations of suspended accounts <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/08/tech/twitter-unbanned-users-returning/index.html">from November 2022</a>, including white-nationalist leaders suspended from 2017 to 2021. The waves of <a href="https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/deplatform.php">“deplatforming”</a> started after the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/19/us/charlottesville-unite-the-right-civil-trial-how-we-got-here/index.html">Charlottesville “United the Right” rally that turned deadly</a> and continued through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/twitter-permanently-suspends-trump-after-u-s-capitol-siege-citing-risk-of-further-violence-152924">assault on the US Capitol</a>. </p>
<p>During that period, the accounts of well-known figures such as Ku Klux Klan icon <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/31/tech/david-duke-twitter-ban/index.html">David Duke</a> were suspended. The measure also affected less high-profile but equally important individuals, such as <a href="https://www.cnet.com/culture/white-nationalist-jared-taylor-american-renaissance-sues-twitter-for-account-suspension/">Jared Taylor</a>, founder of the white supremacist website <a href="https://www.amren.com/">American Renaissance</a>, and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/25370/chapter-abstract/192454202">Greg Johnson</a>, publisher of the white nationalist magazine <em>Counter-Currents</em>.</p>
<p>Even with Musk’s arrival, however, these and other accounts have remained inaccessible. Because they all promote the idea of a racial state in the United States based on a homogeneous white identity, their content contradicts X’s new security rules, which prohibit <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/x-rules">associations with violent or hateful entities</a>. Other key accounts were deactivated by Elon Musk’s teams, such as that of the anti-Semitic and white nationalist psychologist <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/kevin-macdonald">Kevin MacDonald</a> in April 2023.</p>
<p>While the persistent absence of these leaders deprives a fragmented movement of points of ideological convergence, this does not mean that the platform is free of anti-democratic racialism. Many minor figures already on Twitter have managed to slip past X’s new rules and establish themselves as the new voices to follow.</p>
<p>The platform carried out a second wave of restorations in January 2023, and while it didn’t restore high-profile theorists of racialism, groups close to white nationalism, such as Nick Fuentes’s <a href="https://www.isdglobal.org/explainers/groypers/">Groypers</a>, have attempted to reestablish themselves.</p>
<h2>The intellectual dark web or “authentic” right-wing X</h2>
<p>Musk’s Twitter tends to favour an essentialising line of the <a href="https://intellectualdarkweb.site/">intellectual dark web</a>, a motley collection of personalities who claim academic qualifications in order to define themselves as thinkers. Their shared ideology is often based on a biological conception of gender, crystallising traditionalist roles that confine men to a productive, masculine power, while assigning women a femininity centred on the home.</p>
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<p>The account of Stefan Molyneux, once part of the <a href="https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1613610719043256331">alt-right movement</a>, was reinstated back in January 2023. With a following of several hundred thousand, he is known for his libertarian views within the <a href="https://unherd.com/2021/12/why-the-right-is-obsessed-with-masculinity/">“manosphere”</a>, a particularly reactionary version of masculinism characterised by militant hostility to anything that its members consider to be “wokism.” This ideological trend has been reinforced by the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2022/11/18/jordan-peterson-returns-to-twitter-immediately-demands-the-site-censor-anonymous-trolls/">reactivation of the accounts of Jordan B. Peterson</a> and <a href="https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/james-lindsay-exclusive-part-one">James Lindsay</a>, two figures in this movement.</p>
<p>The “manosphere” also tends to serve as a gateway to other groups adjacent to white nationalism. The synthesis of identity is embodied by the return to X of Bronze Age Pervert (known as “BAP” to his followers), the provocative pseudonym of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/">Costin Alamariu</a>. His world view is based on a rigid sexual hierarchy dominated by alpha males who enjoy ephemeral seduction. It also adds the ambiguity of virile friendships marked by a warrior aesthetic.</p>
<p>Since given a green light by Elon Musk, BAP has found a growing audience, which now exceeds 130,000 followers, an increase of two thirds in one year. Its presence has restored structure to a movement that commonly refers to itself as the “authentic” right-wing Twitter. It has also encouraged a shift from simple anti-woke libertarianism to more overt neo-fascism.</p>
<p>Indeed, BAP is not so different from the white-nationalist accounts that are <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/16/bronze-age-pervert-masculinity-00105427">inaccessible on X</a>. He subscribes to a neo-Nietzschean philosophy, placing his elitist notion of fraternity against ethnic groups. Social relations are essentialised to the extreme: they are no longer euphemistic, but sublimated by the illusion of belonging to a community based on the celebration of a strength that is achieved solely through the domination of others.</p>
<h2>The NatCon movement</h2>
<p>At first glance, X’s rejection of explicitly racialist or anti-Semitic accounts while allowing the presence and growth of an adjacent neo-fascist network may seem paradoxical. There are several possible explanations.</p>
<p>From a semiotic point of view, this faction of the extreme right has developed its own codes of language that enable it to bypass the recommendation algorithms. Masculinist discourses, which take a stand against gender theories, seem to be favoured by Elon Musk. Indeed, he made his opposition to the “woke virus” explicit when he reinstated the satirical <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/the-babylon-bees-twitter-account-reinstated-elon-musk-suspension-transgender-joke-back">Babylon Bee</a> account. </p>
<p>The right-wing extreme influencers returning to the platform tend to gravitate towards the “NatCon” movement, a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/national-conservatism-conference/594202/">nationalist conservatism</a> bringing together various illiberal political branches, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/national-conservatism-conference/594202/">under the leadership of Yoram Hazony</a>. From 2019, BAP received the support of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/174656/claremont-institute-think-tank-trump">the Claremont Institute</a>, a think tank closely associated with the NatCon network, for the <a href="https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/are-the-kids-altright/">promotion of its book _Bronze Age Mindset</a>_.</p>
<p>This inclusion in a key organisation of national conservatism establishes a link to <a href="https://reason.com/2020/08/02/wait-wasnt-peter-thiel-a-libertarian">libertarian Peter Thiel</a>, founder of Palantir, co-founder of PayPal and former associate of Elon Musk. The relationship between a Silicon Valley tycoon and a masculinist philosopher may seem tenuous, yet Thiel is a major donor to the Republican Party and has never hidden his adherence to an anti-democratic ideology akin to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/opinion/marc-andreessen-manifesto-techno-optimism.html">neo-reactionary thinking of Curtis Yarvin</a>. BAPtism enjoys considerable support, and is at the extreme of the <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets">continuum promoting a “New Right”</a>.</p>
<p>The question of white nationalism can therefore be posed in strategic terms. Despite their ideological proximity, the refusal of the NatCon conference organisers to accept the presence of the movement’s leaders is justified by the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/national-conservatism-trump">concern not to see their image linked to such an openly extreme movement</a>. Association with what is labelled “white nationalism” is seen as detrimental to attracting a broad and diverse audience. On the contrary, staging its rejection helps to reassure and reinforce NatCon’s respectability.</p>
<p>In the conference rooms and on X, NatCon seems to have set about rebuilding a movement on the basis of new codes and new figures. It is these choices that will determine whether the anti-democratic project can be perceived as acceptable, and whether masculinist extremism can become the political norm in the Republican Party. As far back as 2022, Blake Masters, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Senator of Arizona, gained the support of the hard right with a program that was both traditionalist and protectionist.</p>
<p>The Twitter bird may be free, but X is being selective. A year after Elon Musk took control, fears about the rise of white nationalism need to be contextualised and rationalised more than ever. A study of the influential accounts that are actually active shows that the terms of the debate are in danger of shifting from the alt-right to the New Right. As the 2024 elections approach, this framework will be of great importance in analysing the resurgence of all forms of white supremacism in the United States.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>When Elon Musk took control of Twitter, many were concerned about the reappearance of extremist accounts. In retrospect, X has shown itself to be selective.Sarah Rodriguez-Louette, Doctorante à l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, membre de la Chaire Unesco « Savoir Devenir à l'ère du développement numérique durable»., Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3 Divina Frau-Meigs, Professeur des sciences de l'information et de la communication, Auteurs historiques The Conversation FranceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2067532023-07-19T19:59:57Z2023-07-19T19:59:57ZGhassan Hage is one of Australia’s most significant intellectuals. He’s still on a quest for a multicultural society that hopes and cares<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537670/original/file-20230717-226738-e17pa4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C8361%2C3214&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is 50 years – two generations – since then Immigration Minister Al Grassby <a href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/grassby_1.pdf">launched the idea of a multicultural Australia</a> at a Melbourne conference in 1973. Ghassan Hage, Professor in Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne, and currently <a href="https://www.eth.mpg.de/6255110/news-2023-04-28-01">visiting scholar</a> at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, has become the most significant intellectual commentator on multicultural Australia of the second of those generations. </p>
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<p><em>The Racial Politics of Multicultural Australia – Ghassan Hage (Sweatshop)</em></p>
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<p>The publication of <a href="https://www.sweatshop.ws/racial-politics">The Racial Politics of Multicultural Australia</a> by the <a href="https://www.sweatshop.ws/">Sweatshop Literacy Movement</a> represents a significant collaboration. Hage is an Australian Arab immigrant, whose forebears came to Australia in the 1930s and settled in Lithgow, where they established a clothing factory. Sweatshop is an urban political project created in western Sydney by a younger generation of Australians from Arab and other immigrant and refugee backgrounds. </p>
<p>The volume contains two of Hage’s early books, White Nation (1998) and Against Paranoid Nationalism (2003), and some later essays exploring the place of racism in the rhetoric and practice of Australian multiculturalism. The foreword has been written by “critically conscious daughters and granddaughters of Lebanese, Palestinian and Egyptian immigrant and refugee settlers”, who acted as a reference group for the republishing project. </p>
<p>While the republished works were mainly written early in the second generation, their continuing relevance is both salutary and disturbing. The issues they raise remain deeply embedded today. Yet they also reveal how much has changed. There is a growing acceptance among “multicultural Australians” of the consciousness that Sweatshop advocates, and a moral rejection of much of the situation that Hage condemned. </p>
<p>Hage’s work began to take shape in reaction to the still-dominant Labor multiculturalism of the last years of prime minister Paul Keating. Hage argued that both Labor and the Coalition’s rhetoric and celebration of multiculturalism masked an ongoing reality of racial hierarchy and White privilege. </p>
<p>This privilege, Hage wrote, was bolstered by the capacity of official multiculturalism to authorise certain types of diversity, placing some within the boundaries of acceptability, while excluding others. Yet even behind that veneer there lies – or wriggles – another reality, where only White people are secure enough to unselfconsciously lay claim to the right to define the nation. </p>
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<span class="caption">Ghassan Hage with Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Paula Abood, Sara Saleh and Randa Abdel-Fattah from Sweatshop at the 2023 Sydney Writers Festival.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: Sweatshop Literary Movement</span></span>
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<h2>What is a White person?</h2>
<p>Let’s begin with a critical question: what is a White person? </p>
<p>For Hage, it is a self-referential category into which White people put themselves. That is, people who think of themselves as White are White people. </p>
<p>It is not an ethnic label, in the anthropological sense that it has determinable mores, values and common histories that can be empirically discovered – though values and orientations are indicative. Nor is it racial, in the older sense of race as a bio-social category, with shared DNA clusters associated with territories of origin. </p>
<p>Rather, it is a “fantasy position” born out of colonial history, one that is essentially European. It is imagined to be rooted in the stories of north-western Europe: stories of empires won and an Enlightenment project sustained. </p>
<p>Reality, for a very disparate non-White world, is rather different. </p>
<p>Hage’s non-White world is focused on the Levant and its diasporas. It is important to understand the contradictions, for Hage, of being from Christian Lebanese stock (even without any theocratic perspective), yet oriented towards the metropolitan culture of Paris, where he studied under the sociologist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-Bourdieu">Pierre Bourdieu</a> at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.</p>
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<p>Hage came of age within the <a href="https://merip.org/1990/01/primer-lebanons-15-year-war-1975-1990/">Lebanese Civil War</a>. Christian fascism and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kataeb_Party">Phalange</a>, vied with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Arabism">trans-Arabism</a> and an increasingly radicalised Islam. The European, anti-colonialist, democratic, non-sectarian left also sought to find a space. These contradictory and complicated intertwinings of love and hate have drawn Hage today to a focus on the struggle of Palestinians under the Israeli occupation. </p>
<p>Such different realities are Hage’s project. His lifetime has been committed to exploring, exposing and unravelling the dynamics through which different pictures of the world are formed in minds, cultures and social practices, and the way these pictures are contested, hidden, revealed and sometimes purged. </p>
<p>The underlying frameworks, shaped by class and culture, have been forged by imperial adventures and their often murderous consequences. While Hage writes about “race”, he reminds us this is not the “race” of the initial imperial invasions. It is race introduced from another place, then subjected to the tortuous compression of settlement and the normalisation of Otherness. </p>
<p>Hage warns us often that he recognises the power that sought to create the “Aboriginal race” in what became Australia. Though the reality of Indigenous oppression pervades his work, he does not address it directly. But he does suggest the power of the invaders has developed into a pervasive system of racialised control.</p>
<p>The power to set the agenda is the scaffolding that defines the struggles of the Australian nation. The everyday conceptions of who belongs, who can claim to say who can belong, and the consequences of these types of statements, set the conditions of possibility for the nation “going forward”. </p>
<p>“Race” lubricates this conceptual mechanism, making it move smoothly for some, while remaining slippery and dangerous for others.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-of-rigid-legalism-greets-asylum-seekers-and-their-kind-22951">Racism of rigid legalism greets asylum seekers and their kind</a>
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<h2>White Nation</h2>
<p>In White Nation, Hage draws on two methods: one provided by his studies with Pierre Bourdieu in Paris, and another developed in the social anthropological space of ethnography and listening. </p>
<p>The Bourdieu dimension translates a <a href="https://theconversation.com/karl-marx-his-philosophy-explained-164068">Marxian view of class</a> (as in, ruling class) into a less homogenised constellation of power. In this view, cultural capital draws together skills, knowledge, languages and even “looks” that enable the individuals who have them – and, importantly, share them with others – to replicate those forms, reinforcing their value and authority.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534499/original/file-20230628-23-z0mcrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Influential sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bernard Lambert/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Among his many sources, Hage draws on letters to the editor, which provide a wealth of narratives to be unpicked. White people, suggests one letter, are more immediately seen as Australian (part of the dominant cultural group), even when they have only recently arrived. Others who have different “looks” – those who wear distinctive clothes, for example (the headscarf is a marker of difference) – aggravate. Racial and gender power is exerted through “tearing off the veil”. </p>
<p>Hage proposes that multicultural policies contain, at their heart, the logic that those who advocate and celebrate tolerance are capable of being, and perhaps have been, intolerant. “Mutual tolerance”, in other words, is only possible between parties who have the power to be intolerant of each other. The multicultural edifice thus depends on intolerance – an intolerance that is contained within boundaries of acceptability, but always pressing to escape. </p>
<p>In a racially demarcated social space, not everyone can be tolerant. The least powerful do not “tolerate” their racist harassers. They may avoid them, or be subjugated by them, or resist them, or seek to form an alternative ethnic will. </p>
<p>For Hage, the dark arc of refugee incarceration demonstrates the nature of this interaction, and how it is narrativised in the cause of creating a “good” multicultural nation. The nation’s tolerant multicultural goodness is constantly being challenged by “bad” ethnics: those people who seek refuge “illegally” in Australia, or contest the hegemony of Whiteness in other ways. </p>
<p>As Hage notes, White multiculturalism evades any commitment that “we are a multicultural community in all our diversity”. Rather, “we” only acknowledge our diversity when we can calculate a value that can be attached to that portion we select to notice. </p>
<p>Moreover, argues Hage, these views, be they for or against multiculturalism, all stand upon an edifice that assumes White superiority – and fantasises Australia as a place in which White superiority “should reign supreme”. </p>
<h2>The politics of White decline</h2>
<p>In the decades since White Nation first appeared, the politics of White decline have become an increasingly mainstream concern. </p>
<p>The current debate over legislation <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-08/government-to-introduce-ban-on-nazi-symbols/102453090">banning Nazi symbols</a>, ASIO’s warnings about the apparent spread of <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/threat-of-white-power-race-war-grave-concern-to-asio-says-chief-20210812-p58i9u.html">White power groups</a> and the devastation caused by online racism have positioned the White-decline narrative as a central threat to social order. This narrative <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inherent-racism-of-anti-vaxx-movements-163456">played a key part</a> in the anti-vaxx movement, despite the multicultural makeup of that movement. </p>
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<p>Some of this was already emerging when Hage published Against Paranoid Nationalism in 2003. The primary focus of anti-migrant sentiment the 1990s had been on “Asians”, particularly Indo-Chinese refugees, and the emerging urban phenomenon of youth gangs and triads. The events of 2001 shifted this focus. A <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-12/how-911-attack-changed-the-lives-of-many-australian-muslims/100438770">national paranoia</a> erupted, generated locally by “Arab” <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-08/nsw-police-sydney-raids-ibrahim-alleged-drug-syndicate/8784118">drug lords</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/gang-rapist-mohammed-skaf-leaves-jail-on-parole/100516616">rape gangs</a>, and globally by Islamist attacks on Western targets.</p>
<p>By the time of the invasion of Iraq by Western forces including Australia in 2003, Hage had two strong characters in public life who represented and intensified this paranoia: the then prime minister John Howard, victorious in 1996, and Pauline Hanson, who entered parliament that same year as a disendorsed Liberal Party candidate. Hanson alluded to their apparent political symbiosis when she spoke of the perception that racial tensions were being “inflamed by me and condoned by him”. </p>
<p>Both played a role in White Nation – but they foreground Against Paranoid Nationalism. </p>
<h2>Worrying and caring</h2>
<p>In Against Paranoid Nationalism, Hage proposes that two opposing stances – worrying and caring – establish the parameters of the narcissism and paranoia engulfing Australia. </p>
<p>Worrying about the nation’s present and future breeds an intense fear and hatred of outsiders who might threaten the interests of those who claim a unique right to worry. Colonial history, as a contest of explanatory and emotional narratives, becomes a struggle between conservative critics of “black-armband” perspectives on colonialism, and progressives searching for an alternative way of thinking through the possibility of an non-paranoid, inclusive identity.</p>
<p>The book, more of a compilation of linked essays, opens with an argument that neoliberal economic theory reshapes the social into a market, where individual interests emerge paramount and communal sense fragments and dissipates. What holds such a society together is the cultivation of images of threat. </p>
<p>Only strong and selfish stances are considered sensible and authorised by the state. It claims alone to stand against the threat from without – exemplified by asylum seekers and Islamist terrorists – and threats from within, from Indigenous challenges to the colonial project, and ethnic enclaves that emerge like cancers. </p>
<p>The state “worries” for the national project and those who support it. In the process, people become less willing to hope for a more caring future. </p>
<p>Against Paranoid Nationalism ends with a reference to what Hage calls the Black Economy – that is, an economy that depends on the theft of Aboriginal land. Even the “social gifts” that recognise the presence of individuals, and to some extent succour them, are a consequence of Australians being receivers of stolen goods. </p>
<p>Hage concludes that “our colonial theft […] will remain the ultimate source of our debilitating paranoia”, forcing us to worry and never really letting us care.</p>
<p>Against Paranoid Nationalism, together with the later essays collected in The Racial Politics of Multicultural Australia, offers a readable and challenging engagement with the issues that confront us today as a multicultural nation – one with a history of colonial invasion, but which is, by daring to hope, seeking not to have a racist future. </p>
<p>Hage has made a singularly powerful contribution to our understanding of Australian and global racism, and the politics of domination and resistance. He recently celebrated his mentor, Bourdieu, in a series of European lectures. Bourdieu, I am sure, would be proud of his student. We are all the better off for Hage’s eclectic, systematic, imaginative and penetrating assessment of the human condition in this time of late imperialism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have known Ghassan Hage since the early 1980s, when I first met him when I was director of the Centre for Multicultural Studies at the University of Wollongong. I interviewed him recently for a project on the "arc of the multicultural real". He has a more critical view of sociologists than do I. I am currently writing an Information Brief on Multicultural Policy past, present and future, for a community agency. </span></em></p>Ghassan Hage has made a singularly powerful contribution to our understanding of Australian and global racism, and the politics of domination and resistance.Andrew Jakubowicz, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064822023-05-25T19:49:48Z2023-05-25T19:49:48ZOath Keepers founder sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy in lead-up to Jan. 6 insurrection – 4 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528401/original/file-20230525-27-h41cy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C50%2C6609%2C4416&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, is just one member of a group that seeks to engage in violence against the U.S. government.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-oath-keeper-brought-on-to-provide-security-stands-guard-news-photo/674249800">Philip Pacheco/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/politics/oath-keepers-sentencing-stewart-rhodes-kelly-meggs/index.html">sentenced to 18 years in prison</a> on May 25, 2023, in the wake of his November 2022 conviction for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes led an effort to keep former President Donald Trump in office after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, including planning violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</p>
<p>Several scholars of right-wing movements, white nationalism and extremism have written articles explaining what the Oath Keepers and groups like them want, and how they work – as well as the limits on their free-speech rights to talk about violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Here we spotlight four examples of those scholars’ work.</p>
<h2>1. Oath Keepers are violently anti-government</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/regardless-of-seditious-conspiracy-charges-outcome-right-wing-groups-like-proud-boys-seek-to-build-a-white-nation-184592">Oath Keepers have participated</a> in several armed standoffs against the government,” wrote criminologists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fjys1XAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Matthew Valasik</a> of the University of Alabama and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=cLpO6QwAAAAJ">Shannon Reid</a> of the University of North Carolina – Charlotte.</p>
<p>For instance, “In 2014, the Oath Keepers joined an armed standoff between far-right patriot groups in Nevada on behalf of Cliven Bundy. In 2015, Oath Keepers showed up heavily armed in Ferguson, Missouri, during protests over the killing of Michael Brown. And in 2016, Oath Keepers were present at the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/regardless-of-seditious-conspiracy-charges-outcome-right-wing-groups-like-proud-boys-seek-to-build-a-white-nation-184592">Regardless of seditious conspiracy charges' outcome, right-wing groups like Proud Boys seek to build a white nation</a>
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<h2>2. Oath Keepers are looking for a fight</h2>
<p>At the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Oath Keepers contingent was looking to overthrow the government, wrote <a href="https://www.sarakamali.com/">Sara Kamali</a>, a scholar of systemic racism at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520389687/homegrown-hate">Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States</a>.”</p>
<p>Testifying before the congressional committee investigating the insurrection, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/former-oath-keeper-reveals-racist-antisemitic-beliefs-of-white-nationalist-group-and-their-plans-to-start-a-civil-war-185006">former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove</a> left little doubt about the intentions of the white nationalist militia group when its members stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” Kamali wrote. </p>
<p>“Tatenhove explained that Jan. 6 ‘could have been a spark that started a new civil war,’” she continued.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/former-oath-keeper-reveals-racist-antisemitic-beliefs-of-white-nationalist-group-and-their-plans-to-start-a-civil-war-185006">Former Oath Keeper reveals racist, antisemitic beliefs of white nationalist group – and their plans to start a civil war</a>
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<img alt="People in hats, masks and protective gear stand in front of a portico" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C0%2C5083%2C3378&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Members of the Oath Keepers stand at the east front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachJan6Lawsuit/dc35ae1cd6ba47e0a48ac92ba8017205/photo">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span>
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<h2>3. Many Oath Keepers are former military personnel</h2>
<p>The Oath Keepers – who “<a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-the-11-oath-keepers-charged-with-sedition-are-many-more-who-have-been-trained-by-the-us-military-175322">may number in the thousands</a>” – are a threat in part “because the Oath Keepers actively recruit current and retired members of the armed forces,” wrote <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=pdQoqX4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Mia Bloom</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UlDYlEoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Sophia Moskalenko</a>, Georgia State University scholars of violent extremism.</p>
<p>They reported that “[a]bout 10% of the Oath Keepers are active-duty military, and around two-thirds are retired military or law enforcement,” and that “[s]everal Oath Keepers present at the Jan. 6 attack were veterans,” some of whom used a military formation to breach the Capitol.</p>
<p>In addition, a growing number of military personnel are involved in domestic terrorism, and an increasing number of extremists have military ties, Bloom and Moskalenko reported.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-the-11-oath-keepers-charged-with-sedition-are-many-more-who-have-been-trained-by-the-us-military-175322">Behind the 11 Oath Keepers charged with sedition are many more who have been trained by the US military</a>
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<h2>4. The First Amendment does not protect sedition</h2>
<p>Those former military members may have taken an oath to protect the U.S. and its Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, but they are finding that constitutional protections go only so far.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/oath-keepers-convictions-shed-light-on-the-limits-of-free-speech-and-the-threat-posed-by-militias-195616">Far-right extremists or other hate groups</a> can claim they are just venting or even fantasizing – both of which would be protected under the First Amendment,” wrote <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5nxIh9YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Amy Cooter</a>, a scholar of extremism and militias at <a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/people/amy-cooter">Middlebury’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism</a>. “For this reason, seditious conspiracy charges have historically been hard to prosecute.”</p>
<p>Cooter noted that Rhodes did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but his conviction “suggests that the jury believed that Rhodes’ texts and other communications incited others to violent, undemocratic action in a way that requires accountability.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oath-keepers-convictions-shed-light-on-the-limits-of-free-speech-and-the-threat-posed-by-militias-195616">Oath Keepers convictions shed light on the limits of free speech – and the threat posed by militias</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The founder of a violent anti-government group has been sent to prison for seditious conspiracy. Experts explain what that means.Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2050942023-05-04T18:00:46Z2023-05-04T18:00:46ZProud Boys members convicted of seditious conspiracy – 3 essential reads on the group and right-wing extremist white nationalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524475/original/file-20230504-17-j87prr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C3657%2C2418&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Enrique Tarrio, center, stands with other Proud Boys at a 2019 rally in Portland, Oregon.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolRiotProudBoys/eae15d0d6212495398e5144cf097db4c/photo">AP Photo/Noah Berger</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four members of the right-wing extremist group called the Proud Boys were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/us/politics/jan-6-proud-boys-sedition.html">convicted on May 4, 2023, on charges of seditious conspiracy</a> and other charges in connection with their efforts to lead an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Those convicted include the group’s former leader, Enrique Tarrio.</p>
<p>Several scholars have written for The Conversation U.S. about the group, its ideologies and other elements of the right-wing extremist push for white nationalism. Here we spotlight three examples from our archives.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd, including a person carrying a megaphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Members of the Proud Boys, along with others, march toward the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachProudBoys/9e3a1ebb87a34cc394b34446e00ab3f0/photo">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
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<h2>1. Who are the Proud Boys and what do they want?</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/regardless-of-seditious-conspiracy-charges-outcome-right-wing-groups-like-proud-boys-seek-to-build-a-white-nation-184592">Proud Boys have identified themselves</a> as ‘Western chauvinists’ who focus on opposing political correctness and white guilt. But these claims have generally been seen as cover for deeper racist and antisemitic sentiments,” wrote criminology scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fjys1XAAAAAJ&hl=en">Matthew Valasik</a> at the University of Alabama and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cLpO6QwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Shannon Reid</a> at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.</p>
<p>“[T]he more committed members of these and other extreme right-wing groups believe that the U.S. government, as currently constituted, is illegitimate and should be overthrown and replaced with one that is based on white supremacy,” they wrote.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/regardless-of-seditious-conspiracy-charges-outcome-right-wing-groups-like-proud-boys-seek-to-build-a-white-nation-184592">Regardless of seditious conspiracy charges' outcome, right-wing groups like Proud Boys seek to build a white nation</a>
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<img alt="Woman wearing a mask holds a sign likening COVID-19 to racism – 'assume you have it'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378861/original/file-20210114-15-rc98jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Decrying the insidiousness of white supremacy at a protest march.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-wearing-a-mask-holds-a-sign-likening-covid-19-to-news-photo/1229553338?adppopup=true">Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>2. Proud Boys are just one example of systemic racism</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-supremacists-who-stormed-us-capitol-are-only-the-most-visible-product-of-racism-152295">Many Proud Boys reject</a> the label ‘white supremacist,’ arguing their aim is to ‘save America’ and to defend ‘Western values,’” wrote <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=CVwqBSwAAAAJ">Ursula Moffitt</a>, who was a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Northwestern University but is now on the faculty of Wheaton College. </p>
<p>But, she explained, “[w]hite supremacy was itself a longstanding Western value. And white people don’t have to be white supremacists to benefit from the ways it still shapes American society.”</p>
<p>In fact, Moffitt wrote, “the privileges afforded to whiteness are so much a part of the structure of U.S. society that many white people don’t even notice them. … [A]lthough racism is often seen only as prejudiced beliefs and behaviors – as embodied by the Proud Boys and other such groups – it is better defined as a system of advantage based on race.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/white-supremacists-who-stormed-us-capitol-are-only-the-most-visible-product-of-racism-152295">White supremacists who stormed US Capitol are only the most visible product of racism</a>
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</em>
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<h2>3. The challenge of reintegrating extremists into society</h2>
<p>It’s not clear what will happen if the four Proud Boys members convicted on May 4, or others facing their own charges in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, go to jail – or what society will do with them when they’re eventually released.</p>
<p>“[N]either the national security agencies nor the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons has seriously considered <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-fight-domestic-terrorism-6-experts-share-their-thoughts-165054">how to handle extremist inmates while they serve their sentences</a>, nor how to offer them a road to reintegration with the country they attacked, or planned to,” wrote <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=e_JYQCkAAAAJ">John Horgan</a>, a psychologist at Georgia State University.</p>
<p>Horgan recommended creating “deradicalization efforts to address the increasingly diverse population of homegrown terrorists, [which] could include psychological counseling and restorative justice.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-difficult-to-fight-domestic-terrorism-6-experts-share-their-thoughts-165054">Why is it so difficult to fight domestic terrorism? 6 experts share their thoughts</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205094/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Who are the Proud Boys, what do they want and is there a path back into society for these extremists?Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004342023-02-23T13:14:29Z2023-02-23T13:14:29ZViolent extremists are not lone wolves – dispelling this myth could help reduce violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511766/original/file-20230222-630-7sfjgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, view a memorial at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1240962615/photo/vice-president-kamala-harris-travels-to-buffalo-new-york-for-funeral-of-ruth-whitfield.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=wPyMpzGbR30i8XLeheSMQ1J7JkOHpZ3iTjsG-WiOr68=">Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Feb. 15, 2023, a judge informed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/nyregion/buffalo-shooting-gunman-sentencing.html">Payton Gendron</a> – a white 19-year-old who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo Tops market in 2022 – that “You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”</p>
<p>The week before, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/texas-man-pleads-guilty-90-federal-hate-crimes-and-firearms-violations-august-2019-mass">Patrick Crusius</a> – a white 24-year-old who gunned down 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 – received 90 consecutive life sentences.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/majority-media/peters-investigative-report-shows-dhs-and-fbi-are-not-adequately-addressing-domestic-terrorism-threat/">threat of domestic terrorism</a> remains high in the United States – especially the danger posed by white power extremists, many of whom believe white people are <a href="https://theconversation.com/replacement-theory-isnt-new-3-things-to-know-about-how-this-once-fringe-conspiracy-has-become-more-mainstream-183492">being “replaced”</a> by people of color. </p>
<p>I <a href="https://sasn.rutgers.edu/about-us/faculty-staff/alex-hinton">am a scholar</a> of political violence and extremism and wrote about these beliefs in a 2021 book, <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479808014/it-can-happen-here/">“It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US</a>.” I think it’s important to understand the lessons that can be learned from events like the Buffalo and El Paso mass shootings. </p>
<p>After decades of research on numerous attacks that have left scores dead, we have learned that extremists are almost always part of a pack, not lone wolves. But the <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/05/buffalo-shooting-and-rise-of-lone-wolf-attack">myth of the lone wolf</a> shooter remains tenacious, reappearing in media coverage after almost every mass shooting or act of far-right extremist violence. Because this myth misdirects people from the actual causes of extremist violence, it impedes society’s ability to prevent attacks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white man in an orange prison suit wears a white face mask and has his hands folded together. Two police officers walk on either side of him, holding his arms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511776/original/file-20230222-14-zmha9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron was sentenced to life in prison in February 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1398122416/photo/buffalo-supermarket-shooter-payton-gendron-indicted-by-grand-jury-in-court.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=v_OojYPTGEGErfwMgVH1z3XqkQpyYyVFRSvIEq5frR0=">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The lone wolf extremist myth is dangerous</h2>
<p>FBI Director Christopher Wray said in August 2022 <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Testimony%20-%20Wray%20-%202022-08-04.pdf">that the nation’s top threat</a> comes from far-right extremist <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/oversight-of-the-federal-bureau-of-investigation-the-january-6-insurrection-domestic-terrorism-and-other-threats">“lone actors”</a> – who, he explained, work alone, instead of “<a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/fbi-director-christopher-wray-testifies-on-capitol-attack-domestic-terrorism-full-hearing-transcript-march-2">as part of a large group</a>.”</p>
<p>Wray is wrong, and the myth of the lone wolf extremist – the mistaken idea that violent extremists largely act alone – continues to directly inform <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=727224">research</a>, <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol112/iss5/6/">law enforcement</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/30/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist">popular imagination</a>.</p>
<p>I think that Wray’s focus on extremism is much needed and long overdue. However, his line of thinking is dangerous and misleading. By focusing on individuals or small groups, it overlooks broader networks and long-term dangers and so can impede efforts to combat far-right extremist violence – which Wray has singled out as the country’s most lethal domestic threat. </p>
<h2>Not a new trend</h2>
<p>Far-right extremists may physically carry out an attack alone or as part of a small group of people, but they are almost always networked and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/opinion/us-white-supremacy-violence.html">identify with larger groups and causes</a>. </p>
<p>This was true long before the social media age. <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/review/bring-the-war-home-kathleen-belew?language_content_entity=en">Take Timothy McVeigh.</a> He is often depicted as the archetypal lone wolf madman who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995. </p>
<p>In fact, McVeigh was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/04/22/604319422/bring-the-war-home-shows-lone-wolf-terrorists-are-really-part-of-a-pack">part of a pack</a>. He had accomplices and was connected across the far-right extremist landscape.</p>
<p>The same is <a href="https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/experts-tell-how-to-spot-a-lone-wolf-after-buffalo-shooting/">true of Gendron</a> and <a href="https://cupblog.org/2019/08/14/understanding-the-el-paso-massacre/">Crusius</a>, who were also characterized in media coverage as lone wolves. </p>
<p>“He talked about how he didn’t like school because he didn’t have friends. He would say he was lonely,” <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/new-york/articles/2022-05-17/buffalo-suspect-lonely-isolated-and-a-sign-of-trouble">a classmate of Gendron</a> said shortly after Gendron carried out the mass shooting. </p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/tops-massacre-suspect-payton-gendron-may-have-spewed-hate-online">were active</a> on <a href="https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/patrick-crusius">far-right extremist</a> social media platforms and posted manifestos before their attacks. Gendron’s manifesto discusses how he was radicalized on the dark web and inspired to attack after watching videos of <a href="https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/executive-summary-2/executive-summary/">Brenton Tarrant’s 2019 massacre</a> of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.</p>
<p>Almost a quarter of <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/buffaloshooting-onlineplatformsreport.pdf">Gendron’s manifesto</a> is directly taken from Tarrant’s, which was titled “The Great Replacement.” This <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/05/17/racist-great-replacement-conspiracy-theory-explained">fear of white replacement</a>, centered around perceived <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/08/22/1029609786/2020-census-data-results-white-population-shrinking-decline-non-hispanic-race">white demographic decline</a>, was also a motive for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/04/whats-inside-hate-filled-manifesto-linked-el-paso-shooter/">Crusius</a>. His manifesto pays homage to Tarrant, before explaining his attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”</p>
<p>The lone wolf myth also suggests that extremists are abnormal deviants with anti-social personalities.</p>
<p>After Gendron’s rampage, for example, New York Attorney General Letitia James called him a “<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/buffalo-shooting-carried-out-by-sick-demented-individual-fuelled-by-diet-of-hate-who-is-now-on-suicide-watch-12613911">sick, demented individual</a>.” Crusius, in turn, was described by the White House and news articles as “<a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-mass-shootings-texas-ohio/">evil</a>,” “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/us/el-paso-shooter-psychotic-state/index.html">psychotic</a>” and an “<a href="https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/el-paso-shooter-was-an-social-loner-former-classmate-says/287-010d60d7-f21b-4620-a4d4-062710f8e448">anti-social loner</a>.”</p>
<p>The vast majority of far-right extremists are, in fact, otherwise <a href="https://www.topic.com/the-secret-weapons-of-the-far-right">ordinary men and women</a>. They live in rural areas, suburbs and cities. They are students and working professionals. And they believe their extremist cause is justified. This point was illustrated by the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/%22%22">spectrum of participants</a> in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people face towards a large red brick building and a small pile of flowers, balloons and an American flag." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511778/original/file-20230222-20-7apa5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People hug at a memorial outside the Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where a shooter killed 23 people in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1159706226/photo/us-crime-shooting-toll.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=i7q3sEZDNSxZO8GM7hCi0tKeILmSGtSCk3S6MhnEadU=">Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tracing the lone wolf mythology</h2>
<p>How did the lone-wolf metaphor come to misinform the public’s view of extremists, and why is it so tenacious?</p>
<p>Part of the answer is linked to white supremacist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/us/louis-beam-white-supremacy-internet.html">Louis Beam</a>, who wrote the essay “Leaderless Resistance” in 1983. In it, he called for far-right extremists to act individually or in small groups that couldn’t be traced up a chain of command. According to his lawyer, McVeigh was one of those influenced by Beam’s call. </p>
<p>After Beam formulated this idea, both far-right extremists and law enforcement increasingly used the lone wolf term. In 1998, the FBI even mounted an “<a href="https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/sandiego/about-us/history/operation-lone-wolf">Operation Lone Wolf</a>” to investigate a West Coast white supremacist cell.</p>
<p>The 9/11 terrorist attacks further turned U.S. attention to Islamic militant “lone wolves.” A decade later, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/30/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist">the term became mainstream</a>.</p>
<p>And so it was not a surprise when, after the Buffalo shooting, New York State Senator James Sanders said, “Although this is probably a lone-wolf incident, this is not the first mass shooting we have seen, and sadly it will not be the last.” </p>
<p>The tenacity of the lone wolf myth has several sources. It’s convenient – evocative and powerful enough to draw and keep people’s attention. </p>
<p>By using this term, which individualizes extremism, law enforcement officials may also depoliticize their work. Instead of focusing on movements like white nationalism that have sympathizers in the various levels of government, <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/white-supremacy-returned-mainstream-politics/">from sheriffs to senators</a>, they focus on individuals.</p>
<p>The lone wolf extremist myth diverts from what should be the focus of deterrence efforts: understanding how far-right extremists network, organize and, as the Jan. 6 insurrection showed, build coalitions across diverse groups, especially through the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151360750/social-medias-role-in-jan-6-was-left-out-of-the-final-report">use of social media</a>. </p>
<p>Such understanding provides a basis for developing long-term strategies to prevent extremists like Gendron and Crusius from carrying out more violent attacks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Hinton receives funding from "The Center for Politics and Race in America at Rutgers University-Newark.”
</span></em></p>The lone wolf metaphor used to describe mass shooters misinforms views of extremists – and law enforcement efforts to deter the violence.Alexander Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Director, Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1966382022-12-23T14:00:34Z2022-12-23T14:00:34ZCommittee report focus is not on demonstrators – 5 essential reads on the symbols they carried on Jan. 6<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502173/original/file-20221220-26-jghfgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=52%2C7%2C4962%2C3331&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The congressional investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, focused on one man, not the masses.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolRiotInvestigation/eb11d0215eb547bf9b79a940c00679ce/photo">Al Drago/Pool Photo via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the <a href="https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Report_FinalReport_Jan6SelectCommittee.pdf">final report emerges</a> from the congressional committee investigating the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, the focus is on the role of then-President Donald Trump and those close to him. That’s crucial information, but it leaves out another important chapter of the story.</p>
<p>There were thousands of people demonstrating on the streets of Washington, D.C., that day, whose actions are not recounted in detail in the congressional report. They carried a variety of political and ideological flags and signs. The Conversation asked scholars to explain what they saw – including ancient Norse images and more recent flags from U.S. history.</p>
<p>Here are five articles from The Conversation’s coverage, explaining what many of the symbols mean.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, between portraits of senators who both opposed and supported slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporter-of-us-president-donald-trump-carries-a-news-photo/1230455296">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>1. The Confederate battle flag</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most recognized symbol of white supremacy is the Confederate battle flag. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-confederate-battle-flag-which-rioters-flew-inside-the-us-capitol-has-long-been-a-symbol-of-white-insurrection-153071">Since its debut during the Civil War</a>, the Confederate battle flag has been flown regularly by white insurrectionists and reactionaries fighting against rising tides of newly won Black political power,” writes <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jordan-brasher-345465">Jordan Brasher</a> at Columbus State University, who has studied how the Confederacy has been memorialized.</p>
<p>He notes that in one photo from inside the Capitol, the flag’s history came into sharp relief as the man carrying it was standing between “the portraits of two Civil War-era U.S. senators – one an ardent proponent of slavery and the other an abolitionist once beaten unconscious for his views on the Senate floor.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Gadsden flags fly at a Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C36%2C6020%2C3974&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gadsden flags fly at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/capitol-police-line-the-barricades-as-trump-supporters-news-photo/1230452268">Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>2. The yellow Gadsden flag</h2>
<p>Another flag with a racist history is the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. A symbol warning of self-defense, it was designed by slave owner and trader Christopher Gadsden when the American Revolution began, as Iowa State University graphic design scholar <a href="https://www.design.iastate.edu/faculty/bruski/">Paul Bruski</a> writes.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/yellow-gadsden-flag-prominent-in-capitol-takeover-carries-a-long-and-shifting-history-145142">Because of its creator’s history</a> and because it is commonly flown alongside ‘Trump 2020’ flags, the Confederate battle flag and other white-supremacist flags, some may now see the Gadsden flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate – or even racism,” he explains.</p>
<p>It has been adopted by the tea party movement and other Republican-leaning groups, but the flag still carries the legacy, and the name, of its creator.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="U.S. Capitol storming, gallows, Trump supporters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C33%2C5540%2C3631&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gallows symbolizing the lynching of Jews was among the hate symbols carried as crowds stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporters-near-the-u-s-capitol-on-january-06-2021-in-news-photo/1230476983?adppopup=true">Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>3. Powerful antisemitism</h2>
<p>Another arm of white supremacy doesn’t target Blacks. Instead, it demonizes Jewish people. Plenty of antisemitic symbols were on display during the riot, as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VKv2qFsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Jonathan D. Sarna</a> explains.</p>
<p>Sarna is a Brandeis University scholar of American antisemitism and describes the ways that “<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-scholar-of-american-anti-semitism-explains-the-hate-symbols-present-during-the-us-capitol-riot-152883">[c]alls to exterminate Jews are common in far-right and white nationalist circles</a>.” That included a gallows erected outside the Capitol, evoking a disturbing element of a 1978 novel depicting the takeover of Washington, along with mass lynchings and slaughtering of Jews.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a horned hat and displaying Norse tattoos." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man known as Jake Angeli, now imprisoned for his role in the Capitol riot, wears a horned hat and tattoos of Norse images.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-us-president-donald-trump-including-jake-news-photo/1230468102">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>4. Co-opted Norse mythology</h2>
<p>Among the most striking images of the January riot were those of a man wearing a horned hat and no shirt, displaying several large tattoos. He is known as Jake Angeli, but his full name is Jacob Chansley, and he is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/jacob-chansley-qanon-shaman-january-6-sentencing/index.html">serving a 41-month sentence in prison</a> for his role in the riot. </p>
<p>Tom Birkett, a lecturer in Old English at University College Cork in Ireland, explains that many of the symbols Chansley wore are from Norse mythology. However, he explains, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-capitol-riot-the-myths-behind-the-tattoos-worn-by-qanon-shaman-jake-angeli-152996">These symbols have also been co-opted by a growing far-right movement</a>.”</p>
<p>Birkett traces the modern use of Norse symbols back to the Nazis and points out that they are a form of code hidden in plain sight: “If certain symbols are hard for the general public to spot, they are certainly dog whistles to members of an increasingly global white supremacist movement who know exactly what they mean.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C622%2C4914%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rioters scale structures while flying flags outside the Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C622%2C4914%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The yellow-and-red-striped flag of the defeated American-backed Republic of Vietnam flies at the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trumps-supporters-gather-outside-the-news-photo/1230458129">Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>5. An outlier, of sorts</h2>
<p>Another flag was prominent at the Capitol riot, one that doesn’t strictly represent white supremacy: the flag of the former independent country of South Vietnam. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/longbui/">Long T. Bui</a>, a global studies scholar at the University of California, Irvine, explains that when flown by Vietnamese Americans, many of whom support Trump, the flag symbolizes militant nationalism.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-flag-of-south-vietnam-flew-at-us-capitol-siege-152937">[S]ome Vietnamese Americans view their fallen homeland</a> as an extension of the American push for freedom and democracy worldwide. I have interviewed Vietnamese American soldiers who fear American freedom is failing,” he explains.</p>
<p><em>This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives and is an update of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-white-supremacy-flew-proudly-at-the-capitol-riot-5-essential-reads-153055">article previously published</a> on Jan. 15, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The role of then-President Donald Trump and his aides and advisers is important, but there is a lot more to the story of Jan. 6, 2021, than what happened behind closed doors.Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967542022-12-20T13:36:33Z2022-12-20T13:36:33ZThe Jan. 6 committee makes its case against Trump, his allies and their conspiracy to commit an insurrection: Five essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501907/original/file-20221219-18-2cgf3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=588%2C162%2C3414%2C2502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, is chairman of the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-bennie-thompson-chairman-of-the-house-select-committee-news-photo/1244858902?phrase=bennie%20thompson&adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From its first public hearing on June 9, 2022, the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capital has offered hours of riveting testimony detailing America’s first nonpeaceful transfer of presidential power.</p>
<p>The committee, which is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/january-6-committee-final-public-meeting/index.html">expected to be dissolved</a> when the GOP-led House convenes in January 2023, may not be remembered for its production of voluminous evidence and slick television video clips. Instead, the committee may be remembered more for what it could not do – criminally indict former President Donald Trump for his leadership role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden. </p>
<p>That task is left to the U.S. Department of Justice, which is also conducting an investigation of Trump. But the committee’s work had a broader goal. The hearings are expected to have a historic impact that may take years to be seen and felt, writes <a href="https://www.smith.edu/academics/faculty/claire-leavitt">Claire Leavitt</a>, a Smith College assistant professor of government.</p>
<p>“What viewers saw is perhaps even more significant – it was history being written in real time,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/jan-6-hearing-gives-primetime-exposure-to-violent-footage-and-dramatic-evidence-the-question-is-to-what-end-184416">wrote Leavitt, a scholar of government oversight</a>.</p>
<p>As the hearings unfolded, The Conversation published several articles looking at the details that emerged about organizers of, and participants in, the assault, the history of congressional oversight and whether a U.S. president can be held criminally accountable for his or her actions – and inactions.</p>
<h2>1. Behind-the-scenes committee stars</h2>
<p>As a scholar of government and the separation of powers, <a href="https://publish.illinois.edu/jselin/">Jennifer Selin</a> observes that among the real stars of the committee’s work are the talented – and largely unrecognized – teams of staffers who worked to obtain the evidence presented in the hearings. </p>
<p>“While the rioters on Jan. 6 shouted through the halls of Congress about taking back the power of the people, their insurrection failed,” Selin wrote. “Instead, the men and women helping the Jan. 6 committee understand what went on that day are quietly, insistently, reminding Americans of the bedrock values of their republic.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jan-6-committee-hearings-show-what-went-right-not-just-what-went-wrong-185246">Jan. 6 committee hearings show what went right, not just what went wrong</a>
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<h2>2. What prosecuting a leader means</h2>
<p>As scholars of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W54pBFgAAAAJ&hl=en">liberal democracy</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FlYT3TEAAAAJ&hl=en">elections</a>, Victor Menaldo and James D. Long examine <a href="https://theconversation.com/prosecuting-ex-presidents-for-corruption-is-trending-worldwide-but-its-not-always-great-for-democracy-156931">the ranks of leaders</a> from other countries who were once thought to be untouchable but who ultimately faced justice.</p>
<p>Based on the hearings, there is now far more evidence than what was presented during Trump’s second impeachment trial of potential crimes during the waning days of his tenure. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged man wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie is seen on a large screen talking on a telephone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visual of President Donald Trump is shown during the July 12, 2022, congressional hearings investigating the attack on the Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/july-12-2022-a-visual-of-president-donald-trump-is-shown-as-news-photo/1241888427?adppopup=true">Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The evidence not only points to Trump’s failure to perform his constitutional duties on Jan. 6, 2021, but also includes some potential meat-and-potatoes offenses like intimidation of government officials with the threat of force and obstruction of Congress. </p>
<p>What would happen if Trump were indicted? Menaldo and Long write that their examination of other countries that prosecuted leaders leads to the conclusion that “Strong democracies are usually competent enough – and the judicial system independent enough – to go after politicians who misbehave, including top leaders.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/with-trumps-role-on-jan-6-becoming-clearer-and-potentially-criminal-gop-voters-are-starting-to-look-at-different-options-186108">With Trump's role on Jan. 6 becoming clearer, and potentially criminal, GOP voters are starting to look at different options</a>
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</p>
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<h2>3. Trump’s complex connection to Capitol rioters</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy-Cooter">Amy Cooter</a> is a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University. From 2008 through 2012, she embedded with militia groups, mostly in Michigan. Her research on these groups makes it easier to understand the Jan. 6 riot and the relationship it had to Trump. </p>
<p>“Militias always see themselves as prepared for action,” Cooter writes. “Usually, this means they’re prepared to defend themselves and their communities in the event of a natural disaster, or some kind of invasion.”</p>
<p>But as the hearings revealed, some of these groups <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/court-document-proud-boys-case-laid-plan-occupy-capitol-buildings-jan-rcna33755">appeared to have been planning</a> more than just a defensive stance on Jan. 6. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jan-6-committee-set-to-examine-trumps-connection-to-capitol-rioters-a-militia-expert-explains-this-complex-relationship-186814">Jan. 6 committee set to examine Trump's connection to Capitol rioters – a militia expert explains this complex relationship</a>
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<h2>4.Why Trump can’t be prosecuted for ‘dereliction of duty’</h2>
<p>During the prime-time hearing on July 21, 2022, of the House committee, the two panel members leading the hearing used the phrase “dereliction of duty” to describe the conduct of then-President Trump.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.westpoint.edu/law/profile/tim_bakken">a former prosecutor in New York City</a> and a professor of law at West Point, Tim Bakken believes that most people find solace in casting the most disparaging label possible upon an adversary.</p>
<p>But federal criminal law does not contain a dereliction of duty statute.</p>
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<img alt="Crowds of people waving Trump banners and American flags gather outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460657/original/file-20220501-12-u7quvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protesters gather near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-gather-storm-the-capitol-and-halt-a-joint-news-photo/1230458732?adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In Bakken’s view, a more precise way to consider the legality of Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 is to determine whether he wanted the rioters to commit a criminal act and if he engaged in some speech or behavior that urged them to do so or assisted them in some way. </p>
<p>“In that sense,” Bakken wrote, “the House Committee might find that the President was derelict. But that finding would be a label of moral or social disapproval, not a description of a criminal offense.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-cant-be-prosecuted-for-dereliction-of-duty-for-his-inaction-on-jan-6-187407">Why Donald Trump can't be prosecuted for 'dereliction of duty' for his inaction on Jan. 6</a>
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<h2>5. Full impact of Jan. 6 committee’s findings might not be felt for years</h2>
<p>As a scholar of oversight, Leavitt spent a year in 2019 working on the Democratic majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. </p>
<p>In her view, the committee’s work will have a historic impact in part because it took an approach that emphasized facts in presenting its case to the American people. </p>
<p>Those facts included extensive testimony from officials whose Republican bona fides are unimpeachable, such as former <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpwCApZh6KQ">Attorney General William Barr</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-hearing-testimony-illustrated/">former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06QUOzmMyec">Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger</a>. </p>
<p>Leavitt’s final assessment is that understanding the full impact of the investigation and the committee’s exhaustive report requires patience – probably decades’ worth. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jan-6-committees-fact-finding-and-bipartisanship-will-lead-to-an-impact-in-coming-decades-if-not-tomorrow-192324">Jan. 6 Committee's fact-finding and bipartisanship will lead to an impact in coming decades, if not tomorrow</a>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The US select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol has wrapped up its nearly two-year probe of that day’s violent but unsuccessful insurrection.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1843752022-09-23T12:33:51Z2022-09-23T12:33:51ZWhite nationalism is a political ideology that mainstreams racist conspiracy theories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483362/original/file-20220907-4832-pafie8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time speech on Sept. 1, 2022, in Philadelphia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-delivers-a-primetime-speech-at-news-photo/1420019465?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 2022, President Joe Biden convened a summit called <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/15/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-united-we-stand-summit/">United We Stand</a> to denounce the “venom and violence” of white nationalism ahead of the midterm elections. </p>
<p>His remarks repeated the theme of <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/01/remarks-by-president-bidenon-the-continued-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-nation/">his prime-time speech</a> in Philadelphia on Sept. 1, 2022, during which he warned that America’s democratic values are at stake.</p>
<p>“We must be honest with each other and with ourselves,” Biden said. “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” </p>
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<img alt="A white man dressed in navy blue suit with a white shirt and red tie hugs a smiling woman on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482834/original/file-20220905-18-mgnuue.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump embraces Kari Lake, the Arizona GOP candidate for governor, at a rally on July 22, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-president-donald-trump-embraces-republican-candidate-news-photo/1410394562?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>While that message may resonate among many Democratic voters, it’s unclear whether it will have any impact on any Republicans whom Biden described as “dominated and intimidated” by former President Donald Trump, or on independent voters who have played <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/09/14/independents-will-make-or-break-biden-and-the-democrats-in-november/">decisive roles in elections</a>, and will continue to do so, particularly as their numbers increase. </p>
<p>It’s also unclear whether Trump-endorsed candidates can win in general elections, in which they will face opposition not only from members of their own party but also from a broad swath of Democrats and independent voters.</p>
<p>What is clear is that this midterm election cycle has revealed the potency of conspiracy theories that prop up narratives of victimhood and messages of hate across the complex American landscape of white nationalism. </p>
<h2>Campaigning on conspiracy theories</h2>
<p>In my book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Homegrown-Hate-Nationalists-Militant-Islamists/dp/0520360028">Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War on the United States</a>,” I detail how the white nationalist narrative of victimhood and particular grievances have gained traction to become ingrained in the present-day Republican Party. </p>
<p>I also examine four key strands of white nationalism that overlap in various configurations: religions, racism, conspiracy theories and anti-government views.</p>
<p>Conspiracy theories allow white nationalists to depict a world in which Black and brown people are endangering the livelihoods, social norms and morals of white people.</p>
<p>In general, conspiracy theories are based on the belief that individual circumstances are <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/narcissists-seem-drawn-to-conspiracy-theories-but-why">the result of powerful enemies</a> actively agitating against the interests of a believing individual or group.</p>
<p>Based on the interviews I conducted while researching my book, these particular conspiracy theories are convenient because they justify the shared white nationalist goal of establishing institutions and territory of white people, for white people and by white people. While conspiracy theories are not new, and certainly not new to politics, they spread with increasing frequency and speed because of social media. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099034094/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory">great replacement theory</a>” is one such baseless belief that is playing a role in the anti-immigration rhetoric that is central to the 2022 strategies of many Republican candidates who are running for seats at all levels of government. </p>
<p>That theory erroneously warns believers of the threat that immigrants and people of color pose to white identity and institutions. </p>
<p>For months on the 2022 campaign trail, Republican <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/us/politics/immigration-latinos-hispanic-voters.html">Blake Masters</a>, a venture capitalist who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, has portrayed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of an elaborate plot by Democrats to dilute the political power of voters born in the United States.</p>
<p>“What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/us/politics/immigration-latinos-hispanic-voters.html">Masters said in a video</a> posted to Twitter last fall.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1115175247/talk-of-invasion-moves-from-the-fringe-to-the-mainstream-of-gop-immigration-mess">Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp</a> is another Republican leader who decries what he calls “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pm2JoxpqRk">the invasion of the southern border</a>.”</p>
<h2>The lie of the ‘Big Lie’</h2>
<p>Aside from the inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, the conspiracy theory currently having the biggest impact on local, state and federal political campaigns across the country is <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/big-lie-trump-stolen-election-inside-creation">Trump’s “Big Lie</a>” that he won the 2020 election. </p>
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<span class="caption">Donald Trump greets Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano on Sept. 3, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pennsylvania-republican-gubernatorial-candidate-doug-news-photo/1420631447?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/22/us/trump-endorsements.html">159 endorsements</a> Trump has made for proponents of the Big Lie, 127 of them have won their primaries in 2022.</p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://www.wvtf.org/2022-08-22/candidates-who-deny-the-2020-presidential-election-results-are-winning-races">Republican candidates</a> who align themselves with the Big Lie are also emerging victorious in races for state- and county-level offices whose responsibilities include direct oversight of elections.</p>
<h2>The continuation of QAnon</h2>
<p>On his social media site Truth Social, the former president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/trump-conspiracy-theories-truth-social.html">quotes and spreads conspiracy theories from the quasi-religious QAnon</a>. A major tenet of <a href="https://therevealer.org/qanon-the-kkk-and-the-exploitation-of-antisemitism-for-political-power/">QAnon</a> is the belief that the Democrats and people regarded as their liberal allies are a nefarious cabal of sexual predators and pedophiles. </p>
<p>Trump is not the only Republican politician who welcomes and spreads such disinformation. </p>
<p>Two of the <a href="https://rollcall.com/2020/11/05/qanon-goes-to-washington-two-supporters-win-seats-in-congress/">most prominent politicians</a> who have been linked to supporting QAnon are U.S. Reps. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/29/republicans-democrats-misinformation-falsehoods/">Lauren Boebert</a> of Colorado and <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/marjorie-taylor-greene-january-6-testimony">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a> of Georgia, both of whom have been resoundingly <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/3261167-trump-endorses-warrior-marjorie-taylor-greene-other-house-gop-2020-objectors/">endorsed</a> by Trump. </p>
<h2>Democracies under threat</h2>
<p>The blatant use of conspiracy theories for political gain reflects the open embrace of white nationalism in not only the United States but also throughout Sweden, France, Italy and other parts of the world.</p>
<p>In my view, the conspiracy theories that drive the 2022 midterm campaigns reflect the global threat of hate around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Kamali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Biden denounces white nationalism as once-democratic countries around the world are threatened by increasing political support for this ideology.Sara Kamali, Visiting Research Scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877602022-08-11T12:15:43Z2022-08-11T12:15:43ZFaced with a rise of extremism within its ranks, the US military has clamped down on racist speech, including retweets and likes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478395/original/file-20220809-16-3eagkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1122%2C197%2C4868%2C3790&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks at a news briefing at the Pentagon on July 20, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-austin-speaks-at-a-news-briefing-news-photo/1409930908?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Less than a month after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin took the extraordinary step of pausing all operations for 24 hours to “address <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2495924/dod-stand-down-to-address-extremism-in-the-ranks/">extremism in the ranks</a>.” Pentagon officials had been shaken by service members’ prominent role in the events of Jan. 6. </p>
<p>Of the <a href="https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1">884 criminal defendants</a> charged to date with taking part in the insurrection, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-january-6-military-ties/">more than 80</a> were veterans. That’s almost 10% of those charged.</p>
<p>More remarkable, <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/11/05/what-happened-members-of-military-accused-of-storming-capitol-january-6.html">at least five</a> of the rioters were serving in the military at the time of the assault: an active-duty Marine officer and four reservists. </p>
<p>Service members’ involvement in the insurrection has made the spread of extremism – particularly <a href="https://rollcall.com/2021/02/16/pentagon-report-reveals-inroads-white-supremacists-have-made-in-military/">white nationalism</a> – a significant issue for the U.S. military. </p>
<h2>Solving the problem</h2>
<p>A blue ribbon committee called the <a href="https://masscentral.com/department-of-defense-releases-report-on-countering-extremist-activities-and-outlines-next-steps/">Countering Extremist Activity Working Group</a> was quickly commissioned in April 2021 to evaluate the extent of the problem. </p>
<p>The group found about <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/pentagon-issues-rules-aimed-at-stopping-rise-of-extremism">100 substantiated cases</a> of extremism in the U.S. armed forces in 2021.</p>
<p>The latest instance occurred in July 2022, when Francis Harker, a National Guard member with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/26/national-guard-attack-police-extremism/">white supremacist connections</a>, was sentenced to four years in prison for planning an anti-government attack on police. Harker, who carried a picture saying “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/former-member-national-guard-sentenced-possessing-firearm-while-engaging-violent">there is no God but Hitler</a>,” was planning to attack police officers in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with Molotov cocktails and semi-automatic rifles.</p>
<p>Worried, Austin has <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/military-concerned-extremism-ranks/story?id=77119201">tightened the rules</a> regarding political speech within the military. The new rules prohibit any statement that advocates for “violence to achieve goals that are <a href="https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/132506p.PDF?ver=ckT436s6Q40EVtgLn-Fe7g%3d%3d">political … or idealogical</a> in nature.” The ban applies to members of the military both on and off duty. </p>
<p>Also, for the first time, the new rules prohibit statements on social media that “promote or otherwise endorse extremist activities.” </p>
<p>While the intent behind the new rules is laudable, political speech – even of an offensive or distasteful nature – goes to the <a href="https://cite.case.law/cma/21/564/">core of U.S. democracy</a>. Americans in uniform are still Americans, protected by <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">the First Amendment</a> and afforded <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment">the constitutional right of free speech</a>. </p>
<p>In light of the stricter policy, it is useful to consider how courts apply the First Amendment in the military context. </p>
<h2>Good order and discipline</h2>
<p>While soldiers and sailors are certainly not excluded from the protection of the First Amendment, it is fair to say they operate under a <a href="https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-zimmerman-59">diluted version</a> of it. </p>
<p>As one federal judge observed, the “sweep of the protection is <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/66/442/">less comprehensive</a> in the military context, given the different character of the military community and mission.” </p>
<p>The “right to speak out as a free American” <a href="https://cite.case.law/cma/21/564/">must be balanced</a> against “providing an effective fighting force for the defense of our Country,” a federal judge noted in a separate case. </p>
<p>These and other federal judges point to the military’s need for <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/33/797/">good order and discipline</a> in justifying this approach.</p>
<p>While never precisely defined, good order and discipline is generally considered being obedient to orders, having respect for one’s chain of command and showing allegiance to the Constitution. Speech that “prevents the orderly <a href="https://cite.case.law/mj/45/389/">accomplishment of the mission</a>” or “promotes <a href="https://cite.case.law/cma/20/63/">disloyalty and dissatisfaction</a>” within the ranks harms good order and discipline, and can be restricted.</p>
<p>In 1974, for example, the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/417/733/">Supreme Court</a> ruled that the Army can punish an officer for encouraging subordinates to refuse to deploy. </p>
<p>The officer’s comments included: “The United States is wrong in being involved in the Vietnam War. I would refuse to go back to Vietnam if ordered to do so.”</p>
<p>In 1980, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews/?q=578%20F.2d%201197&sort=date-ascending&p=1&type=case&claims=&partyTypes=">the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals</a> ruled that the Army could legally fire an ROTC cadet for making racist remarks during a newspaper interview. </p>
<p>Explaining his political philosophy, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/stein-v-dowling">the cadet said</a>: “What I am saying is that Blacks are obviously further behind the whites on the evolutionary scale.”</p>
<p>In 2012, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/stein-v-dowling">a San Diego district court</a> ruled that the Marine Corps can lawfully discharge a sergeant who mocked president Barack Obama while appearing on the “Chris Matthews Show.” At one point the sergeant told the host: “As an active duty Marine, I say screw Obama and I will not follow his orders.” </p>
<p>While each of these statements is protected by the First Amendment in civilian life, they crossed the line in military life because they were deemed harmful to morale and represented what one federal court described as more than “political discussion … at an <a href="https://cite.case.law/cma/21/564/">enlisted or officers’ club</a>.”</p>
<h2>The military’s job is to fight, not debate</h2>
<p>In deciding these First Amendment cases, courts often hark back to why the military exists in the first place.</p>
<p>“It is the primary business of armies and navies … <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/350/11/">to fight the nation’s wars</a> should the occasion arise,” the Supreme Court said in 1955. </p>
<p>In a separate case, the Supreme Court declared: “<a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/137/147/">An army is not a deliberate body</a>. It is the executive arm. Its law is that of obedience.” </p>
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<img alt="Dozens of soldiers dressed in uniforms form a square and stand at attention." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478546/original/file-20220810-18-e81u6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. soldiers stand to attention at the United States Army military training base in Germany on July 13, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soldiers-stand-to-attention-at-the-united-states-army-news-photo/1241877321?adppopup=true">Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Quickly <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/462/296/">following orders</a> can mark the difference between life and death in combat. </p>
<p>On a national level, the degree to which an army is <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/345/83/">disciplined</a> can win or lose wars. A mindset of obedience does not come solely from classroom training but from repeated rehearsals under realistic conditions. </p>
<p>As a military judge observed in a <a href="https://cite.case.law/cma/21/564/">1972 decision</a>, while service members are free to discuss political issues when off duty, the “primary function of a military organization is to execute orders, not to debate the wisdom of decisions that the Constitution entrusts” to Congress, the judiciary and the commander in chief. </p>
<h2>New policy bans ‘liking’ extremist messages</h2>
<p>The U.S. military’s revised approach to political speech prohibits retweeting or even “liking” messages that promote anti-government or white nationalist and other extremist groups. </p>
<p>Does a restriction this broad comply with legal precedent? </p>
<p>As <a href="https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/?id=73455">a law professor</a> who has served more than 20 years in the U.S military, I believe the broader rules will probably be upheld if challenged on First Amendment grounds. </p>
<p>The most comparable case is <a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews/?q=578%20F.2d%201197&sort=date-ascending&p=1&type=case&claims=&partyTypes=">Blameuser v. Andrews</a>, a 1980 case from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals where an ROTC cadet espoused white supremacist political views in a newspaper interview.</p>
<p>Amongst other extremist remarks, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/stein-v-dowling">the cadet told the reporter</a>: “You see, I believe that in the final analysis, the Nazi Socialist Party will take over America and possibly the whole world.”</p>
<p>Finding that the statements harmed good order and discipline, the Seventh Circuit ruled that the Army did not violate the First Amendment when it subsequently removed him from the officer training program. </p>
<p>The cadet’s “views on race relations draw into question his ability to obey commands, especially in a situation in which he regards the military superior as socially inferior,” the <a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews/?q=578%20F.2d%201197&sort=date-ascending&p=1&type=case&claims=&partyTypes=">Blameuser decision</a> said. </p>
<p>The military has wide latitude in deciding who is deserving of the “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews/?q=578%20F.2d%201197&sort=date-ascending&p=1&type=case&claims=&partyTypes=">special trust and confidence</a>” that comes with military employment. Military officials are free to consider political and social beliefs that are “inimical to the vital mission of the agency” in making hiring and firing decisions, the <a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews-2">Blameuser decision</a> said. </p>
<p>Social media posts expressing support for violent political activities will likely be treated in the same way. </p>
<p>As the Seventh Circuit said in Blameuser, by liking or retweeting an extremist message, a service member’s actions are “<a href="https://casetext.com/case/blameuser-v-andrews-2">demonstrably incompatible</a> with the important public office” they hold.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Dwight Stirling is a reserve JAG officer in the California National Guard. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency.</span></em></p>For civilians, free speech is protected by the First Amendment. Not so in the US military, where the rise of political extremism has become a problem.Dwight Stirling, Lecturer in Law, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880552022-08-05T12:12:59Z2022-08-05T12:12:59ZAfter Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477719/original/file-20220804-17-xtxnvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2500%2C1785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Separation of church and state: no longer so separate?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-flag-and-the-cross-royalty-free-image/1058861544?adppopup=true">Amanda Wayne/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections, some politicians continue to ride the wave of what’s known as “Christian nationalism” in ways that are increasingly vocal and direct.</p>
<p>GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Donald Trump loyalist from Georgia, told an interviewer on July 23, 2022, that the Republican Party “need[s] to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/27/opinions/christian-nationalism-marjorie-taylor-greene-tyler/index.html">we should be Christian nationalists</a>.”</p>
<p>Similarly, Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, recently <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1109141110">said</a>, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.” Boebert called the separation of church and state “junk.”</p>
<p>Many Christian nationalists repeat conservative activist <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/29/texas-church-state-separation-opposition/">David Barton’s</a> argument that the Founding Fathers did not intend to keep religion out of government.</p>
<p>As a scholar of racism and communication who has written about <a href="http://contemporaryrhetoric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Perry8_1_2_5.pdf">white nationalism</a> during the Trump presidency, I find the amplification of Christian nationalism <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/944_OPSR_TEVUS_Comparing-Violent-Nonviolent-Far-Right-Hate-Groups_Dec2011-508.pdf">unsurprising</a>. Christian nationalism is prevalent among Trump supporters, as religion scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=I1K3emoAAAAJ&hl=en">Andrew Whitehead</a> and <a href="https://www.ou.edu/cas/soc/people/faculty/samuel-perry">Samuel L. Perry</a> argue in their book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/taking-america-back-for-god-9780190057886?cc=us&lang=en&">Taking Back America for God</a>.”</p>
<p>Perry and Whitehead <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BDLNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10">describe the Christian nationalist movement</a> as being “as ethnic and political as it is religious,” noting that it relies on the assumption of white supremacy. Christian nationalism combines belief in a particular form of Christianity with nativist and populist political platforms. American Christian nationalism is a worldview based on the belief that America is superior to other countries, and that that superiority is divinely established. In this mindset, only Christians are true Americans.</p>
<p>Parts of the movement fit into a broader right-wing extremist history of violence, which has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.43">been on the rise</a> <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states">over the past few decades</a> and was particularly on display <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/opinion/christian-nationalists-capitol-attack.html">during the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021</a>.</p>
<p>The vast majority of Christian nationalists never engage in violence. Nonetheless, <a href="https://nationalcouncilofchurches.us/common-witness-ncc/the-dangers-of-christian-nationalism-in-the-united-states-a-policy-statement-of-the-national-council-of-churches/">Christian nationalist thinking</a> suggests that unless Christians control the state, the state will suppress Christianity. </p>
<h2>From siege to militia buildup</h2>
<p>Violence perpetrated by Christian nationalists has manifested in two primary ways in recent decades. The first is through their <a href="http://www.religion-online.org/article/militias-christian-identity-and-the-radical-right/">involvement in militia groups</a>; the second is seen in <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43406-3_3">attacks on abortion providers</a>.</p>
<p>The catalyst for the growth of militia activity among contemporary Christian nationalists stems from <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510356/no-compromise">two events</a>: the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff and the 1993 siege at Waco.</p>
<p>At Ruby Ridge, former Army Green Beret Randy Weaver engaged federal law enforcement in an 11-day standoff at his rural Idaho cabin over charges relating to the sale of sawed-off shotguns to an ATF informant investigating <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/544523302/how-what-happened-25-years-ago-at-ruby-ridge-still-matters-today">Aryan Nation</a> white supremacist militia meetings. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Randy Weaver supporters at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378882/original/file-20210114-22-s8w942.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Supporters of Randy Weaver. The Ruby Ridge standoff sparked the expansion of radical right-wing groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RubyRidgeAnniversary/d360905c59104a4a9a2c41c25874643b/photo?Query=ruby%20AND%20ridge&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=75&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Jeff T. Green, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Weaver ascribed to the <a href="https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/106598/Contribution_514_final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">Christian Identity movement</a>, which emphasizes adherence to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645906">Old Testament laws</a> and white supremacy. Christian Identity members believe in the application of the <a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/fall-2012-politics-issue/his-truth-marching">death penalty</a> for adultery and LBGTQ relationships in accordance with their reading of some biblical passages. </p>
<p>During the standoff, Weaver’s wife and teenage son were shot and killed before he surrendered to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">federal authorities</a>.</p>
<p>In the Waco siege a year later, cult leader David Koresh and his followers entered a standoff with federal law enforcement at the group’s Texas compound, once again concerning <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/19/17246732/waco-tragedy-explained-david-koresh-mount-carmel-branch-davidian-cult-25-year-anniversary">weapons charges</a>. After a 51-day standoff, federal law enforcement laid siege to the compound. A fire took hold at the compound in disputed circumstances, leading to the deaths of 76 people, including Koresh. </p>
<p>The two events spurred a nationwide <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/26/ruby-ridge-1992-modern-american-militia-charlottesville">militia buildup</a>. As sociologist Erin Kania <a href="https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=rr">argues</a>: “Ruby Ridge and Waco confrontations drove some citizens to strengthen their belief that the government was overstepping the parameters of its authority. … Because this view is one of the founding ideologies of the American Militia Movement, it makes sense that interest and membership in the movement would sharply increase following these standoffs between government and nonconformists.”</p>
<p>Distrust of the government blended with strains of <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-04-24-9504240157-story.html">Christian fundamentalism</a> have brought together two groups with formerly disparate goals. </p>
<h2>Christian nationalism and violence</h2>
<p>Christian fundamentalists and white supremacist militia groups both figured themselves as targeted by the government in the aftermath of the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco. As <a href="https://www.hofstra.edu/faculty/fac_profiles.cfm?id=177">scholar of religion Ann Burlein</a> <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/lift-high-the-cross">argues</a>, “Both the Christian right and right-wing white supremacist groups aspire to overcome a culture they perceive as hostile to the white middle class, families, and heterosexuality.”</p>
<p>Significantly, in 1995, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveighaccount.html">cited revenge</a> for the Waco siege as a motive for the bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building. The terrorist act killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.</p>
<p>Since 1993, at least 11 people have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html">murdered in attacks on abortion clinics</a> in cities across the U.S., and there have been numerous other plots. </p>
<p>They have involved people like <a href="https://womrel.sitehost.iu.edu/REL%20133/Juergensmeyer_Terror/Soldiers%20for%20Christ.pdf">the Rev. Michael Bray</a>, who attacked multiple abortion clinics. Bray was the spokesman for Paul Hill, a Christian Identity adherent who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/us/florida-executes-killer-of-an-abortion-provider.html">murdered</a> physician John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett in 1994 outside of a Florida abortion clinic. </p>
<p>In yet another case, Eric Rudolph bombed the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In his confession, he cited his opposition to abortion and anti-LGBTQ views as <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4600480">motivation to bomb</a> Olympic Square. </p>
<p>These men cited their involvement with the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/holy-hate-far-right%E2%80%99s-radicalization-religion">Christian Identity</a> movement in their trials as motivation for engaging in violence.</p>
<h2>Mainstreaming Christian nationalist ideas</h2>
<p>The presence of Christian nationalist ideas in recent political campaigns is concerning, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y">given its ties to violence and white supremacy</a>.</p>
<p>Trump and his advisers helped to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/opinion/christian-nationalism-great-replacement.html">mainstream</a> such rhetoric with events like his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/6/11/22527796/ig-report-trump-bible-lafayette-square-protest">photo op with a Bible</a> in Lafayette Square in Washington following the violent dispersal of protesters, and making a show of pastors <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/">laying hands on him</a>. But that legacy continues beyond his administration. </p>
<p>Candidates like <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-religion-nationalism-8bf7a6115725f508a37ef944333bc145">Doug Mastriano</a>, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania who attended the Jan. 6 Trump rally, are now using <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-pennsylvania-lawmaker-and-the-resurgence-of-christian-nationalism">the same messages</a>.</p>
<p>In some states, such as Texas and Montana, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html">hefty funding</a> for <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/power-issue-tim-dunn-pushing-republican-party-arms-god/">far-right Christian candidates</a> has helped put Christian nationalist ideas in the mainstream. </p>
<p>Blending politics and religion is not necessarily a recipe for Christian nationalism, nor is Christian nationalism a recipe for political violence. At times, however, Christian nationalist ideas can <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09758-y">serve as a prelude</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-capitol-siege-recalls-past-acts-of-christian-nationalist-violence-153059">an article originally published on Jan. 15, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Perry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Distrust of government blended with strains of Christian fundamentalism can produce a violent form of Christian nationalism, a scholar explains.Samuel Perry, Associate Professor, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1868962022-08-02T12:59:16Z2022-08-02T12:59:16ZFueled by virtually unrestricted social media access, white nationalism is on the rise and attracting violent young white men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476585/original/file-20220728-1306-lawf6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=512%2C148%2C3987%2C2462&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">White nationalist Dylann Roof appears in court on June 19, 2015, after his arrest in the mass shootings at a Black church in South Carolina. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-image-from-the-video-uplink-from-the-detention-news-photo/477782306?adppopup=true"> Grace Beahm-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>White nationalists keep showing up in the hearings of the U.S. House committee investigating <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/10/politics/jan-6-us-capitol-riot-timeline/index.html">the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence is mounting that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/jan-6-committee-tuesday-1.6517650">white nationalist groups</a> who want to establish an all-white state played a significant role in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five dead and dozens wounded.</p>
<p>Thus far, the hearings “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/06/17/jan-6-hearings-right-wing-white-nationalists/">have documented how the Proud Boys helped lead the insurrectionist mob</a> into the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C,” journalist James Risen wrote in the Intercept. </p>
<p>Based on July 12, 2022, testimony from a <a href="https://theconversation.com/former-oath-keeper-reveals-racist-antisemitic-beliefs-of-white-nationalist-group-and-their-plans-to-start-a-civil-war-185006">former Oath Keepers member</a>, the white nationalist group <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/new-evidence-reveals-coordination-oath-keepers-three-percenters-jan-6-rcna30355">coordinated with</a> the <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/three-percenters-look-inside-anti-government-militia">Three Percenters</a>, another group of white nationalists, and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/985104612/conspiracy-charges-bring-proud-boys-history-of-violence-into-spotlight">Proud Boys</a> in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111132464/jan-6-hearing-recap-oath-keepers-proud-boys">mobilizing their extremists groups</a> to rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, as asked by President Trump in his Dec. 16, 2020, tweet. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MwUgXPsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">a cultural anthropologist</a> who has studied these movements for over a decade, I know that membership in these organizations is not limited to the attempted violent overthrow of the government and poses an ongoing threat, as seen in massacres carried out by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099034094/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory">young men radicalized by this movement</a>. </p>
<p>In 2020, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security described domestic violent extremists as “<a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf">presenting the most persistent and lethal threat</a>” to the people of the United States and the nation’s government.</p>
<p>In March 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-chris-wray-testify-capitol-riot-9a5539af34b15338bb5c4923907eeb67">testified to Congress</a> that the number of arrests of white supremacists and other racially motivated extremists has almost tripled since he took office in 2017.</p>
<p>“Jan. 6 was not an isolated event,” Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, a nonprofit civil rights group, tracked 733 active hate groups across the United States in 2021.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/fea2.12011">my research</a>, the internet and social media have made the problem of white supremacist hate far worse and more visible; it’s both more accessible and, ultimately, more violent, as seen on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/for-buffalo-shooting-victims-and-survivors-it-was-like-every-other-day">the shooting deaths</a> of ten Black people at a Buffalo grocery story, among other examples.</p>
<h2>An expansive, online network</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/david-duke-donald-trump-tucker-carlson-rcna3413">former KKK leaders including David Duke</a> rebranded white supremacy for the digital age. </p>
<p>They switched <a href="https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/artifacts/grand-dragon-ku-klux-klan-robe-and-hood">KKK robes</a> for business suits and connected neo-Nazi antisemitic conspiracies with broader anti-Black, anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic racism. </p>
<p>From the 1990s to the late 2000s, <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742561588/Cyber-Racism-White-Supremacy-Online-and-the-New-Attack-on-Civil-Rights">this movement largely</a> built discreet online communities and websites peddling racist disinformation. </p>
<p>In fact, for years one of the <a href="https://www.mic.com/articles/165540/googling-martin-luther-king-returns-neo-nazi-propaganda-why-won-t-google-fix-it">first websites about Martin Luther King Jr.</a> that a Google search recommended was a website created by white nationalists that spread neo-Nazi propaganda. </p>
<p>In 2005, the <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/it-s-toxic-place-how-online-world-white-nationalists-distorts-population-genetics">white nationalist website Stormfront.org</a> had 30,000 members – which might sound like a lot. But as social media expanded, with both <a href="https://www.facebook.com/facebook/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-twitter">Twitter</a> opening to anyone with an email address in 2006, its views got a lot more attention. By 2015, 250,000 people had subscribed to become members of Stormfront.org. </p>
<p>Between 2012 and 2016, white nationalists on Twitter saw a <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/67247">600% increase in Twitter followers</a>. They have since worked to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0966369X.2019.1710472?journalCode=cgpc20">bring white supremacism into everyday politics</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/white-supremacist-groups-are-thriving-on-facebook">Tech Transparency Project</a>, a nonprofit tech industry watchdog group, found that in 2020 half of the white nationalist groups tracked by the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2000/internet-hate-and-law">Southern Poverty Law Center</a> had <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/white-supremacist-groups-are-thriving-on-facebook">a presence on Facebook</a>.</p>
<p>Without clear regulations preventing extremist content, digital
companies, in my view, allowed for <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-and-tech">the spread of white nationalist conspiracies</a>. </p>
<p>Racist activists used algorithms as virtual bullhorns to reach previously unimaginable-sized audiences.</p>
<h2>Enter the ‘alt-right’</h2>
<p>White nationalist leaders, such as <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/4/20947833/richard-spencer-white-nationalism-audio-milo-alt-right">Richard Spencer</a>, wanted an even bigger audience and influence. </p>
<p>Spencer coined the term “alt-right” to this end, with the goal of blurring the relationship between white nationalism and white conservatism. He did this by establishing nonprofit think tanks like the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/01/10/once-political-force-richard-spencer-and-national-policy-institute-go-quiet">National Policy Institute</a> that provided an academic veneer for him and other white supremacists to spread their views on white supremacy.</p>
<p>This strategy worked. </p>
<p>Today, many white nationalist ideas once relegated to society’s fringes are embraced by the broader conservative movement.</p>
<p>Take, for instance, <a href="https://theconversation.com/replacement-theory-isnt-new-3-things-to-know-about-how-this-once-fringe-conspiracy-has-become-more-mainstream-183492">the Great Replacement Theory</a>. The conspiracy theory misinterprets demographic change as an active attempt to replace white Americans with people of color.</p>
<p>This baseless idea observes that Black and Latino people are becoming larger percentages of the U.S. population, and paints that data as the result of an allegedly active attempt by unnamed multiculturalists to drive white Americans out of power in an increasingly diverse nation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/nearly-half-republicans-agree-with-great-replacement-theory/">A recent poll showed</a> that over 50% of Republicans now believe in this conspiracy theory. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters waving Trump flags storm the U.S. Capitol while police officers try to hold them back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476749/original/file-20220729-24-19pzpw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-Trump protesters and police clash on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-trump-protesters-and-police-clash-on-top-of-the-capitol-news-photo/1230465345?adppopup=true">Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2016, during Trump’s presidential campaign, Vice Magazine co-founder <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes">Gavin McInnes</a> formed the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys">Proud Boys</a> to further the goals of the alt-right by protecting white identity with the use of violence if necessary. </p>
<p>Proud Boys members are affiliated with white nationalist ideas and leaders, but they deny any explicit racism. Instead, <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/pride-prejudice-the-violent-evolution-of-the-proud-boys/">they describe themselves</a> as “Western chauvinists” who believe in the supremacy of European culture but also welcome members of any race who support this idea.</p>
<p>Along with pro-gun militias such as the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers">Oath Keepers</a> and <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/three-percenters">Three Percenters</a>, the Proud Boys are an experiment in spreading white nationalist ideas to an online universe of potentially millions of social media users.</p>
<h2>Why do people join these groups?</h2>
<p>Data from manifestos posted online by white nationalist groups shows that many mass shooters share a few common characteristics – they are young, white, male and they spend significant time online at the same websites. </p>
<p>The alleged shooter in the killing of 10 Black people in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo on May 14, 2022, described his reason as wanting to stop what he feared as the elimination “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105776617/buffalo-shooting-suspect-says-his-motive-was-to-prevent-eliminating-the-white-ra">of the white race</a>.” </p>
<p>His fears that people of color were “replacing” white people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/09/25/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-to-understand-4chan-the-internets-own-bogeyman/">came from 4chan</a>, a social media company popular among the alt-right.</p>
<p>In 2019, nine African American church members were murdered in Charleston by a young white man who became radicalized through <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/10/508363607/what-happened-when-dylann-roof-asked-google-for-information-about-race">Google searches</a> that led him to openly white supremacist content. </p>
<p>Massacres in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/business/el-paso-shooting-8chan-biz/index.html">Walmart in El Paso, Texas</a>, at <a href="https://time.com/5648479/8chan-ban-new-zealand/">two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand</a>, and at a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-poway-synagogue-shooting-follows-an-unsettling-new-script">synagogue in Poway, California</a>, all took place after the shooters began <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/11/8chan-8kun-white-supremacists-telegram-discord-facebook.html">spending time on 8chan</a>, an imageboard popular with white supremacists and the home of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html">QAnon posts</a>. </p>
<p>For many of these individuals, the most important part of their radicalization was not about their home life or personality quirks, but instead about where they spent time online.</p>
<h2>A racially diverse democracy at stake</h2>
<p>The reasons men join groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers - and even some liberal groups – is less clear. </p>
<p>A former <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/25/us/ex-proud-boys-member/index.html">Proud Boy member offered one reason</a>: “They want to join a gang,” Russell Schultz told CNN on Nov. 25, 2020. “So they can go fight antifa and hurt people that they don’t like, and feel justified in doing it.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-antifa-trump.html">Antifa</a> is a loose-knit group of usually nonviolent activists <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-or-who-is-antifa-140147">who oppose fascism</a>. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/21/proud-boys-recruitment-targets-men-looking-community/7452805002/?gnt-cfr=1">former extremist group members describe</a> seeking camaraderie and friendship, but also finding racism and antisemitism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged white man with gray hair and brown beard answers questions from a congressional committee." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476575/original/file-20220728-1306-3w4yt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Oath Keeper Jason Van Tatenhove testifies on July 12, 2022, during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jason-van-tatenhove-who-served-as-national-spokesman-for-news-photo/1408302341?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But more than any other issue, <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html">racial demographic changes</a> are providing recruitment opportunities for white nationalists, many of whom believe that by <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045-census-projects/">the year 2045</a> white people will become the minority in the United States.</p>
<p>In July 2021, the most recent date for which statistics are available, the U.S. Census Bureau notes that of <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221">the estimated population of 330 million American citizens</a>, 75.8% are white, 18.9% are Hispanic, 13.6% are Black and 6% are Asian. </p>
<p>What is also becoming clearer is that the spread of white nationalism endangers the idea of a democratic nation where racial diversity is considered a strength, not a weakness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie Bjork-James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since 2017, the FBI has warned US Congress that the rise of white nationalism and the violence of extremist militia groups is a dangerous domestic terrorism threat.Sophie Bjork-James, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1874072022-07-22T02:28:53Z2022-07-22T02:28:53ZWhy Donald Trump can’t be prosecuted for ‘dereliction of duty’ for his inaction on Jan. 6<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475514/original/file-20220721-12930-fyn1rp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=480%2C148%2C2514%2C1841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pro-Trump protesters and police clash on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/pro-trump-protesters-and-police-clash-on-top-of-the-capitol-news-photo/1230465345?adppopup=true"> Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the prime-time hearing on July 21, 2022 of the House January 6 committee, the two panel members leading the hearing used the phrase “dereliction of duty” to describe the conduct of then-President Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Trump “was told by everyone to halt the violence,” Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia, said. “But he refused to do anything…It was a dereliction of duty.”</p>
<p>GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois also described Trump’s inaction as a “dereliction of duty.”</p>
<p>“President Trump did not fail to act,” Kinzinger said. “He chose not to act.”</p>
<p>They echoed the <a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/trumps-inexcusable-jan-6th-dereliction-of-duty/">media pundits</a>, politicians and others who are using the same term, “<a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-committee-hearing-trump-dereliction-duty-fe9e92293492b667c195402e609aa888">dereliction of duty</a>” to describe Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6, 2021.</p>
<p>The justification for using that term is that Trump encouraged attendees at a rally to march on the Capitol and then <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/20/politics/what-we-learned-trump-187-minutes/index.html">failed to do anything</a> to stop the violence once they had invaded the U.S. Capitol building, despite the pleas of his staff, political leaders and his family to do so. </p>
<p>Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, didn’t use “dereliction of duty,” but he detailed Trump’s inaction for 187 minutes between the time the president ended his speech at the rally near the White House at 1:10 p.m. and when he asked the rioters to leave in a video taped message from the Rose Garden at 4:17 p.m.</p>
<p>“Even though he was the only person in the world that could call off the mob he sent to the U.S. Capitol,” Thompson said, “he could not be moved to rise from his dining room table, and walk the few steps down the White House hallway, into the press briefing room, where cameras were anxiously, and desperately, waiting to carry his message to the armed and violent mob.”</p>
<p>Given that most people believe dereliction of duty is a failure to take action that is legally required, the phrase can be used in this context to summarize a broader behavior and offer a way to cast blame. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.westpoint.edu/law/profile/tim_bakken">a former prosecutor in New York City</a> and a professor of law at West Point, I believe that most people find solace in casting the most disparaging label possible upon an adversary.</p>
<p>The House committee investigating President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 may find that he did not fulfill his duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” a requirement of each president, detailed in <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-3/">Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>The committee might find – and it apparently has, based on testimony presented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/us/politics/jan-6-committee-trump-187-minutes.html">throughout its hearings</a> – that Trump’s failure to ensure that rioters would not storm the Capitol, and his failure to stop them once they were there, amounted to a dereliction of duty in an informal or colloquial sense.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A middle-aged man wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie is seen on a large screen talking on a telephone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475451/original/file-20220721-14415-rf13tn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visual of President Donald Trump is shown during the July 12, 2022, congressional hearings investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/july-12-2022-a-visual-of-president-donald-trump-is-shown-as-news-photo/1241888427?adppopup=true">Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But this is not an actual crime that could be applied to a president. </p>
<h2>Moral judgment, not legal</h2>
<p>While some states, such as <a href="https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2921.44">Ohio</a>, <a href="https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._code_of_crim._proc._article_2.03">Texas</a> and <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter10/section24.2-1001/#:%7E:text=Willful%20neglect%20or%20corrupt%20conduct.,of%20a%20Class%201%20misdemeanor.">Virginia</a>, have a crime titled dereliction or neglect of duty, the concept is better known in military law, where <a href="https://www.armfor.uscourts.gov/digest/IIIA16.htm#:%7E:text=dereliction%20of%20duty%20is%20a,and%20usefulness%20of%20the%20members">a federal criminal statute</a> prohibits a member of the military from being “derelict in the performance of his duties.”</p>
<p>Under this statute, a soldier, for example, can be found guilty of a crime if the soldier failed to take an action that he or she was legally required to take, such as charging a hill following the order of a commander.</p>
<p>The House committee may conclude that President Trump failed to act by not stopping the rioters, which might be considered a violation of his responsibility under the Constitution.</p>
<p>But in my view, this would not be a criminal dereliction of duty.</p>
<p>The reason is that though a president is commander in chief of the military, he is a civilian and not a member of the military.</p>
<p>As a result, he is not subject to military law.</p>
<p>Federal criminal law does not contain a dereliction of duty statute.</p>
<p>Any state dereliction of duty laws, regardless of their elements, cannot apply to President Trump because on Jan. 6 he was in Washington, D.C. – not in any state, and D.C. doesn’t have one of its own.</p>
<p>A more precise way to consider the legality of President Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6 is to determine whether he wanted the rioters to commit a criminal act and engaged in some speech or behavior that urged them to do so or assisted them in some way. </p>
<p>In that sense, the House Committee might find that the President was derelict.</p>
<p>But that finding would be a label of moral or social disapproval, not a description of a criminal offense.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bakken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the exception of a few states, dereliction of a duty is mostly used in military law and does not apply to citizens, including US presidents.Tim Bakken, Professor of Law, United States Military Academy West PointLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1850062022-07-13T00:00:38Z2022-07-13T00:00:38ZFormer Oath Keeper reveals racist, antisemitic beliefs of white nationalist group – and their plans to start a civil war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473716/original/file-20220712-23-ym9cjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1152%2C462%2C4669%2C3412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this photograph, former President Donald Trump appears on a video screen above members of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-u-s-president-donald-trump-appears-on-a-video-screen-news-photo/1408288440?adppopup=true">Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During his testimony before congressional investigators, former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove left little doubt about the intentions of the white nationalist militia group when its members stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</p>
<p>Tatenhove explained that Jan. 6 “could have been a spark that started a new civil war.” </p>
<p>“We need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths,” Tatenhove said, “and what it was going to be was an armed revolution.”</p>
<p>During its seventh hearing on July 12, 2022, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol connected the dots between white nationalists and key allies of former President Donald Trump and their concerted efforts to overturn the 2020 election by interrupting the counting of Electoral College votes and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/21/jan-6-panel-trump-overturn-2020-election-00040816">inserting fake electors</a>. </p>
<p>The committee hearings focused on the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jan-6-hearings-news-live/card/who-are-the-proud-boys-and-how-are-they-tied-to-jan-6--j3sz1xan8VFzcTDy8704">the Proud Boys</a>, <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/oath-keepers">the Oath Keepers</a> and their white nationalist allies within the Republican Party, including Trump. </p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520389687/homegrown-hate">“Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States,”</a>, I detailed the history, beliefs, groups and manifestos of white nationalists in the United States and around the world, including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters and many of the other individuals and groups that attempted a collective coup on Jan. 6, 2021. </p>
<p>As I explore in my book, white nationalists believe that white people and identity are under attack worldwide by immigrants, people of color and, increasingly, progressives and liberals who do not share their racist, religious, anti-government beliefs or conspiracy theories. </p>
<p>I also discuss the goal of white nationalists around the world to reclaim land as a white state governed and inhabited by white people only.</p>
<h2>Law enforcement warnings</h2>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/proud-boys-white-supremacist-group-law-enforcement-agencies">U.S. law enforcement agencies</a> have characterized the Proud Boys as “white supremacists” and “extremists.” </p>
<p>The <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/black-brown-proud-boys-provide-cover-for-group-s-true-nature-f2f40b18bf51">Proud Boys leader, Enrique Tarrio,</a> cites his Afro-Cuban roots and brown skin color as reasons why <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/former-proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-serves-brown-face-white-n1291949">he can’t be a white nationalist</a>. </p>
<p>Co-founded by <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-secret-history-of-gavin-mcinnes">Gavin McInnes</a> in 2016, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys">the Proud Boys</a> have participated in events with white nationalists since the group’s inception, including the <a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">Unite the Right march in 2017</a> and the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1103364995/proud-boys-leader-tarrio-four-others-charged-with-seditious-conspiracy">Tarrio was arrested two days before Jan. 6</a> in Washington on charges stemming from his involvement in vandalizing a Black church and <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/protesters-rip-set-fire-to-blm-signs-at-two-dc-churches-organizers-respond/2507057/">burning a Black Lives Matter banner</a> during a violent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/trump-rally-violence-proud-boys/2020/12/14/bf2f5826-3e26-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html">Dec. 12, 2021, protest</a> in Washington. </p>
<p>While Oath Keepers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/oathkeepers-stewart-rhodes-leader/2022/01/13/2e17e292-7492-11ec-bc13-18891499c514_story.html">founder Stewart Rhodes</a> publicly claims that he has Mexican and Apache heritage, the Oath Keepers have consistently taken stances that are racist and have warned of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/republicans-trump-capitol-riot.html">an impending civil war</a> in the United States. </p>
<p>In December 2018, the Oath Keepers website advertised a call to action for a “Border Operation” that encouraged paramilitary activity to prevent the “invasion” of “illegals” into the country and to provide “security for border ranches and families.”</p>
<p>This anti-immigration sentiment and warlike imagery were also found in the Trump White House. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/stephen-miller">Southern Poverty Law Center</a> details a series of emails sent to the conservative website Breitbart by <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/stephen-miller-splc-extremists-1518619">Stephen Miller</a>, who became a senior policy adviser in the Trump administration. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-leaked-emails-expose-key-white-house-aide-stephen-millers-affinity-white">emails promoted white nationalist literature</a>, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols.</p>
<p>Miller’s white nationalist ideology was at the heart of some of Trump’s most controversial policies, such as <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/07/03/ice-raids-arrest-quotas/">setting arrest quotas</a> for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/26/trumps-muslim-ban-really-was-muslim-ban-thats-what-data-suggest/">five Muslim-majority countries</a> and a policy of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hhs-inspector-general-report-details-psychological-trauma-among-separated-migrant-children/">family separation at refugee resettlement facilities</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A brown-skinned man with a beard is pumping his fist as American flags and Trump banners wave in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473447/original/file-20220711-12-231ja6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this Feb. 28, 2021, photograph, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio is seen outside the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/enrique-tarrio-leader-of-the-proud-boys-is-seen-outside-the-news-photo/1231447043?adppopup=true">Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>White nationalist GOP members</h2>
<p>Shortly after <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105776617/buffalo-shooting-suspect-says-his-motive-was-to-prevent-eliminating-the-white-ra">the Buffalo supermarket shooting</a>, where a self-avowed white supremacist allegedly shot and killed 10 black people to prevent, in his words, “eliminating the white race,” Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming blasted her Republican colleagues. </p>
<p>“The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism,” Cheney <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1526159124840558592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1526159124840558592%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmybighornbasin.com%2Fliz-cheney-says-gop-leadership-has-enabled-white-nationalism-white-supremacy%2F">wrote in a tweet</a>. “History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse.”</p>
<p>Cheney, who is also co-chair of the Jan. 6 congressional select committee, then went a step further, calling on Republican leaders to “renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.” </p>
<p>Though Republican leaders like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3490663-house-gop-leaders-say-white-nationalism-accusations-part-of-a-political-game/">have denounced white supremacy</a>, several prominent Republicans still maintain ties to white nationalist groups. </p>
<p>According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, former Republican congressman Steve King, who represented Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2021, is scheduled to attend the annual American Renaissance meeting in November 2022. People may remember King <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-seven-of-steve-kings-most-disturbing-comments-2019-8">for wondering aloud</a> in 2019 when the term “white supremacist” became offensive.</p>
<p>Started by <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jared-taylor">racist idealogue Jared Taylor</a> in 1994, <a href="https://www.amren.com/">American Renaissance</a> is a website that promotes “racial differences,” and its annual meetings are a haven for neo-Nazis and white nationalists. </p>
<p>Also <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/07/06/white-nationalist-conference-lists-former-congressman-and-current-gop-congressional">scheduled to speak</a> there is GOP congressional candidate Laura Loomer of Florida, a self-described “#ProudIslamophobe” who stands for “pro-white nationalism.” </p>
<p>Such appearances at white nationalist gatherings by Republican legislators have drawn criticism from GOP leaders and are a potential political liability as midterm elections are taking place. </p>
<p>In February 2022, for instance, GOP Congressmen <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/17/house-republicans-condemn-gop-candidate-racist-videos-325579">Marjorie Taylor Greene</a> of Georgia and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/republican-paul-gosar-white-nationalists-kfile/index.html">Paul Gosar of Arizona</a> spoke at the far-right <a href="https://americafirstfoundation.org/afpac/">America First Political Action Conference</a>. </p>
<p>The event was organized by <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/nick-fuentes">Nicholas Fuentes</a>, a white nationalist activist who gained national prominence after he attended the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/photos/white-nationalists-counterprotesters-clash-charlottesville-49178539/image-56939351">2017 Unite the Right rally</a> in Charlottesville, Virginia.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-leaders-denounce-greene-gosar-speaking-white-nationalist-event-rcna18050">GOP leaders quickly denounced them</a> for speaking at the gathering. </p>
<p>But Greene said she had <a href="https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/marjorie-taylor-greene-white-nationalist-no-regrets/">no regrets</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473270/original/file-20220710-16-7aviux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A video of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is played during the sixth hearing held by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/video-of-former-national-security-advisor-michael-flynn-is-news-photo/1241592215?adppopup=true">Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Whither the GOP?</h2>
<p>Though GOP leaders deny claims of white supremacy and extremism within their party, their actions tell another story. </p>
<p>On July 11, 2022, Senate Republicans <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/us-news/2022/05/26/republicans-block-gun-bill-to-battle-white-supremacy-and-domestic-terrorism/">blocked a bill</a> that would have authorized federal agencies to monitor domestic terrorism within the U.S., including incidents involving white supremacy.</p>
<p>Called the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58033">Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act</a>, the bill fell short of the 60 senators needed to move it forward in Congress, as the vote was 47-47 and divided along party lines. </p>
<p>More troubling is the allure of the white nationalist platform to elected officials and voters. Many successful local, state and federal elections in 2020 centered on perpetuating the Big Lie, the conspiracy theory embraced by many white nationalists that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. </p>
<p>Frank Eathorne is the <a href="https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/wyoming-gop-chair-eathorne-reportedly-seen-on-restricted-u-s-capitol-grounds/article_0a6660b5-f94c-5fda-82dc-74714790b16f.html">chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party</a> and <a href="https://wyofile.com/whistleblower-list-names-wyo-gop-chair-others-as-oath-keepers/">a member</a> of the Oath Keepers.</p>
<p>As such, Eathorne is <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/liz-cheneys-wyoming-nemesis-is-an-oath-keeper-who-was-at-capitol-rally">one of the more influential Republican</a> officials in the country as he is presiding over arguably the GOP’s highest-profile primary battle of the 2022 election: unseating Cheney for her relentless criticism of former Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.</p>
<p>In February 2021, Eathorne supported a successful effort by the Wyoming GOP to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/06/964933035/wyoming-gop-censures-liz-cheney-for-voting-to-impeach-trump">formally censure Cheney</a>. In November, he presided over another successful vote to <a href="https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-gop-votes-to-no-longer-recognize-rep-cheney-as-a-republican/article_66c3a62d-7207-54c7-b277-183817c0563c.html">no longer recognize Cheney</a> as a member of the Republican Party.</p>
<p>Not surpisingly, Eathorne is supporting <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/meet-the-anti-conservation-republican-vying-to-unseat-cheney/">attorney Harriet Hageman</a> in her primary challenge against Cheney. As is <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-02-17/kevin-mccarthy-endorses-liz-cheney-primary-opponent-trump">House Minority Leader McCarthy</a>. </p>
<p>Republican pushback against claims that the party has been infiltrated by white nationalists was made clear during a January 2021 meeting of the Grand Traverse County (Michigan) Board of Commissioners. </p>
<p>Keli MacIntosh, a 72-year-old retired nurse and regular attendee of board meetings, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/22/us/michigan-county-commissioner-gun-proud-boys/index.html">asked the board to denounce the Proud Boys</a> after some of its members were allowed to speak on their opposition to gun control. </p>
<p>As MacIntosh was speaking, Board Vice Chair Ron Clous got up, left the meeting, and returned with a large rifle. </p>
<p>Clous held the rifle to his chest for a moment and then placed it on his desk for the remainder of the meeting. </p>
<p>The January 6th hearings are making clear that American democracy is increasingly threatened by white nationalists in the Republican Party who are determined to perpetuate disinformation about the 2020 presidential election in order to hold onto power through the same system they deem illegitimate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara Kamali does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A former Oath Keepers member testified during a congressional hearing that it was time to stop mincing words about the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol: ‘It was an armed revolution.’Sara Kamali, Visiting Research Scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845922022-06-09T17:46:01Z2022-06-09T17:46:01ZRegardless of seditious conspiracy charges’ outcome, right-wing groups like Proud Boys seek to build a white nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467831/original/file-20220608-25-wb8uxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=45%2C0%2C5083%2C3378&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the Oath Keepers stand at the east front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachJan6Lawsuit/dc35ae1cd6ba47e0a48ac92ba8017205/photo">AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the House Select Committee held its first public hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, far-right groups including the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300453/alt-right-gangs">Proud Boys</a> and the <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/oath-keepers/9780231193450">Oath Keepers</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/us/politics/jan-6-hearings-tv-democrats.html">were a prominent topic of discussion</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, both of those groups’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/06/us/politics/proud-boys-charged-sedition-capitol-attack.html">leaders</a> are facing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/06/tarrio-proud-boys-seditious-conpiracy/">criminal charges</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/us/politics/oath-keepers-stewart-rhodes.html">seditious conspiracy</a>. They are alleged to have worked together “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22053617-tarrio-et-al-superseding-indictment">to oppose by force the authority</a> of the Government of the United States.”</p>
<p>Those charges can be difficult to prove in court. But regardless of the outcome of any prosecution that alleges these groups worked to overthrow the government, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fjys1XAAAAAJ&hl=en">our</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cLpO6QwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research</a> has shown that the more committed members of these and other <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Far+Right+Today-p-9781509536856">extreme right-wing groups</a> believe that the U.S. government, as currently constituted, is illegitimate and should be overthrown and replaced with one that is based on white supremacy.</p>
<h2>Violent racism</h2>
<p>Proud Boys have identified themselves as “<a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/proud-boys-leader-from-wa-faces-sedition-charge-in-u-s-capitol-insurrection/">Western chauvinists</a>” who focus on opposing political correctness and white guilt. But these claims have generally been seen as <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys">cover for deeper racist and antisemitic sentiments</a>. For some Proud Boys members, this group was a steppingstone to more <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/proud-boys-far-right-group-1183966/">extreme groups, such as The Base</a>.</p>
<p>Like any <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1467003">street gang</a>, the Proud Boys as a national group is made up of semi-autonomous chapters of varying numbers and abilities. They are in different degrees of contact and coordination with other chapters. It’s not clear the level of interest – or capability – that most members have in actually following through with overthrowing the government.</p>
<p>Oath Keepers is an anti-government group that calls itself a “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/oath-keepers/9780231193450">militia</a>” focused on <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers">defending the Constitution and fighting tyranny</a>. Former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove stated that the group is actually “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/oath-keepers-spokesperson-warns-wing-propaganda-dangerous-bullets/story?id=82094999">selling the revolution</a>,” meaning that the group is pushing conspiracy theories and propaganda to facilitate confrontations with federal law enforcement.</p>
<p>While members of the <a href="https://ctc.westpoint.edu/pride-prejudice-the-violent-evolution-of-the-proud-boys/">Proud Boys</a> have concentrated their confrontations on <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-or-who-is-antifa-140147">anti-fascists</a> or other protesters, Oath Keepers have participated in several armed standoffs against the government. </p>
<p>In 2014, the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/standoff-nevada-years-ago-set-militia-movement-crash/story?id=82051940">Oath Keepers joined an armed standoff</a> between far-right patriot groups in Nevada on behalf of <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/606441988/bundyville">Cliven Bundy</a>. In 2015, Oath Keepers showed up heavily armed in Ferguson, Missouri, during protests over the killing of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/the-oath-keeper-who-wants-to-arm-black-lives-matter-59109/">Michael Brown</a>. And in 2016, Oath Keepers were present at the armed takeover of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/7/13489640/oath-keepers-donald-trump-voter-fraud-intimidation-rigged">Malheur National Wildlife Refuge</a> in Oregon.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd, including a person carrying a megaphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467833/original/file-20220608-25-2k5nof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Proud Boys, along with others, march toward the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachProudBoys/9e3a1ebb87a34cc394b34446e00ab3f0/photo">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A challenging road</h2>
<p>Historically, prosecutions of seditious conspiracy charges succeeded against <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/10/02/sheik-9-others-convicted-in-ny-bomb/5bd7099a-f960-4d32-b02d-8165302dd594/">militant Islamist</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/12/us/after-9-months-of-delays-us-tries-3-for-sedition.html">Marxist groups</a>.</p>
<p>But prosecuting far-right groups has tended to be much more difficult. In 1988, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078">Louis Beam, a figurehead in the white power movement</a>, and 13 white supremacists from groups such as the Aryan Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan were <a href="https://apnews.com/article/604c50e36bd020ac70be35445b12d059">acquitted</a> of conspiring to kill a federal judge and an FBI agent and plotting to overthrow the federal government to establish an all-white nation in the Pacific Northwest.</p>
<p>In 2012, charges of seditious conspiracy against members of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/04/12/125856761/how-the-fbi-got-inside-the-hutaree-militia">Hutaree</a>, a militant far-right <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-capitol-siege-recalls-past-acts-of-christian-nationalist-violence-153059">Christian nationalist</a> group, were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-hutaree/three-hutaree-militia-members-sentenced-in-detroit-to-time-served-idUSBRE8770ZQ20120808">dismissed</a> after the judge concluded the government had not proved there was an actual conspiracy.</p>
<p>But it is clear from the charges stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection – involving <a href="https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-merrick-garland-government-and-politics-conspiracy-crime-c2e427dc0fa16077d7fb98c06e61149f">hundreds of alleged participants</a> – that police and prosecutors are <a href="https://contexts.org/articles/why-law-enforcement-needs-to-classify-far-right-groups-as-gangs/">taking seriously the threat of violent action</a> by <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/extremist-groupmovement-affiliations-january-6-capitol-rioters">Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other far-right groups</a> against individuals, organizations and local and national governments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>White supremacist groups seek to solidify their control over the US by changing the government, sometimes by violence.Matthew Valasik, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of AlabamaShannon Reid, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759022022-02-01T16:47:19Z2022-02-01T16:47:19Z‘Freedom convoy’ rolls through Ottawa encouraging the participation of Canada’s far-right<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443549/original/file-20220131-15-4qnrra.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4800%2C3190&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sign reads 'Assassin Trudeau' but the letters S in assassin are replaced with SS, abbreviation of Schutzstaffel, the black-uniformed self-described “political soldiers” of the Nazi Party.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/-freedom-convoy--rolls-through-ottawa-encouraging-the-participation-of-canada-s-far-right" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>This past weekend, thousands of people <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-police-investigate-desecration-of-monuments-by-trucker-convoy/">stormed Ottawa</a> as part of what’s being called the “freedom convoy.” </p>
<p>What started as a protest over the federal government’s Jan. 15 vaccine mandate that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/28/why-are-anti-vaccine-canadian-truckers-converging-on-ottawa">requires all truckers crossing the Canadian border be fully vaccinated against COVID-19</a> — <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/28/why-are-anti-vaccine-canadian-truckers-converging-on-ottawa">the United States has since implemented a similar mandate</a> — has evolved into something much more sinister. </p>
<p>Starting last week in Delta, B.C., the convoy has attracted support from across the country. </p>
<p>People have come from <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/heavy-police-presence-as-truckers-arrive-in-downtown-ottawa-1.5757761?autoPlay=true">both the West Coast</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8541993/nova-scotia-freedom-convoy-departs/">and East Coast</a> to meet in Ottawa, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60202050">disrupting traffic</a>, <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/downtown-ottawa-mall-remains-closed-sunday-due-to-convoy-protest-1.5760081">entering buildings maskless</a>, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/01/30/ottawa-police-investigating-threats-desecrations-as-protest-of-covid-19-restrictions-continues.html">honking horns late into the night</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/convoy-workers-two-days-later-1.6333017">harassing the city’s residents</a>. </p>
<p>The convoy says it will stay in Ottawa until it hears from the federal government. The movement has been <a href="https://www.antihate.ca/the_freedom_convoy_is_nothing_but_a_vehicle_for_the_far_right">heavily criticized as being organized by</a> or at the very least encouraging the participation of Canada’s far-right. </p>
<h2>Who is participating?</h2>
<p>The convoy was started by <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-truck-convoy-alberta-legislature-vaccine-mandate-1.6332527">Canada Unity, a group that has been extremely critical of COVID-19-related mandates</a>. Reports have shown that <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/">far-right sympathizers</a>, or members of the far-right themselves, are behind much of the organizing. </p>
<p>For example, Tamara Lich, <a href="https://www.maverickparty.ca/tamara-lich">a member of the right-wing Maverick Party</a>, formally affiliated with <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/59na9q/wexit-founders-are-far-right-conspiracy-theorists">the Wexit Movement</a>, began a GoFundMe for the convoy which, as of Feb. 1, had raised over $9.5 million. </p>
<p>When asked about the convoy Lich <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/01/26/BC-Ex-MP-Western-Separatists-Truck-Protest/">stated that it was not about vaccinations, but instead was about protecting Canadian rights and freedoms</a>. </p>
<p>Another convoy leader, Dave Steenburg, has been sharing <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/01/28/freedom-convoy-leader-shared-symbol-of-far-right-hate-group-on-tiktok.html">conspiracy theories pertaining to COVID-19 vaccination</a> and has even shared posts depicting war crime punishments for those who have legislated and enforced COVID-19 mandates. </p>
<p>Steenburg made headlines when he posted a Soldiers of Odin logo (a known far-right hate group) <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/01/28/freedom-convoy-leader-shared-symbol-of-far-right-hate-group-on-tiktok.html">on his social media page</a> with captions encouraging Canadians to stand up for their rights.</p>
<p>Patrick King, another organizer stated that he believes the vaccine was created to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/">“depopulate” the white race</a>. And B.J. Dichter, another convoy participant, is known for spewing <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/">Islamophobic sentiments</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man stands in front of a sign on a transport truck that reads 'I am not a racist, I am not an extremist, I am Canadian'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443553/original/file-20220131-23-7c9e0k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A trucker laughs as he fist bumps a protester participating in a cross-country truck convoy protesting measures taken by authorities to curb the spread of COVID-19.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While some have stated the convoy is about the vaccine mandates, others have claimed that this is a national movement about general rights and freedoms and government interference.</p>
<p>This isn’t a homogeneous movement, and it has even been criticized from within the industry — most truckers are complying with the mandate. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8533779/truckers-convoy-canada-vaccine-mandate/">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/28/why-are-anti-vaccine-canadian-truckers-converging-on-ottawa">the Canadian Trucking Alliance have stated that between 85 and 90 per cent of truckers are already vaccinatated</a>. Some have also spoken out against the convoy calling it “<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/embarrassment-for-the-industry-not-all-truckers-support-the-freedom-convoy-1.5757952">an embarassment</a>.” </p>
<p>Those in the industry participating in the “freedom convoy” make up a very small minority of truckers in Canada. </p>
<h2>Freedom for whom?</h2>
<p>Because of what’s happening, many Ottawa residents currently feel <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60202050">trapped inside their homes</a>, the antithesis of freedom.</p>
<p>Members of the Canadian far-right have been present in both <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/">organizing and participating in the convoy</a>, and their participation is troubling. </p>
<p>We need to be asking how far-right groups got involved in the convoy, what their roles are and how a <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/01/27/freedom-rally-convoy-has-withdrawn-1-million-from-once-frozen-viral-fundraiser-gofundme.html">perceived “loss of freedom</a>” has drawn so many supporters. </p>
<p>The Canadian far-right movement has grown in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2016.1139375">recent years</a>, and many have raised concerns about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2021.1876900">far-right sympathy across Canada suggesting there is a very present threat</a>. There are also growing concerns over how its supporters <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12633-9_2">mobilize online</a>. </p>
<p>Many infamous far-right riots originate and continue online well after protests are finished — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-020-00080-x">including the Unite the Right rally in 2017</a>. Some far-right groups have also influenced offline politics and political parties, suggesting the possibility of far-right movements, or their political platforms, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315123851-8/remaining-streets-man%C3%A8s-weisskircher-lars-erik-berntzen">reaching electoral politics</a>. </p>
<p>The “freedom convoy” is just one iteration of how the far-right can and does mobilize willing participants into their movements under the guise of moral freedoms and rights. </p>
<p>Reports have lodged concerns that the convoy may add fuel to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-will-the-ottawa-convoy-morph-into-a-tea-party-style-populist-movement/">future populist participation in Canadian politics</a>. </p>
<p>This past week’s events have overshadowed many communities’ mourning. While the convoy rolled toward Ottawa, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/25/canada-indigenous-community-uncovers-93-potential-unmarked-graves">93 graves of Indigenous children were found on the ground of the former St. Joseph Mission Residential School</a>. </p>
<p>Some part of the convoy <a href="https://www.jta.org/2022/01/30/politics/swastikas-displayed-at-canadian-freedom-convoy-protests-against-vaccination-mandates">carried swastika flags</a>
during <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/truck-convoy-rideau-centre-closed-large-crowds-remain-downtown">Holocaust Remembrance Day</a>. And an in-person vigil to commemorate the anniversary of the Québec City mosque attack was cancelled in Ottawa due to <a href="https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/freedom-convoy-2022-police-report-no-injuries-no-incidents-of-violence-after-first-day-of-protest-100686683/">fears of violence</a>. </p>
<p>At a time when the nation should be rallying around these issues, fighting against structural violence for our communities, time, resources and attention are being given to this “freedom” convoy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175902/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kayla Preston is a SSHRC Joseph- Armand Bombardier scholar</span></em></p>At a time when the nation should be fighting against structural violence, resources and attention are being given to a cause that doesn’t deserve it.Kayla Preston, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749582022-01-14T13:35:18Z2022-01-14T13:35:18ZSeditious conspiracy charge against Oath Keepers founder and others in Jan. 6 riot faces First Amendment hurdle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440798/original/file-20220113-23-1ofy1xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4630%2C2883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stewart Rhodes faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of seditious conspiracy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolRiotSedition/981d3aaf03ef42378ced4ea0c2b9252f/photo?Query=Stewart%20Rhodes&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=22&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Susan Walsh</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-other-individuals-indicted-federal-court-seditious-conspiracy-and">seditious conspiracy charges filed</a> against Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers militia, along with 10 other defendants, opens a new and significant chapter in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. </p>
<p>Many observers have <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/january-6-sedition-charges-trump-white-supremacy-capitol/">noted the absence</a> of “seditious conspiracy” charges in connection with prosecutions of those who took part in the Capitol riot. Participants in the riot have been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/jan-6-insurrection-sentencing-tracker-526091">charged with minor crimes</a> such as trespassing or other lower-level offenses. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases">Others have been charged with more serious offenses</a>, such as obstructing a congressional proceeding or bringing a weapon inside the U.S. Capitol. </p>
<p>But the seditious conspiracy charges <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-other-individuals-indicted-federal-court-seditious-conspiracy-and">announced on Jan. 13, 2022 by the Department of Justice</a> raise the stakes and political temperature of the Jan. 6 investigation. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3xAnT2QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">First Amendment scholar</a>, I believe they may also give rise to serious concerns about the rights of others protesting government actions down the road. </p>
<h2>Prosecutions are rare</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/13/what-is-sedition/">crime of seditious conspiracy</a> involves joining with others to overthrow the government of the United States.</p>
<p>Under <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim">federal law</a>, persons are guilty of seditious conspiracy if they conspire “to overthrow, put down, or destroy the government” by force. That is the central or core offense. </p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim">federal seditious conspiracy law</a> also prohibits using force to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States” and using force to “seize, take, or possess any property of the United States.” The crime carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, fines, or both.</p>
<p>Seditious conspiracy prosecutions are rare in the U.S., but not unheard of. Charges have been successfully <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/when-extremists-stormed-capitol-and-got-convicted-seditious-conspiracy">brought against Puerto Rican nationalists</a> who stormed the Capitol in March of 1954 <a href="https://apnews.com/article/riots-conspiracy-9d22bdd4e2d4d786531ebe0fb8095de4">and against Islamic militants</a> who plotted to bomb several New York landmarks in the early 1990s. However, juries have also acquitted members of a neo-Nazi group charged with seditious conspiracy for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/604c50e36bd020ac70be35445b12d059">assassinate federal officials</a>.</p>
<p>Prosecutors may be reluctant to charge seditious conspiracy for several reasons. Conspiracy charges, which entail planning between two or more people to commit a crime, take lots of time and resources to develop and prosecute. Proving the elements of seditious conspiracy can be factually and legally difficult. Entering a restricted area or obstructing a congressional proceeding are far easier crimes to prove than plots to overthrow or hinder the U.S. government. </p>
<p>Prosecutors may also be reluctant to charge seditious conspiracy because the charges may appear to be politically motivated. </p>
<h2>From speech to action</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-i">First Amendment</a> also may pose a significant hurdle for prosecutors trying to prove seditious conspiracy. </p>
<p>Although it does not protect speech that incites imminent lawless action, the First Amendment does protect speech that advocates overthrowing government in more abstract terms. </p>
<p>So anti-government sentiment or general calls to “action” against purported “tyrants” – or statements of that nature – don’t rise to the level of a seditious conspiracy. For prosecutors to convict those charged with seditious conspiracy, they must prove there were specific plans to hinder the execution of the law or seize government property.</p>
<p>For example, a 2010 seditious conspiracy charge <a href="https://apnews.com/article/riots-conspiracy-9d22bdd4e2d4d786531ebe0fb8095de4">brought against members of the Hutaree militia</a>, which the government alleged planned to wage war against the government, was dismissed because the prosecution’s case rested substantially on hateful and offensive speech by members of the Christian extremist group that was protected by the First Amendment. The evidence did not demonstrate a plot to overthrow the government. </p>
<p>In the case of the Oath Keepers, the government will have to overcome similar First Amendment concerns. </p>
<p>In the case of Rhodes and his alleged co-conspirators, prosecutors may secure a conviction if they can prove, as is <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/press-release/file/1462346/download">alleged in the indictment</a>, that the militia moved from protected speech to planning specific actions – including “to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power” – that are not protected by the First Amendment.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/leader-oath-keepers-and-10-other-individuals-indicted-federal-court-seditious-conspiracy-and">press release accompanying the conspiracy charges</a>, the Department of Justice alleged specific actions by the defendants, including planning to travel to Washington, and bringing weapons to the area in support of the operation. </p>
<p>If any case fits the seditious conspiracy crime, perhaps this is it. </p>
<p>[<em>More than 140,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p>
<h2>Potential for abuse</h2>
<p>However, use of the seditious conspiracy law in Rhodes’s case may set a bad precedent as far as future protesters and dissidents are concerned. I see a danger that it could be used to support seditious conspiracy charges against other, potentially nonviolent, groups. </p>
<p>The words of the seditious conspiracy law – using force to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States” or to “seize, take, or possess any property of the United States” – may be broad enough to sweep in certain kinds of civil disobedience, disruptive protests at the Capitol and elsewhere, and plans to resist mass arrests.</p>
<p>Such concerns may be yet another reason prosecutors had seemingly been reluctant to rely on seditious conspiracy charges for the Jan. 6 defendants. </p>
<p>History demonstrates how broadly worded sedition laws can suppress protest and dissent. During the World War I, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/sedition-espionage-acts-woodrow-wilson-wwi">pacifists and dissidents were frequently charged</a> with sedition and seditious conspiracy based on their political advocacy and criticism of government. </p>
<p>The First Amendment, which broadly protects dissent, would not permit such prosecutions today. Modern interpretations of freedom of speech <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test">impose stringent requirements</a> in prosecutions for “inciting” violence. However, a successful prosecution for seditious conspiracy in the Rhodes case may create a precedent for going after demonstrators who commit ordinary crimes, such as damaging a police car or occupying a federal building, or who engage in other acts of civil disobedience.</p>
<p>This danger is not entirely speculative. In 2020, the Trump Justice Department <a href="https://apnews.com/article/state-courts-violent-crime-arson-violence-crime-cbca8672a70f9f170a086a7a252a751e">considered charging Black Lives Matter protesters with seditious conspiracy</a> in connection with demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and Portland. The Justice Department ultimately decided not to go down that road. To be sure, factual and other distinctions can be made between those protests and the storming of the Capitol. But in the hands of a zealous prosecutor, the potential for abuse is clear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174958/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Zick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers, has been charged with seditious conspiracy over the attempted insurrection. A constitutional law scholar outlines why that may set a bad precedent.Timothy Zick, Professor of Law, William & Mary Law SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723592021-11-22T20:17:55Z2021-11-22T20:17:55ZSUV tragedy in Wisconsin shows how vehicles can be used as a weapon of mass killing – intentionally or not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433197/original/file-20211122-25-129bv3d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C181%2C5760%2C3630&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Debris at the site where an SUV plowed into a Christmas parade</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/debris-left-near-following-a-driver-plowing-into-the-news-photo/1236732471?adppopup=true">Jim Vondruska/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Police have yet to confirm what caused a driver to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/suv-plows-into-parade-waukesha-wisconsin-injured-f8c6a9dcd420bc1f1a732afc7b10943a">plow a red SUV into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin</a>, on Nov. 21, 2021, killing at least five people and injuring scores more. But one thing is clear: Vehicles can be a deadly weapon, whether used deliberately or unintentionally.</p>
<p>The suspect, <a href="https://www.fox6now.com/news/waukesha-christmas-parade-5-dead-40-hurt-after-suv-sped-through-police-line">identified as Darrell Brooks Jr.</a>, is expected to face charges including <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/22/suspect-waukesha-parade-incident-identified-darrell-brooks-jr/8717524002/">five counts of intentional homicide</a>. It has emerged that Brooks was previously arrested earlier in November after being accused of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/us/driver-parade-crash-suspect.html">hitting the mother of his child with his car</a> in a gas station parking lot. Waukesha police confirmed on Nov. 22, that the latest incident, which left <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/22/us/waukesha-car-parade-crowd-monday/index.html">18 children between the ages of 3 and 16 in hospital</a>, was not an act of terrorism. Nor did it follow a police pursuit, although reports suggest that the suspect may have been <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/22/person-held-in-wisconsin-rampage-may-have-been-fleeing-knife-incident/">fleeing an earlier incident</a>. </p>
<p>But the manner of the deaths conjures up recent memories of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38377428">terror attacks using vehicles on perceived soft targets</a>, such as holiday markets, as well as concern over the risk of high-speed chases ending in tragedy.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://news.gsu.edu/expert/mia-bloom/">a scholar who has researched</a> <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/71431/vehicle-ramming-the-evolution-of-a-terrorist-tactic-inside-the-us/">the weaponizing of vehicles</a>, I know that cars, SUVs and trucks can be an efficient means of mass killing, and one that can be virtually impossible to prepare against. Furthermore, it is becoming <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/162163/republicans-anti-riot-laws-cars">harder to prosecute the driver</a> involved in such fatalities in some states.</p>
<h2>‘Poor man’s weapon of mass destruction’</h2>
<p>Vehicle ramming – <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0920_plcy_strategic-framework-countering-terrorism-targeted-violence.pdf">defined by the Department of Homeland Security</a> as the deliberate aiming of a motor vehicle at individuals with the intent to inflict fatal injuries or cause significant property damage – has been called the “poor man’s weapon of <a href="https://www.offgridweb.com/preparation/vehicular-terrorist-attacks-strategies-for-safety-and-survival/">mass destruction</a>.” </p>
<p>Members of the terrorist group Islamic State were not the first to employ this deadly innovation – in attacks on people in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39355108">London</a>, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/tag/nice-truck-attack/">Nice</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/nyregion/police-shooting-lower-manhattan.html">New York</a> – but in recent years they have perhaps become most closely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/16/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-for-nice-truck-attack">associated with the tactic</a>.</p>
<p>The group featured “vehicle ramming” in their propaganda as one of their <a href="https://www.counterextremism.com/vehicles-as-weapons-of-terror">preferred weapons against Western targets</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26297702?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">encouraged supporters to use vehicle ramming</a> against crowds. Islamic State group propaganda magazine, Dabiq, even advised would-be lone actors <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26351502?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">which vehicle could do the most damage</a></p>
<p>In North America, white supremacists and other militant and terrorist groups have also rammed their vehicles into crowds. Incidents of people running vehicles into pedestrians include that of the violent “incel” – or “involuntary celibate” – Alek Minassian, who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56269095">rammed his van into a crowd in Toronto in 2018</a>, killing 10. It has also been employed by members of the far-right, such as James Fields, who was found guilty of the murder, by vehicle, of Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/james-alex-fields-found-guilty-killing-heather-heyer-during-violent-n945186">Charlottesville, Virginia</a>, in 2017.</p>
<p>After the protests following the police killing of George Floyd, <a href="https://apps.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2021/10/vehicle-rammings-against-protesters/tulsa/">there was a massive uptick in the number of attacks</a>, most of which were aimed at Black Lives Matter protests. From the day of Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, vehicles drove into protests at least 139 times, according to a Boston Globe analysis. </p>
<p>During the course of my Department of Defense-sponsored <a href="https://minerva.defense.gov/Owl-In-the-Olive-Tree/Owl_View/Article/1859857/telegram-and-online-addiction-to-terrorist-propaganda/">research on how militant and terrorist groups’ use social media</a>, I observed extreme right-wing groups on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Parler and Telegram sharing memes about the vehicular attacks in the summer of 2020. Posts minimized the civilian casualties and mocked the core message of “Black Lives Matter,” turning it into the grotesque slogan “All Lives Splatter” and featuring a white SUV covered in red paint on the hood.</p>
<p>And it isn’t only right-wing groups that have targeted protesters. Police in cities such as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/31/new-york-city-george-floyd-protests-nypd-suvs-brooklyn-crowd/5299746002/">New York</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/07/08/protesters-police-suv-dashboard-camera-footage/5370556002/">Detroit</a> have driven vehicles into demonstrations. And in Tacoma, Washington, at least one man was injured after an <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535563-tacoma-police-vehicle-plows-through-crowd-watching-street-race">officer drove into a crowd of protesters</a>. In Boston last year, Police Sergeant Clifton McHale was recorded on a police body camera bragging about hitting protesters with his <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/162163/republicans-anti-riot-laws-cars">police cruiser</a>.</p>
<h2>Criminal and civil immunity</h2>
<p>In recent months, five states – Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma and Tennessee – have either shielded drivers who kill pedestrians from legal action or have fully <a href="https://apnews.com/article/817f34d2f4a04a4cb1e65afc079f6292">decriminalized hitting a pedestrian with a vehicle</a> if they were in the street or on a highway. Legislatures in states like Iowa, Florida and Oklahoma <a href="https://apps.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2021/10/vehicle-rammings-against-protesters/tulsa/">have passed laws granting drivers criminal and civil immunity</a> if they “unintentionally” hit or kill a protester while “fleeing from a riot,” so long as they say it was necessary to protect themselves. Kansas, Montana, and Alabama are <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2021/06/21/eight-states-enact-anti-protest-laws">planning similar legislation</a>.</p>
<p>Many more Americans are unintentionally killed or injured as a result of high-speed pursuits involving law enforcement. Police chases often occur on public roads or in <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/122025NCJRS.pdf">residential areas</a>. The result of what can be multiple vehicles going at high speeds in these areas can be deadly. The <a href="https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FCJEI/Programs/SLP/Documents/Full-Text/Lenemier.aspx">Department of Transportation estimates</a> that around 250,000 high-speed police chases occur every year, with 6,000 to 8,000 of them resulting in a collision.</p>
<p>Around <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/30/police-pursuits-fatal-injuries/30187827/">500 people are killed annually</a> as a result of these police pursuits, and approximately 5,000 are injured. The Justice Department, recognizing the danger of high-speed chases, has <a href="https://www.cji.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/police_pursuits.pdf">urged police officers to avoid or abort pursuits</a> that endanger pedestrians, motorists or the officers themselves.</p>
<p>The risk to the public of a driver intentionally or unintentionally causing a mass casualty event is, as the Wisconsin case shows, just too high.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172359/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mia Bloom receives funding from the Minerva Research Initiative and the Office of Naval Research, any opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research, the Department of the Navy or the Department of Defense.</span></em></p>At least five people were killed and many more were injured after an SUV crashed into a Christmas parade. A terrorism expert explains how vehicles have been weaponized.Mia M. Bloom, Evidence Based Cyber Security Program, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1720332021-11-19T13:08:00Z2021-11-19T13:08:00ZConspiracies about a ‘catastrophic takeover’ by Jews have long been an American problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432449/original/file-20211117-21-1m04on9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C3%2C824%2C537&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An antisemitic cartoon called “The Dream of the Jew Realized,” in The Judge magazine.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://centuryofprogress.org/sites/centuryofprogress.org/files/Immigration%20and%20Political%20Cartoons%20presentation.pdf">The Judge magazine 1882</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">Jews will not replace us</a>,” demonstrators chanted at the “Unite the Right” rally organized by armed white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, to stop the removal of a statue dedicated to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/13/us/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim.html">Heather D. Heyer</a>, a 32-year-old paralegal from Charlottesville was killed, and 35 others were wounded, when a 20-year-old neo-Nazi, James Alex Fields, intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during the rally.</p>
<p>Now a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/violence-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-charlottesville-39fc7c3995a139fd5cee153bb280b2e7">federal trial in Charlottesville</a> aims to extract damages from those who organized and led the deadly rally. Lead plaintiff Elizabeth Sines, a law student at the University of Virginia at the time of the rally, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/charlottesville-rally-trial-explained">believes that the lawsuit carries an important message</a>. In an interview with The New York Times, she said, “If you plan and execute violence – toward Jewish people, people of color, diverse communities like Charlottesville – you will be held responsible for your actions.” </p>
<p>At first glance, it might not be clear what the demonstrators meant in chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Only about <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-40371-3">2,000 Jews live in Charlottesville</a>, out of a total local population of 47,000. Nationally Jews number <a href="https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/counting-american-jews-and-checking-the-work/">no more than 7.6 million</a>, meaning that just over 2% of Americans are Jewish. Indeed, recent studies suggest that America’s Jewish birthrate has fallen, and Jews are barely replacing themselves, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-018-9249-6">let alone the white population as a whole</a>.</p>
<p>What, then, could explain Charlottesville demonstrators’ fears? </p>
<h2>White nationalists’ fears</h2>
<p>Scholar of Jewish history Deborah Lipstadt, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, argued in an <a href="https://files.integrityfirstforamerica.org/14228/1611248500-832-1-expert-report-of-d-lipstadt.pdf">expert report presented to the court</a> concerning the history, ideology, symbolism and rhetoric of antisemitism – subsequently summarized in her personal testimony – that the Charlottesville chant carried several meanings.</p>
<p>“In its simplest and most straightforward interpretation,” she explained, “that chant can be understood to say Jews will not replace ‘us,’ i.e., white Christians in our job or our dominant place in society. We as whites will remain the dominant and supreme force in society.”</p>
<p>She also pointed to a “subtler but deeply ideological meaning to this chant,” rooted in the fear referred to by white nationalists as the “great replacement” or “white genocide.” The Charlottesville chant is expressing <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">centuries-old fears</a> that Jews, in league with peoples of color, are engaged in a nefarious plot to destroy the white Christian civilization.</p>
<p>David Lane, a white supremacist convicted, among other crimes, of conspiring in the 1984 machine-gun assassination of the Jewish talk-radio host Alan Berg in Denver, did much to publicize this idea. “The Western nations,” <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-lane">he wrote</a>, “were ruled by a Zionist conspiracy … [that] above all things wants to exterminate the White Aryan race.” His 14-word goal, today a central plank of white nationalist ideology, <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-words">declares</a> that “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”</p>
<p>Alex Linder, a neo-Nazi <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/alex-linder">who operates the racist website the Vanguard News Network</a>, has written that <a href="http://alinderblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/">Jews merely pretend to be white</a> “in order to shame, discredit, blame, mock, harass and otherwise discomfit and discredit white people and the white race.”</p>
<p>The chant “Jews will not replace us,” <a href="https://files.integrityfirstforamerica.org/14228/1611248500-832-1-expert-report-of-d-lipstadt.pdf">Lipstadt explained to the court</a>, serves as the white nationalist response to these fears. To avoid “catastrophic takeover,” it calls upon white people to “band together, arm themselves and go on the offensive,” she noted.</p>
<p>Lipstadt <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion">dates this antisemitic theory back to early 20th-century tsarist Russia</a>, where a notorious forgery, now known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” purported to “prove” that Jews were engaged in a vast conspiratorial plot to subvert Christian society and culture. According to the protocols, Jews aimed at nothing less than world domination. </p>
<p>Today’s antisemites likewise believe in a vast Jewish-led conspiracy that seeks to undermine all that they hold dear. The cry “Jews will not replace us” reflects this fear and, <a href="https://files.integrityfirstforamerica.org/14228/1611248500-832-1-expert-report-of-d-lipstadt.pdf">according to Lipstadt</a>, served as “one of the motivating underpinnings of the Unite the Right rally.”</p>
<h2>Antisemitic cartoons</h2>
<p>Lipstadt’s evidence is persuasive, but, as a <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/near-eastern-judaic/people/faculty/sarna.html">scholar of American Jewish history</a>, I know that the fear of “replacement” dates back even earlier.</p>
<p>In 1882, with thousands of Jews pouring into New York in the wake of Russian pogroms and anti-Jewish legislation known as the <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/may-laws">May Laws</a>, similar fears surfaced, even though Jews at that time made up far less than 1% of the U.S. population. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/hint/politics-graphic-detail/person/james-albert-wales">well-known American-born cartoonist James Albert Wales</a>, who died in 1886, stoked fears about how Jewish immigrants would change the city’s character, in depictions in the satirical weekly <a href="https://delart.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Judge-Magazine.pdf">The Judge</a>. </p>
<p>Wales portrayed New York as becoming, by 1900, the “New Jerusalem,” where Canal Street would be renamed “Levi Street,” Jewish-owned businesses would replace Christian ones and a Jewish feather merchant would serve as the city’s mayor. He portrayed long-nosed Jewish soldiers as a militia of pawnbrokers parading down Broadway. They were seen to be supplanting the so-called bluebloods of the famed 7th Regiment of the New York Militia, the city’s prestigious national guard founded in 1806 and mustered into <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120219195827/http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/7threg_content.html">federal service during the Civil War</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Jewish people, depicted as soldiers, shown walking through New York in antisemitic cartoon from The Judge magazine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432454/original/file-20211117-21-ris4c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The New Jerusalem, Formerly New York,’ a cartoon from The Judge magazine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.kestenbaum.net/auction/lot/Auction-83/083-025/">'The New Jerusalem, Formerly New York,' The Judge magazine, Vol. 2, No. 39.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Published on July 22, 1882, as a colorful two-page chromolithograph, a colored picture printed by lithography, the cartoon was one of a series in The Judge that <a href="https://www.kestenbaum.net/auction/lot/Auction-83/083-025/">warned readers to beware of Jews</a>, who supposedly looked to replace them.</p>
<p>Another of Wales’ black-and-white cartoons, titled “The Dream of the Jews Realized,” which likewise appeared in The Judge in 1882, depicted an imaginary Jewish celebration marking the removal of the city’s last store sign with a characteristically white Christian name, “John Smith,” an enterprise purportedly established back in 1820. </p>
<p>[<em>The most interesting religion stories from three major news organizations.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-best-of-1">Get This Week in Religion.</a>]</p>
<p>Replacing it was a sign bearing the Jewish name “Moses Eichstein.” In the background of the cartoon, a banner illumined by upraised thumbs, considered to be a typical Jewish hand gesture, gave voice to the nativist fears that The Judge sought calculatingly to inflame: “We own the Town,” <a href="https://centuryofprogress.org/sites/centuryofprogress.org/files/Immigration%20and%20Political%20Cartoons%20presentation.pdf">it announced</a>.</p>
<p>The 2017 Charlottesville chant, “Jews will not replace us,” reflects those same kinds of fears. </p>
<p>As the trial in Charlottesville now moves toward its conclusion, it bears recalling that the fantasy that Jews seek to recreate America in their own image, to the disadvantage of white natives, is as old as mass Jewish immigration to America’s shores.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan D. Sarna has been personally targeted by an antisemitic website. He is proud to call Deborah Lipstadt a friend; they have known each other for more than forty years. </span></em></p>In the late 19th century, a satiric weekly stoked fears about how Jewish immigrants would change New York City’s character.Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1683832021-09-21T06:48:39Z2021-09-21T06:48:39Z‘It’s almost like grooming’: how anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, and the far-right came together over COVID<p>Scenes of protesters clad in hi-vis jackets and shouting anti-vaccination slogans have dominated the news this week. As the ABC <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-21/victoria-construction-industry-shutdown-melbourne-protest-police/100478450">reported</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some of those gathered held a banner reading ‘freedom’, while others sang the national anthem and chanted ‘f*** the jab’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some attacked union offices, <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/anti-vax-far-right-activists-undermining-australians-health-safety-20210921-p58tfp.html">drawing criticism</a> from officials such as ACTU chief Sally McManus, who described the protests as being orchestrated “by violent right-wing extremists and anti-vaccination activists.”</p>
<p>These images may shock some but for researchers like me — who research far-right nationalist and conspiracy movements, and explore the online spaces where these people organise — these scenes came as no real surprise.</p>
<p>Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists have come together over COVID, and capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in some sections of the community.</p>
<p>They appear to have found fertile ground particularly among men who feel alienated, fearful about their employment and who spend a lot of time at home scrolling social media and encrypted messaging apps.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1439868138967863303"}"></div></p>
<h2>The latest in a continuum</h2>
<p>It’s important to see what’s occurring with these protests as part of a continuum rather than a series of unrelated incidents. This week’s protests are related to anti-lockdown protests held in 2020, and earlier this year.</p>
<p>It was at first limited to the conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer crowd. Some were just upset by lockdowns but most of the planning conversation online was being led by anti-vaxxers and QAnon activists.</p>
<p>These movements thrive on anxiety, anger, a sense of alienation, a distrust in government and institutions. It’s really no coincidence this is occurring most vigorously in Melbourne given what this city has been through with lockdowns.</p>
<p>It has really built momentum over the last year and, more recently, been infiltrated by far right groups. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/far-right-groups-have-used-covid-to-expand-their-footprint-in-australia-here-are-the-ones-you-need-to-know-about-151203">Far-right groups have used COVID to expand their footprint in Australia. Here are the ones you need to know about</a>
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<h2>The far right are capable recruiters</h2>
<p>If you go back two years ago, anti-vaxxers were a tiny minority. They have grown significantly in size and influence online. </p>
<p>I have observed in my research the far right consciously appropriating the language of anti-vaxxers, of the conspiracy movements, seeking to exploit their anger and distrust. </p>
<p>I spend a lot of time on the encrypted messaging groups used by these groups and in the online spaces where they organise. I have seen the same names popping up, and growing use of hard right or far right national socialist iconography.</p>
<p>It is almost like grooming. The far right are a lot more capable of recruitment than we give them credit for. They have found an audience who are angry, frustrated and looking for someone to blame. </p>
<p>This is particularly the case among young men who are increasingly attracted to <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-New-Demagogues-Religion-Masculinity-and-the-Populist-Epoch/Roose/p/book/9781138364707">right wing nationalism</a> and make up the majority of protesters. Victoria Police Commissioner Shane Patton has said the majority of protesters at the Saturday protest were <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-22/victoria-police-say-melbourne-protesters-largely-young-angry-men/13509266">men aged 25-40</a>, who came with violent intent. </p>
<p>Many of these groups share similar ideas: that there is a cabal of politicians and elites who are oppressing you. That freedom is at risk, that one must stand up for liberty, that there is a wealthy and unelected ruling class controlling you.</p>
<p>COVID — with all the fear, uncertainty, lockdowns, policing and employment impacts it brings — has helped bring these groups together. </p>
<p>Victoria police earlier this year <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/25/far-right-exploiting-anger-at-lockdowns-to-radicalise-wellness-community-police-say">warned</a> a parliamentary inquiry into extremism that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>online commentary on COVID-19 has provided a recruiting tool for right-wing extremist groups, linking those interested in alternative wellness, anti-vaccination and anti-authority conspiracy theories with white supremacist ideologies.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The far right has really sought to mobilise frustrated people and push them more toward right-wing narratives, particularly white nationalist narratives. </p>
<p>There is a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxs2pbk/revision/8">strong historical animosity toward trade unions</a> (as the vanguard of the political left) by the far right. It would be disingenuous to view the far right as unintelligent thugs. They are learned in the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxs2pbk/revision/8">history of national socialism</a> and fascism and the preconditions for its rise. </p>
<p>So you see the far right working very hard to undermine trade unions and the way they represent the organised working class. There is an attempt to undermine trust in trade unions and paint them as traitors and sell-outs who are in bed with the government.</p>
<p>Among the protesters there was a really self conscious effort to represent themselves as themselves as tradies and workers. Some observed protest organisers encouraging people to wear hi-vis clothing to these rallies. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1440158227350450182"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s important to note the construction industry and trade union movement in general are incredibly diverse, and there will be different and competing views around vaccines, masks and lockdowns. </p>
<p>Some of these protesters actually are tradies, some may not be. Some are union members, others are not. But the broader point is there is a group of people who are incredibly angry about the situation they find themselves in, and resentment is proving fertile terrain for organised groups.</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>This is not an easy knot to unpick, but there are three main approaches I think would really help.</p>
<p>The first is we really need to get people back to work. That is critical. People’s self esteem and livelihood is tied up in work and the ability to put food on the table, in staying busy and socially connected (which is often via work). </p>
<p>By ensuring safe, secure employment for people, you really take away one of the main drivers of anger, resentment (and too much time to scroll around social media) that is helping push people toward extremism.</p>
<p>The second is politicians need to think hard and fast about what they can do to help rebuild trust in them, in government and in our institutions. Politicians can’t hide behind press conferences and press releases to get their message out. They need to get out and build trust, face-to-face with the community. Of course, that has been constrained by lockdown but this work is urgent and important. Politicians need to lead and create relationships with the community again.</p>
<p>The third thing is we as a society need to think carefully about social media, and perhaps about regulation. We need a long-term approach to media literacy training, to teach media literacy in schools and to educate people about social media echo chambers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-shut-down-far-right-extremism-in-australia-we-must-confront-the-ecosystem-of-hate-154269">To shut down far-right extremism in Australia, we must confront the ecosystem of hate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Roose receives funding from the ARC. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party at the time of writing this article but no longer is. </span></em></p>Far right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians and conspiracy theorists have come together over COVID, and capitalised on the anger and uncertainty simmering in some sections of the community.Josh Roose, Senior Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676862021-09-15T19:19:09Z2021-09-15T19:19:09ZCapitol Police prepare for a return of insurrectionists to Washington – 5 essential reads on the symbols they carried on Jan. 6<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421185/original/file-20210914-27-1860236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Capitol Police are making security preparations for the planned rally.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CapitolBreachFence/2c65b78735bc44cba43fc30ef9d5d891/photo">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A rally in Washington, slated for Sept. 18, 2021, is being billed as an effort to <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2021/09/08/capitol-police-prepare-for-sept-18-rally-lawmakers-invited/">support people who face criminal charges</a> for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</p>
<p>Many of the same groups who participated in January are <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proud-boys-oath-keepers-extremist-rally-september-18-washington-d-c/">expected to return to the nation’s capital</a> for this demonstration. Capitol Police are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/08/politics/capitol-hill-security-september-18-rally/index.html">reportedly preparing for violence</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/13/politics/capitol-hill-fencing-returns/index.html">erecting protective fencing</a> around the building.</p>
<p>The groups involved in January’s attack on the Capitol carried a variety of political and ideological flags and signs. The Conversation asked scholars to explain what they saw – including ancient Norse images and more recent flags from U.S. history – and what those symbols mean.</p>
<p>Here are five articles from The Conversation’s coverage, explaining what many of the symbols mean.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378635/original/file-20210113-20219-10pr52k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man carries the Confederate battle flag in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, between portraits of senators who both opposed and supported slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporter-of-us-president-donald-trump-carries-a-news-photo/1230455296">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. The Confederate battle flag</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most recognized symbol of white supremacy is the Confederate battle flag. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-confederate-battle-flag-which-rioters-flew-inside-the-us-capitol-has-long-been-a-symbol-of-white-insurrection-153071">Since its debut during the Civil War</a>, the Confederate battle flag has been flown regularly by white insurrectionists and reactionaries fighting against rising tides of newly won Black political power,” writes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Vjw_kxsAAAAJ">Jordan Brasher</a> at Columbus State University, who has studied how the Confederacy has been memorialized.</p>
<p>He notes that in one photo from inside the Capitol, the flag’s history came into sharp relief as the man carrying it was standing between “the portraits of two Civil War-era U.S. senators – one an ardent proponent of slavery and the other an abolitionist once beaten unconscious for his views on the Senate floor.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Gadsden flags fly at a Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C36%2C6020%2C3974&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377429/original/file-20210106-15-1yksevy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gadsden flags fly at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/capitol-police-line-the-barricades-as-trump-supporters-news-photo/1230452268">Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. The yellow Gadsden flag</h2>
<p>Another flag with a racist history is the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. A symbol warning of self-defense, it was designed by slave owner and trader Christopher Gadsden when the American Revolution began, as Iowa State University graphic design scholar <a href="https://www.design.iastate.edu/faculty/bruski/">Paul Bruski</a> writes.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/yellow-gadsden-flag-prominent-in-capitol-takeover-carries-a-long-and-shifting-history-145142">Because of its creator’s history</a> and because it is commonly flown alongside ‘Trump 2020’ flags, the Confederate battle flag and other white-supremacist flags, some may now see the Gadsden flag as a symbol of intolerance and hate – or even racism,” he explains.</p>
<p>It has been adopted by the tea party movement and other Republican-leaning groups, but the flag still carries the legacy, and the name, of its creator.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="U.S. Capitol storming, gallows, Trump supporters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C33%2C5540%2C3631&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377789/original/file-20210108-21-lkk5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gallows symbolizing the lynching of Jews was among the hate symbols carried as crowds stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporters-near-the-u-s-capitol-on-january-06-2021-in-news-photo/1230476983?adppopup=true">Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Powerful anti-Semitism</h2>
<p>Another arm of white supremacy doesn’t target Blacks. Instead, it demonizes Jewish people. Plenty of anti-Semitic symbols were on display during the riot, as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VKv2qFsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Jonathan D. Sarna</a> explains.</p>
<p>Sarna is a Brandeis University scholar of American anti-Semitism and describes the ways that “<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-scholar-of-american-anti-semitism-explains-the-hate-symbols-present-during-the-us-capitol-riot-152883">[c]alls to exterminate Jews are common in far-right and white nationalist circles</a>.” That included a gallows erected outside the Capitol, evoking a disturbing element of a 1978 novel depicting the takeover of Washington, along with mass lynchings and slaughtering of Jews.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a horned hat and displaying Norse tattoos." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378899/original/file-20210114-18-lw7lz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man known as Jake Angeli, who is soon to be sentenced for his role in the Capitol riot, wears a horned hat and tattoos of Norse images.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-us-president-donald-trump-including-jake-news-photo/1230468102">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Co-opted Norse mythology</h2>
<p>Among the most striking images of the January riot were those of a man wearing a horned hat and no shirt, displaying several large tattoos. He is known as Jake Angeli, but his full name is Jacob Chansley, and he has <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/qanon-shaman-jacob-chansley-january-6-capitol-riot-guilty-plea/">pleaded guilty to one of six charges</a> as part of a plea deal for his role in the riot. </p>
<p>Tom Birkett, a lecturer in Old English at University College Cork in Ireland, explains that many of the symbols Chansley wore are from Norse mythology. However, he explains, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-capitol-riot-the-myths-behind-the-tattoos-worn-by-qanon-shaman-jake-angeli-152996">These symbols have also been co-opted by a growing far-right movement</a>.”</p>
<p>Birkett traces the modern use of Norse symbols back to the Nazis and points out that they are a form of code hidden in plain sight: “If certain symbols are hard for the general public to spot, they are certainly dog whistles to members of an increasingly global white supremacist movement who know exactly what they mean.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C622%2C4914%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rioters scale structures while flying flags outside the Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C622%2C4914%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378318/original/file-20210112-21-115ikuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The yellow and red-striped flag of the defeated American-backed Republic of Vietnam flies at the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-donald-trumps-supporters-gather-outside-the-news-photo/1230458129">Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. An outlier, of sorts</h2>
<p>Another flag was prominent at the Capitol riot, one that doesn’t strictly represent white supremacy: the flag of the former independent country of South Vietnam. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/longbui/">Long T. Bui</a>, a global studies scholar at the University of California, Irvine, explains that when flown by Vietnamese Americans, many of whom support Trump, the flag symbolizes militant nationalism.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-flag-of-south-vietnam-flew-at-us-capitol-siege-152937">[S]ome Vietnamese Americans view their fallen homeland</a> as an extension of the American push for freedom and democracy worldwide. I have interviewed Vietnamese American soldiers who fear American freedom is failing,” he explains.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives and is an update of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-white-supremacy-flew-proudly-at-the-capitol-riot-5-essential-reads-153055">article previously published</a> on Jan. 15, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Groups who share support for white supremacy say they are planning to return to the nation’s capital for a demonstration to support those arrested for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection.Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564632021-03-15T12:59:17Z2021-03-15T12:59:17ZAfter the insurrection, America’s far-right groups get more extreme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389153/original/file-20210311-14-148i0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C5000%2C3570&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Capitol remains on lockdown, defended by the National Guard.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/national-guard-soldiers-patrol-outside-the-us-capitol-on-news-photo/1231535500">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>As the U.S. grapples with domestic extremism in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, warnings about more violence are coming from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/us/politics/wray-domestic-terrorism-capitol.html">FBI Director Chris Wray</a> and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/domestic-terror-law-blindspot-capitol-attack-1568352">others</a>. The Conversation asked <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fjys1XAAAAAJ&hl=en">Matthew Valasik</a>, a sociologist at Louisiana State University, and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=cLpO6QwAAAAJ">Shannon E. Reid</a>, a criminologist at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte, to explain what right-wing extremist groups in the U.S. are doing. The scholars are co-authors of “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300453/alt-right-gangs">Alt-Right Gangs: A Hazy Shade of White</a>,” published in September 2020; they track the activities of far-right groups like the Proud Boys.</em></p>
<h2>What are U.S. extremist groups doing since the Jan. 6 riot?</h2>
<p>Local chapters of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/extremism-capitol-riot.html">Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Groypers and others</a> are breaking away from their groups’ national figureheads. For instance, some local Proud Boys chapters have been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/12/proud-boys-splintering-after-capitol-riot-revelations-leader/6709017002/">explicitly cutting ties</a> with national leader Enrique Tarrio, the group’s chairman.</p>
<p>Tarrio was arrested on federal weapons charges in the days before the insurrection, but he has also been revealed as a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader-exclusive/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE">longtime FBI informant</a>. He reportedly aided authorities in a variety of criminal cases, including those involving <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/proud-boys-enrique-tarrio-fbi-informer/2021/01/27/21c1df0e-60be-11eb-9430-e7c77b5b0297_story.html">drug sales, gambling and human smuggling</a> – though he has not yet been connected with cases against Proud Boys members.</p>
<p>When a leader of a far-right group or street gang leaves, regardless of the reason, it is common for a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2015.1038106">struggle to emerge</a> among remaining members who seek to consolidate power. That can result in violence spilling over into the community as groups attempt to reshape themselves. </p>
<p>While some of the splinter Proud Boys chapters will likely maintain the Proud Boys brand, at least for the time being, others may evolve and become more radicalized. <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjpb5q/for-some-joining-the-proud-boys-was-a-stop-on-the-way-to-neo-nazi-terror">The Base, a neo-Nazi terror group</a>, has recruited from among the ranks of Proud Boys. As the Proud Boys sheds affiliates, it would not be surprising for those with <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx8xp4/a-proud-boys-lawyer-wanted-to-be-a-nazi-terrorist">more enthusiasm</a> about hateful activism to seek out more extreme groups. Less committed groups will wither away.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in sunglasses stands outside" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389151/original/file-20210311-13-1aibpdv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enrique Tarrio, the national leader of the Proud Boys, outside the Conservative Political Action Conference in February.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/enrique-tarrio-leader-of-the-proud-boys-is-seen-outside-the-news-photo/1231447173">Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How does that response compare with what happened after 2017’s ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville?</h2>
<p>Neither the Capitol insurrection nor the Charlottesville rally produced the response from mainstream America that far-right groups had hoped for. Rather than rising up in a groundswell of support, most Americans were appalled – some so much that they have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/01/962246187/spurred-by-the-capitol-riot-thousands-of-republicans-drop-their-party">abandoned the Republican Party</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, right-wingers have been hit hard by the post-insurrection actions by <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-social-media-bans-twitter-facebook-parler-d8e985e0-0c59-4386-95c7-a2aa3ff0096e.html">large technology companies</a> like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google and Amazon. They took down far-right group members’ accounts and removed right-wing social media platforms, including <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html">permanently blacklisting Donald Trump’s Twitter account</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-was-parler-shut-down-heres-why-the-social-network-is-offline-11610478890">temporarily blocking all traffic to Parler, a conservative social media platform</a>. Those steps are <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/parler-bans-new-chapter-free-speech-wars/">more significant</a> than earlier moderation and algorithm changes those companies had undertaken in previous efforts to curb online extremism.</p>
<p>Another major difference is the lack of regret. Nobody on the right wanted to be associated with Charlottesville after it happened. Figureheads of the far right who had <a href="http://idavox.com/index.php/2017/08/26/the-internet-never-forgets-how-gavin-mcinnis-attempts-to-delete-charlottesville-support-message-but-cant/">initially promoted that rally</a> saw the negative public reaction and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/09/21/gavin-mcinnes-alt-right-proud-boys-richard-spencer-charlottesville/">distanced themselves, even condemning</a> the “Unite the Right” rally.</p>
<p>After the insurrection at the Capitol, their response was different. They did not split and blame other right-wing groups. Instead, conservative and extreme-right circles have united behind a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/972564176/antifa-didnt-storm-the-capitol-just-ask-the-rioters">false claim that they did nothing wrong</a>, and alleged, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-far-right-rioters-at-the-capitol-were-not-antifa-but-violent-groups-often-blame-rivals-for-unpopular-attacks-153193">left-wing activists assaulted the Capitol</a> – while disguised as right-wingers.</p>
<h2>Are extremist groups attracting new members?</h2>
<p>Some members have left extremist groups in the wake of the Jan. 6 violence. The members who remain, and the new members they are attracting, are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/opinion/domestic-terrorism-far-right-insurrection.html">increasing the radicalization of far-right groups</a>. As the less committed members abandon these far-right groups, only the more devout remain. Such a <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/3/3/2019262/-Warning-of-III-militia-plot-fueled-by-March-4-conspiracy-theories-induces-House-to-shut-down">shift is going to alter the subculture</a> of these groups, driving them farther to the right. We expect this <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/podcasts/the-growing-threat-of-far-right-extremism">polarization will only accelerate the reactionary behaviors and extremist tendencies</a> of these far-right groups.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/23/959884145/how-conservative-media-has-covered-bidens-first-days-as-president">Right-wing pundits</a> and <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-washington-military-occupation-liberal-fear">conservative media</a> are continuing to stoke fears about the Biden administration. We and other observers of right-wing groups expect that extremists will come to see <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/08/capitol-mob-far-right-trump-propaganda/">the events of Jan. 6 as just the opening skirmish in a modern civil war</a>. We anticipate they will continue to seek an end to American democracy and the beginning of a new society free – or even purged – of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/19/magazine/boogaloo.html">groups the right wing fears</a>, including immigrants, Jewish people, nonwhites, LGBTQ people and those who value multiculturalism.</p>
<p>We expect that these groups will continue to <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/01/22/capitol-insurrection-shows-how-trends-far-rights-fringe-have-become-mainstream">shift more and more to the extreme right</a>, posing risks for acts of violence both large and small.</p>
<h2>Have far-right extremists’ views toward the police changed?</h2>
<p>With a Democratic administration and attorney general, the far right will no longer view federal law enforcement agencies as friendly, the way they did under the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-riot-exposes-far-right-police-officers-longstanding-issue-2021-1">Trump administration</a>. Rather, they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/capitol-police-officers-support/2021/01/08/a16e07a2-51da-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html">view the police as the enemy</a>. </p>
<p>Even before Joe Biden took office and the Republicans officially lost control of the U.S. Senate, the Capitol riot showed this divide between right-wing extremists and police. A Capitol Police officer was assaulted with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/11/police-beating-capitol-mob/">flagpole bearing an American flag</a>, and some members of the mob were <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2021/0114/Capitol-assault-Why-did-police-show-up-on-both-sides-of-thin-blue-line">police officers and military personnel</a>. Many more were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/958915267/nearly-one-in-five-defendants-in-capitol-riot-cases-served-in-the-military">military veterans</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not clear what this different view of law enforcement means for police officers, active-duty military and veterans who are members of right-wing groups. But we anticipate that only those who are most zealously committed to far-right causes will remain active. That, in turn, will push those groups <a href="https://theconversation.com/armed-groups-from-capitol-riot-pose-longer-term-threat-to-biden-presidency-153580">even farther to the extreme right</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man at a lectern" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389154/original/file-20210311-16-ziit0g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Attorney General Merrick Garland has decades of experience fighting right-wing extremism in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenAttorneyGeneral/19424077c4cc4862a13d15175a8566df/photo">Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Has anything changed for militias since Biden has become president?</h2>
<p>In 2009, the <a href="https://fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf">Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning</a> about the growing membership in far-right groups, including their active recruitment of military veterans. Shortly after the report was released, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/">Republicans in Congress</a> pushed for the <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781633885165/Hateland-A-Long-Hard-Look-at-America%27s-Extremist-Heart">report to be retracted</a> and for <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2011/inside-dhs-former-top-analyst-says-agency-bowed-political-pressure">dramatically reducing the federal effort</a> to monitor far-right groups in the U.S. This permissive atmosphere allowed far-right groups to grow and spread nationwide. </p>
<p>The Trump administration further served far-right groups by failing to pay out <a href="https://time.com/5944085/far-right-extremism-biden/">federal grants for grassroots counterviolence programs</a>, by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/trump-shut-countering-violent-extremism-program/574237/">refusing to help</a> local law enforcement agencies with equipment or training to deal with these groups, and by routinely <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/26/trump-domestic-extemism-homeland-security-401926">downplaying the violence</a> perpetrated by these white power groups. Essentially, far-right groups were unpoliced for the past decade or more.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But that approach has ended. Merrick Garland’s appointment as Biden’s attorney general is a big signal: In his career at the Department of Justice before becoming a federal judge, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/merrick-garland-oklahoma-city-bombing/2021/02/19/a9e6adde-67f2-11eb-8468-21bc48f07fe5_story.html">Garland supervised the investigations of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing</a>.</p>
<p>These were two of the most noteworthy acts of far-right domestic terrorism in the nation’s history. Garland has said that he will make fighting right-wing violence and attacks on democracy <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/539885-garland-pledges-to-prioritize-domestic-terrorism-battle">major priorities of his tenure</a> at the head of the Justice Department.</p>
<p>In January, Canada designated the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdw8z/what-canadas-terror-laws-mean-for-proud-boys">Proud Boys and other right-wing groups as terrorist organizations</a>, which puts pressure on U.S. law enforcement to reconsider how they <a href="https://theconversation.com/designating-the-proud-boys-a-terrorist-organization-wont-stop-hate-fuelled-violence-154709">evaluate, investigate and prosecute</a> these extremist groups. Beyond law enforcement’s treating these far-right groups like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/03/the-proud-boys-are-a-far-right-gang-trump-boosted-them-on-national-tv">street gangs</a>, there are also laws in place to combat <a href="https://www.insider.com/canada-is-considering-labeling-proud-boys-a-terrorist-organization-2021-1">violence associated with domestic terrorism</a>. </p>
<p>It appears that U.S. prosecutors may finally begin to take seriously the violent actions of Proud Boys, especially as more and more members are being charged with coordinating the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/proud-boys-leader-capitol-riot/2021/03/02/0ca15138-7aed-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html">breach of the U.S. Capitol Building</a>.</p>
<p>But as police power comes to bear on these violent right-wing groups, many of their members remain at least as radicalized as they were on Jan. 6 – if not more so. Some may feel that <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/militia-armed-uprising-biden-bundy-haaland-interior.html">more extreme measures</a> are needed to resist the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-theorists-switch-date-march-20-after-no-trump-inauguration-call-4th-false-flag-1573871">Biden administration</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156463/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New members are joining and some are leaving – as right-wing groups reorganize, scholars of the movement foresee increased polarization, with a risk of more violence.Matthew Valasik, Associate Professor of Sociology, Louisiana State University Shannon Reid, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1537122021-03-04T13:13:08Z2021-03-04T13:13:08ZWhat the policing response to the KKK in the 1960s can teach about dismantling white supremacist groups today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387271/original/file-20210302-13-1a1b3pu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3693%2C2476&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Archival image from 1967 shows protesters demonstrating while Ku Klux Klan members walk in a parade to support the Vietnam War.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-girl-holding-hands-with-robed-ku-klux-klansmen-walks-news-photo/514694140?adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During his confirmation hearing in February, Attorney General nominee <a href="https://apnews.com/article/merrick-garland-confirmation-hearing-b5f03bc4ab13c8e42bb9994e7b2765d6">Merrick Garland pledged</a> that his first order of business would be to “supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6.” </p>
<p>On that day, thousands of Trump supporters – including <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/19/958240531/members-of-right-wing-militias-extremist-groups-are-latest-charged-in-capitol-si">members of white nationalist and militia groups</a> – gathered to support and defend a series of fabricated and conspiracy-laden claims around the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/technology/trump-has-amplified-voting-falsehoods-in-over-300-tweets-since-election-night.html">purportedly “rigged” 2020 election</a>. </p>
<p>As a social scientist who <a href="https://sites.wustl.edu/cunningham/">researches how white supremacist groups are policed</a>, I understand both the need to vigorously address threats of violence from racist and anti-democratic elements and the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-department-opens-the-door-to-seeking-new-domestic-terror-powers-after-capitol-riot">calls from some Justice Department officials</a> to expand police powers to do so.</p>
<p>But if history is a guide, providing police with new tools to address current white nationalist threats could result in further repression of activists of color.</p>
<p>The campaign to police the civil rights-era Ku Klux Klan, for example, offers clear lessons in this respect. While that effort prevented white supremacists from capitalizing on their momentum in the mid-1960s, it also spurred unforeseen consequences.</p>
<h2>KKK in 1965</h2>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/klansville-usa-9780199391165?q=Klansville%2C%20U.S.A.&lang=en&cc=us">Nearly every night in 1965</a>, ascendant KKK leader Bob Jones appeared on a makeshift stage in fields across rural North Carolina channeling the revolutionary fervor of his newfound followers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4009%2C2807&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Ku Klux Klan leaders in uniform stand close together" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4009%2C2807&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387267/original/file-20210302-15-1jakhqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bob Jones, right, a leader of the Klu Klux Klan in North Carolina, stands with Calvin Craig of Georgia during a KKK rally in Atlanta in 1967.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/klu-klux-klan-dragons-calvin-craig-of-georgia-and-bob-jones-news-photo/515099944?adppopup=true">Bettmann Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the head of the nation’s largest statewide Klan since World War II, Jones was growing accustomed to crowds numbering in the hundreds – and sometimes the thousands – at rallies throughout his home state. </p>
<p>The previous fall, President Lyndon Johnson had defeated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater30.htm">archconservative Barry Goldwater</a>. Jones’ KKK had <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Klansville_U_S_A/fBQhe8jcXZEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=klansville+usa+cunningham+%22goldwater%22&pg=PA139&printsec=frontcover">strongly backed the loser</a>, who had aligned himself with Southern segregationists. Now Jones drove a shiny new Cadillac <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Klansville_U_S_A/fBQhe8jcXZEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=cadillac">purchased from KKK dues</a>. His bumper sticker read: “I’m not ashamed, I voted for Goldwater.” </p>
<p>Though Jones did not contest the election’s legitimacy, Goldwater’s defeat caused the KKK leader’s crowds to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spv016">swell in size and intensity</a>. Supporters seemed newly energized in their aggrieved alienation from national politics. When LBJ <a href="https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-26-1965-statement-arrests-violo-liuzzo-murder">spoke out</a> against an increasingly deadly spate of Klan violence, Jones drew more than 6,000 to a <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Klansville_U_S_A/gIpSAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=6,000%20in%20dunn">rally celebrating known KKK perpetrators</a>.</p>
<p>Jones clearly recognized that opposition from the White House energized his base. “If Lyndon Johnson makes three more speeches,” he <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/klansville-usa-9780199391165?q=Klansville%2C%20U.S.A.&lang=en&cc=us">proclaimed</a>, “we could quit renting fields and start buying farms.”</p>
<h2>Police crackdown</h2>
<p>In March 1965, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers urged the House Committee on Un-American Activities to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1965/12/05/archives/huac-meets-the-kkk-huac-meets-the-kkk.html">investigate the Klan</a>. Formal hearings were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875813001357">announced that June</a>.</p>
<p>The resulting scrutiny led police to challenge KKK rally permit requests and aggressively investigate cross burnings and other intimidation tactics they had <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/klansville-usa-9780199391165?q=Klansville%2C%20U.S.A.&lang=en&cc=us">previously dismissed</a> as not hurting anyone.</p>
<p>At the same time, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program received more latitude to use informants and other counterintelligence techniques. As the bureau’s own memos specified, agents worked to “<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520246652/theres-something-happening-here">expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize</a>” domestic subversives like the KKK.</p>
<p>Such measures also created a safer space for concerned citizens to publicly oppose organized vigilantism. By 1969, in North Carolina and throughout the South, the KKK had all but <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-6-20-04-re-evaluation-what-the-g-men-knew.html">ceased to operate as a mass membership organization</a>.</p>
<p>But, crucially, such short-run success came with significant costs.</p>
<h2>Unforeseen consequences</h2>
<p>Aggressive moves to dismantle the Klan’s ability to organize pushed its militant core underground. There, it metastasized into <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/klansville-usa-9780199391165?q=Klansville%2C%20U.S.A.&lang=en&cc=us">lone-wolf or cell-based violence</a>. As one former Klan member described it, racist resistance evolved into a “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Klansville_U_S_A/fBQhe8jcXZEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=raymond+cranford+game+of+ones+cunningham&pg=PA224&printsec=frontcover">game of ones</a>.” Left unchecked by any coordinated organization, white supremacists posed a threat that <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078">became even more volatile</a>.</p>
<p>The crackdown also failed to rid areas of political and racial divisions that the KKK had stoked. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414555885">Research I’ve conducted</a> with sociologists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yWSee08AAAAJ&hl=en">Rory McVeigh</a> and <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/profile/farrell">Justin Farrell</a> shows that, even after accounting for a wide range of competing explanations, areas where the KKK was active in the 1960s continued to display – even 50 years later – significantly higher levels of violent crime and political polarization.</p>
<p>Finally, and perhaps most importantly, police ultimately deployed their expanded powers not primarily against the KKK, but against activists in communities of color that have always <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/07/27/disparities/">borne the brunt</a> of state control. </p>
<p>For example, FBI agents’ newly gained authority to infiltrate and disrupt the KKK quickly extended – with <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/how-the-fbi-conspired-to-destroy-the-black-panther-party">deadlier consequences</a> – to members of the civil rights and Black nationalist movements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton raises his arm" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387274/original/file-20210302-17-1lmlsw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton raises his arm at a rally in Chicago in October 1969 – just two months before police raided his home and shot him to death.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-political-social-activist-and-black-panther-party-news-photo/72150265?adppopup=true">David Fenton/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such efforts sought to <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520246652/theres-something-happening-here">destroy grassroots activist organizations</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520246652/theres-something-happening-here">disrupt personal relationships</a> between their members. And as the current film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9784798/">Judas and the Black Messiah</a>” powerfully depicts, they also led to campaigns to <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520246652/theres-something-happening-here">eliminate charismatic and effective movement leaders</a>, including Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and <a href="https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/12/7204453/martin-luther-king-fbi-letter">Martin Luther King Jr.</a></p>
<h2>Relevance today</h2>
<p>Today, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-department-opens-the-door-to-seeking-new-domestic-terror-powers-after-capitol-riot">some Justice Department officials</a> are pushing to label Trump-supporting insurrectionists as domestic terrorists. Such aims would bolster criminal legal strategies they hope will stem the tide of political violence. </p>
<p>At the same time, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2021/blm-protest-capitol-riot-police-comparison/">media reports</a> have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/08/us/dc-police-arrests-blm-capitol-insurrection-invs/index.html">highlighted the differences</a> in treatment between the seemingly permissive stance adopted toward the violent insurrectionists on Jan. 6 and the far more pronounced police crackdown against largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests throughout the summer of 2020. </p>
<p>As President Joe Biden <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1347298213422747649">tweeted on Jan. 7</a>, “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesters yesterday that they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol.”</p>
<p>Of course, there is a strong case for pressing police to <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/2018_10_DomesticTerrorism_V2%20%281%29.pdf">use existing tools</a> to arrest and prosecute those who engaged in violence and other crimes at the Capitol, as well as to heed officials’ calls to confront and defeat an <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/02/16/end-trump-era-white-nationalists-increasingly-embrace-political-violence">emboldened white nationalist movement</a>.</p>
<p>But doing so can risk expanding police powers in ways that history demonstrates may be turned on those who have been seeking justice all along.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cunningham has received funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>If history is a guide, expanding police powers to address current white nationalist threats could result in future repression of activists of color.David Cunningham, Professor and Chair of Sociology, Washington University in St LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1533692021-01-19T19:53:48Z2021-01-19T19:53:48ZPolice, soldiers bring lethal skill to militia campaigns against US government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379078/original/file-20210115-23-j8apf2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5760%2C3750&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Militia members associated with the Three Percenters movement conducting a military drill in Flovilla, Ga., in 2016, days after Trump's election. After his 2020 defeat, Three Percenters were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-georgia-security-forces-are-seen-during-news-photo/623578082?adppopup=true">Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Image</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thousands of police and soldiers – people professionally trained in the use of violence and familiar with military protocols – are part of an extremist effort to undermine the U.S. government and subvert the democratic process. </p>
<p>According to an investigative report published in the Atlantic in November into a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/">leaked database kept by the Oath Keepers</a> – one of several <a href="https://theconversation.com/symbols-of-white-supremacy-flew-proudly-at-the-capitol-riot-5-essential-reads-153055">far-right and white supremacist militias</a> that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 – 10% of Oath Keepers are current police officers or military members. Another significant portion of the group’s membership is retired military and <a href="https://theconversation.com/capitol-siege-raises-questions-over-extent-of-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-153145">law enforcement personnel</a>.</p>
<p>The hate group – founded by a former Army paratrooper after Barack Obama’s 2008 election – claimed “an improbable 30,000 members who were said to be mostly current and former military, law enforcement and emergency first responders” in 2016, according to the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/oath-keepers">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>. </p>
<p>The Three Percenters, another militia present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, also draws a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/us/politics/capitol-riot-militias.html">substantial portion of its members from law enforcement, both military and civilian</a>. Larry Brock, a pro-Trump rioter <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/larry-brock-arrested-capitol-riots-intended-take-hostages/">arrested</a> with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/press-release/file/1352026/download">zip-tie handcuffs, allegedly for taking hostages</a>, is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/prosecutor-capitol-rioter-aimed-to-take-hostages/2021/01/14/f06e589a-56c9-11eb-acc5-92d2819a1ccb_story.html">posted content from the Three Percenters online</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/militia-movement">militia movement</a> is a militarized stream of the American far-right. Its members promote an ideology that undermines the authority and legitimacy of the federal government and stockpile weapons.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/us/politics/veterans-trump-protests-militias.html">militia members have a professional background with the military or police</a>, it enhances the ability of these groups to execute sophisticated and successful operations. It also helps them convey a patriotic image that obscures the security threat they present.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man in camouflage, a bulletproof vest and sunglasses stands guard with hands folded" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379070/original/file-20210115-23-1lcprea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Oath Keepers at a rally to overturn the 2020 election results at the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 5, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-right-wing-group-oath-keepers-stands-guard-news-photo/1294712646?adppopup=true">Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Longstanding ties</h2>
<p>The day before the Biden inauguration, in late afternoon, 12 National Guardsmen deployed to Washington, D.C. were removed from that duty after an investigation uncovered <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/national-guard-members-removed-inauguration-460426">problems in their past; two had apparent ties to right-wing militias</a>.</p>
<p>Far-right elements have always had some presence in <a href="https://www.vox.com/michael-brown-shooting-ferguson-mo/2014/8/19/6031759/ferguson-history-riots-police-brutality-civil-rights">U.S. security forces</a>. </p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, many <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/watchmen">local police departments were heavily populated with Ku Klux Klan members</a>. The connections between terror groups and law enforcement enabled discrimination and violence against African Americans, Jews and other minorities. </p>
<p>In 1923, all the Black residents of Blandford, Indiana were forced out of town to an unknown location following accusations that an African American man assaulted a young girl. The unlawful “deportation” was conducted and organized by the local sheriff, a Klansman, <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/watchmen">with the assistance of local Klan chapters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Head shot of a balding white man with a goatee against a blue background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379092/original/file-20210115-13-qkcf30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1077&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wade Michael Page, the U.S. Army veteran who killed six Sikh worshipers in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-handout-photo-provided-by-the-johnson-county-news-photo/484960729?adppopup=true">FBI via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many U.S. military bases have also had <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frazier-glenn-miller">cells of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups</a> throughout the 20th century.</p>
<p>In 1995, three paratroopers from Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/12/11/soldiers-in-white-supremacist-uniforms/0d5d01b9-5f4d-478a-a598-73c7646a8711/">were arrested and charged</a> in the killing of a Black couple in Fayetteville. <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-05-13-9705130165-story.html">Two were sentenced to life in prison</a> for the murders. The Army initiated an investigation at the base, which was known for being a hub of the National Alliance, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/national-alliance">then the country’s most influential American neo-Nazi group</a>. </p>
<p>The Army identified and discharged 19 paratroopers for participating in hate activities. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/sikh-temple-killer-wade-michael-page-radicalized-army">One went on</a> to kill <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/08/06/us/wisconsin-temple-shooting/index.html">six worshipers in a Sikh temple</a> in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in August 2012. He died in a police shootout.</p>
<h2>Growing convergence</h2>
<p>Concerns about the penetration of <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/military-right-wing-extremism-457861">far-right elements into the military and law enforcement have become acute in the last decade</a> with the emergence of militias like the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/oath-keepers-capitol-riot-charges/index.html">Oath Keepers</a>, which was founded on the principle of recruiting police and military. Oath Keepers <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/">pledge to disobey orders on the job which they deem contradict the Constitution</a>. </p>
<p>The militias’ success secretly infiltrating police departments contributed to the emergence of new far-right associations that openly recruit law enforcement, like the <a href="https://cspoa.org">Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers of America</a>. </p>
<p>Founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, the group promotes the notion – contrary to the Constitution – that the federal government authorities should be subordinated to local law enforcement. It has more than 500 sheriffs nationwide. <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2019/06/10/how-a-right-wing-network-mobilized-sheriffs-departments">Just over half are currently in office</a>. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers of America has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/28/national-group-of-sheriffs-opposed-to-federal-government-overreach-gains-size-momentum/">pushed its members not to enforce gun control laws</a> and pandemic-related <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/31/us-sheriffs-mask-orders-covid-19-blm">mask regulations</a> that they believe infringe on civil liberties.</p>
<h2>Skilled insurrectionists</h2>
<p>When members of far-right groups are also <a href="https://theconversation.com/capitol-siege-raises-questions-over-extent-of-white-supremacist-infiltration-of-us-police-153145">professionals sworn to protect the nation or their communities</a>, it makes those groups seem more legitimate. </p>
<p>Authorities may be less likely to treat them as domestic security threats, a categorization that would limit their access to firearms and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uncomfortable-questions-facing-capitol-police-over-the-security-breach-by-maga-mob-152857">sensitive locations</a>. </p>
<p>Yet military and police members actually make American militias more effective, according to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xBQYKHwAAAAJ&hl=en">my research on the violent practices of the American far-right</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5185%2C3803&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Glasses-wearing man in military fatigues poses with an American flag in front of a large crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C15%2C5185%2C3803&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379077/original/file-20210115-13-1jzeywx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Texas Militia member at the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trump-supporters-near-the-us-capitol-following-a-quot-stop-news-photo/1230475969?adppopup=true">Selcuk Acar/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A data set I manage with my team at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and used for my <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/american-zealots/9780231167116">recent book on right-wing terror</a> shows that militia attacks are more lethal than those of other far-right groups. The perpetrators are experienced with weapons and ammunition, and have at least some military training. </p>
<p>Attacks by other far-right groups are, in large measure, <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2018/issue-6/a4-sweeney-perliger.pdf">initiated by people with limited operational experience, who act spontaneously</a>. </p>
<p>Militias are also more likely to attack secured, high-value targets like <a href="https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2021/01/07/carr-policy-insight-series-deciphering-the-second-wave-of-the-american-militia-movement/">government facilities</a>. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, is a prime example. He was a Gulf War veteran <a href="https://www.news9.com/story/5f80fb1f1f327834b9461b18/michigan-militia-group-had-ties-to-timothy-mcveigh">associated with the Michigan Militia</a> whose bomb killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995. </p>
<p>The penetration of far-right militants into the ranks of police and the military seems to be driving an increase in direct attacks on police and military targets. </p>
<p>Between 1990 and 2000, 13% of U.S. of militia attacks and plots were aimed at military or police installations or personnel, our data set shows. The proportion <a href="https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2021/01/07/carr-policy-insight-series-deciphering-the-second-wave-of-the-american-militia-movement/">jumped to 40%</a> by 2017. </p>
<p>And with their training in surveillance, intelligence collection and public safety, the dangerous activities of militias are generally harder for federal agencies to monitor and counter. </p>
<p>When militias recruit professionals, they are better at waging their radical crusade.</p>
<p><em>This story was updated to reflect developing news about security at Biden’s inauguration and corrected to accurately locate Fayetteville in North Carolina.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arie Perliger receives funding from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Defense.</span></em></p>A leaked database shows at least 10% of the far-right Oath Keepers militia is active police or military – people professionally trained in using weapons and conducting sophisticated operations.Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1528672021-01-07T18:02:53Z2021-01-07T18:02:53ZUS Capitol protesters, egged on by Trump, are part of a long history of white supremacists hearing politicians’ words as encouragement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377628/original/file-20210107-16-rpdrh3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C20%2C6639%2C4376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Proud Boys outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-proud-boys-outside-the-us-capitol-in-washington-dc-on-news-photo/1230463103?adppopup=true">(Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“President Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress incited a violent attack Wednesday against the government they lead,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/trump-capitol-dc-protests.html">The New York Times’ editorial board wrote</a> on Jan. 6, summing up much of the response to the incursion into the Capitol by rioting Trump supporters that day.</p>
<p>At a rally that morning, Donald Trump <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-06/news-analysis-trumps-violent-rhetoric-incites-supporters-capitol-takeover">had urged those supporters</a> to march on the Capitol, saying he would “never concede” and that they should show “the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.” </p>
<p>The Times was joined in laying the blame at Trump’s feet by many others, including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/01/07/mitt-romney-riot-violence-reaction-capitol-certification-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/congress-certifies-electoral-college-vote/">Republican Sen. Mitt Romney</a>, who said what happened at the Capitol was “an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.”</p>
<p>Among the protesters at the Capitol were members of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/proud-boys-white-supremacist-group-law-enforcement-agencies">white supremacy groups, including the Proud Boys</a>. Their participation in the Jan. 6 events, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/insurrection-capitol-extremist-groups-invs/index.html">egged on by Trump</a>, reflects a long history in the U.S. of local, state and national political leaders encouraging white supremacist groups to challenge or overthrow democratic governments. </p>
<p>During Reconstruction, the post-Civil War period of forming interracial governments and reintegrating former Confederate states into the Union, white city and state leaders in the South tacitly encouraged violence against black voters by state militias and groups like the <a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2934">Ku Klux Klan</a>. They did it in a way that allowed those leaders to look innocent of any crimes. </p>
<p>Those groups used that chaos to end federal power in their states and reestablish white-dominated Southern state governments. </p>
<p>Today, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-white-supremacists-protesting-to-reopen-the-us-economy-137044">white supremacists hope the political chaos they contribute to will lead to</a> <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674286078">race war</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-reopen-protesters-really-saying-137558">and the creation of their own white nation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335430/original/file-20200515-138629-j429aj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cartoon by Thomas Nast in an 1868 Harper’s Weekly, ‘This is a white man’s government,’ skewering Southern white supremacists fighting Reconstruction laws.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/98513794/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconstruction violence</h2>
<p>Moments of changing social and political power in U.S. history have led to clashes – <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed">often armed</a> – between white supremacists and interracial alliances over voting rights.</p>
<p>That history includes the period following the Civil War, when white supremacist organizations saw the postwar rule over Southern states of Radical Republicans and the federal government as illegitimate. They wanted to return to the prewar status quo of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/14301/slavery-by-another-name-by-douglas-a-blackmon/">slavery by another name</a> and white supremacist rule.</p>
<p>As a historian of <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/4113/discussions/157750/register-kentucky-historical-society-vol-115-no-1-now-available">protests and Reconstruction</a>, I study how those paramilitary groups or self-proclaimed “regulators” consequently spread fear and terror among black and white Republican voters with the support of the anti-black Democratic Party in Southern states. </p>
<p>They targeted elections and vowed to “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=U7hpAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA2101&lpg=PA2101&dq=%E2%80%9Ccarry+the+election+peaceably+if+we+can,+forcibly+if+we+must.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=vZU88x92mU&sig=ACfU3U34H7Xb-2aUHMGrMKULNiHBUi1D4w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjxyZvYgKrpAhXRKs0KHXiiCuUQ6AEwBXoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ccarry%20the%20election%20peaceably%20if%20we%20can%2C%20forcibly%20if%20we%20must.%E2%80%9D&f=false">carry the election peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must</a>.” </p>
<p>Still, many courageous black and white voters <a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_4">fought back</a> by forming political organizations, daring to vote and <a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/reconstruction-era/black-south-carolinians-form-militia-protection-1874">assembling their own armed guards</a> to protect themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335429/original/file-20200515-138610-f56wxe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A leader of the Three Percenters militia movement, Matt Marshall, speaks at an anti-lockdown protest, April 19, 2020 in Olympia, Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/matt-marshall-of-the-right-wing-group-washington-state-news-photo/1210404370?adppopup=true">Getty/Karen Ducey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Gentlemen of property and standing’</h2>
<p>Then, as today, white supremacists received encouraging signals from powerful leaders. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gentlemen-Property-Standing-Anti-Abolition-Jacksonian/dp/0195013514">gentlemen of property and standing</a>” often led or indirectly supported anti-abolition mobs, slave patrols, lynch mobs or Klan attacks. </p>
<p>Federal investigators in Kentucky in 1867 found that “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">many men of wealth and position</a>” rode with the armed groups. One witness in the federal investigation testified that “many of the most respectable men in the county belong in the ‘Lynch’ party.” Future South Carolina Governor and U.S. Senator “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman reflected on his participation in the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/hamburg-massacre/">Hamburg massacre</a> of 1876, arguing that “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ben_Tillman_and_the_Reconstruction_of_Wh/dOA4CQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=having+the+whites+demonstrate+their+superiority+by+killing+as+many+as+was+justifiable&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover">the leading men</a>” of the area wanted to teach black voters a lesson by “having the whites demonstrate their superiority by killing as many as was justifiable.” At least six black men were killed in the Hamburg attack on the black South Carolina militia by the <a href="http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/red-shirts/">Red Shirts</a>, a white rifle club.</p>
<p>White supremacists knew that they would not face consequences for their violence. </p>
<p>An agent of the federal <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau">Freedmen’s Bureau</a> – set up by Congress in 1865 to help former slaves and poor whites in the South – stated that the “<a href="https://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/after_slavery_educator/unit_nine_documents/document_3">desperadoes</a>” received encouragement and were “screened from the hands of justice by citizens of boasted connections.” </p>
<p>President Ulysses S. Grant <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.2070020a/?sp=2&st=text">condemned</a> the Hamburg massacre, arguing that some claimed “the right to kill negroes and Republicans without fear of punishment and without loss of caste or reputation.” </p>
<p>Facing community pressure, and without the <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674743984">presence of the U.S. Army</a> to enforce laws, local sheriffs and judges refused or were unable to enforce federal laws. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335434/original/file-20200515-138644-1sdk9y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armed rioters shown in the aftermath of the multiracial Wilmington, North Carolina, government being overthrown by white supremacists in 1898.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=Wilmington,+N.C.+race+riot">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Witnesses were often afraid to challenge local leaders for fear of attack. The “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/572671/pdf">reign of terror</a>” was so complete that “men dare not report outrages and appear as witnesses.”</p>
<p>When the U.S. District Court in Kentucky brought charges against two men for lynching in 1871, prosecutors could not find witnesses willing to testify against the accused. The <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn82015463/">Frankfort Commonwealth</a> newspaper wrote, “He would be hung by a [mob] inside of twenty-four hours, and the dominant sentiment … would say ‘served him right.’”</p>
<h2>State militias</h2>
<p>As Southern states threw off federal military occupation and elected their own white-dominated governments, they no longer had to rely solely on white terror organizations to enforce their agenda. </p>
<p>Instead, these self-described “<a href="https://www.ncpedia.org/redeemer-democrats">redeemers</a>” formed state-funded militias that served similar functions of intimidation and voter suppression with the support of prominent citizens. </p>
<p>At political rallies and elections throughout the South, official Democratic militias paraded through towns and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/For_Slavery_and_Union/D917BgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=democratic%20partisan%20militia">monitored polling stations</a> to threaten black and white Republican voters, proclaiming that “<a href="https://vtext.valdosta.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10428/1130/butler-joshua-w_almost-too-terrible-to-believe_history_thesis_2012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">this is our country and we intend to protect it or die</a>.” </p>
<p>In 1870 the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84020086/">Louisville Commercial</a> newspaper argued, “We have, then, a militia for the State of Kentucky composed of members of one political party, and designed solely to operate against members of another political party. These militia are armed with State guns, are equipped from the State arsenal, and to a man are the enemies of the national government.” </p>
<p>By driving away Republican voters and claiming electoral victory, these Democratic leaders gained power through state-supported militia violence. </p>
<p>White militias and paramilitary groups also confiscated guns from black citizens who tried to protect themselves, claiming “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xvIYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1057&lpg=PA1057&dq=%E2%80%9CWe+did+not+think+they+had+a+right+to+have+guns.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=30R_twS8pK&sig=ACfU3U2HxA-pbH0zCkMHuGweuTsTwmODWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwicxtWNgKXpAhWCaM0KHbwYAMsQ6AEwAHoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWe%20did%20not%20think%20they%20had%20a%20right%20to%20have%20guns.%E2%80%9D&f=false">We did not think they had a right to have guns</a>.” </p>
<p>White terror groups and their allies in law enforcement were especially hostile to politically active black Union veterans who returned home with their military weapons. Local sheriffs confiscated weapons and armed bands raided homes to destroy their guns. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335459/original/file-20200515-138654-ndapxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon, ‘The Union as it was,’ Thomas Nast critiques violent white supremacist organizations for forcing African Americans into a position ‘worse than slavery.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2001696840/">Library of Congress/Thomas Nast from Harpers Weekly</a></span>
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<h2>Guerrilla race war</h2>
<p>During Reconstruction, paramilitary groups and official Democratic militias found support from county sheriffs up to state governors who encouraged violence while maintaining their own innocence.</p>
<p>Today, white supremacists appear to interpret politicians’ remarks as support for their cause of a <a href="https://gizmodo.com/report-over-100-militant-groups-have-been-promoting-se-1843051231">new civil war</a> to create a white-dominated government. </p>
<p>These groups <a href="https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/extremists-are-using-facebook-to-organize-for-civil-war-amid-coronavirus">thrive on recent protests against stay-at-home orders</a>, especially the ones featuring <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/27/why-are-people-bringing-guns-anti-quarantine-protests-be-intimidating/">protesters with guns</a>, creating an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/coronavirus-businesses-lockdown-guns.html">intimidating spectacle</a> for those who support local and state government authority. </p>
<p>Beyond “<a href="https://belonging.berkeley.edu/blog-revisiting-dog-whistle-politics">dog whistle</a>” politics, as in the past, these statements – and the actions encouraged by them – can lead to real <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/massachusetts-bomb-jewish-nursing-home.html">violence</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/senate-democrats-demand-action-cdc-doj-curb-covid-19-racism-n1201491">hate crimes</a> against any who threaten supremacists’ concept of a white nation.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-history-of-white-supremacists-interpreting-government-leaders-words-as-encouragement-137873">article originally published</a> May 18, 2020.</em></p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon M. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The protests that ended in the storming of the US Capitol included members of white supremacy groups, the latest example of such groups being encouraged by politicians to challenge government.Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1473662020-11-02T02:08:15Z2020-11-02T02:08:15ZHijacking anxiety: how Trump weaponised social alienation into ‘racialised economics’<p>Polls point to a decisive defeat for Donald Trump. But his unexpected win in 2016 still has opponents rattled, fearing the same divisive rhetoric that characterised his 2016 campaign could help him scrape home. </p>
<p>The US has not been so divided by politics, religion and identity in decades. Particularly troubling are the nation’s inflamed ethnic divisions. </p>
<p>Overall, polls show a majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of “race relations”. </p>
<p>But now, as in 2016, what matters is the view of voters in the “rust-belt” states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvannia, which all swung to Trump in 2016 on the back of strong support from white working-class voters.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-exactly-is-trumps-base-why-white-working-class-voters-could-be-key-to-the-us-election-147267">Who exactly is Trump's 'base'? Why white, working-class voters could be key to the US election</a>
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<p>Trump’s success depended on personal economic concerns being pipped by “racialised economics”, argue politics professors John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck in their influential 2018 book <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174198/identity-crisis">Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America</a>:</p>
<p>By racialised economics they mean the important sentiment underlying Trump’s support was not “I might lose my job” but “people in my group are losing jobs to that other group”. Individualised economic anxiety was replaced by group fears and perceived grievances. </p>
<p>Our more recent <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Bowling-with-Trump_Fabian-et-al.pdf">research</a>, using a nationally representative sample of nearly 500,000 Americans, largely supports this contention. It also suggests that behind the appeal of this ethnic identity politics hide deeper issues of social disconnectedness.</p>
<p>With Trump’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic dominating 2020, and an opponent who isn’t Hillary Clinton, the dog whistling to white voters looks unlikely to work as it did four years ago. </p>
<p>But the problems Trump has weaponised won’t be defused merely by his defeat. </p>
<p>For Biden to make good on his promise to heal the nation’s divisions, he will need to address the social disconnection providing fertile conditions for racialised economics. </p>
<h2>The psychology driving racial animus</h2>
<p>To analyse the significance of racialised economics in the US, we combined county-level data on economic indicators with individual-level well-being and socioeconomic data. Our primary data source was nearly 500,000 observations from the US <a href="https://www.gallup.com/174155/gallup-daily-tracking-methodology.aspx">Gallup Daily Poll</a> (which has polled 500 American adults every day since 2008). Our data set covered the period 2014 to 2018. </p>
<p>The key things we wanted to analyse from this information were measures of “relatedness”, “social capital” and “worry”, cross-relating these with “racial animus” and voting preference.</p>
<p>Relatedness reflects personal security and fulfilment from social connection. It is measured through responses to questions such as “I cannot imagine living in a better community”, “The area where I live is perfect for me” and “my friends and family give me energy every day”. </p>
<p>Social capital is also about connectedness, but to do with community cohesion rather than the personal experience of relationships. It is measured through things like the extent to which people know their neighbours and participate in community activities. Such connections have <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2017/5/what-we-do-together-the-state-of-associational-life-in-america">declined precipitously</a> over the past 50 years. In particular, the share of adults who say most people can be trusted has fallen from 46% in the 1970s to 31%. </p>
<p>Worry is measured by a simple question of whether people experienced worry yesterday.</p>
<p>Racial animus means racial prejudice. We measure it at a county level using Google searches involving racist key words.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-has-long-shaped-us-presidential-elections-heres-how-it-might-play-out-in-2020-147556">Racism has long shaped US presidential elections. Here's how it might play out in 2020</a>
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<h2>High anxiety, low relatedness</h2>
<p>Just as other researchers have found, our county-level results show a correlation between racial animus and Trump’s support in both the 2016 Republican primary race and the presidential election. </p>
<p>More importantly, they also show Trump’s support correlated with relatively high rates of anxiety and relatively low levels of relatedness – and that higher relatedness would have been enough to negate the effect of racial animus.</p>
<p>This suggests people lacking a sense of relatedness in their own environment look to higher-level connections like patriotism and ethnic identity. </p>
<p>That conclusion is supported by social psychology experiments showing that stoking anxiety leads to exaggerated loyalty to an in-group and disdain for other groups. </p>
<p>As cognitive scientist <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3345305/">Colin Holbrook and his colleages explain</a>:</p>
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<p>Indeed, numerous studies have found that initially conscious reminders of threats that do not subsequently arouse conscious distress engender a form of evaluation bias termed worldview defence – the polarisation of ratings for pleasant and against aversive cultural attitudes.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-capitol-mob-highlights-5-reasons-not-to-underestimate-far-right-extremists-148610">US Capitol mob highlights 5 reasons not to underestimate far-right extremists</a>
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<h2>Diversity and social capital</h2>
<p>None of this is to suggest declining connectedness and heightened anxiety is the only reason people voted for Trump. The rural communities of “heartland America” that are traditionally majority Republican typically have high social capital (through church affiliations and the like).</p>
<p>But in the key swing “rust-belt” states – constituencies to whom Trump promised to bring back manufacturing and mining jobs – our research suggests worry and anxiety channelled into ethnic group identification was the decisive factor. These areas showed the lowest rates of relatedness in the US.</p>
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<p><strong>How anxiety and the need for relatedness lead to racial voting</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361337/original/file-20201002-16-r7bojh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>As he desperately tries to repeat his 2016 success, Trump’s “greatest hits” campaign has again sought to stoke the group fears of white voters. </p>
<p>His campaign has made some effort to suggest he has ethnically diverse supporters, but this is largely seen as as attempt to assure <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-28/women-from-the-suburbs-could-decide-donald-trumps-victory/12817730">white women</a> he isn’t a racist. </p>
<p>On the other hand, he has flubbed repeated opportunities to condemn white nationalism, defended Confederate statues, demonised the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/donald-trump-says-black-lives-matter-is-becoming-a-symbol-of-hate-in-furious-twitter-tirade">Black Lives Matter movement</a> and made unsubtle statements about protecting suburbanites from “low-income housing”. </p>
<p>Such rhetoric, though, has been overtaken by events - namely Trump’s dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and failure to deliver a health-care plan. His other key strengths in 2106 – his appeal as an “outsider”, his promise to “drain the swamp”, his apparent unfiltered “candour”, and his assurances he would fix everything – are no longer so compelling. </p>
<p>But though Biden may well win the rustbelt states, these communities remain economically and cultural insecure, with thinning social capital. Their vulnerability to racial rhetoric remains.</p>
<p>To fulfil his promise to unite America, therefore, a Biden administration will need to address the underlying issues of low social capital and connectedness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is a Research Advisor to The Gallup Organization.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Fabian and Robert Breunig do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For Joe Biden to make good on his promise to heal the nation’s divisions, he will need to address the social disconnection that underlies ‘racialised economics’.Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityJan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director, Wellbeing Research Centre, University of OxfordMark Fabian, Research Associate in Public Policy, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.