Domestic Terrorism and Extremist Groups

Right and Left Wing Terror Groups in America
1
Extremism in the U.S. is on the rise, based on the rise in polarization throughout the country as the Left and the Right become more and more opposed to one another ideologically, politically, socially, and emotionally. There is a strong rift between the two and little sense of common ground. Much of this rise has come on the heels of the rise in social media use, which allows individuals to promote their views to the rest of the world in a way that was literally unheard of prior to the digital revolution (Freberg, Graham, McGaughey & Freberg, 2011). As social media use has essentially risen exponentially since its inception in the 2000s, the level of ideologically-driven Influencers in the space is a reflection and facilitator of the level of extremism in the United States.
As both the popularity of groups like Antifa on the Left and Proud Boys on the Right show, young people are the ones most likely to be drawn into extremist groups. They are the ones to most likely be using social media, networking with others and falling prey to terror predators seeking to lure impressionable young minds into their cells (Chatfield, Reddick & Brajawidagda, 2015; Costello & Hawdon, 2018; Mouras, 2015). The politicization of views has only intensified with the clash of two cultures in 2016—a blue collar, mostly religious, anti-Establishment culture on the Right vs. a liberal, inclusive, mostly progressive, politically correct culture on the Left. Since 2016 there has been no movement within the country to close the cultural gap, and so a rise in violence has been seen on both the Right and the Left.
The future trends and threats as it relates to domestic extremist groups are that an increasing wave of polarization will lead to mounting tribalism, where groups splinter and fracture off from larger communities. Tribalism can lead to nests of pockets of extremist behavior and thinking, similar to terror cells. The Branch Davidians in Waco, TX, could be called a foreshadowing of what is to come in the 21st century. However, with the power of social media, the extent to which tribal groups can grow and develop is much higher than it was in early the 1990s. As Hamm and Spaaj (2015) point out, the relaxation of gun laws in the 1990s and the increase in mass shootings since that decade all indicate a breakdown in social order and an inflammation of extremist mentalities, extremist groupthink, and extremist tendencies. Since the ability to create havoc on a large scale using small-arms weapons is readily available, there is no need to believe that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) should be the main focus of counter-terrorist activity. Rather, individual extremists or lone wolves are fully capable of wreaking extreme violence on a local populace. They may be stopped shortly afterwards, but because so many are being radicalized by social media and being invited to join radical groups, they are springing up everywhere like wasps in a swarm.
Preventing the swarm mentality is going to be the main challenge going forward, and it is not going to be easy as the main tool of indoctrination—social media—is difficult to police and the wider Internet with its various platforms where extremists can meet and gather online is even more difficult to monitor and control. Digital technology has allowed for unprecedented growth in communications, and the more connected people become, the easier it is for extremist groupthink to proliferate. For this reason, the trends of violence, domestic terror and extremism are likely to continue to rise unless totalitarian structures are put in place with respect to the Internet and to small-arms weapons acquisition.
2
A lack of a feeling of representation and a sense that politicians are trying to strip citizens of their Constitutional rights are two of the main factors that have contributed to the rise of political extremist groups in the US. Beinart (2017) notes for instance that Antifa has developed in the US in response to perceived authoritarianism by the US government. The members of Antifa associate today’s leaders with the Fascists of the 1930s and 1940s. The rise of the Black Panthers in the 1970s came about for similar reasons—particularly in response to the assassinations of the 1960s and especially the murder of Malcolm X, who had vitalized black America with rhetoric and actions that did not shy away from violence the way Martin Luther King’s black movement did. Black Nationalism today, particularly Black Lives Matter, is fueled by a contempt for law enforcement, which the group views as unfairly targeting and killing black Americans (Mulloy, 2014).
Thus, it can be seen that the rise of extremist groups in the US is essentially a reaction to policies and actions on the part of the government. The members of these groups feel marginalized and oppressed by the government and believe that there is no other choice or option left to them other than to take violent action against the government and its agents. For this reason, the Lone Wolf terrorist the Unabomber targeted Americans as a way to express his outrage for the authoritarianism of the US government (Barnett, 2015).
Part of the problem is that the political system itself in America does not lend itself towards overcoming the differences that these groups feel. It does not really foster and promote bipartisanship. The two sides—Right and Left, Republican and Democrat—create a political arena in which the members of the two sides adopt a competitive spirit and demonstrate active animosity towards one another. The Left vowed to stop President Trump upon his election, and the Right responded with equally contentious words and actions. The extremist group Proud Boys developed on the Right, for instance, to counter the Leftist extremist group Antifa in the streets, while their political representatives under Pelosi and Schumer and Graham and Paul, respectively, battled it out in Congress.
The spirit of the political arena is one that creates division and anger, which translates into violent action on the part of constituents in society. They see themselves as members of a street mob who are serving as a militant force—somewhat like the Church Militant in the Old World: a force that would resist any efforts by groups who sought to undermine their power. Today’s groups are similar but they do not all feel disenfranchised. Proud Boys members are very supportive of President Trump and feel he represents their interests because they see him as a political insider. Antifa members are inspired by the growing group of radical Leftist politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly known as AOC. AOC and her Green New Deal shows that some politicians are starting to try to tap into the frustration and anger that the marginalized groups on the Left feel. Bernie Sanders has won support from these groups but the Establishment Democrats have continuously thrown their support behind Establishment candidates like Hillary Clinton and now Joe Biden. This type of activity furthers the feeling of disenfranchisement among those who dislike the dirty politics that keep the two-party system from allowing political outsiders (except Trump) from gaining access to the political mechanism. The end result is that people in America are angered at how their so-called representatives appear to look out for the party’s interests instead of the interests of the radical groups who call for more socialism on the Left and more authoritarianism on the Right. The political divide is exacerbated by the economic divide, as the poor become poorer and the rich become richer thanks to the corporate socialism that exists in America. The problem for those who are angry on the Left and on the Right is felt in the same way here: it is that the profits are private and the losses are socialized. The disenfranchised on the Left and the Right do not disagree on every political and social point after all.
3
The radicalization process of individuals into extremist groups begins with questioning. Individuals like Nidal Hasan, the 2009 Fort Hood shooter, became a radical Islamist after reflecting on the actions of the US government and the American military in the Middle East. Hasan began to feel like the American government was deliberately targeting Muslims in the Middle East and this angered him. He began to question what was going on and what the problems were and he communicated online with radical Islamists leaders in the Middle East, who encouraged an extremist viewpoint. The interaction between Hasan and foreign extremists fortified his views and he began to be more and more overtly religious. The activities of being an actively religious person with extreme views inevitably lead one to have a sense that there is a need for action in one’s life—action that aligns with one’s religious views. The more extreme those religious views are the more extreme that action is likely to be. For Hasan, his views hardened into extremely radical opinions on how he needed to engage in jihad to make the Western government pay for its misdeeds against his brother Muslims in the Middle East. Thus, he planned and executed a terror attack on Fort Hood.
Most people who are radicalized today are done so over the Internet, where people come into contact with others who they otherwise would never meet. Social media is the primary agent that allows this to happen. The communication technology has develop so extensively that groups and individuals now have access to one another in unprecedented levels. A person who is seeking out like-minded others on the Internet will inevitably find them and with relative ease. This is the main challenge for stopping the process of radicalization. There is seemingly no way to handle the Internet without violating the rights of individuals (Costello & Hawdon, 2018; DeCook, 2018).
Religion provides a justification for an individual to commit acts of violence primarily because the individual believes it is sanctioned by God. This falls under the concept of divine command theory, wherein the philosophical justification for violence comes through the religious belief that God has given the order for the violence. Since God can do no wrong and God is the ultimate authority, the individual genuinely believes that what he is doing is morally right and therefore legitimate.
Every religion is different; however, the main religion associated with violence is Islam, as it has a tradition of waging jihad—i.e., holy war—against the enemies of the religion. In the Old World, the Crusades were wars between Christians and Muslims; today, the wars are between the West and the Middle East. So not much has changed in terms of the opponents in this battle, though the West has been de-Christianized to some degree. Religion is still a big part of many lives, however, and even Christian extremism can occur, and can lead to the bombing of abortion clinics, and other violent actions and attitudes. Thus, it is not a one-sided road but rather a highway in which people traffic in extremism because they fundamentally believe that they know what God wants them to do and how to exact vengeance on others.
Religious leaders play a big part in how their religious teachings are received, so it is also a challenge for them to preach their religion in positive terms and to keep control over those who move in radical directions. They have a responsibility to work with governments so that law enforcement can know who in each religious group is being radicalized and who is at risk of radicalizing others. These are steps that have to be taken in order for extremism through religion to be reduced. Otherwise, religion plays a big part in spreading the idea of symbolic violence that appeals to extremists who consider themselves at heart to be patriots (Vitolo-Haddad, 2019).
4
21st century technology tools like social media play a huge role in impacting domestic extremism recruitment, membership and its sustained impact (Freberg et al., 2011; Klein, 2019; Koch, 2018). There is no other platform in this century that offers the access, capabilities, tools and technological advancement that social media provides. People can directly communicate with one another from anywhere on the planet—send instant messages, direct messages, emails, or post on one another’s profile pages. There is no obstacle to the sharing of ideas and information in this day and age. As a result, social media has a tremendous impact on recruiting and retaining members for extremist groups.
For instance, one can look at how social media is used by Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Proud Boys, and other alt-Right extremist groups that espouse racist or extremist views. All of these groups are loosely organized but they have strong social media support and their members are very active in posting messages for followers and curious observers to see. These messages serve as random recruitment acts: it is like casting a net into a sea of fish and hauling in as many as are caught by the net. The net in this case is the transmission of social media messaging. Extremists can post rhetoric with pictures or video that is meant to insight and inflame the senses of those who might share strong feelings about whatever issue is being discussed online. A white nationalist group might post a video of a black person in Antifa striking someone in the head at a pro-Trump rally. Individuals who might not be members of the white nationalist group but who are pro-Trump, racist, and frustrated by Antifa may see the video and respond by liking it. They may begin following the individual who posted it. In doing so, they become more and more exposed to content that is extremist in nature and that can lead the individual deeper into becoming a member of the extremist group.
These groups tend to target individuals who are isolated and who have no current or strong support system. Everyone is looking to belong to something, to a club, a group, an organization, a team, a religion, a gang—something that makes them feel like they belong, that they have an identity that can be pointed to outside of themselves. Joining an extremist group is a way of creating that identity for oneself, of saying that this group defines my ideology and the fact that I have joined this organization shows that it also defines who I am.
The way these groups retain members using 21st century technology is by roping individuals ever more deeply into the labyrinth of social media posts and messages so that one cannot extract oneself from that digital world without leaving behind a digital trail that shows what one has been up to. Former KKK-lead David Duke knows how true this is, for he has never been able to escape his past even though he has renounced the KKK: he is still viewed by and large as a racist and a villain. Thus, when one enters an extremist group it is often difficult to leave it because it is very much like a person in an abusive relationship. One fears that one will not be accepted anywhere else if one actually leaves the group: there is a fear that there is nothing else out in the world, that there is no better option. They have a lack of education and access to other views because all their information comes from the group online and all of the content tends to be emotionally oriented to keep the person in a state of anger, panic, fear and activity. In this manner, extremist groups prevent anyone from every leaving.
The sustained impact of all this is that these extremist groups then end up spreading their messages and ideology further throughout the world because there is no check on their followership. Their ideas are permanently put out into the marketplace of ideas even though they are not being promoted by legacy media. Most young people today are not using legacy media—they are using social media for information, news, education, and so on.
Literature Review
The binary political system that has allowed for extremist groups on both the Right and the Left to rise up in recent years has been facilitated by the advent of 21st century technology, such as social media (Chatfield et al., 2015; Costello & Hawdon, 2018; DeCook, 2018; Freberg et al., 2011; Klein, 2011). Individuals who feel threatened by or marginalized by the US government—such as the Unabomber or the Fort Hood shooter—are radicalized into action through feelings of anger at politicians and the government (Barnett, 2015). They are also today put into touch with other extremists via the Internet and thus their radical views find support and encouragement from others who they might otherwise never have the opportunity to reach. This is what happened with the Fort Hood shooter: his religious inquiry led him to extremists online who convinced him that to engage in jihad against the US was necessary. Lone wolves of this sort are often in contact with others and are preyed upon by extremists online, gradually seduced into acting on their own: but their formation and development is not done in isolation—it is done online through social media, email, and so on (Hamm & Spaaj, 2015; Mouras, 2015).
Extremist groups are not new to the 21st century and their development has tended to be political or politically-motivated. Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam was a major force in America because he was a speaker who articulated well and got a powerful message across to other blacks in the nation. His voice was loud and he called for action—not of the non-violent variety but of the violent type if necessary. His followers were enthused by his speaking and his call to action as they saw passive resistance as too weak. They wanted to fight—not passively resist. When Malcolm X was assassinated, black Americans needed a new leader and the more extreme-minded among them turned to the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were a group that stood out among others because they embraced violence and terrorism in the face of the hostility and violence they perceived the powers that be to be wielding against them. This mindset has not really been displaced to this day (Mulloy, 2014). It still exists and can be found in everything from rap to hip hop to Black Lives Matter to the new Black Panther party. It all circulates in the same feeling of animosity and feeds off the same content that is now readily available via new media, such as the Internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. There are numerous outlets in which groups like the New Black Panthers or Black Lives Matter or Antifa can use to voice their ideology and communicate their message. They can post videos of their activities online and share them with millions with the click of a button. The ease with which all of this happens is what allows extremism in the US to be even more popular than it has been in the past. Everyone is circling the drain of binary politics and reinforced hatred via memes, social media, and instant messaging (DeCook, 2018). The trend is thus one in which the same old ideas of hostility and aggression are now amplified a hundred-fold thanks technological advancements in communication.
The situation is exacerbated by the patriotic zeal with which the message is reinforced (Vitolo-Haddad, 2019). The individuals involved in this marketing of extremist and domestic terror cloak their hatred in images of symbolic violence and thus make use of slogans like “Don’t Tread on Me!” or “1776 or Die!” or other similarly themed slogans that recall to mind the calls the of Founding Fathers and their fighting spirit. By associating their extremist views with the voices of the Founding Fathers they drape their ideology in patriotic zeal, which attracts others who also want to be patriots—but they also give a corrupted vision of patriotism that is slanted towards the ideological perspective of the extremist group, whether it is on the right or the left (Vitolo-Haddad, 2019). This in turn fuels the base as it grows and the group’s vision is conflated with the patriotic visions of others who are lumped in together with the extremist group even though their own ideas might not be extreme. This is what happened with members of Proud Boys, including the founder of the group, Gavin McInnes. Extremists are brought into the group and are associated with the group’s message—but the group itself is only loosely organized and is being pushed and pulled in various directions. Multiple people from multiple ideologies may approve of Proud Boys because they opposed Antifa, but others may object to them because they have been associated with White Nationalism. So there is a lot of confusion in and around the groups themselves and no one really ever knows what the doctrine of the group actually is (DeCook, 2018). To some degree, members of these groups simply post online in order to rile up the opposition: it is a form of trolling that people do on social media, such as Twitter, so as to provoke an angry response from one’s political opponent. President Trump himself often engages in this type of behavior and is known to try to trigger his political opponents by mocking them on Twitter.
This type of example, however, only enflames the environment in which extremism exists: it is like pouring fuel on a raging fire. Instead of calling for peace and solidarity, leaders are constantly trying to one-up one another, which only causes the spread of symbolic violence and imagery of that character to worsen (Vitolo-Haddad, 2019). In the end, the individuals of the nation have to realize that patriotism is about being American and that being American is about having a certain amount of freedom and respect for others. There is not a one-size fits all mentality that has to be arbitrarily applied to everyone—but people in extremist groups fail to realize this because they are indoctrinated from a young age by others online who want to advance their ideological ambitions and create a world in which terror is an acceptable form of vengeance (Hamm & Spaaj, 2015). Of course, this type of behavior only further erodes the stability of the country.
References
Barnett, B. A. (2015). 20 Years Later: A Look Back at the Unabomber Manifesto.  Perspectives on Terrorism, 9(6), 60-71.
Beinart, P. (2017). The rise of the violent left. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/
Chatfield, A. T., Reddick, C. G., & Brajawidagda, U. (2015, May). Tweeting propaganda, radicalization and recruitment: Islamic state supporters multi-sided twitter networks. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (pp. 239-249).
Costello, M., & Hawdon, J. (2018). Who are the online extremists among us? Sociodemographic characteristics, social networking, and online experiences of those who produce online hate materials. Violence and gender, 5(1), 55-60.
DeCook, J. R. (2018). Memes and symbolic violence:# proudboys and the use of memes for propaganda and the construction of collective identity. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(4), 485-504.
Freberg, K., Graham, K., McGaughey, K., & Freberg, L. A. (2011). Who are the social media influencers? A study of public perceptions of personality. Public Relations Review, 37(1), 90-92.
Hamm, M &Spaaj, R. (2015). Lone wolf terrorism in America: Using knowledge of radicalization pathways to forge prevention strategies. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/248691.pdf
Klein, A. (2019). From Twitter to Charlottesville: Analyzing the Fighting Words Between the Alt-Right and Antifa. International Journal of Communication, 13, 22.
Koch, A. (2018). Trends in Anti-Fascist and Anarchist Recruitment and Mobilization. Journal for Deradicalization, (14), 1-51.
Mouras, T. A. (2015). Lone wolves: Are they really alone in the radicalization process? In Public Safety. Retrieved from http://inpublicsafety.com/2015/02/lone-wolves-are-they-really-alone-in-the-radicalization-process/
Mulloy, D. J. (2014). The New Black Panther Party, Black Nationalism, and the Tangled Legacy of COINTELPRO. Extremism in America, Gainesville, 70-113.
Vitolo-Haddad, C. V. (2019). The Blood of Patriots: Symbolic Violence and “The West”. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 49(3), 280-296.