https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9090-1918
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ABSTRACT
This article examines more than 100 scholarly, think-tank, government, and media reports and three data-sets and finds that since the 6 January 2021 Capitol “insurrection”, War on Terror (WoT) 2.0 is conflating far-right, white supremacist extremism (WSE), and other terminologies, which have superseded “Islamic extremism” on the U.S government’s radar. Further, distinctions are not being recognised between violent and anti-violent far-right/WSE groups, and especially ideologues, and it is far from certain this phenomenon is “global”, “rising”, or comparable to ISIS. Perpetrators of WoT 2.0 terminological conflations and threat inflations are inter-related and mutually reinforcing, be they media, academics, think-tanks, or government officials, and are continuing WoT 1.0’s legacy, which exhibited its own set of inflations and conflations after 9/11. This article employs primary sources extensively and critical approaches to identify and remedy existing problems in studying far-right/WSE terrorism and proposes policies to more effectively address the rare and primarily “lone actor” lethal attacks of such terrorists while reducing potentialities for repeating WoT 1.0’s excesses.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Max Abrahms for mutually brainstorming the initial outline of this article and Mary-Jane Fox for reviewing early drafts of the article.
Disclosure statement
The research and analysis featured in this article reflect the author’s own work and do not purport to represent any institution.
Notes
1. See Kathleen Blee’s quotation: https://www.cynthiamilleridriss.com/.
2. NAF apparently removed Kyle Rittenhouse from its data-set after his November 2021 acquittal, but without issuing any “correction”: https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/terrorism-in-america/what-is-the-threat-to-the-united-states-today.
3. Although initial false reports suggested police shot an “unarmed” Blake while Blake prevented a “neighbourhood fight”, Blake’s former partner actually called police because she had their children’s custody and Blake was stealing her car with their children, which is kidnapping. Blake had previous domestic abuse violations, including of his former partner, physically fought off police trying to detain him, grabbed a knife and ignored orders to drop it, and entered the car before a police officer shot him. NYT and other media framed this as “white police shooting a Black man in front of his children” and ensuing protests in which riots involving Rittenhouse’s “vigilantism” occurred as people “standing against police brutality and systemic racism”.
4. Micah Johnson’s killings occurred one year after BLM protests revived over a Ferguson, Missouri police officer’s killing of Michael Brown after stopping Brown for petty theft and assaulting an Indian-American shop-owner. Obama’s DoJ (Department of Justice) (Citation2015) found no racial animus nor inappropriate police conduct since Brown attempted to take the officer’s gun before being shot and did not say “hands up, don’t shoot”, despite the media falsely reporting that he did.
5. Fuentes once said, ‘What can you and I do to a state legislator [who does not support “Stop-the-Steal”] besides kill them? We should not do that … ’.
6. Ironically, al-Qaeda has shown footage to justify terrorist attacks from al-Jazeera, which accused Taylor of being responsible for Roof’s attack because Roof read his website.
7. UTR was followed by Trump’s controversially stating that the Antifa/BLM and pro-Robert E. Lee monument sides both had “fine people”, while condemning their respective “troublemakers … with black outfits and baseball bats” and “bad people, neo-Nazis and white supremacists”.
8. They included Holly Zoller and Corey Lemley, who led Louisville pro-BLM protests after George Floyd’s death in which police officers were shot; Willem Van Spronsen, who died while fire-bombing a Tacoma, Washington immigration enforcement facility; Brent Betterly, who was an #Occupy protester and imprisoned from 2012–2014 for planning bombings of Chicago Democratic party headquarters, including Barack Obama’s, for their supporting NATO’s 2012 Summit; UNC professor and Antifa-Redneck Revolt leader Dwayne Dixon, who claimed he “waved” a rifle at James Fields before his vehicle-ramming and stated “we [Antifa] won” at Charlottesville; and Molly Conger, who eulogised Spronsen and besides John Sullivan was among the only Antifa-associated activists at the Capitol on J6.
9. Then-Charlottesville mayor Mike Signer’s spouse Emily Blout and Burkart (Citation2021) academically analysed UTR rally-goers’ “martial” preparations, including by exploiting Blout’s “social proximity to [Charlottesville’s] leadership”..
10. Kessler also posted images of Antifa’s Charlottesville violence online: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/7Y6nGXfoLCki/.
11. Trump’s Jewish “far-right/WSE” speechwriter Darren Beattie (Citation2021) propagated this term.
12. Far-right/WSEs commonly cite the “Kalergi Plan” and SPLC researcher Mark Potok’s tracking U.S’ declining white population in the 2018 documentary “Alt-Right: Age of Rage” as “evidence” of Jews’ promoting this decline.
13. Seattle’s mayor ordered CHAZ closed after four shootings, two Black teenagers’ deaths, and multiple sexual assaults occurred in the zone.
15. Sutter was “Perpetrator #2 in court documents.
16. J6 “violence” possibly resembled a combination of Antifa/BLM “riots”, including around 31 May, 2020, where rocks, bricks, and fireworks injured 60 Secret Service officers, police cars were vandalised, and a church’s basement was burned near the White House or government building “occupations” like at Hart Senate building in 2019 by anti-undocumented immigrant family separation protesters, more than Shays’ Rebellion or the Philippines’ Insurrection in historical context. Legally, however, the 14th amendment disqualifies Trump from pursuing another presidential term if he politically “engaged in rebellion or insurrection”. The latter term was revived after dormancy in U.S context to become common parlance post-J6.
17. Photographs #36–37, like Epps’, were also deleted, but were duplicates of Photograph #94: https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/capitol-violence-image.
18. Like Trump’s January 6 speech demanding rally-goers “peacefully make your voices heard”, Epps one time told January 5 rally-goers to “go into the Capitol … peacefully”, which raises questions about whether either “incited” insurrection.
19. Fanone’s body-cam footage remains unreleased publicly. Another Capitol security officer, Harry Dunn, told the “J6 Committee” that insurrectionists called him the “n-word” many times, despite extensive footage not supporting this. His own body-cam footage also remains unreleased publicly.
20. Oxford PhD-candidate Nathan Cofnas argues these issues should be debated and far-right/WSE “scholars” will be debunked, but that censorship makes their theories “appealing”. See: https://nathancofnas.com/debate-with-kevin-macdonald/.
21. Unlike other Florida cases before and after Zimmerman’s trial in which white men like Michael Drejka and Michael Dunn were found guilty of murdering Black men despite their Stand-Your-Ground defences, half-Afro-Peruvian neighbourhood watchman Zimmerman was acquitted. Zimmerman called 9-1-1 after seeing Martin at night looking high (possibly from smoking marijuana and drinking a skittles-codeine mix called “Lean”, per Martin’s autopsy) in a gated Orlando community to which Martin had just moved with family after being suspended from school in Miami for violence and drug infractions. 9-1-1 recordings indicated Zimmerman’s unfamiliarity with Martin’s race when initiating the call and that he stopped following Martin at the 9-1-1 respondent’s request, but they fought after Martin trailed Zimmerman to Zimmerman’s car. Zimmerman claimed the significantly taller six-foot Martin mounted, punched, and tried to grab the bloodied Zimmerman’s gun before Zimmerman shot Martin, who himself may have believed Zimmerman was stalking him. Media reported that Zimmerman racially profiled Martin, including because of Martin’s “hoodie”, while Martin was returning home from “buying candy” at night.
22. A contestable legal term whereby individuals intentionally and consensually fight.
23. See SPLC’s website: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/10/08/equity-through-accuracy-changes-our-hate-map.
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Jacob Zenn
Jacob Zenn is a Georgetown University Security Studies Program (SSP) adjunct associate professor and The Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor’s editor. He tweets at @Bokowatch.