But much as military strategists urge targeting an adversary’s “center of gravity” to achieve lasting, decisive results, the most vulnerable pressure points of a violent political movement’s weaknesses must similarly be the focus of government efforts to counter subversive and seditious domestic threats.5 The centers of gravity of the violent extremist right in the United States today are evident in themes explored by this book: an obsessive conspiratorial mindset; the exploitation of social media for radicalization, recruitment, and encouragement of violence; and the insidious injection of ideologies promoting hate, intolerance, and conspiracy into mainstream American politics, our military, and law enforcement communities. These are the centers of gravity that a domestic counterextremism and counterterrorism strategy must focus on.

  The United States today thus requires a comprehensive, wide-ranging, institutionalized strategy to effectively counter these threats—including measures to strengthen American civil society as well as those that specifically target violent extremist groups, their activists and supporters, their propagandists and sympathizers, and their recruiters and financiers. The policy recommendations that emerge from this examination and exegesis of the far-right terrorist threat in the United States fit into three categories:

  short-term measures to create a stronger regulatory framework, with relatively immediate effects;

  medium-term measures to strengthen civil society, with impacts over the next five to ten years; and,

  long-term measures to build national unity, which will break the cycle of recruitment and regeneration that has sustained this movement across multiple decades and therefore build resilience that will benefit future generations and inoculate them against the allure of extremist ideologies.

  All these efforts need to commence immediately and not unfold sequentially. They should be undertaken without delay but with the expectation that, while some can have more immediate effects, others will take years, if not decades, to achieve the desired impact. This range of measures, it should be emphasized, is applicable to both extremes of the political spectrum—left as well as right—and include, as the preeminent goal, restoring the integrity of and respect for the American political system. To implement this admittedly optimistic but nonetheless crucial goal, a series of equally critical additional steps is required, such as enacting legislation designed to address all manifestations of extremist violence, whether from the right or the left or any other section, and effectively counter the ideological and social appeal of extremism and conspiracy theories more generally. By taking decisive action today, the United States can begin to make meaningful inroads against these highly corrosive and insidious threats to our democratic values and ensure the safety and security of our fellow citizens in a more secure and inclusive environment than currently exists.

  January 6 showed to devastating effect that conspiracy theories that demonize government and reject the authority of its institutions and processes pose a clear and pressing danger to law, order, and the stability of the American political system. Restoring popular faith in our government and reinforcing the democratic principles for which this country was conceived is therefore the highest priority. But such a reckoning cannot be achieved either organically or quickly. Accordingly, a series of remedial legislative steps must first occur to jumpstart the revitalization of a common national identity. Among these, depriving extremists of the free rein they have long enjoyed on social media is imperative. Legislation is needed to ensure greater clarity between First Amendment rights to free and open expression and the planning and plotting of violent acts of domestic terrorism.6

  Hence, first and foremost, rebuilding and strengthening American democracy will require addressing the pervasive and pernicious impact of social media. Digital communication has contributed in hitherto unprecedented ways to the rise of lone-actor terrorism. It has in particular amplified and accelerated Beam’s leaderless resistance strategy. In the past, exponents of leaderless resistance were constrained by the limited reach of their message through traditional media and generally stymied in their efforts to achieve any kind of mass following. But social media has facilitated the emergence of a loosely connected global far-right terrorist movement whose grievances and motivations transcend borders and national contexts but are linked by a shared belief in the efficacy of violence. The posited trope entailing the replacement of the European white male through immigration of other races and religions, for instance, has become a compelling contemporary battle cry of the violent far right. Exaggerated fears of soaring nonwhite birthrates coupled with the alleged role that Jewish and associated villainous global and liberal elites play in deliberately pushing and exploiting this trend play into conspiracy theories that become increasingly common and accepted as political dogma. This online echo chamber’s most significant real-world impact has been the erosion of the previously defined demarcation between “international” and “domestic” terrorism along with the facilitation of the convergence of multiple hitherto divergent ideologies into a combustible mélange of new justifications for collective violence. In extremist social media bubbles, adherents arguably have more in common with ideological brethren an ocean away than with their physical real-world neighbors. The result today is an international succession of lone-actor terrorists who revel in their use of social media both to presage and advertise their violent acts and then post their unhinged rants in hopes of inspiring imitation and emulation.7

  In their 2018 book The Future of Terrorism, the historians Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall argue that “terrorism is not an exogenous feature of the modern nation-state but rather a symptom of bad governance.”8 Their analysis referred to failed states around the world that have allowed extremists to thrive in power vacuums. But, in a contemporaneous twist, their analysis can also be applied to social media. For over a decade, an ever-growing array of zealots advocating violence and sedition has been given free rein on social media platforms. With sometimes tragic consequences, they easily acquire access to some of society’s most vulnerable individuals. The social media titans who have repeatedly watched as their products are used and exploited by dangerous actors but who have refused to intervene have facilitated and encouraged this process. They must do more to moderate extreme speech on their platforms, both to prevent new radicalization and protect vulnerable communities from being targeted by hate speech online. Examples include removing content altogether or affixing particularly controversial posts with disclaimers or contextual explainers. Greater efforts must also be directed toward helping smaller sites, which might be more willing to push back against extremism but lack the resources to police their platform, better ensure their sites are safe from extremist recruiters and radicalizers. Sites that refuse to comply should be considered for expulsion from various internet hosting providers. International efforts like the Christchurch Call and Delhi Declaration should be multiplied and deepened, while organizations like the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism need more encouragement and funding.

  But responsibility both wittingly and unwittingly for this malignancy increasingly lies with governments, too. First Amendment champions maintain that social media cannot be restrained because it would violate American citizens’ constitutional rights to freedom of speech. Yet in recent years, social media has evolved to a point where an extremist’s right to spew abuse online appears to take precedence over their target’s rights to be safe from fear and online abuse. This development has to be addressed if we are to control this poisonous dimension of social media and check its unimpeded incitements to violence. As an example, we can look to Great Britain’s efforts to clamp down on online hate through white papers and legislation, which has showcased both the challenges and potential legal remedies.9 According to the 2019 British government white paper detailing its “online harms” initiative, this policy is designed to counter “the most serious illegal harms which threaten our national security and the physical safety of children.” In the context of terrorism, the white paper is explicit about the continuing threats of online radicalization and recruitment. It also commendably provides a practical framework within which government and industry can work together “to prevent exploitation of the internet for terrorist purposes.”10 Measures to moderate online dialogue are easier to implement in Europe, where they do not have the stringent free speech laws made sacred in the United States by the First Amendment. But, conversely, the social media companies that host hateful rhetoric are private companies and therefore are not constrained by the First Amendment. They should not be allowed to hide behind inapplicable constitutional protections as an excuse for inaction.

  Government efforts to contain the endless spiral of extremism online should include encouraging algorithm reform. Social media algorithms on major platforms are specifically meant to maximize engagement and attract new audiences, thus enabling social media companies to maximize advertising revenue from users deliberately drawn into spending more time on their sites. Their algorithms thus frequently push users toward more shocking or upsetting material, in order to keep them riveted to a particular platform’s content. Social media companies should be disincentivized from driving users toward ever more polarizing and radicalizing content. Banning violent extremists from monetizing their content would be the most critical positive step in this respect, as would prohibiting the advertising of material advocating especially hate-filled, violently inclined content.11 Our executive, judicial, and legislative branches might also join forces to collectively reform Section 230, the Title 47 provision that protects social media companies from being held legally liable for material posted on their platforms. The safety of social media titans from responsibility for content their platforms disseminate removes any incentive for those companies to create a healthier experience for users—a deficit that ultimately encourages everything from extremism to teen suicide.12 “We expect that companies shouldn’t be allowed to pollute the air and water in ways that might hurt us,” Safiya Noble, a communications expert at the University of Southern California whose research focuses on how digital media platforms affect society, argues. “We should also expect a high-quality media environment not polluted with disinformation, lies, propaganda. We need for democracy to work. Those are fair things for people to expect and require policymakers to start talking about.”13

  Demanding accountability from social media companies would perhaps also have the critical ancillary benefit of helping curb the rising menace of propaganda from authoritarian states seeking to undermine core Western democratic values. Social media in this age of mass online communication has arguably become the most intersectional factor in national security today. Through social media, the lines between war and peace, diplomacy and competition, and information and disinformation have blurred. In creating division and, in select cases, actively supporting violent domestic extremist movements in the United States and allied countries, America’s rivals have succeeded in undermining U.S. national security.14 Russia’s repeated, malignant interference in the 2016 presidential election, for instance, is a well-documented tactical achievement. But since that time the Kremlin’s continued manipulation of Western democracies has delivered to Russia a potential strategic victory: succeeding where decades of Soviet-era subversion during the Cold War had failed by undermining public trust and confidence in the Western state system and the democratic process.15 Whether wittingly or not, Russia’s efforts have been abetted and emboldened by repeated claims of electoral fraud. As the former FBI agent and information operations expert Clint Watts observed: “The American electorate remains divided, government operations are severely disrupted, and faith in elected leaders continues to fall. Americans still don’t grasp the information war Russia perpetrated against the West, why it works, and why it continues.”16 Russia therefore achieved what the Soviet Union could not accomplish despite decades of trying—eroding the remarkable bipartisan support for core U.S. foreign policy objectives that existed throughout the Cold War. The threat of falsehoods spreading online can thus be even more corrosive to democracy than terrorism.17 Social media is now one of the defining battlefields of twenty-first-century conflict, from domestic terrorism to international great power competition—and Western liberal democracy is in danger of losing ground there.

  Part of the challenge in fashioning an effective response to the more pernicious effects of social media is that these platforms have also shed greater light than ever onto processes of terrorist radicalization, mobilization, and planning. The exploitation of social media as a key law enforcement tool was most clearly evidenced by the arrests of hundreds of people who occupied the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, based on their own social media posts.18 The ease that governments have in amassing and utilizing for prosecution intelligence gathered online has even led some terrorist groups to eschew social media altogether—maintaining that the risks now outweigh the benefits. An offshoot of the terrorist group Atomwaffen, for instance, has a declared “NO social media” policy. Members are also instructed that “this also means keeping friends/family in check: making sure that they don’t put your photos on social media.” Instead, the group preaches the importance of “keeping your communications and electronics encrypted and secure.”19 The New Zealand commission investigating the Christchurch attacks concluded that Tarrant took a similar approach to his social media interactions. “The individual took a number of steps intended to minimise his digital footprint so as to reduce the chances of relevant Public sector agencies, following the terrorist attack, being able to obtain a full understanding of his internet activity,” the commission’s report explained.20 “In a world of secret sources, analysts could be separated from intelligence collectors,” the former chair of the National Intelligence Council, Dr. Gregory Treverton, presciently wrote in his 2009 book Intelligence for an Age of Terror. “In the world of the Web, analysts are also their own collectors.”21 We have thus reached a point where social media is both arsonist and firefighter. A delicate approach, where social media companies better moderate their sites without necessarily incinerating all intelligence, would be ideal.

  In addition to putting more pressure on social media companies to police their content, policy makers should consider more targeted legal measures to counter the rise of violent extremist movements and their ability to both radicalize and recruit newcomers and incite violence. This entails enhancing both America’s instruments of foreign policy and our domestic laws to more effectively contain and deter the spread of violent extremism.

  First, Congress should consider the establishment of a high-threshold domestic terrorism law to formally criminalize plots and violence targeting individuals based on race, ethnicity, religion, national identity, sexuality, gender, political affiliation, and other protected categories. The absence of domestic terrorism laws has led to an inequity of sentencing depending on whether the crimes were committed on behalf of designated foreign terrorist organizations or a domestic violent extremist group. There is a substantial sentencing gap today between violent far-right extremists convicted of violent offenses in this country compared with others convicted of similar crimes for foreign groups. According to the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, the average sentence for those convicted in the United States of providing material support to the Islamic State is 13.5 years.22 Violent, entirely domestic extremists, however, currently cannot be charged for providing material in support of patently violent domestic organizations or for planning and plotting what would otherwise be classified as terrorist attacks were a foreign terrorist entity involved. Christopher Hasson, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer, is a case in point. Violent extremists like Hasson, who amassed a small arsenal with which to assassinate elected Democratic Party representatives and media figures, are typically prosecuted for other nonterrorist offenses, such as drug and gun charges, in order to ensure convictions. Hasson was sentenced to over thirteen years in prison but was never tried for his terroristic plans themselves. To get around this gap in our laws, in some situations federal authorities have resorted to using the name of a designated foreign terrorist organization to secure material support to terrorism charges and thus obtain longer sentences for those convicted of these offenses. This was evident in the FBI sting operation that resulted in the 2020 arrest and conviction of two Boogaloo adherents who were apprehended after discussing violence against government targets to an undercover agent purporting to represent Hamas.23

  The comparatively shorter sentences handed to convicted domestic terrorists are damaging for at least two reasons. First, they reinforce a perception that “foreign” terrorists, often distinguishable from “domestic” terrorists only by the color of their skin and religion, are treated more harshly by an allegedly racist judicial system. This “sows confusion,” according to Thomas Brzozowski, Department of Justice counsel for domestic terrorism, and also leads to assumptions that international terrorism perpetrated by Muslims, for instance, is a more serious threat to the homeland than far-right terrorism—which has been statistically untrue in the post-9/11 era.24 As Helen Taylor, whose scholarly work focuses on terrorism and hate crimes, writes: “Labelling an act as terrorism serves as an official statement about the severity of the crime. While hate crime statutes carry significant penalties, they nevertheless do not carry the symbolic weight of a terrorism charge.”25

 

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