The Radicalization of the American Right
Those committed to violence will always make up a small minority of the population, but “lone wolves” are never really alone. They still carry a pack mentality, and are acting based on the beliefs, interests and behaviors of the pack. The only thing that sets them apart is their willingness to act on those beliefs.
Each layer in this chart represents a different depth of commitment to ideology based on criteria that defines the beliefs and actions of the people within that sphere of influence. Each sphere has its own set of “thought leaders.” All 4 spheres are impacted by the leaders and beliefs in the other spheres, but each group is the most responsive to the thinkers within their sphere of influence (or their “base”).
US counter intelligence developed this model to understand how people become radicalized in the middle east in order to counter Islamic terrorists. When you line up the criteria of this chart to today’s right not only does it explain how the right is becoming radicalized, but it explains why our counter intelligence has become more concerned about right wing extremism over the past few years.
The outer layer typically makes up the largest population of any ideology. When using this model to look at the Arab world this layer includes Muslims who followed the Qur’an, but who weren’t overtly political and their beliefs didn’t extend beyond their own lives. When applying this to American’s the Vulnerable layer includes Christians and non-religious Republicans who also aren’t overtly political, and tend to not assert their faith or beliefs onto others. People in this layer are open minded about new ideas, different beliefs and values. Thought leaders in this layer tend to be balanced, empathetic & intellectual. It would include people akin toGeorge Will, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Chris Wallace, and most of the American church.
“Believers” tend to be more politically minded and assertive with their beliefs. They think their beliefs should be the guiding force of the culture and the country. They tend to view people with different views as an opposition, and are more resistant to the beliefs of others. Believers tend to empathize with those in the vulnerable layer, but defend those in lower circles, which accelerates radicalization. Thought leaders in this level tend to deal in bias and with cherry picked facts designed to inflame emotions. It would include the news side of Fox News (not the editorial or pundits), opportunist politicians like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell, and the more fundamentalist church denominations.
Here’s where Trump has really opened up an infected wound on the right. The third layer down is labeled “Radicalizing.” People in this layer believe they are in an ideological war with those who oppose their views. These are the people who believe they’re in a culture war and that drastic measures should be taken to ensure their values are protected and exalted. They claim to support liberty, freedom & democracy but reject the pluralism that those ideals are based on. That discrepancy causes a distrust in democratic institutions where pluralism is often viewed as part of a plot to undermine their radicalized beliefs. They also believe those who oppose them share their mindset & are actively trying to take over or replace their values with their own. They believe those in layer 1 (vulnerable) are weak, and they empathize, defend and even idolize those willing to take action, even violent action, in the name of their beliefs.
People in this sphere are the type who will talk directly about violence, and use violent terms (civil war, fight, battle, life or death, etc) but aren’t committed to act themselves. If you or your family sit around the table talking about civil war, or hanging politicians over dinner…congratulations you’re dealing with radicalization! If your relatives defend the capitol riots with some version of “this is what happens when you make people mad”…congratulations you’re dealing with radicalization. If you believe there’s a “war on Christmas”…well, you know where this is going by now.
Thought leaders in this level deal in extreme bias rooted in lies and conspiracies designed to provoke fear and anger. This would include all editorial content on Fox News (Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, etc), OANN, NewsMax, talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Steve Bannon, Tomi Lahren, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, online news sites like Brietbart, Gateway Pundit, Epoch Times, online forums like Parler, Qanon, right wing evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr, politicians like Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes, and of course the grand wizard Trump himself.
People on the right will not acknowledge that any of this radicalization is occurring. People who develop radicalized beliefs don’t realize they’ve been radicalized because radicalization involves a breakdown and detachment from shared truth and values. It causes divisions in society at every level, including between friends and within families because their beliefs detach them from the truths that bind groups together. As they pull away they start to distrust and question people who don’t share their new truth and they bind to others who strictly adhere to that truth, which reaffirms the entire cycle while blinding them to the changes the cycle is causing. Thought leaders within the radicalized sphere create further blindness by continually drumming the inoculating message that 1) others don’t have access to and won’t accept *the real truth,* and 2)people who question that truth are enemies. It creates a virtual succession, a country within a country where they can be *real patriots* and everyone else is a “socialist” (or some other boogieman) and are the real enemies they’re protecting us from.
The true definition of Trump derangement syndrome is not opposing Trumpism, it’s thinking that everyone else is deranged for trying to help you see the fascists standing beside you ready to commit violence in the name of your beliefs.
Those who become committed to violence draw their legitimacy from the radicalized sphere. The radicalized serve as a approving audience that fuels the will to act for people committed to violence. Like those in the radicalized layer those committed to violence believe in unity of thought, and feel threatened by the pluralism in a democracy.
Those committed to violence view themselves as saviors from oppression & tyranny. Violence is framed as strength & sacrifice. Anyone who opposes that radicalized message is labeled as weak, socialist, traitor, etc (or Infidels in the Muslim world). Thought leaders in this level deal almost exclusively in lies, conspiracy & violence. They would include Q, Alex Jones, America First, militia groups like the Oath Keepers, 3%, Proud Boys, Boogaloo Bois, and the original sins…the Nazi’s & KKK.
When applying this model to the middle east those committed to violence are labeled as Jihadists, and there’s very little difference between a Muslim committed to violence and a MAGA committed to violence. Both are given credibility by narratives in the radicalized circle where freedom & religion are framed as under attack in a war of good vs evil with an ideological enemy. That narrative gives those committed to violence license to believe violence is: 1) necessary 2) Serving God &/or the greater good 3) The fault of & owed to their enemies.
What has national security experts concerned is when extremism spread in the middle east it was via a handful of clerics, and the mediums for communication weren’t as interconnected or consolidated which made it harder for thought leaders to have a monopoly over their audience. Thought leaders like Osama Bin Laden would release grainy videos once every few months. (It wasn’t until ISIS effectively used social media that Islamic extremists were able to broaden their sphere of radicalization).
In the middle east this layered model was used to to slow down Islamic extremism by having thought leaders in the outside layers target the radicalized layer with counter narratives that pointed out the totalitarian views of the Jihadist's, how their views went against the teachings of Muhammad, and how they were harming the Muslim world. They avoided the word “Jihad” because it invoked religious sacrifice in a struggle against sin, and the enemies of Islam. That connotation appealed to those who had been radicalized. They began calling Jihadist’s “Qutbi” or “Qutbism” which is Islamic fascism. The equivalent of the term “Jihadist” in America is ”Patriots.” It has a positive connotation that invokes nationalism and religious allegiance to a greater good tied to an idealized past. It appeals to radicalized right wingers and they use the term as a badge of honor. The equivalent to “Qutbi” in America….is a fascist.
The goal was to alienate the Jihadist’s from those who were radicalized, and then pry at the divisive issue of violence within the radicalized group to push them towards more moderate views. The problem with using this approach in America is the right wing is extremely consolidated within a select few streams of information that all push out a narrative 24/7 to not trust other sources of information. Sixty to Seventy percent of Republicans only get and trust news from right wing sources, which can be 3–5x as ideologically skewed as the ideological center of the right as a whole. Almost all of the most recognizable and popular thought leaders on the right are within the sphere of radicalization. Trump fit perfectly in that layer & inflated it even further creating a situation where…
*the radicalized population is now disproportionately larger and louder than the other 2 layers within the right.*
Within that structure the thought leaders in the outer layers can’t reach enough people to temper back the radicalization, and instead the outer layers are being used to provide credibility to those in the radicalized layers. Fox gives credibility to people like Hannity. The church gives credibility to Trump and evangelicals like Franklin Graham. Ordinary Republicans & Christians give credibility to radicalized sites like Parler, Brietbart and OAN by sharing content online. The office of the Presidency and the entire GOP, have given credibility to these radicalized voices, which by extension are giving credibility to those who attacked the capitol and those committed to violence. With such a large radicalized audience not only will more people in that radicalized group slip into the group committed to violence, but there’s ample fuel for radicalized beliefs to turn into violent action.
When Hilary Clinton made her infamous “basket of deplorables” statement in 2016 a lot of people on the right adopted the insult as a badge of solidarity without questioning who was really calling them deplorable, and what it meant. Clinton was calling extremists deplorable, and she very clearly attempted to put a wedge between ordinary good people and those who wish to do us all harm. Within a day right wing media overgeneralized what she said and claimed she called every Trump supporter deplorable.
It wasn’t Clinton who called Trump supporters deplorable. It was the right wing media. It was thought leaders from within the radicalized sphere applying an applicable label designated for the violent sphere to people on the outer spheres. The effect of this was to draw more people into the radicalized sphere, and by willingly choosing to align themselves with the radicalized violent elements within the right they defended and enabled extremism.
A year later in Charlotttesville Clinton’s statement became a violent reality, and once again instead of drawing a clear line and putting a wedge between the radicalized and the violent, the radicalized sphere pulled them together by drawing a false equivalence between right wing extremists and those who oppose it. By continuing to do this over and over the radicalized sphere is inciting the emotions & narratives behind the violence. They give weak condemnations of violence when they occur but then minimize it with “both sides” “whataboutism” arguments. By design that logic absolves extremists of guilt and accountability, and redirects it towards an enemy, which further fuels the radicalized belief that their war is real.
*The common enemy theme pulls all the values of the right together towards those who commit violence instead of separating the values of the right from the violence.*
Not only was this whataboutism approach the dominant propaganda used by the Soviet Union to help spread communism and demonize democracy during the cold war, but it’s the main recruitment tactic used by ISIS. They called it the “virtual caliphate.” They dispute counter narratives by creating the exact same echo chambers online. They instruct followers to not trust outside sources and claim being online allows them to share the truth establishment clerics refuse to share (Trump used this same logic). They pulled Muslims towards them by pointing out how people around the world were calling all Muslims “terrorists,” and justified their violence by saying “what about…” and pointing to injustices & violence against the Muslim world committed by the western world. It’s an ironic mirror when you look at the narratives coming out of the right today when any mention of right wing terrorism is brought up.
The virtual caliphate of ISIS is nearly identical to how groups committed to violence like Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Qanon and The Base operate online (Fun fact: Al-Queda means “The Base”). Trump is one of many caliph’s (spiritual thought leaders), and they are his caliphate. The difference is the echo chamber for the American caliphate is much larger because the radicalized circle encompasses the majority of right wing media, members of congress, and Trump himself.
Radicalization of opinion is a phenomenon of mass psychology, whereas radicalization of action is a phenomenon of individual and small-group psychology. The way right wing extremism and ISIS use this process is identical. They seek to reach people via broad conversations on social media using meme’s that appeal to the emotions and beliefs of individuals in the vulnerable and believer layers (mass psych). They’re then pulled into smaller virtual spaces and exposed to increasingly extreme views within the context of a group. For example a person may start out just scrolling Facebook, but then like increasingly extreme pages, interact with the community on those pages, get invited to another group that is private, or on a completely different forum all together like Gab or Parler. The result is a person increasingly cut off from broader views, being pressurized by lies, grievances, and anger. Radicalization 101.
If the mass psychology is spreading the radicalized opinions that are fueling the violence in the small group psychology it requires changing the radicalized narrative either via counter narrative, or censorship to break up the mass psychology feeding the small group psychology.
When it became clear that counter messaging was failing against ISIS the social media platforms began banning their accounts. ISIS claimed it was an attempt by the western world to silence Muslims. Initially ISIS went to Telegram who refused to ban them before eventually caving to public pressure. ISIS has drifted from app to app since then.
Deplatforming ISIS had several positive effects. Deplatforming forced them to spend time and energy, hiding, running, and trying to rebuild online instead of carrying out attacks and recruiting. With each shift to a new platform they lost followers, which led to weaker networks, and a diminished impact of the radicalized thought leaders. It fractured the people committed to violence from those who were radicalized. This kept the outer layers from passively coming into contact with radicalized messaging via social media, cutting off the blood supply for recruitment, allowing thought leaders in the outer layers to pull people back towards the center. For all of our bombing, ISIS wasn’t defeated just by putting holes in the ground. They were defeated by blowing up their online network.
Americans were not opposed to the tech companies deplatforming Muslim terrorists who were radicalizing people for ISIS, but when those same companies deplatformed MAGA terrorists radicalizing right wing Americans…they sure handled it the same as ISIS. They’re claiming big tech is trying to censor all conservative voices. The right even went to Telegram…just like ISIS. But there’s one huge difference that can’t be overlooked. In the Muslim world thought leaders didn’t help perpetuate that radicalized narrative of censorship and oppression. In America the right wing media is helping spread that false narrative about censorship, further entrenching the belief that the right is being marginalized in a culture war. It’s the basket of deplorables lie all over again being used to mainstream a lie of collective persecution of the right towards the violence instead of driving a wedge against it.
April 19th 1995. 9:02am. A bomb goes off in Oklahoma City killing 168 people, 19 of which were children. It’s the worst homegrown terror attack in American history. For most Americans that’s a distant memory, but for Right Wing extremists, Timothy McVeigh is an icon, and surpassing his mark of 168 dead is the future.
When counter narratives, and cutting off access to the thought leaders fails, preventing radicalization from turning into violence sits on an unpleasant razor’s edge. It involves either consequences, or backlash. After 9/11 America woke up to Islamic terrorism. The consequences for Al-Qaeda & the Taliban were harsh, culminating in the death of Osama Bin Laden and 20 years of war. But that was after years of international effort to get the ruling parties in the middle east to enact consequences of their own. Regimes in that part of the world were hesitant to do so because they feared backlash from their own people, which just led to unrestrained radicalization & violence from groups like Al-Qaeda.
During the 90’s this same pattern happened in the United States. Right wing extremism had been on the rise for years, inflamed by events like Ruby Ridge, Waco, the advent of Fox News, and right wing AM radio. But then the Oklahoma City bombing happened. The event was so horrific that it was indefensible. The national backlash changed the tone of the thought leaders on the right and drove the extremism back underground. Right wing radicalization had been boiling at a low simmer…until Trump. Trump took the lock off the cellar, and let the creatures back out & openly embraced their cause.
The question now is what happens from here? Throughout Trump’s presidency right wing violence steadily increased. Right wing terrorism surpassed Islamic terrorism as the #1 threat to the country in 2017. A vague “AltRight” that existed in the dark corners of the internet oozed out into the mainstream as pronounced groups like the Proud Boys, the 3%, The Base, and Boogaloo Bois that swelled in ranks by 2018. An armed extremist went into a pizza place in 2017 demanding the release of children being trafficked based on the pizzagate conspiracy. That was a warning that the conspiracies and lies being spread online had radicalized people to the point of violence.
Mass shooters, bomb plots against the media & government officials, a plot to kidnap democratic governors, and armed men storming state capitols followed all based on radicalized beliefs from online lies and conspiracies. A Covid 5g conspiracy theorist set a bomb off in Nashville that destroyed a city block on Christmas morning. And most recently, at the behest of Trump, organized right wing extremist groups worked together in an insurrection on the nation’s capitol, in an attempted coup (many believing they were participating in “the great awakening,” a tenet of the QAnon conspiracy theory that involves publicly executing government officials in front of the capitol).
As much as we’d all like to think this is all random, or that Trump’s presidency culminated in the capitol insurrection, unless drastic changes are made in the mass psychology on the right it’s more likely that the end of Trump’s presidency will be the catalyst for further violence. Right wing extremism increased dramatically under Trump when historically has declined when a Republican is in office. There’s no reason to believe radicalization is going to stop under Biden. Right wing thought leaders have not changed their tone like they did after Oklahoma City. They’re minimizing what happened at the capitol with the same “what about (blm/antifa)” arguments that create radicalized violence. Politicians & right wing media figures are still supporting the big lie of election fraud inflaming radicalized people who already believe they’re marginalized and cheated. Censorship of online thought leaders is helping some, but it’s also being incorporated into the culture war narrative which is driving radicalized people into deeper conspiratorial echo chambers on telegram, Gab, and to outlets like OANN and Newsmax.
We do have an opportunity to enact consequences that would break some of the spell over the radicalized sphere. The arrests connected to the capitol have been very public. It sends a message to “the base” that radicalized actions have consequences, but it’s barely being discussed in the radicalized sphere. The right wing media could do themselves a favor by spreading that message and being more forceful in condemning it’s own extremism.
A very public impeachment trial where thought leaders on the right both in government and in the media convict & change their tone about Trump would have sent a shattering message through the radicalized sphere. But that didn’t happen because, like the regimes in the middle east afraid to stand up to Al-Qaeda the right was afraid of how “the base” would respond.
Without consequences and accountability that shine light on the lies & violence in the radicalized sphere there’s no remaining valve to decrease the pressure safely. All of the ways we safely combat extremism rely on one element: elevating the truth. Whether it’s by countering the lies with truth, censoring the lies so the truth gets through, or imposing consequences to expose the harsh truth behind the lies, it all relies on getting truth to the people in the radicalized sphere before it’s too late and the pressure explodes & burns the truth into the soul of the country.
The radicalization on the right, with friends, and with our families begins and ends with the truth. We’re not discussing the difference between opinions, good and evil or even polarization. We’re talking about the control rods of a civil society. There’s no “your truth” and “my truth.” There’s just truth, and the more the right pulls the control rods of truth out to replace it with their own warped version of reality, the more unstable the core reactor of civility becomes. Without accountability from within they cant see how their own radicalization is expanding past the point of containment.
The last four years have put that reactor into meltdown. The radioactive lies and conspiracies are on fire & growing violently. Without a dramatic and immediate shift from the thought leaders on the right to contain the meltdown, we’re to the point where backlash against the radicalized voices for a violent terrorist attack is the last worst option. The question is how many Oklahoma City type events is it going to take before people are willing to see the truth & take responsibility for the violence their toxic ideologies have caused?
Sources
https://ctc.usma.edu/militant-ideology-atlas/
https://www.amazon.com/.../ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc...
https://www.amazon.com/.../ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc...
https://www.defenseone.com/
https://www.csis.org/.../escalating-terrorism-problem...
https://gnet-research.org/.../striking-similarities.../
https://extremism.gwu.edu/
