Lethality in Times of Uncertainty: The Reinvigorated Threat of the Extreme Right in the United States

The search by ordinary people for certainty in increasingly exclusionary groups with radical agendas is tearing at the fabric of modern America. Where once the distinctions between fascism and libertarianism were clear, this is no longer the case. 

The reinvigoration of right-wing extremism across western democratic countries has been a cause for concern in recent years. It has long been a threat in the US domestic terrorism landscape, as evidenced by prominent right wing extremist attacks such as the Charleston church attack in 2015, murders by neo-Nazis in Tampa in 2017, a Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, and a high school shooting in Florida that same year. These attacks collectively claimed 39 lives.

In 2019 alone, fatal attacks were recorded at a Walmart in El Paso, a Jewish supermarket in Jersey City, a festival in Gilroy, a courthouse in Dallas, a synagogue in Poway, and the ambush execution of a police officer in Arkansas–all associated with the extreme right-wing.  Since 2020, however, the nature of the violence has changed ever so slightly with anti-government extremists supplanting white supremacists as the most lethal category of domestic terrorism. From the murderous Boogaloo Boy-linked attacks in May and June, to the vehicle bomb detonated in downtown Nashville by an anti-government individual in December, to the shootings against law enforcement in Nevada and New York, anti-government extremism poses an escalating risk to national security.

Read the article by Dr Kristy Campion in Australian Outlook.