Americans are unwittingly being indoctrinated online by extremist groups just as the coronavirus pandemic makes them more susceptible to right- and left-wing radicalization, potentially leading to a surge of domestic attacks in coming years.
Domestic terrorism was named by the Department of Homeland Security’s acting Secretary, Chad Wolf, this week as a top national security concern. Private sector officials who study terrorism trends told the Washington Examiner that foreign extremists attempting to enter the United States are not as much the problem as homegrown terrorists.
“There’s a lot of legitimate cause of concern,” said Michael S. Smith II, terrorism analyst and Johns Hopkins University lecturer on global security and intelligence. “You have seen growing instances of right-wing extremists modeling behaviors that can have an effect of inspiring confidence in their sympathizers’ interest in perpetrating violent crimes against minority groups, as well as against people who don’t ascribe to their political beliefs.”
“When we see political leaders demonstrating an aversion to more aggressively speaking out against white conservative extremist elements, this can, meanwhile, have an effect on bolstering confidence in their causes among a wide array of known and obscure elements, raising from the KKK to the sorts of fringe groups that you’re seeing an increase of new media coverage of,” Smith said.
A far-left extremist group may see a physical attack by a far-right group that is not widely condemned as somehow legitimate, prompting the far-left group to “inspire a sense of urgency to act,” Smith said. The far-left group would then only have to convey to supporters that “they will have to do more to defend their interests against that group that is somehow being nurtured.”
The threat of a surge in domestic terrorism is not only from groups on the far-right, including the Boogaloo movement, QAnon, and 09A, and antifa and other groups on the Left that reject the government’s authority.
Hayley Peterson, who co-wrote a University of Albany study about terrorism amid the pandemic, said extremist groups already reside in the country unbeknownst to much of the public. The problem is that tensions between groups are growing as coronavirus-related problems increase, prompting some to look online for someone to blame, or for what they should believe.
“People that were not influenced by foreign terror organizations like ISIS become more susceptible to right- and left-wing extremist propaganda because people are frustrated,” said Smith. “We’re looking at a powder keg right now. There’s social, economic, and political frustration on both ends of the Left and Right.”
The deeper the country gets into the pandemic, and the longer the economy remains hurting while hundreds of millions feel shut in, the more vulnerable, normal people become frustrated by the government’s control of the public — an anger that is present in both the far-right and far-left movements, Smith said.
Both ends of the political spectrum similarly view the government as “illegitimate” — the far-left on the basis that corporations and the capitalist system control the feds, and on the far-right, because the government infringes on citizens’ freedoms, according to Gary Ackerman, professor at the New York-based University at Albany’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity.
Ackerman said the greatest danger from domestic terrorists will happen after the first wave of the coronavirus but before a vaccine is available, as well as the years following the pandemic, because of the lengthy economic stagnation that will make it easier for extremist groups to radicalize, recruit, and engage people. Some groups are already reaping the benefits of their recruitment efforts six months into the virus.
“Religious, nationalist extremists are using COVID and this time to expand, to get new followers, and radicalize. We’ve seen white nationalist websites traffic going up 100%,” said Ackerman. “You’ve got a lot of people who have anxiety. … They feel anxious and uncertain, and this makes them much more susceptible to narratives extremists put out.”
The job of law enforcement, predicting who perspective actors are, will become much more difficult in this emerging age of terrorism, he said.
