After high-profile incidents of domestic terrorism, a familiar pattern has emerged. The discussion focuses on mental health, easy availability of weapons, and social media algorithms. Politicians offer “thoughts and prayers,” talk about taking action, and then much of the country soon returns to business as usual. The results have been tragic in Buffalo, N.Y., Pittsburgh, El Paso, Texas, and many other towns and cities that have dealt with mass shootings. Rhetoric and promises won’t solve the problem.
We have spent collectively four decades in domestic and international counterterrorism work and we believe the United States is vulnerable to the growing wave of domestic extremism — white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-government militias — in part because of outdated thinking, meek laws and myopic policies. This includes a passive approach to terrorist financing and a dearth of programs to address the root causes of extremism. Here are three steps that could stem the tide of domestic extremism.
First, combating domestic terrorism cannot remain simply the writ of the U.S. government. We need to empower nongovernmental sectors to assist in fighting domestic extremism. That’s not cheap, though, and it requires funding. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funded an academic and nonprofit organization program to create a novel, game-based curriculum that would educate and empower adolescents to become more aware and resistant to radicalization. Via the same funding stream, DHS provided the University of Illinois Chicago with support to reduce the risk of extremist violence perpetrated by youths struggling with mental health and psychosocial challenges. Specialists and other frontline practitioners were brought in to assist. Such programs are crucial because they seek to address the threat of extremism on the front end.
Public-private partnerships and a working relationship between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley could help make progress on the role of tech companies, social media sites, and gaming platforms that can fuel radicalization. The gunman charged with killing 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket in May live-streamed the attack, as other white supremacists have done. The video spread quickly, and with it, the possibility of further radicalization and recruitment. Large tech companies must do better. Congress should encourage these companies to do more and fund capacity-building efforts to improve smaller companies’ capabilities to fight extremism.
Second, regarding a form of domestic terrorism much different than mass shootings, the charges levied against members of the Oath Keepers — one of the groups that played a prominent role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection — and the creation of a new Department of Justice (DOJ) unit to address domestic terrorism are steps in the right direction. But there is still the glaring absence of a domestic terrorism statute. The next step is to pass a law that makes domestic terrorism a federal offense so that organized attacks by racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist groups, or those designed to intimidate civilians and influence the government, qualify as terrorism. The recent House passage of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act does not address the need for a specifically focused domestic terrorism law.
Scholars with the Brennan Center for Justice have argued that dozens of existing laws could be used to prosecute individuals engaged in domestic terrorism, but none of these laws is suited to tackle today’s threat. These laws often have little to do with terrorism and typically result in jail time that is far less than what a terrorist with overseas links would receive. A comprehensive domestic terrorism law could remedy this by placing someone such as Robert Bowers, who is accused of killing 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 after posting his hatred of immigrants and Jews online, on par with Omar Mateen, the ISIS-inspired terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in 2016. A new law could correct the imbalance between who is or isn’t considered a terrorist, something a new DOJ unit alone cannot achieve. A domestic terrorism statute could open up avenues for material support charges and provide federal law enforcement with resources they say they desperately need.
Third, the U.S. government must recognize the transnational nature of domestic extremism. There are numerous, well-documented links between groups operating in the United States and violent extremists operating abroad. A domestic terrorism statute could provide far more leverage to the FBI in mapping out and disrupting these networks, preventing plots before they become successful attacks. It also would put the U.S. on par with our allies abroad, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, which have sanctioned or proscribed extremist groups beyond just al Qaeda or the Islamic State.
The FBI has assessed that domestic extremists are the most likely to conduct mass-casualty attacks against civilians. The Jan. 6 Capitol breach ushered in a new reality regarding extremists in the United States. And sadly, recent racially and ethnically motivated shootings remind us there is much more work to do. We either meet such challenges head on or resign ourselves to apathy, hollow slogans and more carnage in America.
Colin P. Clarke is the director of research at the Soufan Group and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center. Follow him on Twitter @ColinPClarke.
Jason M. Blazakis is a professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center. Follow him on Twitter @Jason_Blazakis.