We don't know all the things about last year's January 6 assault on the Capitol. We don't know how many of the people who stormed the Capitol arrived in Washington with plans to do just that. We know some people planned the attack--I mean, you don't "just happen" to bring gallows to a peaceful demonstration--but we don't know how many. We know Donald Trump sat and watched things unfold, having stoked up the crowd and promised to march to the Capitol himself, we know Trump long cultivated a following among White supremacist terrorists, and we know that for hours he ignored pleas from his allies and his appointed officials to stop the violence, but we don't know whether he actually planned for the attack himself. We also don't know how many high level officials, some elected, or how many of Trump's close political advisors planned or facilitated the assault.
So there's a lot we don't know. But one thing we know absolutely and for sure: right-wing terrorists, many of them White nationalists, helped plan the attack and instigated it. As FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last year, January 6 was a terrorist attack on the United States.
And let us not forget Donald Trump's role in convening those terrorists, working up the larger crowd, and legitimating their actions. His political allies were closely tied to extremists on and around January 6. Proud Boys provided security for Roger Stone. Pretorians guarded Michael Flynn. Nor may we forget the role of elected Republicans in trying to erase the memory of those events.
We need to better understand there right-wing movements. They are diverse. Some of them are accelerationist: they want to create escalating waves of violence that will lead to civil war. Some of them are conspiracy nuts. Many are overt White supremacists. All are authoritarians.
I'd like to share five thought pieces that provide a deeper dive into the threat, how it constantly evolves, and why we should be alarmed.
Clint Watts is a national security expert who's been testifying before Congress for quite some time. Here's his analysis of how domestic extremism has been evolving.
Lawfare is a national security law think tank running with the Brookings Institution. Here's an account of why extremist groups are mixing and mingling even across sharp ideological differences.
Here's a New York Times story concerning a militant group, the First Amendment Praetorians, I'd never even heard of that was also involved in January 6.
Here's a CBC (Canadian public broadcasting) podcast concerning how accelerationist groups recruit, plot, and adapt. White Hot Hate.
Sociologists Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead analyzing the Christian nationalist dimension of the threat.
