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Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll

Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.

aaronbrethorst 6y ago
Far-right terrorism has been taken seriously as recently as 2009, but conservatives complained they were being treated unfairly and the efforts were abandoned. 2009 reporting: https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ 2012 update: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ 2017 update: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/21/i-warned-of-right-wing-violence-in-2009-it-caused-an-uproar-i-was-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/0... 2020 update: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism-warning-signs https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
neartheplain 6y ago
Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. That's not really true. Far-right terror was taken very seriously in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI hired 500 agents specifically to focus on domestic terrorism [0], particularly the then-new militia movement. Virtually every state and federal law enforcement agency established a domestic terror unit. Through continuous effort they'd pretty much quashed the militia movement by 2004, despite the shift of federal resources to the Global War on Terror post-9/11. However, far-right militias surged again in the Obama years [2]. (Much further back, U.S. Grant used the Army to crack down on the Klan [3]. Unfortunately, his successor Rutherford B. Hayes effectively ended Reconstruction and rolled back much of this progress.) [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1374356.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.c... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia91.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickro... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754/report-explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-and-militias-continues https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754... [3] https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm
- whoknew1122 6y ago
  I apologize for being imprecise. Far-right terrorism hasn't been taken seriously until a far-right terrorist actually commits violence. Then government is vigilant for a couple of years and goes back to ignoring them. Far-right terror was taken seriously after the OKC bombing. But the far-right terrorist threat had been steadily increasing for three years at that point. Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege contributed to a surge in far-right militias and other terrorist groups. It took someone driving a truck bomb and killing hundreds of people (in an attempt to spark a race war) to take far-right terrorism seriously.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    They took far right terrorism seriously in the 1870s. They more or less stamped out the (original) KKK while simultaneously giving the south the requisite autonomy to enact Jim Crow. Obviously Jim Crow doesn't square with our modern view but at the time the lack of some systemic way to keep the black people down was a serious grievance that a lot of people had. The government cracked down on the extremists who were starting to get off the porch while simultaneously extending an olive branch to the people who sympathized with them (and throwing black people under the bus in the process). The same thing happened in the civil rights era. When it looked like things might get serious the .gov caved to the MLK types to prevent the Malcom X types from gaining further sympathy from the masses. Fast forward to the 1990s and you get the ATF trilogy. Of course the magnitude of the problem was smaller than the KKK so the reaction and adjustments were smaller. On one hand the FBI cracked down on all the extremist groups (cue jokes about how the modern KKK is just a recreation club for FBI agents) but at the same time you'll notice that when the Bundy Ranch rolled around the feds didn't just shoot everyone and botch the thing as they would had they let historical precedent be their guide. Same pattern. Crackdown on the extremists while avoiding pissing off the moderate sympathizers. Likewise hundreds of cities are reconsidering how they allocate law enforcement and social services resources after the events of this summer while also (recently, like past month) starting to crack down on protests to prevent them from getting fiery. Same pattern. The overarching theme is pretty clear. The government never takes people's grievances seriously until there's a "real" threat of extremists getting off the porch and causing serious problems with a large body of sympathizers to back them up. In light of that it'll be interesting to see what if any long term changes come out of the whole capitol thing.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. Tell that to Ulysses S. Grant.
r00fus 6y ago
Rolled, and let go on bail? [1] Or just released with a stay-away-from-DC order? [2] The discrepancy between how BLM and white nationalists are treated is staggering. [1] https://apnews.com/article/arrests-florida-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-12f8f6baf702c3ce12026fd3705cf842 https://apnews.com/article/arrests-florida-nancy-pelosi-capi... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/14/judge-releases-larry-brock-seen-carrying-zip-ties-in-senate-despite-fbi-warning-he-could-commit-more-violence/?sh=5b6596b46b4f https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/14/judg...
- manfredo 6y ago
  There was a varied response to BLM riots. In my city, BLM demonstrators - or at least people purporting to be part of BLM - declared several city blocks an autonomous zone. The zone's security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). It took the city 3 weeks to clear out this zone, and it was done without lethal force. By comparison, the people occupying the Capitol were removed in a matter of hours including employing lethal force. The Capitol protests were met with more leniency than some BLM demonstrations, but less than others.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Worth mentioning that the only lethal force in the capitol was when they were breaching the barricades where (I think) VIPs were being guarded. That's lethal force in self-defense, not lethal force to clear out the protest.
  - pydry 6y ago
    >The zone's security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). There seem to be a lot of people who are absolutely certain that the security forces were responsible for this. The police aren't among their number, however, since they haven't detained, arrested or charged anyone. There was also another killing in the zone that was, iirc, erroneously blamed on the security forces.
    - 6y ago
Barrin92 6y ago
another thing that immediately came to mind after the capitol rioting was the standoff with Cliven Bundy and an article I saw a few years ago[1]. I even remembered that at the time there were people on Fox who were downplaying this as some sort of patriotic resistance against the government. Imagine if someone started a caliphate on US territory, I'm sure we'd be hearing the same kind of arguments /s "Cliven Bundy and sons cleared in case of 2014 armed standoff, a major defeat for the federal government that critics fear will empower far-right militia groups" [1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/08/bundy-family-charges-dropped-nevada-armed-standoff https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/08/bundy-family...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- aerosmile 6y ago
  You forgot to mention why the charges were dropped: > The judge declared a mistrial in December and ruled on Monday that prosecutors could not retry the case, arguing that the US attorney’s office had willfully withheld evidence and engaged in misconduct.
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    Somehow I don't think such consideration would have been extended to the Boston bombers, even with LE overreach on display for the whole country to see re: the search and entry tactics in Watertown et al.
- ryathal 6y ago
  The Bundy thing was 100% government needlessly escalating a matter, that should have been some lawyers negotiating a reasonable fees and promises to not intentionally graze on federal land. If that failed they simply could have arrested him driving in to town or some equally mundane action.
  - jki275 6y ago
    The government tried to negotiate with him for something like forty years. He had no intention of complying or paying any of his bills.
nostromo 6y ago
The rush to call the storming of the capitol terrorism is really misplaced. By adopting words like "terrorism" you're paving the way for an overreaching response from lawmakers and law enforcement -- something that will likely end up being used against a cause you might support, like BLM. Firstly, nobody was terrorized. No, this wasn't "our 9/11." I doubt it'll even be a topic of conversation in a few years, just like we don't talk about 1983 United States Senate bombing today at all. I have no doubt a few of the rioters really were planning terrible deeds and they should be prosecuted; the violence and property damage is inexcusable. But most of these people just seem to be caught up in the moment -- taking selfies and LARPing around the capitol after hours. What we need right now is de-escalation.
- vkou 6y ago
  The violence and property damage wasn't the problem. Democracies can survive some broken windows, stolen laptops, and yes, even people getting hurt and killed at a protest. This sort of thing has happened for decades and centuries. What they can't survive is groups of thugs that don't like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.
  - nostromo 6y ago
    > What they can't survive is... And yet, here we are, democracy intact.
    - lambda_obrien 6y ago
      Are we? Because to me there are huge cracks opening up. Death toll isn't the important part about terrorist attacks, it's the responses that count, and the response to this seems about the same or more extreme as 9/11 to me, and I lived through that on a military base. I don't remember 25k troops being deployed into DC for 9/11.
      - cmurf 6y ago
        And that was a foreign attack. 25000 national guard are in D.C. due to a domestic enemy, white nationalist American terrorists, making credible threats. It's self-evidently anti-Democratic. The last time this nation got into a dispute over an election where the minority decided to just set it aside and not submit to the result, resulted in the bloodiest revolution to date.
Romanulus 6y ago
Do you honestly call that an attack? Hate to sound harsh, but: https://imgur.com/a/KEt7pFD https://imgur.com/a/KEt7pFD
razakel 6y ago
>Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. The FBI, hardly a bastion of left-wingers, has been warning for decades that white supremacists have been attempting to infiltrate police and the military. When polled 25% of active-duty military personnel say they know at least one.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
> The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time. Here’s a post that basically says that. I think someone posted it here. https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488 https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-7...
vsareto 6y ago
>so hopefully they learned their lesson this time I might be cynical, but I think that will work just about as well as the first impeachment.
ttt0 6y ago
Did you ever read any actual FBI documents regarding extremism? Clearly not, I guess.

aaronbrethorst 6y ago

Far-right terrorism has been taken seriously as recently as 2009, but conservatives complained they were being treated unfairly and the efforts were abandoned. 2009 reporting: https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ 2012 update: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ 2017 update: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/21/i-warned-of-right-wing-violence-in-2009-it-caused-an-uproar-i-was-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/0... 2020 update: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism-warning-signs https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

neartheplain 6y ago

Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. That's not really true. Far-right terror was taken very seriously in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI hired 500 agents specifically to focus on domestic terrorism [0], particularly the then-new militia movement. Virtually every state and federal law enforcement agency established a domestic terror unit. Through continuous effort they'd pretty much quashed the militia movement by 2004, despite the shift of federal resources to the Global War on Terror post-9/11. However, far-right militias surged again in the Obama years [2]. (Much further back, U.S. Grant used the Army to crack down on the Klan [3]. Unfortunately, his successor Rutherford B. Hayes effectively ended Reconstruction and rolled back much of this progress.) [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1374356.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.c... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia91.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickro... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754/report-explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-and-militias-continues https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754... [3] https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm

whoknew1122 6y ago
I apologize for being imprecise. Far-right terrorism hasn't been taken seriously until a far-right terrorist actually commits violence. Then government is vigilant for a couple of years and goes back to ignoring them. Far-right terror was taken seriously after the OKC bombing. But the far-right terrorist threat had been steadily increasing for three years at that point. Ruby Ridge and the Waco Siege contributed to a surge in far-right militias and other terrorist groups. It took someone driving a truck bomb and killing hundreds of people (in an attempt to spark a race war) to take far-right terrorism seriously.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  They took far right terrorism seriously in the 1870s. They more or less stamped out the (original) KKK while simultaneously giving the south the requisite autonomy to enact Jim Crow. Obviously Jim Crow doesn't square with our modern view but at the time the lack of some systemic way to keep the black people down was a serious grievance that a lot of people had. The government cracked down on the extremists who were starting to get off the porch while simultaneously extending an olive branch to the people who sympathized with them (and throwing black people under the bus in the process). The same thing happened in the civil rights era. When it looked like things might get serious the .gov caved to the MLK types to prevent the Malcom X types from gaining further sympathy from the masses. Fast forward to the 1990s and you get the ATF trilogy. Of course the magnitude of the problem was smaller than the KKK so the reaction and adjustments were smaller. On one hand the FBI cracked down on all the extremist groups (cue jokes about how the modern KKK is just a recreation club for FBI agents) but at the same time you'll notice that when the Bundy Ranch rolled around the feds didn't just shoot everyone and botch the thing as they would had they let historical precedent be their guide. Same pattern. Crackdown on the extremists while avoiding pissing off the moderate sympathizers. Likewise hundreds of cities are reconsidering how they allocate law enforcement and social services resources after the events of this summer while also (recently, like past month) starting to crack down on protests to prevent them from getting fiery. Same pattern. The overarching theme is pretty clear. The government never takes people's grievances seriously until there's a "real" threat of extremists getting off the porch and causing serious problems with a large body of sympathizers to back them up. In light of that it'll be interesting to see what if any long term changes come out of the whole capitol thing.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. Tell that to Ulysses S. Grant.

r00fus 6y ago

Rolled, and let go on bail? [1] Or just released with a stay-away-from-DC order? [2] The discrepancy between how BLM and white nationalists are treated is staggering. [1] https://apnews.com/article/arrests-florida-nancy-pelosi-capitol-siege-12f8f6baf702c3ce12026fd3705cf842 https://apnews.com/article/arrests-florida-nancy-pelosi-capi... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/14/judge-releases-larry-brock-seen-carrying-zip-ties-in-senate-despite-fbi-warning-he-could-commit-more-violence/?sh=5b6596b46b4f https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/14/judg...

manfredo 6y ago
There was a varied response to BLM riots. In my city, BLM demonstrators - or at least people purporting to be part of BLM - declared several city blocks an autonomous zone. The zone's security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). It took the city 3 weeks to clear out this zone, and it was done without lethal force. By comparison, the people occupying the Capitol were removed in a matter of hours including employing lethal force. The Capitol protests were met with more leniency than some BLM demonstrations, but less than others.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Worth mentioning that the only lethal force in the capitol was when they were breaching the barricades where (I think) VIPs were being guarded. That's lethal force in self-defense, not lethal force to clear out the protest.
- pydry 6y ago
  >The zone's security forces subsequent killed several people (among them, ironically, an unarmed black 16 year old). There seem to be a lot of people who are absolutely certain that the security forces were responsible for this. The police aren't among their number, however, since they haven't detained, arrested or charged anyone. There was also another killing in the zone that was, iirc, erroneously blamed on the security forces.
  - 6y ago

Barrin92 6y ago

another thing that immediately came to mind after the capitol rioting was the standoff with Cliven Bundy and an article I saw a few years ago[1]. I even remembered that at the time there were people on Fox who were downplaying this as some sort of patriotic resistance against the government. Imagine if someone started a caliphate on US territory, I'm sure we'd be hearing the same kind of arguments /s "Cliven Bundy and sons cleared in case of 2014 armed standoff, a major defeat for the federal government that critics fear will empower far-right militia groups" [1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/08/bundy-family-charges-dropped-nevada-armed-standoff https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/08/bundy-family...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
aerosmile 6y ago
You forgot to mention why the charges were dropped: > The judge declared a mistrial in December and ruled on Monday that prosecutors could not retry the case, arguing that the US attorney’s office had willfully withheld evidence and engaged in misconduct.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  Somehow I don't think such consideration would have been extended to the Boston bombers, even with LE overreach on display for the whole country to see re: the search and entry tactics in Watertown et al.
ryathal 6y ago
The Bundy thing was 100% government needlessly escalating a matter, that should have been some lawyers negotiating a reasonable fees and promises to not intentionally graze on federal land. If that failed they simply could have arrested him driving in to town or some equally mundane action.
- jki275 6y ago
  The government tried to negotiate with him for something like forty years. He had no intention of complying or paying any of his bills.

nostromo 6y ago

The rush to call the storming of the capitol terrorism is really misplaced. By adopting words like "terrorism" you're paving the way for an overreaching response from lawmakers and law enforcement -- something that will likely end up being used against a cause you might support, like BLM. Firstly, nobody was terrorized. No, this wasn't "our 9/11." I doubt it'll even be a topic of conversation in a few years, just like we don't talk about 1983 United States Senate bombing today at all. I have no doubt a few of the rioters really were planning terrible deeds and they should be prosecuted; the violence and property damage is inexcusable. But most of these people just seem to be caught up in the moment -- taking selfies and LARPing around the capitol after hours. What we need right now is de-escalation.

vkou 6y ago
The violence and property damage wasn't the problem. Democracies can survive some broken windows, stolen laptops, and yes, even people getting hurt and killed at a protest. This sort of thing has happened for decades and centuries. What they can't survive is groups of thugs that don't like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.
- nostromo 6y ago
  > What they can't survive is... And yet, here we are, democracy intact.
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    Are we? Because to me there are huge cracks opening up. Death toll isn't the important part about terrorist attacks, it's the responses that count, and the response to this seems about the same or more extreme as 9/11 to me, and I lived through that on a military base. I don't remember 25k troops being deployed into DC for 9/11.
    - cmurf 6y ago
      And that was a foreign attack. 25000 national guard are in D.C. due to a domestic enemy, white nationalist American terrorists, making credible threats. It's self-evidently anti-Democratic. The last time this nation got into a dispute over an election where the minority decided to just set it aside and not submit to the result, resulted in the bloodiest revolution to date.

Romanulus 6y ago

Do you honestly call that an attack? Hate to sound harsh, but: https://imgur.com/a/KEt7pFD https://imgur.com/a/KEt7pFD

razakel 6y ago

>Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. The FBI, hardly a bastion of left-wingers, has been warning for decades that white supremacists have been attempting to infiltrate police and the military. When polled 25% of active-duty military personnel say they know at least one.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

> The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time. Here’s a post that basically says that. I think someone posted it here. https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-72bbfcb79488 https://arcdigital.media/qanon-woke-up-the-real-deep-state-7...

vsareto 6y ago

>so hopefully they learned their lesson this time I might be cynical, but I think that will work just about as well as the first impeachment.

ttt0 6y ago

Did you ever read any actual FBI documents regarding extremism? Clearly not, I guess.