Politicians and experts called for confronting the phenomenon before it is too late
Biden and the West face threats from the far right
A woman posing as the Statue of Liberty wears a Kyu Anon movement shirt during a demonstration in Colombia on January 6, 2021.
Supporters of Trump hold banners with his slogans written on it.
Getty
A group of supporters of the far-right party in Germany (Alternative for Germany) during one of its election campaigns in 2019. Reuters
picture
In his inaugural speech, the new US President Joe Biden called for unity, identified an enemy, and cited the ills and dangers of nationalism nurtured by former President Donald Trump.
"(It's) a cry for racial justice, about 400 years ago, so we acted," Biden said, referring to the protests that swept the country over the summer: "A cry that couldn't be more desperate or clearer."
And now the rise of political extremism, white supremacy, and domestic terrorism, which we must confront and defeat. ”
He continued: «I know that the forces that divide us are deep and real, but I also know that they are not new.
Our history has known a continuous struggle between the American ideals, which state equality, and the cruel and ugly reality that has torn us apart for so long.
It is racism, hostility to immigrants, fear and demonization. ”
Biden said he felt compelled to run for president after Trump appeared to be defending those taking part in the 2017 march for white supremacy in Charlottesville.
Then this anger found a disturbing echo, when extremists from the extreme right stormed the US Capitol, about two weeks ago.
And some rioters, who sought to cancel the results of the electoral college, which gave Biden the victory, waved Confederation flags and extremist slogans.
Biden described them as "domestic terrorists."
New discussion
Years of Trump's rule have accelerated debate about the threat of right-wing extremism across Western democracies.
From New Zealand to the United States, via Germany, militants from the far right launched bloody terrorist attacks, and all of them did so motivated by immigrants and liberals.
In some cases, it is possible to draw a line from their extremism to Trump's hard-line rhetoric.
Despite the demonization of Trump and the right to Antiva, a disunited group of far-left activists, local data shows that the plots of the extreme right, or white supremacists, in the United States far outweigh those plotted by left-wing radicals, or anarchists, in 2020. American investigators say that the January 6 pro-Trump rally, which preceded the storming of the Capitol, was attended by well-known white extremists, some of whom were already on the FBI terror watchlists.
It appears that about one in five of the 140 accused, so far, of their involvement in the Capitol attack;
He served in the army, according to media reports.
Prior to Biden's inauguration, authorities removed 12 National Guard personnel, who were deployed to Washington, after discovering that some of them had sympathies or potential ties to anti-government groups.
Threat of nationalists
In Germany, the authorities have woken up over the past year to the threat of white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who are steadily infiltrating the country's security forces.
In July, the government dissolved an elite military unit because its commandos had suspected ties to the far right.
"There is an urgent need to take action," German Parliamentary Defense Commissioner Eva Hogel told reporters at the time, following up: "These threats have been underestimated, and they have not been taken seriously enough."
Among those who did not take the threat seriously enough were officials in the Trump administration, who appeared to ignore concerns about an emerging array of far-right, organized, transnational militant groups.
"Our requests to our American counterparts for legal aid and information exchange on far-right groups' issues are often unanswered," said a European intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, last summer.
Extreme behavior
There is a wide range of far-right behavior that is worrying analysts.
Aside from armed groups, such as militias that train in violence, the far-right crowd has joined forces with the "Kyu Anon" movement, a sprawling group of false allegations that has merged into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers.
Biden’s victory and Trump’s departure have hardly dampened enthusiasm among the Q Anon followers, according to Joel Finkelstein, a co-founder of the Network Counting Research Institute, a research group that studies disinformation online: “What we're seeing is a trend in The language is increasingly frightening, and talk of revolution has moved to talk of a collapse that looks like the end of civilization.
The phenomenon has already spread in Europe, where far-right protests erupted, during which the protesters echoed some of the strange beliefs of the US "Que Anon" movement.
"If there is any indication that US technology platforms have had an impact on international discourse in an unlimited way, this is it," says Anna Sophie Harling, director of NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation on the Internet, referring to protests. Right in Europe.
Global phenomenon
"Instead of treating right-wing extremism as isolated, narrow-minded incidents for certain countries, it is time to recognize it as a global and evolving phenomenon," wrote analyst Heather Ashby in Foreign Policy. "If the United States and the international community do not mobilize resources quickly. And Al-Ittihad is against this threat. They may lose an important opportunity to stop its spread. ”
She added that governments and societies need to invest in long-term media literacy projects to counter media misinformation.
The United States cannot censor or criminalize certain forms of hate speech as Europe does, although the Biden administration is expected to adopt a different policy with technology companies to deal with disinformation and the spread of extremism on social networks.
Many policy experts and lawmakers in Washington have called for a top-down approach to domestic terrorism, similar to what was mobilized against extremism in the aftermath of 9/11.
That worries critics, who fear that the United States is learning the wrong lessons, after years of making often draconian counterterrorism policies.
Those critical of the passage of a domestic terrorism law argue that there are, in fact, dozens of federal terrorism crime laws, hate crimes, and organized crime laws that can be applied to domestic acts of terrorism, and it is simply an administration that prioritizes domestic threats.
According to the Politico report, “More than 130 civil and human rights organizations have warned that creating a charge of domestic terrorism could be used as a means of ethnic profiling and targeting marginalized communities.
Ishan Tharoor is a columnist for "The Washington Post" and previously worked as an editor and reporter for "Time" magazine.
In Germany, the authorities have awakened over the past year to the threat of white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who are steadily infiltrating the country's security forces. In July, the government dissolved an elite military unit because its commandos had suspected ties to the far right.
There is a wide range of far-right behavior that is worrying analysts. Aside from armed groups, such as militias that train in violence, the far-right crowd has joined forces with the "Kyu Anon" movement, a sprawling group of false allegations that has merged into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers.
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