The Threat From Within.

• Author: Byman, Daniel
• Position: Right-wing terrorism

When Brenton Tarrant gunned down fifty-one worshippers at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, he set off yet another alarm about the danger of terrorism on the right. A copycat attack followed in April, when a man with an AR-15 attacked the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California, murdering one worshipper and wounding several others. Tarrant himself had followed in the footsteps of Robert Bowers, who murdered eleven worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018, citing Jewish support for migrants entering the United States. And Bowers followed in the footsteps of Dylan Roof, who slaughtered nine black congregants at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. In the United Kingdom, a white supremacist assassinated Jo Cox, a Labour member of parliament who favored migrants--one right-wing group tweeted, "Only 649 MPS to go #WhiteJihad." Such attacks track with widespread reports that a record number of hate groups are active in the United States and images of mass demonstrations by white nationalists, like those in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where "Unite the Right" protesters marched en masse and then, the next day, one of the white supremacists drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one.

Whether right-wing terrorism is rising or simply getting more media attention is fiercely contested, but its political impact does indeed seem to be growing. In both the United States and Europe, violence on the right intersects with traditional politics and exacerbates political divides, giving it far more influence than it had in the past. In addition, it is increasingly international, drawing on a diverse set of influences, causes and players, including Russia. Events and grievances in Europe or the United States inspire action in other parts of the world and vice-versa, with social media providing the connective tissue among extremists who would otherwise not know of one another. At the same time, however, this movement is inchoate and far from robust. It is internally divided and thrives in part because so little has been done to impede it.

The United States and other countries can exploit right-wing groups' vulnerabilities and tackle the threat they pose. Many of these measures require treating them in the same fashion as jihadist groups. This would include designating their activities as terrorism, targeting their support structures and using their international connections against them. By reducing right-wing violence, and by also keeping pressure on jihadist groups whose violence feeds the right-wingers, the United States can reduce, though hardly eliminate, this phenomenon.

Assessing the true extent of and the danger posed by right-wing terrorism is difficult. As terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman points out in Inside Terrorism, right-wing groups in Europe have carried out sporadic attacks since the 1970s--in August 1980, neo-Nazis bombed a rail station in Bologna, Italy, during the height of summer holidays, killing eighty-four people. In 1995, Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government extremist, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. No single domestic attack in recent years has reached McVeighs bloody toll.

In recent years, hate crimes based on race, ethnicity, gender and religion have increased, but it is hard to know if this is a genuine trend or simply better reporting and collection. In addition, many hate crimes fall below the threshold of being a terrorist act. Data presented by scholar Jacob Aasland Ravndal indicate that despite recent high-profile attacks like those in Pittsburgh and New Zealand, deadly violence may have fallen in both the United States and Western Europe, in part due to the decline of the neo-Nazi movement, which often committed brutal but small-scale attacks on African Americans, immigrants and other targets. The conflation of robberies and other crimes committed by extreme right-wing groups with (violent) acts of terrorism causes another coding problem. In addition, the rise of anti-immigrant parties has allowed a peaceful, if intolerant, path for those who want to stop Muslims or others from entering their countries.

Another problem is that right-wing terrorism as a category is a bit murky. As Hoffman notes, right-wing terrorism has a reputation of "seemingly mindless 'street' violence" that targets immigrants and other foreigners in Europe. Moreover, while some favor Nazism or other political ideals, most do not espouse a specific program and prefer vague nationalist and racist slogans. For some it is simply an excuse "for the egocentric pleasure derived from brawling and bombing, preening or parading in 1940s-era Nazi regalia." European right-wing terrorism is usually secular, while American groups often try to draw on Christianity to justify their action.

Often, right-wing violence is mixed with "domestic" terrorism in a category, to contrast it with international terrorism like that practiced by Al Qaeda. The domestic label, however, can include...