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extremism
What ICE's Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
We have arrived at a critical juncture in the history of this country and the world beyond, which is being buffeted by reactionary forces.
Jan 28, 2026
In principle, extremists primarily seek to harm people who do not share their race, religion, or nationality. In practice, they often harm the very people they claim to serve and protect, people with whom they share some supposedly sacred demographic.
Consider Minnesota, currently under siege by anti-immigrant extremists in the employ of the federal government, with ICE and CBP at the forefront. Immigrants have indisputably suffered the most from this program of harm, but we have seen a recent turn toward harming non-immigrants.
This change was starkly illustrated with the January 7 slaying of Renee Good by anti-immigration forces, which was followed by an escalating crackdown on protesters, observers, and people simply trying to go about their lives. On Saturday, January 24, ICE killed another Minnesotan, Alex Pretti, a registered nurse who worked to help veterans, who put his body between immigration officials and other citizens targeted for violence, as clearly seen in multiple videos of the slaying. Federal government agents are shown shooting Pretti in the back while he was pinned to the ground, immobilized, and disarmed.
It goes without saying that citizens and immigrants alike should be equally entitled to live with dignity and free of state violence, and it should be emphasized that citizens are not “more important” victims than immigrants. However, these recent attacks highlight an important dynamic and key vulnerability in any extremist movement.
Through their courage and solidarity, Minnesotans from all walks of life are asserting an authentic American identity based on inclusive ideals in the face of adversity and escalating violence.
To make sense of this, we must first discuss how and why extremists classify people according to their social identity. The broadest categories of identity are in-groups and out-groups. An in-group is the group to which one belongs, and an out-group is anyone excluded from that in-group. As defined in my MIT Press book on the subject, extremism is the belief that an in-group’s success or survival can never be separated from the need for hostile action against an out-group.
Enacting harm on out-groups is risky, difficult, and costly, so extremists almost always seek to make the task easier by enlisting the entire in-group. To understand how this works, it’s useful to break the in-group down into subcategories.
- The extremist in-group is a movement based on a demand to harm out-groups. Examples include Al-Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan.
- The eligible in-group is the category of people an extremist movement claims to represent and from which it seeks support. For Al-Qaeda, the eligible in-group is Sunni Muslims. For the KKK, the eligible in-group is white people.
In the extremist context, eligibility refers to the traits that make someone eligible for in-group membership. For instance, according to the KKK, light-colored skin is the minimum requirement for eligibility in the category of “white people.” But eligibility implies a counterpart: ineligibility. To continue with the same example, the most obviously ineligible people are members of an out-group, such as those with dark-colored skin.
But eligible in-groups often rebuke the extremists who claim to represent them, throwing the extremist movement’s legitimacy into crisis. If the extremist movement can’t persuade the eligible in-group to enact harm on out-groups, it may try to change the composition of the in-group by declaring that dissenters have forfeited the right to their in-group identity.
Extremist movements are at their most dangerous during times of uncertainty or upheaval.
The ineligible in-group thus consists of people who possess the canonical qualifications for membership but whose actions put them at risk of expulsion. In white supremacist extremism, for example, the ineligible in-group usually includes white people who have sexual relations with non-white people and are therefore subjected to even harsher treatment than the out-group. For instance, the infamous “Day of the Rope” massacre described in the neo-Nazi novel “The Turner Diaries” refers to the gruesome public execution of white “race traitors,” while racial out-group members are killed without fanfare “off camera.”
Extremist movements are at their most dangerous during times of uncertainty or upheaval, when group boundaries can be suddenly redrawn, with control of the in-group hanging in the balance. An extremist movement that hasn’t consolidated control of the in-group often declares war against “ineligible” dissenters. We saw this play out in the mid-2010s, when the Islamic State organization (IS) attempted to consolidate its control of a large swath of Iraq and Syria. Sunni Muslims who opposed IS control were massacred mercilessly under the principle “nine bullets for the traitors, one for the crusader.”
Disturbingly, we’re seeing the early stages of this dynamic right now in Minnesota, although we can hope it will not evolve into atrocities of the same scale. Anti-immigrant extremists in the U.S. federal government have increasingly menaced and used violence against dissenters and observers who are U.S. citizens — members of the in-group that the extremists claim to serve and protect. In addition to the Good and Pretti shootings, federal agents have roughed up and detained observers without provocation, and have repeatedly used pepper spray on peaceful gatherings, sometimes at close range and in violation of safe operation guidelines. In one horrific incident, a car full of children was exposed to tear gas while their parents tried to drive them home from a school event. The extremists continue to escalate their program of harm against the ineligible in-group, with no end in sight.
One of the most important ways extremists seek control of the eligible in-group is by exploiting the socially constructed nature of reality. The theory of social construction is popularly understood as “consensus reality,” and its premise is simple enough: The world is too big and complicated for people to experience in its entirety. We can only understand the world through consultation with trusted others, who tell us what happens out of our sight and help us determine right from wrong. Put simply, we can only understand the world in dialogue with others.
In-groups and out-groups come into play during social construction. We tend to trust people whose experience of life is most like our own, typically those with whom we share some concept of identity — anything from race and religion to neighborhood and nationality. When this normal instinct congeals into an excessive attachment to a specific identity and a mandate to harm people who don’t share that identity, it becomes extremism. Almost everything done by authoritarians and fascists (for whom extremism is an essential tool) can be understood as an effort to control the social construction of reality by amplifying selected in-group views and entirely suppressing the views of out-groups through methods that range from discrimination to segregation to genocide.
To this end, the current generation of anti-immigration extremists is navigating turbulent waters, in part because its coalition is complex and not exclusively focused on immigration writ large. The alliance includes often-overlapping categories of racists, antisemites, misogynists, homophobes, and transphobes, and the priorities of its factions are not always aligned. This increasingly fractious coalition is ill-equipped to face down an increasingly cohesive coalition of Americans united by anger that our nation’s peace, progress, and safety have been intentionally undermined.
Minnesotans are courageously demonstrating this unity, mobilizing to defend neighbors whose race or national origin puts them at risk. In the process, they are communicating a strong in-group consensus to their persecutors by turning out in large numbers and loudly asserting their condemnation through shouting, blowing whistles, giving sermons, honking horns, posting signs, and painting graffiti. These expressions of in-group disapproval can help defuse the psychological drivers of violence and undermine competing narratives and political power structures that seek to validate an extremist orientation and the repressive tactics that it justifies.
In a globalized media environment like America’s, the in-group is never just local. People around the country can support Minnesotans using many of the same tactics — by speaking out and showing up in large numbers, both online and offline, as so many have already done. In conjunction — and perhaps even more importantly — we can fight the tide of hate by demanding that institutions, including politicians and the media, recognize the severity of the current crisis in American democracy and respond proportionately.
Those institutions are critically important precisely because America’s consensus reality is, again, too big and too diverse to observe directly. You could spend your entire life talking to Americans and still understand only a tiny fragment of the American experience. For in-groups larger than a neighborhood, the consensus is therefore described and defined by institutions and individuals in journalism, politics, and the arts. These portraits of the in-group consensus are distributed through traditional and new media platforms, and none of them are neutral.
The winner of this struggle will define what values the American in-group stands for, perhaps for generations to come.
It is no accident that the purveyors of hate have moved to take control of major news and social media platforms through a combination of money and pressure tactics, and to discredit and defund those they can’t control. In some cases, these platforms have been bought outright and subjected to blunt and obvious manipulation. In other cases, reporters have succumbed to flawed journalistic conventions, such as providing “both sides” of every controversy with equal weight, even when one side is obviously lying or otherwise detached from reality. This practice misleads the public by inflating the extremists’ appearance of strength and credibility under the guise of “balance.” (Imagine news programs inviting a flat-earth believer to weigh in whenever the subject of the globe comes up. That’s what happens now when the topic is immigration or vaccines.)
The in-group consensus can never be determined with perfect objectivity. The tools for measuring it, such as polls, are complex and subject to bias. Even if polls were perfectly composed and executed, they would still be open to wildly divergent interpretations. Look through the archives and ask which presidents won “with a mandate” over the last 100 years. Then compare their vote counts.
In other words, the consensus is won through perception. And when an authority figure, an institution, or an algorithm creates the perception that extremists are winning, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. People have a well-documented tendency to justify the legitimacy of the status quo as they perceive it.
Although we can reject those who would assign us to an out-group or an ineligible in-group, we cannot assume that our voices will be acknowledged. If America is to climb out of this era of rage and hate, those who stand against the extremist wave cannot just show up and expect to be counted. They must loudly demand their voices be acknowledged in every setting and institution of civic life, from business to politics, from news to the creative arts. With every death at the hands of anti-immigrant extremists, this assertion becomes more necessary and potentially more powerful.
Even so, a winning narrative or communication strategy may not be enough to defeat those who seek to control the in-group consensus using state violence. If the extremists can’t persuade the ineligible in-group to surrender, they will seek to intimidate and perhaps kill its members, an escalation that is now well underway. That is why the eligible in-group must defend its relevance with all available methods, including the courts, the ballot box, mutual aid, and more. Justice must be pursued, regardless of whether accused murderers wear a badge. And all of these in-group actions will build and reinforce support and mobilization networks that will be sorely needed before this is over.
We’ve arrived at a critical juncture in the history of this country and the world beyond, which is being buffeted by the same reactionary forces. The winner of this struggle will define what values the American in-group stands for, perhaps for generations to come. Through their courage and solidarity, Minnesotans from all walks of life are asserting an authentic American identity based on inclusive ideals in the face of adversity and escalating violence. For those values to prevail, we must stand together in their defense.
This piece was originally published by The MIT Press Reader and appears here at Common Dreams with permission.
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Vance Faces Backlash Over Embrace of Germany's Far-Right Just Ahead of Election
Rebuking the U.S. vice president, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that "a commitment to 'never again' is not reconcilable with support for the AfD."
Feb 15, 2025
U.S. Vice President JD Vance faced growing backlash on Saturday after scolding the European political establishment for shunning far-right parties and subsequently meeting with the leader of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, just a week ahead of the country's general election.
While Vance did not explicitly mention Alternative for Germany, or AfD, during his remarks Friday at the Munich Security Conference, he declared that "there is no room for firewalls"—a reference to mainstream German political parties' refusal to work with AfD or include it in governing coalitions.
The Guardian reported that "a whisper of 'Jesus Christ' and the squirming in chairs could be heard in an overflow room" during the U.S. vice president's remarks, which he delivered a week after hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Munich to protest far-right extremism.
Following his speech, Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel, who praised the vice president's Munich address as "excellent" in a post on X—a social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for AfD as he works to dismantle agencies throughout the U.S. government.
Reuters reported that Weidel—whose grandfather was a Nazi judge appointed directly by Adolf Hitler—met with Vance at his hotel "for about 30 minutes and discussed the Ukraine war, German domestic policy, and freedom of speech."
Vance was the highest-ranking U.S. official to ever meet with the leader of the AfD, which is seen as the most extreme of Europe's far-right parties.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked Vance and said that "we will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy," even "friends and allies."
"Never again fascism, never again racism, never again aggressive war," Scholz said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference. "That is why an overwhelming majority in our country opposes anyone who glorifies or justifies criminal National Socialism."
"A commitment to 'never again' is not reconcilable with support for the AfD," said Scholz.
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The Third Manifesto: A Tale of Two Terrorists
The FBI now apparently decides, not only what is or isn’t “terrorism,” but what is or isn’t evil. Why? Because its power and autonomy grow when the public is fearful of “the Other.”
Jan 21, 2025
On New Years’ Eve, two men reportedly committed public acts of violence: a mass murder in New Orleans and an explosion in Las Vegas. Both alleged perpetrators served in the military. Both had troubled personal lives. Both issued makeshift “manifestos”; one through video recordings, the other through emails and social media. And both fit the federal government’s definition of a “terrorist.” But one was white and seemingly Christian by background; the other was Black and Muslim. Therein hangs a tale.
The discourse regarding these two men can be read as a “third manifesto”—a subtle but fiercely ideological statement from a cabal of overlapping interests seeking to manipulate public opinion.
The Acts
Shamsud-Din Jabbar reportedly stated that the Bourbon Street attack, which left a horrifying toll of dead and injured, was motivated by extremism. “I joined ISIS,” Jabbar reportedly said. For that reason, Jabbar’s alleged crimes match the FBI’s definition of “international terrorism”:
Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations...
Matthew Livelsberger allegedly exploded a Tesla truck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, injuring seven people. His weapon was a “moving vehicle improvised explosive device” (MVIED). Thankfully, no one was killed, but they certainly could have been.
Since Livelsberger provided a political motive for his action, it matches the FBI’s definition of what it calls “domestic terrorism”:
Violent, criminal acts… to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
And yet, only one of these two men was called a terrorist in the media.
Two Terrorists
Here are two New York Times “human interest” headlines about Jabbar:
- ‘I Joined ISIS’: The New Orleans Attacker’s Secret Radicalization
- ‘No Terrorist to Me’: Relatives and Friends Saw Few Signs Before Attack
Both articles take it as a given that Jabbar is a terrorist.
Here are two Times headlines about Livelsberger:
- Soldier in Tesla Blast Had PTSD and Feared U.S. ‘Collapse,’ Officials Say
- Soldier’s Struggles Began Long Before Las Vegas Blast, Nurse Says
The contrast couldn’t be plainer. The human-interest angle on Jabbar is, “What made him a terrorist?” For Livelsberger it’s, “What suffering caused him to do such a thing?”
“Secret Radicalization”
The subheader for the Times’ “secret radicalization” article cites “Jabbar’s growing discontent with American society and increasing isolation even within his local Muslim community.” (Italics mine.) One relative told the Times that Jabbar and his brothers lived largely secular lives. “I don’t think I ever heard the word Allah said,” the relative said.
The word “even” is doing a lot of work here, suggesting that Jabbar’s pathology is linked to his Muslim-ness. But the article describes Jabbar as an “outcast” among “fellow believers.”
Nobody the Times interviewed had ever seen him praying in congregation, even after he reportedly became radical. That raises a question: How Muslim was Jabbar, exactly? Congregational prayer is obligatory for practicing Muslims. Its absence should have raised a question: Was he really motived by his religious beliefs, as they suggest? Or, was he driven by something else, like stress, mental illness, or other factors—the forces that the media used to explain Livelsberger’s actions?
Financial crimes kill. But that kind of terror doesn’t get much headline coverage,
“Increasing isolation, even in the Muslim community,” they wrote. It’s not clear, however, how much he even belonged to that community.
Coverage of Jabbar hints at other motives, if you look hard enough. CNN reports that Jabbar’s videos expressed rage over his recent divorce. He had financial woes, declaring in court that he couldn’t keep up his mortgage payments. He reportedly said he’d planned to kill his family before deciding to stage an attack in ISIS’ name instead. That sounds less like ideology and more like pathology.
It also seems like a relatively recent development. A friend of Jabbar’s told The Associated Press:
I did anti-terrorism in the military. And if any red flags would have popped off, I would have caught them and I would have contacted the proper authorities.
It is confirmed that Jabbar belonged to at least one criminal organization. He was a former employee of Deloitte, the international finance and consulting conglomerate. Deloitte has paid more than a quarter-billion dollars ($283,797,673) for government-contracting, financial fraud, and employment-related offenses since the year 2000.
Financial stress causes physical harm to millions of Americans every year. People with money problems are up to 20 times likelier to attempt suicide.
Financial crimes kill. But that kind of terror doesn’t get much headline coverage.
The Hero
Livelsberger got the benefit of doubt that was denied to Jabbar. Law enforcement set the tone, as when the local sheriff told reporters:
Am I comfortable calling it a suicide mission? I’m comfortable calling it a suicide, with a bombing that occurred immediately thereafter.
The next day, FBI Special Agent In Charge Spencer Evans explicitly denied that Livelsberger’s act was political. Rather, Evans said, the explosion “ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues.”
That’s nothing short of bizarre. The FBI already had communications from Livelsberger calling for an armed uprising against the United States government. They included explicit instructions for a violent right-wing revolt:
- “Military and vets move on D.C. starting now. Militias facilitate and augment this activity.”
- “Occupy every major road along fed buildings and the campus of fed buildings by the hundreds of thousands.”
- “Lock the highways around down with semis right after everybody gets in. Hold until the purge is complete.”
- “Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary. They all must go and a hard reset must occur for our country to avoid collapse.”
But law enforcement chose the message: Livelsberger was a suffering hero, not a terrorist. Contrast that with its treatment of Jabbar, who a senior FBI official said was “100% inspired” by ISIS. “This was an act of terrorism,” he said. “It was premeditated and an evil act.”
The FBI now apparently decides, not only what is or isn’t “terrorism,” but what is or isn’t evil. Why? Because its power and autonomy grow when the public is fearful of “the Other”—a definition that, in today’s society, matches Jabbar’s profile but not Livelsberger’s.
The media follow its lead, but why? To appease government sources, especially under a new administration? Because they don’t dare describe right-wing violence as “terrorism”? Because the “hero” angle makes better copy? Because America idolizes its highly-trained killers? Because Livelsberger was white and not Muslim?
Perhaps it was all of the above.
The Third Manifesto
“I have joined ISIS,” Jabbar reportedly said. “Purge,” ”fight,” “ “by any means necessary,” Livelsberger reportedly said. If Jabbar was “secretly radicalized,” so was Livelsberger.
Matthew Livelsberger served in Afghanistan under traumatizing circumstances. He deserved the best care his nation could provide. Know who else served in Afghanistan? Shamsud-Din Jabbar. Don’t feel badly if you didn’t know; it hasn’t gotten much coverage.
Were these men terrorists, damaged souls, or both?
The fact that both alleged perpetrators were ex-military is important. Service in the United States military is the single greatest predictor of extremist, mass-casualty violence.
Not mental illness. Not “Islamism.” Not previous criminal history. U.S. military service is the greatest predictor—and it’s getting worse.
That’s something we’re really not supposed to think about. But we should—not to judge or condemn those who serve, but to understand them, to provide better care, and to minimize the chance of more violence in the future.
“Terrorism” is an ideologically freighted word. If we must use it, we must be consistent. Its selective application here serves as an invisible “manifesto,” one that’s scrawled across our public discourse in invisible ink. It declares that Muslims are the enemy while White right-wing extremists are safe, comfortable, “us.”
Were these men terrorists, damaged souls, or both? I’m not wise enough to judge. But I do know that a just society would judge them fairly, and that a free society needs an honest media—one that provides its citizens with more information and less manipulation.
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Progressives Slam 'Extremist' Plans of Project 2025 Architect Tapped for Key Trump Post
Russell Vought, Trump's pick to head the White House Office of Management and Budget, was questioned by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee during a Wednesday confirmation hearing.
Jan 15, 2025
As a U.S. Senate committee held a confirmation hearing for Russell Vought—Republican President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the White House Office of Management and Budget—progressive critics underscored what they called the extremism of the controversial nominee, who played a key role in crafting a proposed initiative to expand executive power and purge the federal civil service.
Vought—who was questioned Wednesday by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee—served as both acting director and director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during Trump's first term. He currently leads the think tank Center for Renewing America, whose motto is "For God. For Country. For Community."
The defender of Christian nationalism recently co-authored the policy portion of Project 2025, which includes dramatic cuts to critical public programs, abolishing or gutting essential government agencies, a national abortion ban, and a litany of additional far-right wish list items. While Trump has tried to distance himself from the deeply unpopular proposal, at least 140 people who worked in his first administration—including six former Cabinet secretaries—have been involved with Project 2025.
Tapped to oversee an agency that plays a key role in managing civil servants, Vought was secretly recorded saying he wants government officials to be "traumatically affected" by his reforms "because they are increasingly viewed as the villains."
Debra Perlin, policy director at the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility in Washington, submitted written testimony to the Senate committee in which she warned that "should he be confirmed, it is abundantly clear that Mr. Vought intends to misuse his authority as director of OMB to harm civil servants, and as a result, endanger the American public."
Perlin continued:
During his tenure as OMB acting director and then director from January 2019 to January 2021, Mr. Vought was a central figure in attempting to implement Schedule F, President Trump's executive order that would have upended the merit-based civil service system by stripping employment protections away from thousands of career civil servants had President [Joe] Biden not rescinded it. Mr. Vought has called for reinstating Schedule F and was a key architect of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's sweeping—and wildly unpopular—conservative policy plan that advocates for dismantling the civil service. If Schedule F is reinstated, it would not only harm federal employees but would also cause catastrophic harm to government services, as well as causing deep economic impacts in places with significant populations of government workers including California, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., among others.
In addition to Mr. Vought's intention to dismantle the civil service, he has pushed extreme strategies to consolidate presidential power under the banner of "radical constitutionalism." He supports the president withholding congressionally appropriated funds in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, bypassing the advice and consent of the Senate to push recess appointments, invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military on the American public, and abusing emergency powers. These plans to expand presidential power are even more troubling taken with Mr. Vought's stated desire to reduce the independence of federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, in part by purging agencies of career civil servants that are seen as standing in the way of the president's agenda. Mr. Vought has called for "an army of investigators" to prosecute current and former government officials who sought to hold President Trump accountable.
"These are just some of the ways Mr. Vought intends to misuse his own authority and craft plans for the president to subvert the law and, in the process, American democracy," Perlin added.
In a statement coinciding with Wednesday's hearing, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said: "Vought has no business going back to OMB. His extreme ideological opposition to regulations that protect consumers, workers, our environment, and public health and safety will lead to more deregulatory disasters that harm all of us."
"He wants to slash funding for critical government agencies and services, interfere with agencies that are supposed to be politically independent, exclude the benefits of regulation from cost-benefit analysis, and fire vast numbers of civil service employees simply for doing their jobs," Gilbert added. "In addition, he abused his power during his last tenure at OMB to override agency experts, repeatedly endangering public health and safety. The Senate should reject this dangerous and extreme nomination."
Congressman Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), founder of the Stop Project 2025 Task Force, said Wednesday that "we don't have to guess if Russ Vought will enact the radical vision laid out in Project 2025 if he is confirmed, because he literally wrote the playbook and his record shows that he will stop at nothing to enact it."
"He is a self-avowed Christian nationalist who plans to dismantle the civil service—replacing thousands of qualified, nonpartisan federal employees such as scientists and engineers with political lackeys who will be selected to follow partisan orders above the law or the Constitution," the lawmaker continued. "He has vowed to ignore the Constitution by seizing unlawful power for Trump to unilaterally withhold or redirect funds for entire agencies or programs that Congress appropriated."
"His aggressive plan to gut checks and balances clears the way for Trump to enact his entire Project 2025 agenda to sell out the middle class, threaten personal rights and freedoms, and impose biblical morality codes on all of us," Huffman added. "We cannot take that risk and let this authoritarian architect of Project 2025 anywhere near the federal budget or the Oval Office."
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The Dangerous Art of 'Sane-Washing': Lessons From the Walz-Vance Debate
By couching controversial ideas in the language of moderation and common sense, politicians can make even the most radical departures from the status quo seem like natural, logical steps.
Oct 03, 2024
In the wake of the recent vice presidential debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, political commentators have been abuzz with praise for Vance's performance. Many have both lauded and critiqued his ability to "sane wash" the extremist positions of his running mate, former U.S. President Donald Trump, presenting them in a more palatable, even respectable light. This phenomenon, while concerning in its own right, reveals a deeper and more insidious problem within our political discourse—one that extends far beyond the bounds of the Republican ticket.
The Illusion of Moderation
JD Vance, the bestselling author turned venture capitalist turned politician, took to the debate stage with a clear mission: to repackage the Trump agenda in a way that would appeal to a broader audience. Gone were the inflammatory rhetoric and bombastic declarations that have become Trump's hallmark. In their place, Vance offered measured tones, appeals to compassion, and a veneer of reasonableness that seemed designed to make even the most controversial policies sound sensible.
On issues ranging from gun control to abortion rights, Vance demonstrated a remarkable ability to soften hard-line positions. When pressed
on gun violence, for instance, he spoke eloquently about the pain of victims' families while offering little in the way of substantive policy changes. His approach to abortion rights was similarly evasive, distancing himself from previous statements supporting a national ban while framing the issue in terms of supporting mothers.
Vance's measured tone and appeals to shared values made it all too easy to forget the often extreme positions he was defending.
This strategy of "sane-washing"—presenting extreme positions in a more moderate light—is not new. However, Vance's skillful execution of it has drawn particular attention. Many observers have praised his debate performance as a masterclass in political communication, noting how he managed to make the Trump-Vance ticket seem more reasonable and mainstream than it has in the past.
But while Vance's ability to reframe contentious issues may be impressive from a purely tactical standpoint, it raises serious concerns about the nature of political discourse and the ease with which potentially harmful policies can be dressed up as common sense solutions.
The Centrist Playbook
What many critics of Vance's performance have failed to recognize, however, is that his approach is not unique to the political right. In fact, the strategy of "sane-washing" has long been a staple of centrist politics, employed by both liberals and conservatives to make policies that support free-market capitalism and the military-industrial complex appear "reasonable," "evidence-driven," and "moderate."
This centrist playbook has been used time and again to justify interventionist foreign policies, austerity measures, and the gradual erosion of social safety nets. By framing these positions in terms of fiscal responsibility, national security, or economic necessity, centrist politicians have long managed to present policies that often disproportionately harm the most vulnerable members of society as necessary evils or even positive goods.
The danger of this approach lies in its effectiveness. By couching controversial ideas in the language of moderation and common sense, politicians can make even the most radical departures from the status quo seem like natural, logical steps. This has the effect of shifting the entire political spectrum, making previously unthinkable positions seem reasonable by comparison.
In the case of the Walz-Vance debate, we saw this dynamic play out in real-time. Vance's measured tone and appeals to shared values made it all too easy to forget the often extreme positions he was defending. His ability to present Trump's immigration policies, for instance, as simple common sense measures to protect American workers and communities obscured the often harsh and divisive realities of these approaches.
The Dangers of False Moderation
The art of political sane-washing, as demonstrated by JD Vance and countless centrist politicians before him, is a powerful tool. It can make the unpalatable seem reasonable, the extreme seem moderate. In the end, the greatest danger may not be the openly extreme positions that shock us into action, but the quietly radical ideas presented as common sense that lull us into complacency.
This is particularly concerning in an era of increasing political polarization and economic inequality. As the gap between the wealthiest and poorest members of society continues to widen, and as issues like climate change and systemic racism demand urgent and transformative action, the last thing we need is a political discourse that makes maintaining the status quo seem like the most reasonable option.
Collective action serves as the cornerstone for replacing the illusory sanity of the current political landscape with policies that are truly sane.
As this debate fades into memory and the election season progresses, the imperative becomes clear: Progress necessitates more than merely exposing the facade of "common sense" extremism. It requires the cultivation of radical movements capable of articulating and advocating for genuinely transformative change. These movements must emerge from grassroots organizing, uniting diverse communities, labor unions, environmental activists, and social justice advocates. Together, they can forge a vision of society that transcends the narrow boundaries of current political discourse.
The mission of these movements extends beyond challenging the status quo. They must present bold, innovative solutions to pressing societal issues. Their role is to imagine and demand a world where economic justice, racial equity, environmental sustainability, and authentic democracy are not abstract ideals but tangible realities. By building power from the ground up and amplifying marginalized voices, these movements can begin to redefine the limits of political possibility.
Collective action serves as the cornerstone for replacing the illusory sanity of the current political landscape with policies that are truly sane. This means prioritizing human needs and planetary health over profit and power. It involves creating systems that promote equality, ensure sustainability, and enhance overall societal well-being. These are not utopian dreams, but necessary steps towards a more just and liveable world.
In the face of political rhetoric that makes extreme positions appear reasonable, the answer lies in building movements that make truly reasonable positions into reality. This is the challenge and the opportunity that lies ahead—to transform the political landscape not through clever repackaging of harmful ideas, but through the hard work of creating and implementing policies that actually address the root causes of societal problems. Only then can the promise of a more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous society for all be realized.
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New UK Definition of 'Extremism' Called Attack on Right to Dissent
"The government should recognize that real British values involve defending the rights of all political opponents to speak freely and openly," said one advocate.
Mar 14, 2024
Coming weeks after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed the United Kingdom is in danger of "mob rule... replacing democratic rule," a new definition of "extremism" published by the government on Thursday was viewed by one rights advocate as a "smash and grab" on the right to protest, among other freedoms.
The Conservative government updated the definition of the word under its anti-extremism agenda, known as Prevent. The government will now treat as extremism "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs."
"The government will undertake a robust process to assess groups for extremism against the definition, which will then inform decisions around government engagement and funding," said a public notice from Michael Gove, Sunak's secretary of state for leveling up, housing, and communities.
The government is expected to release a list in the coming weeks of groups it deems as in violation of the new definition of extremism.
The U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve warned that "placing the power to define who is and who is not 'extreme' in the hands of a single cabinet minister is a nakedly political gesture which purports to defend liberal democracy but is fundamentally illiberal and undemocratic."
The notice was published amid widespread outcry over the U.K.'s support for Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza, where the Israel Defense Forces have killed at least 31,341 Palestinians since last October.
Tens of thousands of Britons marched through London over the weekend, demanding that Sunak push Israel to declare an immediate and permanent cease-fire and to condemn the prime minister's recent comments, in which advocates said "support of the Palestinian cause" had been conflated "with extremism."
"I am here to support Palestine, to call for an end to the genocide, and to call out the double standards of our government," one protester, Sundari Anitha, told The Guardian on Saturday. "They are widening the concept of extremism to attack the right of people to protest. I'm here both to defend the rights of Palestinian people and also my freedom to criticize my government."
Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive officer of Amnesty International U.K., noted on Thursday that the government's Prevent program has also been marked by the 2023 Public Order Act, which expanded the definition of a "serious disruption" by protesters and imposed penalties of up to 12 months in prison.
"From the prime minister's disturbing Downing Street speech earlier this month, the introduction of further anti-protest measures, and now the expansion of the extremism definition, it looks as if the government is set on shrinking the space for dissenting views and the right to protest," said Deshmukh. "An overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement seeking an end to Israel's mass killing of civilians in Gaza is being used by ministers to clamp down on our civil liberties—the irony is crushing and frightening."
He continued:
This attempt to stigmatize legitimate, peaceful political activity is taking us further down the road toward authoritarianism.
In any democracy worth the name, nonviolent political activity should be protected and even celebrated as a sign that a country respects human rights and differing opinions.
[...]
The government should recognize that real British values involve defending the rights of all political opponents to speak freely and openly.
Deshmukh said Amnesty has found in its research that "legitimate political activity" is already being referred to the government under the Prevent program.
"If criminality among certain groups or organizations is suspected, we already have a host of laws to deal with this," he said. "Today's announcement is a dangerous gimmick and this whole enterprise should be abandoned."
Other critics of the government's new focus on so-called "extremism" include Peter Hain, a member of the Labour Party and the House of Lords, and Member of Parliament Diane Abbott.
"I think it's an appalling direction to go down and [the definition] could probably have been applied to the suffragettes in their day, who were equally vilified, spat at, hated, and treated very badly by the police and the authorities," Hain told The Guardian on Sunday.
LGBTQ+ rights campaigner Peter Tatchell noted that "British values" in the past have included "slavery, colonialism, homophobic discrimination, and the denial of votes to women and working-class people."
"Broadening the definition of extremism risks criminalizing peaceful protests by legitimate groups," he told The Guardian.
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Outrage over Bigotry, Islamophobia in Wall Street Journal & New York Times
'These outlets should apologize publicly & diversify their staff & perspectives to meet their ethical and moral obligations as journalists.'
Feb 04, 2024
The nation's leading newspapers were under fire this weekend after publishing opinion pieces seen as "Bigoted," "Islamophobic," "Racist," and "Reckless."
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Friday afternoon read 'Welcome to Dearborn, America's Jihad Capital.'
And on Saturday, The New York Times published a piece by long-time columnist Thomas Friedman titled "Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom."
Dearborn, Michigan, a city with the largest Muslim population in the US, has increased its police presence, fearing hate attacks after the Wall Street Journal branded it America's 'jihad capital.'
The Islamaphobic article was written by Steven Stalinsky, who is a commentator on' terrorism' and has served as executive director of the pro-Israel Middle East Media Research Institute based in Washington, DC.
The mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah H. Hammoud, said Saturday that the city's police officers were ramping up their presence across places of worship and major infrastructure points following the publication of Stalinsky's piece that he called "bigoted" and "Islamophobic." The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee condemned the piece as anti-Arab and racist for suggesting the city's residents, including religious leaders and politicians, supported Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and extremism.
In response to the Wall Street Journal piece, President Joe Biden tweeted Sunday afternoon:
"Americans know that blaming a group of people based on the words of a small few is wrong. That’s exactly what can lead to Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate, and it shouldn’t happen to the residents of Dearborn – or any American town. We must continue to condemn hate in all forms."
Shortly after Biden's tweet went out, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer tweeted:
"Dearborn is a vibrant community full of Michiganders who contribute day in and day out to our state. Islamophobia and all forms of hate have no place in Michigan, or anywhere. Period."
Friedman's piece in the New York Times entitled, "Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom," posited Iran as a metaphorical "parasitoid wasp" with proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria as caterpillars. Friedman claimed, "We have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle," suggesting that the US militarily destroys the entire Middle East to annihilate Iran and its allies. He concluded that he could "contemplate" the Middle East by watching Animal Planet.
Abed A. Ayoub, Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, tweeted:
"Go ahead and say this about any other people and see the reaction - @tomfriedman would be fired before the ink dries. This election season kickoff is a reminder that anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia are mainstream. That’s why this trash is acceptable to so many, and there will be no accountability."
Erin Overby, former Archive Editor at The New Yorker, tweeted:
"This @nytimes column by Thomas Friedman comparing countries in the Middle East to animals, pests & insects is so virulently racist it could have run in Der Sturmer or on Radio Rwanda pre-‘94 genocide. It’s appallingly offensive & Friedman should be fired."
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Warnings Grow That US Media Again Failing to Accurately Cover Trump's Fascist Threat
"If it wasn't already clear, our democracy is in very serious danger."
Nov 13, 2023
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is the GOP front-runner for 2024, setting up an expected rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden, but American media coverage of the Republican's campaign is already showing that many journalists didn't learn important lessons about how to report on his extremism, according to recent analyses.
During a Saturday rally, Trump pledged to "root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible—they'll do anything, whether legally or illegally—to destroy America and to destroy the American dream."
"The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left, and it's growing every day, every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within," added Trump—who currently faces four criminal cases, two of which relate to his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.
As Common Dreams reported, Trump's openly fascistic comments on Saturday quickly drew comparisons to Nazi rhetoric, particularly the use of the word "vermin."
"The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win."
"This is straight-up Nazi talk, in a way he's never done quite before. To announce that the real enemy is domestic and then to speak of that enemy in subhuman terms is Fascism 101. Especially that particular word," The New Republic editor Michael Tomasky wrote Sunday, referencing some antisemitic content from the 1930s and '40s.
"Trump's rats are a much broader category," Tomasky continued, "and in that sense an even more dangerous one—he means whoever manages to offend him while exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to register dissent and to criticize him."
And yet, as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch emphasized Sunday, "in one of the most perilous moments of crisis the world has seen in 75 years, and with the basic notions of free speech under assault, most newsrooms aren't fighting back. They are, instead, pulling their punches in a defensive, 'rope-a-dope' crouch, and thus failing to truly inform—when democracy itself is at risk."
Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz noted Monday that "if you rely on the news divisions of the Big Three broadcast networks, you haven't seen the chilling footage of Trump's remarks" from Saturday.
According to Gertz:
CBS News and ABC News have not mentioned Trump's remarks at all on their morning news, evening news, or Sunday morning political talk shows.
NBC News also did not discuss them on its morning and evening news broadcasts, and "Meet The Press'" sole coverage consisted of host Kristen Welker reading the comment to Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel and asking her, "Are you comfortable with this language coming from the GOP front-runner?" (McDaniel declined to comment).
The nation's most-read newspapers are similarly not treating these remarks as a major story.
Trump's comments did catch the attention of MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, who addressed them Sunday evening during his monologue and in a discussion with Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley, a fascism expert.
However, Trump's weekend remarks and a failure to adequately cover them fit into a larger pattern that includes MSNBC.
Media Matters data integrity analyst Harrison Ray last week highlighted how CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC have handled other comments from the GOP presidential candidate:
Trump has recently vowed to implement "ideological screening" for migrants, saying he'd turn away anyone who doesn't like "our religion"; accused "liberal Jews" of voting "to destroy America and Israel"; claimed migrants are "poisoning the blood of our country"; and complimented the terrorist group Hezbollah as "very smart.
Yet these extreme and alarming statements received scant coverage across major TV news networks: Three of the four comments received no more than 22 minutes of attention each, with only one nearing an hour.
"Despite—or perhaps due to—the frequency of Trump's extreme comments, TV news networks are seemingly desensitized to his rhetoric," Ray wrote. "The networks have shown they are capable of covering such extremism—as Joint Chiefs of Staff head Mark Milley was retiring, networks eventually got around to covering Trump's suggestion that the general deserved to be executed—but often they regularly choose to ignore the GOP front-runner's inflammatory commentary."
Along with reporting on that analysis last week, Salon's Areeba Shah spoke with academics and experts who also shared concerns that U.S. journalists aren't treating Trump's extremism with a necessary seriousness.
"If we don't call out the rhetoric as extreme, we risk making it normal and acceptable," warned Libby Hemphill, a professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information and the Institute for Social Research.
University of Kansas political science professor Donald Haider-Markel, who studies domestic extremism, similarly told Shah that "when his dehumanizing comments are not challenged by the news media, viewers go along. If the dehumanization sticks, it makes support of political violence against 'enemies' more likely."
"I think you already see the consequences of underreporting and normalizing his rhetoric in polling about the 2024 race—in many polls Trump is running even or ahead of Biden even with his ever more extreme rhetoric," he said. "The news media has not learned any lessons from the period 2015-2020 and is covering him as a normal candidate doing and saying normal candidate things."
Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) co-founder Heidi Beirich stressed to Shah that given Trump's chances of winning the presidential race next year, "the public needs to know about policy plans, such as the program being designed for the next conservative president by the Heritage Foundation, called Project 2025."
For the past several months, critics have highlighted various concerns with Project 2025, from policies on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency and LGBTQ+ rights to—as Common Dreams opinion contributor Thom Hartmann pointed out earlier this year—its "consolidation of power in the hands of the president, reflecting the way government is run in Hungary, China, and Russia rather than the checks-and-balances envisioned by our nation's founders."
GPAHE on Monday released a detailed analysis of the project, which "threatens Americans' civil and human rights, and is an attack on our very democracy," according to Beirich.
"Our country is facing an authoritarian threat from far-right extremists and Christian Nationalists in a new, unique, and frightening way," said GPAHE co-founder Wendy Via. "Voters, political figures, and the media must be on alert that Project 2025 is an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all."
Some journalists warn that Trump's recent rhetoric, given his past record, should be taken more seriously by both the press and the public.
"Do I think Trump will imprison political dissidents in the concentration camps? I don't know if he will, but I do know that it would be quite easy for him to justify putting political dissidents in concentration camps, based on things he has already said and promised to do," Current Affairs' Nathan J. Robinson wrote Monday. "We know he wants to build sprawling camps and start rounding people up. We know he wants to root out internal threats. And we know he couldn't care less about the law. Personally I do not feel reassured."
"If it wasn't already clear, our democracy is in very serious danger and everyone needs to wake up to the threat," Robinson asserted. "Once new prison camps are built, they do not tend to close down. The time for stopping them is before they get built. It's important to see major historical threats coming, before it's too late to change course."
American journalist Margaret Sullivan wrote in her column for The Guardian last week that "the press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don't need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be 'in the tank' for Biden or anyone else."
Sullivan's recommendations for U.S. newsrooms included:
Report more—much more—about what Trump would do, post-election. Ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with those plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon.
Use direct language, not couched in scaredy-cat false equivalence, about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.
Pin down Republicans about whether they support Trump's lies and autocratic plans.
"It's the media's responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels," she argued, "not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time."
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How to Resist Cultic Thinking in the End Times
We must get in the habit of examining our own beliefs, while paying attention to changing conditions and new information.
Aug 05, 2023
Times of societal upheaval or rapid social change tend to generate new religious movements, and what are often called cults. The English Civil War in the 17th century roughly coincided with the emergence of Puritanism, with its sub-denominations including the Pilgrims. Similarly, the U.S. Revolutionary War and national independence kicked off the Second Great Awakening (1790s-1840s), with the rise of an evangelical Protestant majority in antebellum America, along with new denominations and social reform organizations. The U.S. Civil War coincided approximately with the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention, the rise of Mormonism, and the first appearance of Buddhist temples in the country. The 20th century, with its rapid industrialization and two world wars, saw a bewildering variety of new religious movements burst upon the scene, ranging from Assemblies of God to Transcendental Meditation, the Unification Church, and Scientology.
As documented in Post Carbon Institute’s recent report, Welcome to the Great Unraveling, humanity is on the cusp of unprecedented social and ecological turmoil. Climate change, resource depletion, and failing ecosystems will likely lead to disruptions in availability of food and water. Supply chains will be imperiled and economies will shrink. Human migration will increase. Historically high levels of economic inequality will fuel more political polarization. Faced with so many deepening challenges, people will demand explanations and answers. With the existing authorities fixated on maintaining the status quo and therefore unable to offer sufficient relief, many people will look elsewhere for new ways of understanding and responding to burgeoning problems.
For the past few decades, the United States has been overproducing elites and elite aspirants (e.g., billionaires and holders of law degrees). As Peter Turchin and his colleagues have shown, throughout history people with frustrated elite aspirations sometimes become religious, political, or ideological entrepreneurs, drawing followers from the increasingly disgruntled general populace. These anti-establishment leaders may seek authoritarian power by providing their followers with a sense of having special knowledge, and of being members of a vanguard of “chosen ones” who will return society to a lost golden age of virtue and plenty.
Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad defined cults as “groups with an authoritarian structure where the leader’s power is not constrained by scripture, tradition, or any other ‘higher’ authority.”
If we are likely to see a surge in religious and secular cults in the years ahead, it’s worth spending a few minutes to consider: What should we watch out for in order to avoid being swept up in cultic thinking? What can we learn from history and sociology about what Turchin calls “end times”? And, is cultic thinking the only alternative to dysfunctional mainstream institutions and worldviews?
What’s a Cult?
The words cult, culture, and cultivate all derive from the Latin word cultus, which refers to anything over which we toil. For scholars of early religions, a cult is a human activity that involves ritual and ceremony—which “cultivate” the human spirit and sense of community. However, in the modern world, cult has come to mean something more specific. Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad, in their useful book The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power (1993), defined cults as “groups with an authoritarian structure where the leader’s power is not constrained by scripture, tradition, or any other ‘higher’ authority.”
I have some personal experience to draw upon in this regard. From 1978 to 1991 I was a member of a spiritual organization that I’d prefer not to name (you’ve probably never heard of it anyway). It operated 12 intentional communities and dozens of communal households scattered through the U.S., Canada, England, France, and South Africa. The communities featured organic farms and geodesic domes. Bright, idealistic young people were attracted by the promise of changing the world by changing consciousness. We were living a Whole Earth Catalog lifestyle, but with added layers of quirky spirituality and top-down management. It wasn’t one of the most toxic of cults: People who chose to leave weren’t hounded or persecuted. Nevertheless, one man stood atop the pyramid of power, other subordinate male leaders had great privileges, and everyone was expected to regard the main leader’s weekly pronouncements as revealed truth. We believed that we had special knowledge that set us apart from the rest of humanity. And, as is the case in most cults, we were repeatedly told, “This is not a cult.”
My cult experience was not without its rewards. Through it I met my future wife, as well as many good friends I still stay in touch with. I had a satisfying sense of being part of a group that had visionary goals. And the group’s leaders nurtured my aspirations for writing and public speaking.
The main subjects I was researching and writing about in those days were world mythology and world religions. I began by looking at these subjects through the lens of the cult’s teachings. But after a couple of years of doing this I began to realize that, where our cult’s beliefs were unassailably true and valuable, they weren’t particularly original (they roughly corresponded with what Aldous Huxley called the Perennial Philosophy); however, where our cult’s beliefs were clearly original (e.g., in claiming that our leader was a reincarnation of a prominent biblical figure), they were often of questionable validity or usefulness. I was also growing weary of the group’s authoritarian structure and practices.
And so, in January 1992, my partner Janet and I packed up what little we owned and left. Ever since then, I’ve been hyper-aware of cults and cult-think.
The Cult Spectrum and the Conspiracy Dynamic
While actual cults (in the sense that Alstad and Kramer defined them) are relatively rare, cultic thinking is everywhere. The modern world is full of authoritarian institutions (including the military, many businesses, and most religions), and some expend considerable effort to control people’s perceptions and thoughts. Entire professions are dedicated to the goal of winning a cultic following for commercial brands or political parties.
Further, many people—whether due to their upbringing or some still-unidentified genetic trait—have a greater tendency than others either to follow leaders unquestioningly, or to seek unquestioning followers. Some religions operate as cults, especially in their early stages of formation, when founders have immense power. Indeed, as American sociologists Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge commented in their influential book The Future of Religion (1986), “In the beginning, all religions are obscure, tiny, deviant cult movements.” But even after a religion has established checks on the power of its clergy, individual churches or temples can become cultish.
At the core of cultic thinking is a social power dynamic between leader and followers. The leader provides an explanation of the world that resists critical examination. Belief in, or rejection of this explanation establishes an in-group and an out-group. Good and evil are then defined in terms of the interests of the in-group. Followers are encouraged to surrender their critical thinking abilities. Cult leaders typically show narcissistic personality traits, while followers may exhibit low self-esteem, or may just be motivated by a desire to belong to something larger than themselves.
People who are aware of society’s blind spots are often attracted to would-be cult leaders, because the former need a new worldview to replace the flawed one they are reacting against, and the latter fill that need.
There’s a relationship between cults and what are often called conspiracy theories (I use the term reluctantly, as many conspiracies throughout history are well documented). Every society has a dominant worldview: In Europe during the Middle Ages, that worldview was determined by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church; today’s mainstream worldview is far more complicated, and it’s largely shaped by science and commercial interests rather than by a single religion. Because our dominant worldview is constructed and supported by armies of experts, as well as by the formal power structures of society (political and economic institutions), it tends to be robust and resilient. But all worldviews have blind spots, and, partly because challenges to the dominant view are usually systematically discouraged, more blind spots tend to accumulate over time. Eventually a big blind spot can no longer be ignored, and either the dominant worldview changes, or society fractures, as many people abandon the mainstream and seek novel ways of thinking and living.
At first, the alternative beliefs that cognitive rebels adopt aren’t supported by experts or powerful institutions, so they’re not as robust as the dominant narrative, and they always have their own blind spots. Indeed, in some instances these new beliefs are complete fabrications with no factual validity. So, most cults disappear fairly quickly. But some manage to create enough social “glue” so as to persist long after their founder’s demise, even if some of their beliefs are highly questionable.
Conspiracy theories are not the same as cults, but the two phenomena often coexist. Would-be cult leaders frequently adopt conspiracy theories, or invent them, so as to have an ideological basis for attracting followers. People who are aware of society’s blind spots are often attracted to would-be cult leaders, because the former need a new worldview to replace the flawed one they are reacting against, and the latter fill that need.
What I’m describing is part of the process of cultural evolution. Conspiracy theories (in the generalized sense of alternative narratives) and cults are products of spontaneous cultural mutation; gradually they are winnowed out by natural selection, and the eventual result is a new dominant worldview that may endure for decades or centuries. But times when the dominant narrative is collapsing and a new one hasn’t yet formed can be messy and confusing. In the modern world of social media, the process of worldview breakdown and narrative mutation is speeding up and intensifying.
Cults Galore: Take Your Pick
The modern dominant worldview’s blind spots are highly contested. Name nearly any major area of interest (politics, economics, science, or public health), and it is possible to point to disputes that are deepening to the point where they threaten to divide society into armed camps—often quite literally.
One blind spot I’ve written about extensively is society’s acceptance and promotion of economic growth. The expansion of global industry inevitably leads to resource depletion and the destruction of ecosystems, and so it will surely be limited by Earth’s bounded capacity to yield minerals, timber, water, and other essential raw materials. Yet mainstream economists remain growthist diehards, and “degrowth” alternative economic theorists are regarded by the authorities as dangerous cultists.
In this instance, society’s blind spot is so huge and critical that it is leading to environmental, social, and political catastrophe. And I happen to agree with the proponents of degrowth (even though the likelihood of their diagnosis and prescription becoming the new mainstream is exceedingly low, at least in the near term).
In effect, the Trump-dominated Republican Party has become a huge cult. But it would not have done so if not for giant blind spots in the policies of both the political parties.
But there are plenty of instances where alternatives to the dominant view are silly or repulsive. Here’s an example: For decades, as a result of bipartisan Congressional gridlock, the U.S. has failed to implement a reasonable, fair immigration policy. As a result, a large and poorly regulated flow of documented and undocumented migrants is exacerbating political tensions within the country. Because recent migrants’ political views tend to align more with one of the country’s political parties (the Democrats), that party has sought to win migrants’ votes. So, the other party (the Republicans) is toying with Great Replacement theory as a way to solidify support from native-born Euro-Americans. Great Replacement theory starts by pointing out real demographic trends; but tying these trends to a hypothesized secret, malevolent plot to replace white citizens with migrants is pure hokum, a full-on conspiracy theory. Still, it pretends to fill a blind spot and plays to a voter base.
Politics in the U.S. have become far more cult-like in recent years. And that’s not due just to the rise of conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement. During stable times, politics tend to be driven by institutions seeking competent leaders and ways to adapt to a changing economic and geopolitical terrain. But, in times of greater stress, politics often center more on personality rather than policy. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were leaders whose support flowed largely from personality. Donald Trump is cut from the same cloth, and his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 struggle to overcome the personality gap: Just proposing Trump-like policies doesn’t seem to gain them traction.
One of the features of leadership by personality, not policy, is the tendency to promote Big Lies. In his book Mein Kampf (1925), Hitler described how the public can be induced to believe a colossal falsehood simply because they cannot accept that a leader “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” For political personality cultists, the Big Lie serves the practical purpose of binding followers closer to their leader. Accepting Big Lies is a badge of membership in a cult. The bigger the lie you accept, the more loyal other cult members perceive you to be, and the more of a sense of belonging you are able to enjoy.
Trump has, of course, trotted out lies large and small, none bigger or more dangerous than the notion that the 2020 presidential election (which he lost) was stolen by Democrats. In effect, the Trump-dominated Republican Party has become a huge cult. But it would not have done so if not for giant blind spots in the policies of both the political parties.
Tribalism is deeply ingrained in us by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Throughout most of our existence as a species, being expelled from the tribe was a virtual death sentence. As conditions become more uncertain or difficult, the desire to belong to a tribe becomes more acute. We tend to use more extreme virtue signals—thus moving the entire tribe towards more radical positions.
One other example of dangerous cultic thinking is worthy of brief discussion. As Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) explained at length, the modern world has developed a cult of technology. We look to technology to solve basic human problems that were formerly addressed by family, community, or personal toil. Machines inform us, connect us, transport us, feed us, and entertain us. Not only do consumers love their gizmos, but manufacturers do, too, since gadgets produce profits; so do workers and politicians, who benefit from jobs created by industrial expansion. Shopping for the latest smart watch, drone, or mosquito zapper is a sacred ritual of consumerism. And we worship inventors and industrialists like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.
Collectively, most of us appear to believe that renewable-energy technologies, including electric cars, will save us from climate change—a biblical-scale apocalypse that’s punishment for our use of fossil-fueled technologies. Like angels soaring to our rescue, new machines will suck surplus carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it underground. So miraculous are these technologies that we will never have to confront the problems of overpopulation, overconsumption, pollution, and resource depletion, because we will have achieved the beatific status of net-zero carbon emissions. Yes, climate change is a horrific problem and renewable-energy technologies are better than fossil-fuel technologies, but the notion that solar panels will enable us to continue consuming resources at unsustainable rates (i.e., that we will be able to maintain our current consumerist lifestyle indefinitely, but guilt-free) should be questioned.
The most extreme of tech cults center on artificial intelligence (AI). In a recent article, philosopher and historian Émile P. Torres introduced his readers to TESCREAL, an acronym denoting a set of secular cults (transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism) all widely shared within the AI development community. Torres’s description of TESCREAL is so clearly relevant to the discussion of contemporary secular cults that it deserves to be quoted at length:
Essentially, a bunch of 20th-century atheists concluded that their lives lacked the meaning, purpose, and hope provided by traditional religion. In response to this realization, they invented a new, secular religion, in which “heaven” is something we create ourselves, in this world. This new religion offered the promise of eternal life, just like Christianity, and has its own version of resurrection: Those who don’t become immortal can have their bodies cryogenized by a company named Alcor, based in California, so they can be revived when the technological know-how becomes available... As for God, if he doesn’t exist, then why not just create him? This is what AGI [artificial general intelligence] is supposed to be: an all-knowing, all-powerful entity capable of solving all our problems and creating utopia. Indeed, the phrase “God-like AI” has become a popular way of referring to AGI over the past few months.
For an entertaining dive into the cult of TESCREAL, check out my colleagues’ Crazy Town podcast episode on William MacAskill, one of its gurus.
As AI threatens to drive economic inequality to unprecedented levels, social upheaval is an easily predictable consequence. In that case, even more people will abandon faith in mainstream institutions and explanations, and grasp at cultic alternatives. Simultaneously, AI will make truth ever harder to determine by flooding every communications medium with thoroughly convincing fake images, video, audio, and text. Everyone will frantically be looking for villains and heroes, and AI will deftly supply them.
Living Cult-Free
Perhaps the most emotionally satisfying ending for this essay would be a forecast that society is evolving toward perfect rationality, and that cultic thinking will disappear as we approach this inevitable utopia. However, the yearning for utopia is actually a feature of the cultic mindset. Modern post-Enlightenment democracies—with the benefit of science and its iterative method of getting ever closer to truth—perhaps come closest to the unachievable ideal of a perfectly logic-driven society; but these are nations currently undermining their own rational futures through increasing economic inequality, climate change, overconsumption, and the development of AI.
We humans are probably genetically wired for cult-think. Nevertheless, some societies appear more rational than others, and some waver back and forth over time from a majoritarian adherence to facts to a contentious spinning off of cults and misguided notions. If we want to move toward the former condition, it may be best to start by acknowledging that we humans are cognitively complex creatures. We have perfectly good reasons for being attracted to cults and popular fallacies: They give us a sense of security, clarity, and community. But they lead us into error, sometimes fatally so.
Building on that acknowledgment, we must get in the habit of examining our own beliefs, while paying attention to changing conditions and new information. In other words, we must identify our blind spots and fill them with accurate knowledge, not seductive delusions. And we must do this while avoiding the tendency to accept evidence only if it confirms our beliefs.
If we make the effort to align ourselves with reason and reality, we can serve as a bulwark for others in our community.
Most people are familiar with the phrases “critical thinking” and “scientific method,” but many misunderstand them to mean simply basing one’s views on evidence. Our natural tendency is to sort evidence according to our biases. And given today’s blizzard of media sources and increasingly powerful internet algorithms that feed us news and advertising based on our previous searches, there’s no lack of information to confirm any bias we may have. Science and critical thinking don’t just mean gathering evidence. They mean deliberately looking for evidence that disconfirms our existing beliefs (or hypotheses), then changing our beliefs when they’re contradicted by credible facts.
In the end, uncertainty remains. We can’t answer every question through rational analysis because we don’t have perfect information. And some subjects, by their very nature, will always have to be approached through values rather than reason. What’s a good life? What should our daily priorities consist of? How much of our income should we donate to charity? We can apply critical thinking skills to such questions, but still come away with differing answers.
For a few years after Janet and I left our cult, we met frequently with other ex-members so that we all could compare notes about our experiences. We benefitted enormously from this community of mutual support. I also read books on cults and critical thinking, and consulted experts. Still, over time I observed that some other ex-members of our group went on to seek out different cults, or continued to think in cultic ways. And I still frequently catch myself looking for evidence to confirm already formed conclusions that I share with an in-group. Cultic thinking is habit-forming, because it fills human needs for meaning and belonging. It takes effort to break the habit.
As old societal norms break down, there will be ever greater temptation to gravitate toward comforting tribal narratives. Resisting doing so can be a lonely experience if we drift apart from friends, relatives, and neighbors who join new in-groups that we choose to avoid. On the other hand, if we make the effort to align ourselves with reason and reality, we can serve as a bulwark for others in our community. Living cult-free is much easier if we support one another in thinking critically.
Reducing our cult-think means living with ambiguity during tumultuous times. But it’s worth the effort if we put a high value on truth.
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How Can the Government Combat Extremism in the Military?
I worry about how much more extreme and violent this country has become in this century of failed wars.
Jul 17, 2023
In April, when Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman with a top-secret clearance, was arrested for posting a trove of classified documents about the Russia-Ukraine war online, the question most often asked was: How did such a young, inexperienced, low-level technician have access to such sensitive material? What I wanted to know was: How did he ever get accepted into the Air Force in the first place?
Teixeira seems to have leaked that secret information for online bragging rights rather than ideological reasons, so his transgression probably wouldn’t have fallen under the military’s newly reinforced regulations on extremist activities. After he was indicted, however, perturbing details about his behavior emerged, including his online searches for violent extremist events, an outsized interest in guns, and social media posts that an FBI affidavit called “troubling” and I’d call creepy.
Ideological zealotry is disruptive wherever it takes root, even if it never erupts into violence, but it’s particularly chilling inside the military. After all, servicemembers have access to weapons and the training to use them. Even more significant, a kind of quid pro quo exists between the military and civilians. Trust is paramount within the military, and every service member is supposed to abide by a code of ethics, as well as by the Constitution, to which all of them swear an oath.
In theory, a democratic civil society invests its military with the authority to use force in its name in exchange for the principled conduct of its members.
In theory, a democratic civil society invests its military with the authority to use force in its name in exchange for the principled conduct of its members. Military service is supposed to be a higher calling and soldiers better (or at least better behaving) people. So when active-duty personnel or veterans use violence against the system they’re sworn to protect, the sting of betrayal is especially sharp.
Whoops!
In a photo of Teixeira in a neat dress uniform that accompanied media reports, he’s a bright-eyed kid with stick-out ears and a sweet half-smile. He looks young and promising, the kind of guy people offer thanks to when they see him in uniform at an airport. In reality, however, everything else about him was a red flag.
The Washington Post found videos and chat logs that suggested he was getting ready for a race war. Former classmates told CNN that he had been obsessed with guns and war. He was suspended from high school for comments he made about Molotov cocktails. His first application for a gun license was denied, but he kept trying and was eventually approved, over time amassing a trove of handguns, rifles, shotguns, high-capacity weapons, and a gas mask, which he kept in a gun locker about two feet from his bed.
Granted, some of this activity didn’t begin until he enlisted in 2019 and no one’s advocating that military recruiters make bedroom checks. Still, recruits are supposed to go through a careful vetting process. Family, friends, teachers, and classmates may be interviewed to assess a recruit’s character and fitness. Such background checks are designed to detect things like racist tattoos, drug use, gang affiliation, or arrest records, but are inevitably limited in what they can discover about young people without much life experience, including the teenage gamers the Air Force woos for their up-to-the-minute technical skills who may not prove to be the most level-headed crew—people, in fact, like Jack Teixeira.
The vetting of service members for handling the top-secret or sensitive-compartmentalized-information security clearances he received in 2022 is supposed to be particularly thorough.
In his case in particular, the vetting of service members for handling the top-secret or sensitive-compartmentalized-information security clearances he received in 2022 is supposed to be particularly thorough. I was first faced with this reality when a government agent showed up at my door, flashed a badge, and asked me about a neighbor applying for a clearance. He inquired all too casually about whether I had noticed anything telling, like lots of liquor bottles in his trash. (That left me wondering how many people check their neighbor’s garbage.)
Teixeira’s posts of classified material taken from the computers of the intelligence unit at the Cape Cod air base where he was stationed first appeared on Thug Shaker Central, a small, obscure chat group which appealed largely to teenage boys through adolescent humor, a fetishistic love of guns, and extreme bigotry. It was hosted on the gamer-centric platform Discord. At first, he posted transcribed documents, then began photographing hundreds more in his parents’ kitchen and started uploading copies of them filled with secret materials on the U.S., its allies, and its enemies. Someone at Thug Shaker began sharing those posts more widely and they made their way to Russian Telegram channels, Twitter, and beyond—and Teixeira was in big trouble.
Since he seems to have made no effort to hide who he was, no one could call him the world’s smartest criminal. He made it all too easy for the FBI to track him down. By then, Air Force officials had already admonished him for making suspicious searches of classified intelligence networks, but allowed him to stay in his job. That’s where the Justice Department charged him with the retention and transmission of classified information under the Espionage Act of 1917, which had already caught in its maw journalists, dissidents, whistleblowers (including Daniel Ellsberg, who, to the end of his life, wanted to challenge the act in court on First Amendment grounds), and most recently, another hoarder of classified documents, former President Donald Trump.
In June, Teixeira pleaded not guilty on six counts, each carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Probably just as happy to let the civilians handle it, the Air Force removed the intelligence division from his unit, but it hasn’t yet brought charges against him.
Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a policy and procedure review to assess how bad Pentagon security really was. The results, made public on July 5, gave the military a passing grade but, with a firm grasp of the obvious, recommended more careful monitoring of the online activities of personnel with security clearances.
Small Numbers, Outsized Impact
Rhetoric and regulations addressing extremism in the military date back to at least 1969 and have been tinkered with since, usually in response to hard-to-ignore events like the murder of 13 people at Fort Hood by Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan in 2009. In reaction to the material Chelsea Manning (who was anything but an extremist) leaked to WikiLeaks to reveal human-rights abuses connected to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Department of Defense created a counter-insider threat program around 2014. Six years later, the Army revised its policies for the first time to face the potential role of social media in extremist activities.
Tracking and reporting on extremism in the military has not been without controversy, which tended to be of the let’s-not-air-our-dirty-laundry-in-public variety. In 1986 when, for instance, the Southern Poverty Law Center informed the Department of Defense (DoD) that active-duty Marines were participating in the Ku Klux Klan, the Pentagon responded that the “DoD does not prohibit personnel from joining such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan.” (It still doesn’t name or ban specific organizations in its regulations.) And when, in 2009, a Department of Homeland Security assessment warned of right-wing extremists recruiting veterans, conservative politicians and veterans groups killed the report which, they claimed, was insulting to veterans.
Then came the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. A striking number of participants proved to have military connections or histories—13.4% to 17.5% of those charged, depending on who’s counting—and the Pentagon could no longer ignore the problem. Defense Secretary Austin ordered an unprecedented, day-long stand-down to educate all military personnel on extremist activity and then created the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group, or CEAWG, to come up with a plan for dealing with that anything-but-new reality.
The New York Times estimated that active-duty military personnel and veterans accounted for at least 25% of antigovernment militias.
It’s not possible to pin down the true scope of the phenomenon, but the Center for Strategic and International Studies found active-duty and reserve personnel were linked to seven of the 110 terrorist attacks and plots the FBI investigated in 2020. That same year, The New York Times estimated that active-duty military personnel and veterans accounted for at least 25% of antigovernment militias. In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League identified 117 active-duty service personnel and 11 reservists on a leaked membership list from the Oath Keepers, the far-right antigovernment militia prominently involved in January 6 events. CEAWG, on the other hand, claimed that, in 2021, there were fewer than 100 substantiated cases of military personnel involved in officially prohibited extremist activity in the past year.
While such reckonings suggest that just a small number of servicemembers are actively involved in extremist violence, even a relative few should be concerning for obvious reasons.
Report, Revise, Reconsider
Opportunities to identify and prevent extremism arise at three junctures: during recruitment, throughout the active-duty years, and in the discharge process when those transitioning back to civilian life may be especially susceptible to promises of camaraderie and ready action from extremist groups. As 2021 ended, the Pentagon’s working group reported that it had addressed such vulnerabilities by standardizing questionnaires, clarifying definitions, and—that old bureaucratic fallback—commissioning a new study.
The revised rules included a long list of banned “extremist activities” and a long definition of what constitutes “active participation.” In addition to the obvious—violence, plans to overthrow the government, and the leaking of sensitive information—prohibited acts include liking, sharing, or retweeting online content that supports extremist activities or encouraging DoD personnel to disobey lawful orders with the intention of disrupting military activities.
Active participation includes organizing, leading, or simply attending a meeting of an extremist group and distributing its literature on or off base. Commanders may declare places off-limits where “counseling, encouraging, or inciting Service members to refuse to perform duty or to desert” occurs. That also sounds like it could apply to gatherings of antiwar groups like Veterans for Peace, where supporting war resisters is part of their mission. And therein lies the rub.
Anti-extremism may prove but one more victim of anti-diversity and, even without that, if money is a measure of commitment, the military’s commitment to fighting extremism is looking lukewarm at best.
As in the past, the updates focus on activity, rather than speech, which is a good thing, but figuring out how to suppress extremism without turning into the thought police is challenging, particularly in light of the prominence of social media and the impossibility of monitoring everyone’s online activity. The result: regulations that are both too vague and too restrictive and a recipe for implementing the rules unfairly.
In military culture, reporting is often equated with snitching and retaliation is common. Since it’s not practicable to draw bright lines between what’s allowed and what isn’t, that determination rests ultimately (and sometimes ominously) with commanders. The regulations urge them to balance First Amendment rights with “good order and discipline and national security.” In reality, however, such decisions too often fall prey to bias, distrust, self-interest, racial disparities, and a history of bad faith.
Then there’s the issue of paying for the extra work the rules require. The only relevant funding seems to be a puny $13.5 million for the insider-threat program. Meanwhile, the Pentagon budget that recently exited the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee makes it a “conservative priority” to defund the position of Deputy Inspector General for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military. So anti-extremism may prove but one more victim of anti-diversity and, even without that, if money is a measure of commitment, the military’s commitment to fighting extremism is looking lukewarm at best.
Consistently Inconsistent
Recently, the Center for New American Security, a D.C.-based think tank, damned the military’s efforts to address domestic violent extremism historically as being all too often “reactionary, sporadic, and inconsistent” when it comes to recognizing the problem to be solved, or even admitting there is one. Though harsh, it’s not an unfair assessment.
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security research center at the University of Maryland, analyzed an extensive database of extremist activity in the U.S. called PIRUS and found that 628 Americans with military backgrounds were involved in such criminal activity from 1990 to March 2023. Almost all of them were male veterans, with Marines showing up in disproportionately large numbers (as they did among the January 6 arrestees). A slight majority of the cases considered involved violence and a large majority involved white supremacist militias. And here’s an intriguing fact that probably won’t surprise anyone who’s followed the U.S. military’s dismal war record in this century: Extremists with a military background were less successful in carrying out violent attacks than those without it.
Indeed, the extremist threat appears to be growing. A chart in a research brief looking at PIRUS data shows little blips for extremist cases in most years until the past six, including not only the (hopefully) unrepeatable 2021, but the years on either side of it.
Almost 18% of the veterans surveyed who agree with one of four cited extremist ideologies also support violence as a means of political change.
Activities that rise to the level of criminal conduct, however, tell only part of the story.
The RAND Corporation interviewed a large, demographically representative sample of veterans—mostly older, white, middle-class men who joined the military before 9/11—to assess sympathy for extremist organizations and ideas. The researchers found no evidence that veterans support violent extremist groups or their ideologies more than the rest of the American public does.
If you find that reassuring, however, think again. After all, according to the 2022 Yahoo! News/YouGov poll Rand used for comparison, a little more than a third of the U.S. population agrees with the Great Replacement Theory that “[a] group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views.” Am I supposed to be comforted because only about 5% fewer veterans think that?
Then there’s the finding that almost 18% of the veterans surveyed who agree with one of four cited extremist ideologies also support violence as a means of political change. That finding is scary, too, because extremist groups can take advantage of such veterans’ support for political violence to recruit them for their often all-too-violent purposes.
All of this leaves me very uneasy, both about what is being done and what should or even could be done. I worry about how much more extreme and violent this country has become in this century of failed wars. And I worry about anti-extremism policies sliding into prosecuting—and persecuting—people for disfavored beliefs, while immediate danger glides in from some unexpected source—like a 21-year-old techie, who, for reasons no one anticipated, pulled off one hell of a breach of national security right under the military’s nose.
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