To understand violent white supremacy, we need to learn from former white supremacists, abandon myths about lone actor violence, and investigate the informal networks through which this movement spreads
This article has been republished from The Current, Jigsaw’s research magazine outlining today’s digital threats and solutions, available here.
Violent white supremacism is flourishing through robust communication networks with weak social ties
Over the course of two years, Jigsaw interviewed dozens of former white supremacists, a number of whom have never shared their stories publicly. We believe that conducting research with former extremists offers valuable perspectives on violent movements, including how people join and how, eventually, they leave. From granular insights on the chat apps they use to personal catalysts for leaving extremist groups, every story offers nuanced insights for countering extremism. We recognize that each individual’s story is just that — an individual story.
While some researchers question the credibility of formers’ insights, formers have made important contributions in the past and we feel it is our responsibility to listen (source, source, source) to better understand the human side of the challenge. We have sought to approach this research ethically, prioritizing confidentiality, consent, and an understanding of when and when not to engage vulnerable people (source). Names used are pseudonyms wherever requested.
In tracing these formers’ paths into and out of extremism, we draw insights that inform our understanding of modern white supremacy and dispel common myths. This effort has reinforced four insights put forward by other researchers:
1. “Lone wolf” attackers are far from alone while radicalizing and broadcasting threats
2. Many white supremacists are unaffiliated with a formal group by design
3. Violent white supremacy is increasingly transnational
4. The movement leverages mainstream and alternative tech platforms in tandem
In March of 2019, Brenton Tarrant stormed a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand and murdered 51 people. A few months later, Patrick Crusius entered a Walmart in El Paso, Texas and murdered 23 people.
Neither terrorist’s manifesto claimed allegiance to a formal white supremacist group. Each man appeared to be acting alone, and the characterization of these events as unhinged behavior of a self-radicalized “lone wolf” became a prevailing narrative. The categorization of “lone wolf” is both glamorizing and misleading. However, it is important to understand people like Tarrant and Crusius who commit violence outside of a material support group or formal terror cell (source). More sophisticated analyses distinguish this growing category of lone actor terrorists who perpetrate their respective terror attacks alone but are active participants in discursive networks. In fact, it is lone actors’ posts in online communities that affords law enforcement and other experts vital signals to counter violent extremism (source, source, source, source).
Not only were Tarrant and Crusius not “lone wolves,” they were part of the same distributed online network. Both wrote similar warning messages to their online community before their attacks. They used similar rhetoric and ingroup language to broadcast their intent (source). They both posted manifestos on 8chan describing similar supremacist ideals of a white ethnostate. They both described a perceived existential threat to whites from a conspiracy theory — a “great replacement” by immigrants. They both described their automatic weapons used in the attack as “gear,” as though they were players in a video game. Their online communities described the death tolls of each attack as “high scores,” comparing the attacks as events in the same apocalyptic live action role-playing video game (source). The very first sentence of Crusius’ manifesto is “I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto” (source).
1. The mythology of the lone wolf
Brenton Tarrant and Patrick Crusius are part of a violent white supremacist movement that is growing online. Attacks like theirs may be carried out by an individual, but they radicalized within a highly interactive network (source). As JM Berger notes, “terrorism and extremism are inherently social activities, usually carried out by individuals because they dramatically overvalue their membership in a particular social grouping.” (source)
2. These attacks are part of a distributed, global movement
Terrorist attacks can inspire others within the movement to commit “copycat” atrocities elsewhere, providing a role model figure and attack blueprints for them to follow (source, source). We spoke with a former member of Feuerkrieg Division, a violent neo-Nazi organization, who described how the Christchurch attack was a source of motivation and inspiration. The group frequently shared Tarrant’s manifesto in online chat forums and encouraged others to “top Tarrant’s score,” a common video game reference among violent white supremacists encouraging even higher death tolls in future mass casualty attacks (source). This gamification of violence by white supremacists online is common, and is incentivized either top down — where group leaders offer members badges, titles, or other affordances for hateful acts — or bottom up — where individual forum members create online competition around a distributed virtual scoreboard tallying deaths or other acts of violence (source). Regardless of the incentive structure, there are social motives to white supremacist violence in terms of achieving in-group belonging and status by participating in shared, gamified goals.
Several formers cite the allure of shared community and sense of belonging as the key drivers of their radicalization. Interacting with members of the in-group, which can be as simple as replying to Tweets or a comment thread, is vital to learn their sub-cultural norms and reinforce mental walls against perceived out-groups. For white supremacism, this radicalization process is known as “red pilling” and entails learning the coded language, foundational conspiracy theories, and the violent ideals of racial supremacy (source, source). While this radicalization increasingly occurs sitting alone in front of a computer screen, these individuals are busy building and inhabiting highly interactive communities.
“Social camaraderie, a desire for simple answers to complex political problems, or even the opportunity to take action against formidable social forces can coexist with, even substitute for, hatred as the reason for participation in organized racist activities.” — Kathleen Blee, sociologist (source)
After returning home to the States from tours with the Marines, James was looking for a new mission, and a new band of brothers. He first joined the KKK chapter near where he was living, but when that group didn’t share his orientation for action, he went searching online for alternative white supremacist communities. He went “hate group shopping” by going to the SPLC’s hate map, which tracks the locations of hate groups, ironically seeking to find groups near him that he could join. James proceeded to join and leave three increasingly exclusive and violent neo-Nazi groups over the next few years before leaving the movement altogether. He became convinced that hate prevented people from building the healthy, supportive community he sought.
3. “Red pilling” is the process of buying into an extremist ideology, and entails learning the coded language, conspiracy theories, and ideals of the movement.
Signalling allegiance to a group or ideology often becomes an all-consuming project for extremists. Even once an extremist has been formally admitted into a group or online forum of extremists, formers described the need to prove themselves as “down for the cause” or “white enough” by committing more and more time and energy. This performance of dedication often escalates in a competitive fashion, resulting in hate speech and violence.
“When people plant bombs, burn crosses, or run their cars into crowds of peaceful protesters, they are reinforcing their place in a community by inflicting terror.” — (source)
This grotesque emphasis on performing an attack for one’s community is exemplified by the terror attack on a synagogue in Halle Germany in October 2019. During the attacker’s trial, he recalled discovering mid-attack that his live-stream had stopped and remarked “That’s bad, because the stream was more important than the attack itself” (source). Experts note that this seeming contradiction of physical isolation from society and online attention seeking is particularly pronounced for lone actor extremists (source). In a study of lone actor extremists, which was not confined to violent white supremacists, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime found that 96% of lone actor extremists “produced writings or videos intended to be viewed by others” including videos, blogs, or manifestos online. (FBI)
As a result of these social dynamics, white supremacist attacks often serve the dual purposes of inflicting terror to advance the movement’s agenda and sending a signal to their in-group that the actor belongs, supports, and reinforces the community’s worldview. By treating these attacks as isolated incidents by rogue actors, we fail to see and address the deep roots of the problem. This can have important implications for interventions, as well as law enforcement and intelligence gathering.
4. Today’s white supremacist movement is moving away from formal groups
Part of the reason for the persistence of the lone wolf myth is that white supremacists are not always part of visible, formal groups. The internet lowers barriers for those curious about a supremacist idea to anonymously learn about it, lurk in supremacist spaces online, and eventually interact with others as part of loose, informal networks. This enables supremacists to pick and choose which aspects of supremacist ideology resonate and engage selectively with those ideals. In other words, supremacists no longer have to find a group with which they fit; there is less friction to joining the distributed movement because they can retain idiosyncratic beliefs. This distributed network of extremism has been described as a “post-organizational paradigm”, where white supremacists increasingly radicalize and operate together without easily recognizable branding, membership or hierarchy. (source)
5. Attacks are seldom coordinated by a central authority
This decentralized organizing principle predates the internet. Today’s white supremacist movement builds in part on the concept of “leaderless resistance,” which has been used by numerous other political extremist movements. In 1983, white supremacist Louis Beam argued that like-minded individuals should operate independently, without central coordination, in order to evade law enforcement and create, “an intelligence nightmare” (source). While Beam gave this order in the context of existing, organized terror cells of the KKK and Aryan Nations, many recent violent white supremacist attacks, particularly by groups like Atomwaffen Division or the Base, draw on this strategy of leaderless resistance. In many cases, there is no evidence that perpetrators are taking orders from a source of authority, but instead are acting on their interpretation of the movement’s ideals, and broadcasting those back through manifestos and live streamed attacks. (source)
Read more on The Current, Jigsaw’s research magazine outlining today’s digital threats and solutions.
