We'd better get to work before we elect another Donald Trump.
It will take an all-out national effort to dismantle the radicalization pipeline that has planted conspiracy theories in the heads of millions of Americans and inspired last month's attack on the Capitol, experts tell Axios.
Two key measures that could make a difference:
- Keeping extremists out of the institutions where they could do the greatest damage — like the military, police departments and legislatures.
- Providing help for those who have embraced dangerous ideologies.
Online platforms, meanwhile, must be unwavering in their commitment to root out conspiracy theories and lies that undermine faith in democracy, according to experts interviewed by Axios.
- Radicalization and counterterrorism experts broadly applaud tech companies' efforts, now underway, to remove this material and the accounts that spread it off their platforms, despite heavy blowback from conservatives.
The U.S. needs a "Marshall Plan against domestic extremism," Daniel Koehler, director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies, told Axios.
- "The spread of extremist conspiracy theories in the United States is the second most dangerous pandemic the country faces right now," he said. "The damage that's been to the U.S. in terms of community and social cohesion will be immense and will be lasting."
- The radicalization is happening in a multitude of online spaces and right-wing media channels, pulling people into an alternate reality that posits, among a growing swarm of other false ideas, that the 2020 election was stolen.
- When it comes to coordinated deradicalization efforts, the U.S. is behind most European countries by 25–30 years, Koehler said.
Experts agree serious resources need to be mustered toward providing an offramp for people who have been drawn into extremist ideologies.
- New federal programs would likely be doomed to fail, experts say, because distrust and hatred of the government is already a core tenet of far-right extremism.
- Instead, private and public-private programs are more likely to be effective, particularly if they're able to get endorsement and funding from federal and state governments.
- Those could include anti-extremism counseling programs and support groups; education programs that work with schools to identify risks and signs of incipient radicalization; and rehabilitation organizations that work with the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.
One idea, courtesy of Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi leader who founded the Free Radicals Project, which works to help people leave violent extremist groups: a "single entry point" akin to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline "that people recognize, that people trust, that people understand."
- Something like a national hotline or online portal could steer people to local resources to help them or loved ones escape the radicalization pipeline, he said.
What a "Marshall Plan against domestic extremism" might look like.
www.axios.com
