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Violent Extremism in the United States

5000, Chapter 14, Violent Extremism in the United States

Although left-wing violence has historically been given more negative attention in the U.S., the fact is that political extremists on the right wing have a far more violent history. The ultimate expression of this was seen in 1995 with the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. However, there is a long-term linkage between right-wing ideology and willingness to enact that ideology violently, against socially marginalized groups on one hand and against the bulwark of government on the other. White explains that there is a strand of populism in right-wing extremism, but it is less informed by fellow feeling than by ethnocentric hatred and a sense of permanent social powerlessness. Representative right-wing responses to those feelings that were organized included the pre-Civil War, anti-immigrant Know-Nothings, the Ku Klux Klan and its progeny, and the Christian Identity movement. The last-named movement is like Wahabist Islam in that it is set on destroying everything that is not-Christian--Jews, Catholics, Muslims, immigrants, etc.

White (1999, pp. 223ff) identifies common characteristics of the modern incarnations of white extremists: invocation of God, belief in conspiracy (of government, economic interests, and other "sinister forces" such as Communism, Jews, the UN, and so on). Such ideas have potential for social contagion, such as the mass hysteria against the beastly Hun conspiracy that surfaced in Britain before and during the Great War. A similar mind-set dominates American extremism, with the qualifier that the right wingers who actually enact the trope of violence are fairly limited in number and tend to be rural in character. Their perceived enemies start with all levels of government, and some have targeted law enforcement officials who have tried to serve warrants.

Another way of looking at right-wing extremism and violence comes from scholar Alla...

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Violent Extremism in the United States. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 08:20, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689220.html