Research Desk: Rising Threat of Anti-Government Domestic Terrorism

Research on the Radical Right: The number of ideologically motivated domestic terrorist attacks and plots against the government is triple the number of incidents in the previous 25 years combined.

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Highlight from recently published research and studies of the Radical Right: ‘The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined.’

Organizational Research

• The Rising Threat of Anti-Government Domestic Terrorism: What the Data Tells Us, By Riley McCabe, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

  • “The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined, according to new CSIS analysis of 30 years of domestic terrorism data in the United States. This includes attacks and plots against elected officials, political candidates, political party officials, and political workers from terrorists with opposing political views. This rising threat warrants continued efforts to increase protective security measures of government targets, strengthen response plans in the event of a successful attack, and counter the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and violent rhetoric that have motivated many attackers.”

• Why Gender Matters in Violent Extremist Propaganda Strategy, by Kiriloi Ingram, International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)

  • “The role of gender in the propaganda, political, and military strategies of violent extremist groups has persistently been underestimated and misunderstood. In many ways, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) came to epitomise that trend. Crimes marking ISIS’ genocide against the Yazidi community, for example, were often dictated by gender: men were murdered and boys were forced into military training, while women and girls were sold into slavery. Its propaganda, including messaging specifically written by and for women, not only endorsed, but instructed audiences on how to carry out these atrocities. This occurred not just at the hands of ISIS fighters, but at the hands of its women. If we are to learn anything from ISIS as we confront right-wing extremism, it is that we need to pay attention to violent extremists’ grasp of the gendered logics of terrorism. Otherwise, violent extremists, from ISIS to misogynist Incels, will continue to have devasting effects on the lives of those they deem to be the enemy.”

• 30 Years of Trends in Terrorist and Extremist Games, By Galen Englund and Emily Thompson, Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET)

  • “Violent extremist, terrorist, and targeted hate actors have been actively exploiting video games to propagandise, recruit and fundraise for more than 30 years. This report presents an analysis of that history using a unique dataset, the Extremist and Terrorist Games Database (ETGD), developed by the authors. It contains 155 reviewed entries of standalone games, modifications for existing games (mods) and browser‐based games dating from 1982 to 2024. The titles analysed appear across the ideological spectrum: far right (101 titles), jihadist (24), far left (1) and other forms of extremism and targeted hate (29), including school‐massacre ideation (12). They span platforms ranging from simple standalone games for Atari in the 1980s to sophisticated mods for some of today’s most popular games. The number of titles has increased year on year – in line with global conflict and extremist ideological trends, and revealing a continued push by malicious actors to exploit gaming.”

• Steam-Powered Hate: Top Gaming Site Rife with Extremism & Antisemitism, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Center on Extremism (COE)

  • “To understand the scale and nature of hateful and extremist content on Steam, the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) conducted an analysis of public data on Steam Community on an unprecedented, platform-wide scale, analyzing 458+ million profiles, 152+ million profile and group avatar images and 610+ million comments on user profiles and groups. COE found millions of examples of extremist and hateful content – including explicit hate symbols like sonnenrads and ‘happy merchants,’ as well as copypastas (blocks of text that are copied and pasted to form images or long-form writing) shaped into swastikas – on Steam Community, the platform’s social networking space where users can connect, congregate and share content. The clear gaps in Steam’s moderation of this content inflict harm by exposing untold users to hate and harassment, enabling potential radicalization and normalizing hate and extremism in the gaming community. Understanding the extent of extremist and hateful content on the platform is key to fighting the proliferation of hate online.”