Many of today’s extremists hide
their radical views under the guise of
boy-next-door preppy looks and
organize activities, like all-male
hikes, to appear mainstream. “They
have a product they want to sell and
t h a t pr o duc t i s h a t e ,” s ay s K. “ Whe n
you see a bunch of normal-looking
guys, you think, How bad could it be?
But violent men don’t have to look
any different from kind men.” Some
of the ones K tracks post pictures
with their kids and pets amid calls
for mass violence.
On sites like Gab, Reddit, 4Chan,
and VK, the new white supremacists
and misogynists hatch conspiracy
theories that take off on Twitter and
make it on fake news sites like
InfoWars and even occasionally Fox
News. They serve up “constant peer
pressure to do something criminal,”
s ay s K. T he y t u r n h a t e s p e e ch i nt o
hate crimes:
Yo ur g irl br o k e up w ith y o u?
It mu s t h a ve b e e n h e r fault.
She’s kind of a bitch.
She is a bitch.
Rape her.
End her.
It was this kind of twisted thinking
that galvanized Elliot Rodger, 22, an
incel who in 2014 killed 6 people and
wou nde d 14 o t he r s i n I s l a V i s t a , C a l i-
fornia; Alek Minassian, 25, anothermen do. The ADL estimates that tens
of thousands of alt-right members
have popped up in the last few years.
There are the incels (involuntary cel-
ibates), who are angry at women for
not sleeping with them. The pickup
artists, or PUAs, who believe in
ma n ip u l a t i n g wome n t o h ave s e x.
There’s the Red Pill community,
which preaches, among other things,
that women have it better, so much
better, than men. “If someone is
lonely and connects with one of
these groups, taking on the
ideological beliefs of the group
happens almost subconsciously,”
says Michael J. Williams, PhD, a
researcher who studies how to coun-
ter violent extremism. “The ability to
recruit hate is more widespread than
ever before. It’s far easier and faster.”
Meaning, these guys aren’t just
trolls in basements—they’re people
you probably know. Beirich calls
them “millennial misogynists.” K
says many are college-educated and
articulate. They have day jobs and
Tinder accounts. In the fall of 2017,
white supremacist propaganda on
college campuses more than tripled
from the previous year, according to
ADL data. No wonder, per the FBI,
hate crimes rose about 17 percent
t o o. ( T h i s nu mb e r i s pr o b a bly e ve n a
vast undercount, since hate crimes
are notoriously underreported.)
Modern “male supremacy,” as the
experts now call it, actually dates
back to the 1970s, when men’s rights
activists came about as a reaction to
women’s liberation, explains Jessica
Reaves, editorial director for the
ADL’s Center on Extremism. This
time, it’s not just feminism to
blame—it’s Donald Trump. I didn’t
say it. Nearly every expert I talked to
d id. “ T he 2 016 c a mp a i g n e ne r g i z e d
misogynistic groups,” says Reaves.
“They heard very powerful men talk-
ing about women in a way we had
ne ve r s e e n b efor e i n p u bl ic .”
self-described incel, drove a van
i nt o a s ide w a l k f u l l of p e o ple i n
Toronto in 2018 and killed 8 women
and 2 men, injuring 16 others. Many
of the other men behind large-scale
recent murders have a history of
violence toward women, per the
International Center for Research
on Women. Nikolas Cruz, the
Parkland shooter, was allegedly
abusive to his ex-girlfriend. The
Orlando nightclub shooter, the
Texas church shooter, the Califor-
nia bar shooter—all reportedly
violent toward women.
In other words, this isn’t a pow-
der keg waiting to explode. It’s been
exploding for years.
In March, K nailed 30-year-old
Corbin Kauffman of Lehighton,
Pennsylvania, who had posted
tasteless memes and murderous
threats on a fringe social-media
site frequented by members of
the alt-right. His Twitter bio read:
“One of the extremist WN [white
nationalists] that CNN warned you
about.” He’d posted a video of
himself, a knife in his lap, speaking
in an amped-up cartoonish voice
about how he wanted to commit
hate crimes. Before he could
follow through, K had the FBI at
his door. He’s now facing up to five
years in prison.You won’t see K’s
name in the
headlines about men
she’s helped catch.122
Cosmopolitan September 2019TOP^ CENTER:^GETTY^IMAGES.^ R
IGHT:^ JOSHUA^ROBERTS/REUTERS.