The EconomistOctober 17th 2020 United States 25F
ederal agents grow twitchy when
they hear a would-be terrorist talk of us-
ing a “chemistry set”. On September 12th
Barry Croft, while meeting several other
men in a rural redoubt in Michigan, re-
ferred to his set as the men tested an im-
provised explosive device. He taped coins
around it, to see how the blast would send
shrapnel flying into red human silhouettes
painted on nearby boards. Neighbours lat-
er recalled hearing a bomb explode, but
they shrugged it off—it was routine to hear
heavy weaponry fired there.
The weekend was busy. The apparent
leader, Adam Fox, told 11 others of a plan to
kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor,
Gretchen Whitmer, whose holiday home
was nearby. He called her a “tyrant” and
predicted fellow militiamen all over Amer-
ica would rise and topple other leaders,
when “everybody takes their tyrants”. That
night the armed men, in three cars, drove
to her lakeside house to do surveillance.
They stopped en route to inspect and pho-
tograph a bridge they planned to blow up.
For months they had debated how to at-
tack Mrs Whitmer. Pose as a food delivery
service? Grab her from a car? Use a Taser?
Some talked of sending “cakes” or “cup-
cakes”, a euphemism for a bombing cam-
paign. In June Mr Fox had proposed leading
“200 men” to storm the state capitol in Lan-
sing. Some talked of attacking police and
trying to spark civil war. The plot, he insist-
ed, must precede the elections in Novem-
ber. They would try her for “treason”, per-
haps in Wisconsin, over her efforts to
contain coronavirus. Mr Fox was furious
that his gym was shut. What would he
achieve? He explained in July: “I just wanna
make the world glow, dude...everything’s
gonna have to be annihilated, man.”
The anti-government plotters did more
than just talk, but they inflicted no harm.
Thankfully, they were riddled with fbi in-
formants and spied on for months. On Oc-
tober 8th agents arrested 13 men and
charged them over the kidnap scheme or
the threats to the capitol. One defendant
later added that Ralph Northam of Virginia,
another Democratic governor, was also
sized up for kidnapping. Among those ar-
rested were members of a Michigan mili-
tia, the Wolverine Watchmen.
Their plot reflects a growing threat from
right-wing domestic terror groups. Daryl
Johnson, an analyst of far-right extremism,
says what “really stands out” is how manydefendantscollaborated and how long the
plot ran on. It looked unusually sophisti-
cated. When he was at the Department of
Homeland Security (dhs), more spontane-
ous plots, or ones involving two or three
men, were the norm. Each year, he says, ex-
tremist activity creeps up to new heights.
Christopher Wray, the head of the fbi,
testified last month to Congress that do-
mestic violent extremists, notably white
supremacists, are the most persistent, le-
thal threat facing America. The dhs said
the same last week in an annual report on
terrorism. It called 2019, when 48 people
were killed in 16 attacks, the “most lethal
year for domestic violent extremism in the
United States since the Oklahoma City
bombing in 1995”.Pine-forest paranoia
“We have never seen so much as this,”
agrees Kathleen Belew, a historian of ex-
tremism. She counts “many reasons for
alarm”, tracking an upsurge of activity be-
cause of anger over states’ coronavirus
lockdowns, worries over unemployment,
protests against racial justice and policing,
bitter party-political confrontation, and
the long-term (though largely neglected)
impact of many veterans coming home
from overseas wars. Another analyst calls it
a “perfect storm of paranoia”.
Donald Trump is also a cause. He boost-
ed anti-government protests in April by
tweeting “liberate Michigan”, for example,
then praised as “good people” armed prot-esters who entered the state capitol. Rather
than urging calm, he deflects invitations to
condemn right-wing extremist groups.
That thrills members of ragtag outfits like
the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the
Three Percenters. “There’s a surfeit of ten-
sions right now, and the president is super-
charging this,” says Ms Belew.
Not all militias are terror groups in the
making. Amy Cooter of Vanderbilt Univer-
sity estimates there are “two dozen real mi-
litias in Michigan, maybe 2,000 people”,
plus many more sympathisers and hang-
ers-on, notably in the isolated Upper Pen-
insula of the state. Racial division, fond-
ness for guns, large rural spaces and
economic decline may all help explain why
Michigan has more such groups than many
states. But 90% of these are what she calls
“constitutionalist” outfits, where middle-
aged men make a hobby of little more than
wearing uniforms, shooting targets and
moaning about big government.
It is a small minority of “millenarian”
and conspiracy-minded groups that are
most extreme. She says these are prone to
violence, for example when there are prot-
ests, as there could be if forthcoming elec-
tions are disputed. Her most pressing wor-
ry is that moderate militia groups may be
drawn to align closer with extreme ones, as
when they “bump elbows with overt neo-
Nazis” or white supremacists at protests
over the handling of coronavirus. In previ-
ous research in Michigan she saw how
apolitical militias shunned racist groups.
She is alarmed by signs that this is ending,
as different outfits have grown closer in the
past six months.
That suggests no one should expect ten-
sion to ease soon. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, of
American University, has tracked an in-
crease in hate groups in America at least
since Barack Obama was elected in 2008.
This is not a phenomenon only of the past
four years. She also sees growing readiness
to support the use of at least some violence
to achieve a political goal. Pollsters say
public backing for that (on both the left and
right) has ticked up from 8%, three years
ago to between 14% and 18% today. “That
fringe is growing and is mobilised,” she
says, pointing to a global trend of more ter-
rorist acts by right-wing groups.
In America, “everyone I know is worried
about the potential for spontaneous vio-
lence”, she says. Sales of firearms and mu-
nitions this year have broken records—by
one estimate 16.7m firearms had been
bought by September, already more than in
any (full) year on record. Sales in Septem-
ber were 66% higher than a year earlier.
Supplies of ammunition in some markets
have run so short that recreational shoot-
ers are going without. That alone could stir
fury in hunting-mad rural Michigan. All
told, 5m Americans are thought to have
bought a gun for the first time this year. 7CHICAGO
The threat from right-wing terror groups is more serious than for decadesFar-right extremismMaking the world glow
Shooting gallery