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change hearts and minds will be contro-
versial. Hate speech is in most cases pro-
tected speech, and the U.S. government
is legally barred from countering home-
grown extremism the way it does foreign
terrorist propaganda. Already the pros-
ecutions of the Capitol rioters are raising
questions about the rights to free speech,
assembly and privacy for American citi-
zens. Leaders in law enforcement and the
U.S. military are split on how to deal with
extremists in their own ranks. Under lying
all these efforts is a question that became
harder to answer during the Trump era:
Who is a potentially violent domestic ex-
tremist, and who only speaks like one?
Still, some on the left are calling for
immediate action. Representative Jackie
Speier, a California Democrat who chairs
the House Armed Services Military Per-
sonnel Subcommittee, has urged Biden
to issue an Executive Order that would
identify white supremacy and domestic
violent extremism as a threat to national
security and screen service members’
social media accounts for ties to radical
movements. Others point to Canada’s
recent designation of the Proud Boys
as a terrorist organization and argue for
stronger measures at home. “Our best
chance for success is to be straight with
the American people—that the threats
we now face are arguably as dangerous
as they were in the immediate post-9/11
environment, and these threats are not
going away,” Christopher Rodriguez,
director of Washington’s Homeland Secu-
rity and Emergency Management Agency,
told Congress on Feb. 4.
The makeup of The mob that stormed
the Capitol may be the biggest problem.
Though Congress has focused on mili-
tias and white- supremacist groups, those
factions represented few of the partici-
pants. A George Washington University
study identified 257 people involved in
the riot, of whom just a small fraction
were found to be part of a militant net-
work. The vast majority were ordinary
Americans—members of church groups,
families who traveled together, and what
the report calls “inspired believers”—
which shows how far-right beliefs have
seeped into the mainstream.
Experts recommend the White House
begin implementing community-based
initiatives, like those in Germany and else-
where in Europe, to work with neighbor-
hood organizations to combat disinfor-
mation and radicalism. Republican and
Democratic lawmakers have introduced
bills to establish a bipartisan commission
to study the Capitol attack. Similar blue-
ribbon probes of 9/11, the causes of urban
uprisings in the 1960s, and other threats
helped shape public opinion about the
nation’s security and guide its responses.
One goal of such a panel, advocates say,
would be to create an accepted public re-
cord of U.S. extremist violence over the
past decade. “We need to know what led
the mob to the front gates in order to solve
this problem,” says Jonathan Reiber, for-
mer head of strategic cyber security policy
in the Defense Department and now chief
strategist at cyber security firm AttackIQ.
“If we do not take this moment to exam-
ine online extremism and what has hap-
pened to our country, then something
worse will happen.”
All of this makes Biden’s 100-day
timeline to assess the far-right threat
and devise a plan to counter it seem am-
bitious. When asked whether the Ameri-
can public could expect a report, a list of
recommendations or something else at
the end of that period, the NSC declined
to comment.
What’s clear is that the fight against
domestic extremism will be a defining
issue for a President who said he chose to
run because of Charlottesville and whose
Inauguration was overshadowed by the
Capitol riot. Biden has promised to unite
the country while delivering the “defeat”
of white supremacy and domestic terror-
ism. It’s not clear it’s possible to do both.
—With reporting by Julia Zorthian
Members of the Boogaloo movement gather outside the Michigan state capitol in Lansing on Jan. 17
BRYAN DENTON—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
