THE TRUMP BRAND:

To this aversion for African Americans, latter-day white supremacists have added their repulsion for Latinos, Muslims, Asians and, of course, people identified as LGBTIQA+. Not to mention their anti-Semitism, another KKK legacy.

Such people may belong to the conspiracy sect QAnon or to The Base (a name which refers to the organisational and terrorist methods of al-Qaeda ("the base" in Arabic) or The Proud Boys (whom Donald Trump called on to "be ready" during his first debate with Joe Biden) or the Patriot Prayer Movement made up of Christian fundamentalists. As Vegas Tenold, who does research for the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, told The Insider. These last two movements "have a very vague ideology. all you can say about them is that they are pro-God and pro-First Amendment" (which guarantees freedom of speech). These people all have in common the conviction that the white "race" is superior to all the others. And that since this alleged supremacy is threatened, in order to preserve it, anything goes.

Conniving with these newcomers on the far right are some fifteen neo-Nazi splinter groups like the Storm Front or the national socialist party Vanguard America, which has adopted Hitler's slogan "blood and soil" ("Blut und Boden"). But also, The Atomwaffen Division (AWD), based in the United States but with branches in the United Kingdom, Germany and in the Baltic countries. These people will stop at nothing. Suicide bombings included. In an article posted online in June 2021, a member of AWD declared: "The culture of martyrdom and insurrection in groups like the Taliban and ISIS is to be admired and imitated in the neo-Nazi terrorist movement." In 2018, its founder and leader, Brandon Russell was arrested and convicted for possession of a destructive device and explosive substances.

To this incomplete list must be added the "Incels" (i.e., involuntary celibate) whose speciality is militant misogyny. Holding women responsible for their forced celibacy, this group of frustrated males was founded in 1993 and recruits worldwide via the Internet. It is taken very seriously by the FBI and has already perpetrated several acts of terrorism. In May 2014 one of its devotees, Elliot Rodger, murdered six people with a ram-raiding car in Isla Vista, California, and injured fourteen others, men and women indiscriminately, before committing suicide.

This ghastly survey would not be complete without mentioning the "Bogaloos," obsessed with the idea of starting a civil war before their guns are confiscated--this despite the widely respected 2nd amendment. Often seen wearing Hawaiian shirts (flaunting their poor taste), they even demonstrated with the crowds protesting the murder of George Floyd in hopes of sparking an uprising against the authorities (flaunting their mental confusion). They are in favour of preventive (civil) war, no matter who starts it. Like all the other conspiracy theorists, they are heavily armed and despite their hazy thinking and folksiness, they are dangerous.

All in all, these "entrepreneurs of violence", as political scientist Bertrand Badie has dubbed them, are thought to number around 100,000. This is at once few for a country whose population is just over 328 million, but enough to develop harmful networks, create online hubs like My Militia (subheading "An American Patriot Network"). These enable cybernauts to locate an existing militia or create one, set up platforms like Gab, Discord, Minds and Bitchute, open forums like Stormfront and IronForge, hammer out their theories about the "Great Replacement", destabilise democratic proceedings (as illustrated by the "storming" of the Capitol building by a handful of these people), and trigger criminal actions on a significant scale.

According to a report published on 17 June 2020 by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, right-wing extremists are responsible for two-thirds of the acts of terrorism and conspiracies fomented in the United States in 2019 and more than 90% between January 1st and 8 May 2020. It was these worrisome statistics that led the US Department of Home Security to conclude in a report published in October 2020 that "racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists--specifically white supremacist extremists (WSEs)--will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland."

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