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  Idaho, in which less than one percent of the population is African American, was a popular destination for other white supremacists and far-right extremists. In the 1990s, James “Bo” Gritz, an impassioned anti-Semite, built a housing community called Almost Heaven about three hours south of the Hayden Lake compound.13 About an hour north of Butler's operations base sat Randy Weaver's house in Ruby Ridge—a location that, following a 1990s standoff with law enforcement, became a right-wing rallying slogan.

  It also turned out that Gritz, Weaver, Beam, Mohr, and Miles had all served in the military. Likewise, Klansman, neo-Nazi, and number two in the Posse Comitatus, August Kreis, served on a Navy vessel during Vietnam.14

  What's more, the two most infamous right-wing extremist attacks of the 1990s were carried out by military veterans. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a Gulf War veteran. And Eric Rudolph, whose series of bombings between 1996 and 1998 injured over 120 people and killed 2, had served in the army in the late 1980s.

  In fact, extremist right-wing groups made no secret of their recruitment of military personnel. At the 2004 Hate Rock festival in Phoenix, Arizona, white supremacist Tom Metzger enjoined the crowd to covertly infiltrate military and law enforcement. “Don't operate like a battleship,” he said. “Operate like a Nazi submarine.”15

  Metzger's strategy made sense. Wars are by nature destructive and traumatic. One in four veterans has a service-connected disability. What's more, veterans of the First Gulf War were three times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can disrupt family life and social networks, increase isolation, and limit employment options. Targeting any one veteran as an extremist solely based on their military service is wasteful profiling. But the destabilizing conditions of war make veterans, as a whole, more susceptible to radicalization. Additionally, military veterans have advanced tradecraft including knowledge of guns, explosives, and tactics. If they were radicalized and committed violence, they would be more likely to do huge amounts of damage than a civilian.

  A government survey of 17,080 soldiers that found 3.5 percent of soldiers have, in fact, been contacted for recruitment by an extremist organization. There are over two million Americans serving in the military and National Guard, which means extremist organizations have approached more than seventy thousand active duty military. More than twice that number, 7.1 percent, said they knew another soldier who was actually part of an extremist organization.

  Despite the abuse directed at its “left-wing” bias, the DHS report's warning was anchored in solid analysis, data, and historical examples. In the aggregate, it was reasonable that the steady stream of soldiers returning from an increasingly unpopular series of wars were more likely to be radicalized. And at least one of them, Micah Johnson, did in fact go on a killing spree.

  The suggestion that an election of a Democratic president might be used as a recruitment device by right-wing “Patriot” and militia groups was also grounded in historical example. Membership in those extremist groups had, in fact, been as predictable as the tides over the past two decades. Patriot and militia groups first emerged and rose when a Democrat, Bill Clinton, was elected president. Their numbers fell when a Republican, George W. Bush, replaced Clinton. By 2001, the SPLC was in a rare position: heralding the near death of a once powerful extremist movement, in this case, the seven-year-old Patriot and militia groups.16

  There were several reasons for the rapid rise and fall of the movement. First, militias and Patriot groups are typified by a conspiratorial and antagonistic view of the government, including a widespread belief that a federal program of weapons confiscation is imminent. Clinton, in fact, did sign into law two pieces of meaningful gun control in the early 1990s: the Brady Bill, which created a waiting period on gun purchases, and the assault weapons ban, which made a certain number of military-grade rifles illegal. Although nowhere close to a widespread confiscation of weapons, the new laws initially triggered a paranoia and excitement that helped recruitment. Membership in the movement began a downward slide following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. First, the tragedy led to a federal crackdown on right-wing extremist groups. Second, there was a splintering within the ranks as some militias tried to distance themselves from white supremacist groups. There was a certain amount of disillusionment that a promised revolution never came, including a revolt that was meant to be kicked off by the Y2K catastrophe.17 But it was the 2000 election of a Republican president that stamped out the militia and Patriot movements of the 1990s.

  Given the significant similarities between the early 1990s and 2009, it was also reasonable to assume that the election of a president who was a Democrat and had spoken favorably of “common sense” gun laws might drive an increase in militia recruitment.

  Unfortunately, in 2009, critics like Malkin won the day. The Obama White House decided that the staunch conservative resistance to the report made it politically toxic. So, in the face of claims that the report was too politicized, DHS took two remarkable actions. First, the agency rebuked its own analysis about the potential for a rise in right-wing extremism. The prescient report was, essentially, killed.

  Then, to make absolutely certain that conservatives were placated, DHS also reduced its meager resources dedicated to monitoring right-wing extremists. To put this in context, in 2009, as many as forty analysts at DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis tracked domestic Islamic threats. Just six people were dedicated to investigating domestic terrorism, which includes environmental radicals, black nationalists, anti-abortion extremists, white supremacists, and militias.

  By this time, data had already showed that this resource allocation was not proportionate to the threats the nation faced. Over the previous eight years, right-wing groups had proved to be a bigger domestic threat than any extreme Islamic or radical left-wing activity. In the face of denunciations of the report, however, DHS actually cut back resources for right-wing analysis.

  If there was one particular way in which the disowned DHS report did come up short, it was that rather than seeing a replay of the right-wing extremism of the 1990s, 2008–2016 was much worse. During that period, the number of active militia, Ku Klux Klan, and other hate groups grew steadily and for longer than they had in the 1990s, all reaching record highs.

  One reason for this unprecedented explosion of hate was simple: the economic and political conditions that drove it were also unprecedented. For example, in the thirty years between 1986 and 2016, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) experienced negative growth just three times. The first was in 1991, around the same time that 1990s right-wing extremism was expanding. The second and third were in 2008 and 2009, and both were much deeper.18

  Similarly to the 1980s farm crisis, unemployment and foreclosures had a dramatic personal impact. As a result of financial stress, people were statistically less likely to have kids or get divorced while, at the same time, there was a substantial spike in domestic abuse.19 Meanwhile, the suicide rate exploded, reaching a thirty-year high by 2016. It was particularly pronounced among middle-aged white males, shooting up by 40 percent between 2006 and 2016.

  During this era, one European study actually suggested a very specific relationship between these sorts of broad economic downturns and extremism: a one percent decline in economic growth results in a one percent increase in the vote share for far-right or nationalist parties.20

  In his 2016 article “The New Harvest of Rage,” Dyer also stressed how economic conditions in 2016 were more severe and widespread than what he had seen in the 1980s or 1990s. “The gap between the rich and poor,” he wrote, “has gotten much wider in the past quarter century.” Over this period of time, people have lost their homes to mortgage crisis and their “manufacturing jobs to cheap overseas labor.”

  So, clearly the harsh economic environment played some important role in the spate of extremism between 2008 and 2016. What that didn't explain was how extremist groups continued to expand even as the economy steadily improved from
about 2009. The recession-driven radicalization of the 1980s and 90s had tapered off as the economy improved. Clearly, macroeconomics couldn't explain everything that was going on between 2008 and 2016.

  The divisive role of politics might partially explain the unprecedented expansion of extremism. In February 2010, an attendee at a GOP conference in Boca Raton, Florida, left a hard copy of the Republican Party's plan to raise money for the upcoming elections. The discarded document, which was found and leaked to the press, revealed an incredibly cynical fundraising strategy.

  The party was in a tough spot, the presentation began. The GOP, which controlled neither the presidency nor Congress, had little to offer the big money donors who paid tens of thousands of dollars for access, networking opportunities, and ego trips. So the party proposed two changes. First, they would focus their fundraising efforts on smaller money donors. Second, they would seek to exploit these donors by “visceral” appeals based on fear, reactionary instincts, and negative feelings toward the current administration.

  The presentation asserted that millions of these middle and lower level voters could be whipped into frenzy by calls like “save the country from trending towards socialism!” The authors suggested propaganda, like images of President Obama as comic book villain The Joker and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as Cruella de Vil. In short, the GOP fundraising strategy was to demonize the other side with all the subtlety of a fifth grader.

  That same year, the GOP's minority leader, Mitch McConnell, declared that “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”21 They were not alone in this game, however. Democrats were also becoming increasingly addicted to negative politics. As the parties bickered and demonized each other, Americans’ confidence in government fell to new lows.

  This strategy did get some people elected, while other times it backfired, but it was always playing with fire. When the primary fundraising or political tactic of the two major parties is to demonize the other, overall trust in the system is bound to degrade. Indeed, trust in the federal government reached historic lows. In the late 1950s, 77 percent of Americans reported that they trusted the federal government “always” or “most of the time,” according to a Pew Research Center poll. In 1974, with the nation slouching toward defeat in Vietnam, in the midst of an economic recession and Richard Nixon fending off the Watergate scandal, 68 percent of respondents still reported trusting the federal government at least most of the time. But by November 2015, confidence had dropped precipitously: just 19 percent of Americans reported that they trusted the federal government either “always” or “most of the time.”22

  Support for Congress was also dismal post-2009. In a yearly Gallup poll, Americans were asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?” Between 1976 and 2006, approval for Congress only fell below 25 percent twice. Once was briefly in 1979 and the second time was in 1990–1994, during the rise in extremist activity.23 Between 2010 and December 2016, however, Congress’ approval rating didn't get over 25 percent even once.

  This lack of trust in government can play a role in encouraging extremism and even violence. If the official system seems useless, people are more likely to look for other options to create political and societal change—including violence. As researcher Mark Littler puts it, “Attitudes towards politics may frame assessments of not just political participation but also support for terrorism.”24

  It turned out that Americans were less willing to put trust in institutions other than the federal government as well. Another Gallup poll asked Americans how much confidence they had in different mainstream institutions, including organized religion, the medical system, presidency, Supreme Court, organized labor, justice system, TV news, newspapers, big business, military, police, and Congress. In 1994, a relatively low average of 36 percent of Americans claimed either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of faith across the institutions. Those percentages rebounded, climbing as high as 43 percent in 2004.25

  By early 2009, that number was down to 36 percent again and the public's faith in virtually all its major institutions has continued dropping, surpassing the historically low numbers of the early 1990s. By 2016, it reached an unprecedented 32 percent. That year, Americans only awarded two institutions, the military and police, with above 50 percent confidence. In other words, less than half of Americans trusted mainstream religion, organized labor, media, and the medical and legal systems.26

  Americans also reported being less optimistic about the future. In quarterly polls between 1997 and 2003, at least half of respondents believed that the country was “headed in the right direction.” In virtually every period since late 2003, less than half the country has seen it as “headed in the right direction.” But it got even worse between 2008 and 2016. By 2013, that level of approval fell again, never getting above 40 percent.

  Perhaps the only thing more remarkable than the complete collapse of confidence in American institutions and the political system was that it was, in large part, engineered by the national political parties themselves. For these groups, viciously divisive partisanship was not a problem, but a fundraising strategy.

  However, the most ominous development over this time period is not how politicians have played a role in persuading Americans to intensely dislike other politicians and institutions, but each other. An official strategy of creating fear, paranoia, and hatred has also made people more agitated, scared, and paranoid. The predictable result: 40 percent of registered Democrats and Republicans today report that they are “afraid of” the other party.27

  In 1995, a Florida militiaman named Donald Beauregard claimed that, while eating breakfast one morning, he discovered a secret plan to turn the United States into a biosphere. The New World Order had mistakenly printed it on his box of Trix.28

  In 2002, the New Black Panther Party's Malik Zulu Shabazz invoked a crowd to: “Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”29

  A message on a deep ecology internet group suggested offering a prize to “the high school student who comes up with the best plan to bring about the destruction of civilization without seriously harming the biosphere.”30

  It's reassuring to think of these groups as the face of extremism. But, not only is every American capable of radicalization, America's two largest political parties have actively encouraged radicalization. The crumbling faith in mainstream America and the metrics showing broad divisiveness and fear play a role in the spread of extremism.

  This is because what we call the personal portion of the radicalization process is not necessarily internal. Images of Nancy Pelosi as Cruella de Vil are designed to create anger. A lack of trust in religion, news, business, and other institutions can spur feelings of isolation and alienation from society. The machinations of the mainstream were, in fact, encouraging “normal” people to be more susceptible to extremist ideas.

  At close to midnight on November 4, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama stood behind a lectern in Chicago's Grant Park. “As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours,” the president-elect exhorted the ecstatic crowd, “we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”31

  That same night in New York City, an African American teenager was attacked by four men wielding a bat and chanting “Obama!” The next day in Snellville, Georgia, a white boy walked up to a nine-year-old African American girl on their school bus. “I hope Obama gets assassinated,” he said. A spike in racist incidents continued to be reported in every corner of the country over the following weeks. In Maine, black figures hung from nooses. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, crosses were burned in Obama supporters’ front yards. In Idaho, second and third graders chanted “Assassinate Obama!” on their school bus.32

  In his speech, Obama made plays for unity, for hard work, for coming together as a truly “United States of Ame
rica.” But over his eight years in office, the exact opposite happened. Americans became more partisan and intolerant. The president comfortably won a second term in 2012, but extremism across the country was still exploding.

  By 2016—and in the face of a steadily improving economy—none of the classic drivers of radicalization could fully explain the massive increase of extremism and hate groups across the political spectrum. If America was a house divided in 2008, it was a house on fire by the time Obama left. What other forces were at work?

  A few days after Barack Obama's 2008 election, David Duke—the long-time face of American white nationalism—co-hosted an international conference of white nationalists in a flea-bag motel outside Memphis. The event had originally been planned to run for three days at a nearby resort, but the venue had canceled on them days earlier. Undeterred, a smaller number of attendees reduced the event to one day and met at the only place that would have them. After a few speeches in the dingy setting, they declared the meeting a success.

  Over his prodigious five-decade career, Duke had constantly courted both publicity and controversy. He had stints as a campus neo-Nazi, Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Louisiana state representative, talk-show guest, failed presidential candidate, and professional anti-Semite on the lecture circuit.

  Duke had endured plenty of criticism from within his movement as well. The highest profile incident occurred in 1979 when Duke's second in command at the Knights of the KKK, Tom Metzger, left the group, accusing his boss of being a fraud, egomaniac, and rip-off artist.1 In 2002, Metzger—by then a well-known neo-Nazi—was vindicated when Duke was convicted of tax evasion, mail fraud, and embezzlement. A few months after the 2008 Memphis motel meeting, Duke would be arrested, deported, and banned from Germany for his open anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, a crime in some European countries.2