Over the weekend, Dawson Maloney of Albany, NY, died in what appears to be an attempted attack on a substation outside of Las Vegas. Police shared a photo of the books they found in his hotel room, which include literature popular with neo-Nazi accelerationists. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/u...
Was interviewed for this amazing new piece by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social about Nick Fuentes and the politics of hating women.
organizingmythoughts.org/nick-fuentes...
We spoke with researcher @jonlewis27.bsky.social: “When officials are flooding the zone with the most racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, antisemetic, and Islamophobic messages it's going to embolden groups like Patriot Front.”
A federal security contractor that received millions from the Department of Agriculture hired notorious Patriot Front enforcer Ian Michael Elliott to work security patrols for the US Forest Service last year.
My latest with Sean Craig for @theguardian.com 🧵
I can't help but think that the attack on Ilhan Omar is an extension of redbaiting and the age-old strategy of using the fear of leftists as a way to scapegoat minorities. More recently, redbaiting has been used as a way to shift the focus from Jews to Muslims, creating a new flavor of Islamophobia.
NEW: Within minutes of Alex Pretti being killed by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Saturday, the Trump administration, backed by right-wing influencers, launched a smear campaign against the victim, labelling him a ”terrorist” and a “lunatic.” @davidgilbert.bsky.social reports:
“These are no longer dog whistles,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said. “They’re bullhorns.” www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...
"They've become conspiratorial-minded people looking for the next thing to mobilize for."
Read comments from our research fellow @jonlewis27.bsky.social in this @nytimes.com article on the enduring prominence of January 6 conspiracies👇
If you've got an hour to kill today, consider tuning in to our webinar about prosecuting and holding 764 accountable. My colleague Barry Jonas—a retired federal prosecutor—will be moderating the event with our esteemed panelists.
Research Fellow @jonlewis27.bsky.social was recently featured in an article from The Guardian that explores why some of the most recent acts of political violence exhibit the characteristic of leaving behind written messages on their weapons and ammunition.
FBI has been steadily diverting resources away from domestic terrorism investigations, decimating specialized units & discontinuing tools used to track extremism. the admin also gutted millions in federal terrorism-prevention grants. it's effectively abandoned the fight against homegrown violence.
I wish things were at least less stupid if they had to be so dire
Spoke with @drewharwell.com over @washingtonpost.com about Internet culture, memes and how the rush to pin an ideology on Robinson was foolish. Happy to be quoted alongside other experts like @jaredlholt.bsky.social and @jmberger.com in this! They really know their stuff.
Far-right fight nights are events bringing together combat fighting, extremist bands and merch, in an attempt to bring in new recruits and solidify existing relationships. @colborne.bsky.social locates the latest event for a California-based group: www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/09...
NEW from me: Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution from the right, proliferates after Charlie Kirk killing www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...
NEW @motherjones.com: Pardoned J6ers are using Kirk's killing to call for civil war
Stewart Rhodes will rebuild Oath Keepers; Proud Boys call for "retribution"; & ex-insurrectionists are coming "out of retirement."
Experts fear they could incite others to violence. W/ @kieraevebutler.bsky.social:
“The singular message emerging from across the right is one of vengeance and retribution ... which only further increases the likelihood of retaliatory vigilante violence,” said @jonlewis27.bsky.social, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
I wrote for @msnbc.com about what the engravings on the shell casings of Kirk’s shooter represent and where the references originated. Given what we know so far, they suggest a young man who had his brain fried by the irony poisoned, anti-social nature of certain aspects of online culture. /1
A must-read by Jordan Green:
“Some neo-Nazis are heralding Kirk’s death as an opportunity for accelerationism — the idea that a moment of heightened political tension can open the door to tit-for-tat violence, creating conditions for revolutionary upheaval.”
www.alternet.org/amp/violence...
The shooters who fall into this mold implicitly understand these internet dynamics. They seek an audience, but they are also acting out to get the world—especially the online world—to respond. “If you read this you are gay lmao” is a trolly, nihilistic thing to inscribe on a bullet casing, but the point is for people to see it, for people like me to write it down so that people like you can read it and feel something, be it shock, outrage, confusion, or sadness. The shooters may not have a coherent ideology, or even be particularly politically motivated per se, but they seem to know the ecosystem they are dropping their horrific acts of violence into. For some shooters, online communities—with all their irony-poisoning, shitposting, and feuding—are more real, or at least more meaningful, than physical ones. With their senseless violence, these killers are bringing a part of that networked, online chaos to tangible, life-and-death reality. They know that their violence will be flattened, picked apart, argued over, and, crucially, amplified by the justification machine. In this way, they will get what they’re after. The violence will continue.
said it yesterday but the people who commit this violence increasingly show us that they deeply understand how our information ecosystems process it. It appears to be part of the appeal for them. And yet the response doesn't really change. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
NEW: Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean
w/ @megannicolett.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/charli...
Most terminally online people who commit violence aren't connected to O9A or 764; these are fairly specific things and not just "violent people who spent too much time on the computer"
A lot of people who are generally smart and have good thoughts about internet culture have kinda filed 764 into just a more intense version of "internet culture" which doesn't really describe what they are and what they do, even if the internet is involved. It makes for misleading analysis.
“The crusade to silence any voices that may not conform to the hagiography has unfolded quickly.”
“Especially for people who already assaulted law enforcement on January 6 and were pardoned, there is certainly going to be an expectation that, if they answer the call again, they could have the same outcome," @jonlewis27.bsky.social said.
Experts see this as mostly more grifting from J6ers.
But that doesn't mean it's not still dangerous.
“They’re now being told that the same people who tried to steal this country away from you just killed Charlie Kirk,” @jonlewis27.bsky.social told me, "& someone has to do something about that.”
