Earlier this month, a white supremacist gunman opened fire at a Walmart shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people. According to police, the suspected shooter has admitted to targeting “Mexicans,” and he had apparently posted a manifesto online just prior to his rampage, in which he decried a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” In the same manifesto, he praised another white supremacist gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March of this year.
These are sadly just a few of the violent incidents perpetrated in recent years by right-wing extremists around the world. In the wake of the shooting in El Paso, there are growing calls for the U.S. government to focus more resources on right-wing extremism, which is now responsible for more deaths on American soil than jihadi groups. On this week’s Trend Lines interview, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where his research focuses on counterterrorism and regional security issues in the Middle East; and Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow focusing on terrorism and transnational crime at The Soufan Center. They discuss the growing threat of right-wing extremism around the world and how best to address it.
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Relevant Articles on WPR:
Jihadism May Be Waning, but New Forms of Violent Extremism Are Emerging
The Two Internal Threats to Western Democracies, Hiding in Plain Sight
Europe and the Ongoing Challenge of Right-Wing Extremism
Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.
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