The planned kidnapping and possible murder of Gov. Whitmer is frightening for few reasons.

What caught my attention was the number of people involved. 13 charged in the plot! Such a large conspiracy is highly unusual. 1/n https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/us/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-militia.html?smid=tw-share

In the past 15 years or so in rich countries, most of the serious political violence has come from individuals or small cells (<5 people). It's too hard for a sizable group to seriously plan an attack when the government can infiltrate your group, monitor communication, etc. 2/n

In the US in the 1990s when the militia movements were big, the feds infiltrated them and broke them up quickly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And of course after 9/11, the govt focused on jihadi networks. 3/n

The effectiveness of US law enforcement and CT has made lone actor or small cell terrorism more likely.

(Also there are broader movements, which are generally less deadly because of their disorganization. Still important to understand. https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2020/06/22/to-understand-political-violence-in-the-us-think-movements-not-groups/) 4/n

I wrote a paper a while back that showed that attacks by groups tend to be more lethal than attacks by "lone wolves." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2608771 This may be obvious - groups have more capabilities, and are more able to carry out complex attacks that can kill a lot of people. 5/n

One exception I found was in the US. There, lone actors are the type of attacker that is usually the most lethal.

Groups *usually* have a hard time carrying out substantial attacks - or even getting organized - when there's such substantial counterterrorism capabilities. 6/n

On the one hand, this Michigan case illustrates that. The FBI discovered the plot before it happened. Good news.

But the fact that the group was so (relatively) big, and operating openly enough that the govt was able to catch onto them, is pretty alarming. 7/n

Sometimes when law enforcement intercepts a "plot," it's actually a plot created by agents, and they get a terrorism-sympathetic person to join in.

But this case is different.

The group formed, came up with the plan, and then a member apparentlybecame an informant. 8/n

So hats off to the FBI. But such a complex kidnapping and possibly murder plot, for political reasons, is pretty rare in the US. Is it ominous? We know there's the potential for this, with widespread unrest, armed demonstrations, and increased organization of militants. 9/n

If violence by actual groups (as opposed to lone actors, a few people, or loosely organized movements) becomes common, that will mark a serious and dangerous change in US political violence. 10/n

Hopefully this is an outlier, a case of unusually risk-taking and extreme extremists. But with all that's going on... it's possible there will be more organization, and more serious plans for violence. Let's hope not. 11/11

p.s. the very first tweet should say "a few reasons" not "few reasons... thanks edit button