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It is truly remarkable how many people on here viscerally reject the idea that our staggeringly unequal economy is in any way contributing to the rise of far-right extremism.
Luckily, you don't have to take my word for it (thread)
Luckily, you don't have to take my word for it (thread)
Here's a 2009 DHS report with a clear warning that "prolonged economic downturn...could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities..." https://fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf
Here's a 2008 report from the European Commission warning that "unfair competition for scarce resources or an absence of prospects for a good future" are paths to "militancy and terrorism." https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/20080500_cscp_report_vries.pdf
Here's a 2016 study that found that "far-right terrorism mobilizes more under periods of long-term economic deprivation..." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10940-019-09422-z
Here's a 2020 brief from the New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs warning that the economic fallout from COVID "can possibly be viewed as an opportunity for extremist groups to attract more people to their cause and serve their agenda." http://nycfpa.org/blog/the-pandemic-crisis-economic-recession-and-the-rise-of-extremism/
Over the summer, the FBI warned that the COVID response from state and local governments could reenergize militia groups. https://sports.yahoo.com/exclusive-fbi-warned-over-summer-that-pandemic-was-helping-to-reenergize-militia-movement-192520053.html
Here's a WaPo report from May that the armed right-wing protests in Michigan were "fueled by economic woes": https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/01/anti-stay-home-protests/
Here's a 2015 report from Vice that radical groups in the Middle East were exploiting scarcity (in this case of water) to recruit https://www.vice.com/en/article/exq45z/is-water-scarcity-radicalizing-the-middle-east-235
Here's a report from June from an NPR affiliate about how the economic uncertainty of the COVID crisis is "pushing some Americans" toward militia groups.
https://wamu.org/story/20/06/11/armed-militias-see-the-pandemic-as-a-recruiting-opportunity-2/
https://wamu.org/story/20/06/11/armed-militias-see-the-pandemic-as-a-recruiting-opportunity-2/
"Generally, tough economic times tend to exacerbate a lot of the negative trends that we associate populism and democratic backsliding" --Sheri Berman, professor of political science at Barnard College with expertise in democracy, populism, and fascism https://www.businessinsider.com/global-recession-could-boost-far-right-populism-in-us-worldwide-2019-8
Here's a study from 2014 that found that scarcity may change the way we perceive people of different races. The study focused on white perceptions of black people when facing scarcity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078865/
Here's a history lesson from the American Holocaust Memorial Museum about the role the Great Depression played in the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hitler-comes-to-power
