Far-Right and Jihadi Terrorism Within the United States: From September 11th to January 6th

Abstract

As tens of thousands swarmed the US Capitol Grounds on January 6th, 2021, to oppose the election of Joe Biden as President, thousands among them assaulted officers and breached the building to stop the certification of the election results, leading to nine deaths and hundreds of injuries. Despite being an act of terrorism and evidence that far-right extremists planned to take over the government, some dismiss January 6th as legitimate political discourse. This divisive response starkly contrasts with the unifying response to the jihadi attacks on September 11th two decades earlier, raising the question as to why the country has not also united against far-right extremism. This review argues that the Bush administration misused deterrence in response to the September 11th attacks. While unifying the country, it also disproportionately punished innocent Muslims and legitimized anti-Muslim ideals, giving rise to anti-Muslim hate crimes and backlash by jihadi extremists and emboldening violence from far-right extremists. This review combines research on deterrence, counterterrorism, anti-Muslim ideals, and far-right organizations with data on terrorism and hate crimes within the United States to delineate this argument and assess its alignment with the empirical progression of violence between September 11th and January 6th.