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guest: everyone is confused about this. no one has a complete agreement on it. your question is well-placed. refer to the far right as a spectrum of ideologies that includes white supremacist extremism but also a range of other kinds of systems oneliefs and the far right spectrum including antigovernment. what we have been talking about is white supremacist extremism. that is an ideology that most people understand to include dehumanizing kinds of -- kinds of racism and homophobia. two parts, ades sense of existential dread. you have been hearing the great replacement theory part of the manifesto in christchurch and reportedly in el paso. they believe that they are

accident -- existentially at threat, going to be replaced by immigrants, that there will be a white genocide. the third doctrine is acceleration, that there obligation is to accelerate societal discord through violence to bring about a new world order. that is what we talk about when we talk about weight super assist extremism. it is not just the ideology that is troubling but this other set of beliefs. viewers can call in as we have this conversation. they are split up regionally. (202)-748-8000 if you live in the eastern or central time zones. (202)-748-8001 in the mountain or pacific time zones. what are the estimates of the number of groups there are in the united states in the membership of these groups. host: the numbers -- guest: the numbers are hard to gauge. the roots of this go back a long

time. the modern roots of it are traced to after the vietnam war when you had disgruntled veterans coming back feeling like they were betrayed by the government, starting with patriot militias and evolving into what you remember, waco and ruby ridge and oklahoma city. we had groups you could document and understand and measure. now that this is sort of what people call sometimes a much more leaderless movement where a lot of the radicalization happens online, you can measure hate speech, you can measure tens of thousands, people posting and engaged in some of , but far right platforms that is part of the challenge, as we have not had the federal capacity in law enforcement and monitoring to understand the numbers because there has not been a focus. host: why not? guest: a couple different reasons.

since 9/11, there has been an overwhelming focus on international security and islamic extremism and resources have been devoted to that. there have been cutbacks in to target domestic extremism and there has been a neglect of the capacity building within higher education. we have departments of terrorism which tend to focus on islamic extremism. a lot of documents are coming out and much less is being produced in terms of the knowledge we have to help experts in the government. a seat change is about to happen and you can feel it in the air , a lot ofwith the fbi people calling for more resources and attention. i think that is very much what has happened in other countries after the terrorist attacks in 2011 in norway.

theive investments and norwegian government has the largest research center studying the far right and white supremacists -- and white supremacist extremism. host: how did it get started? guest: this is where you start to understand how new this is. this is an effort started by folks in the u.k.. it was a u.k. based group to pull together scholars and connect them with the public. the website has several dozen senior scholars and policy fellows and more jr. scholars ,ho write insight blogs op-ed's, they are posted with media partners and they try to connect that knowledge with the public to better inform everyone about the far right. they have scholars representing every region of the world. host: for folks who hear the name, the center for the analysis of the radical right,

is there a radical left and what is the difference? guest: there is a radical left. there is a whole spectrum here. left, and there is even a terrorist left, eco-terrorism, animal-rights terrorism. when we are talking about the extreme fringes of the political spectrum, i am talking about people who are willing to use violence and even hurt civilians in order to make a political statement or because they believe they are advancing a political agenda. on the far left, those extremists have tended to -- it is more arson, those kinds of attacks which tend to have fewer casualties. we are seeing a lot more lethality in white supremacist extremism than any other form of extremism in the u.s. and that has been important for region -- that has been important regionwide. host: cynthia miller-idriss

taking your calls. for central time zones, (202)-748-8000. or mountain or pursue for -- pacific time zones, (202)-748-8001. caller: good morning. argument refute her that white supremacy is the problem in the united states. i would refer someone -- i would refer people to look at heather mcdonnell book, diversity delusion. the numbers just don't add up. trying to hide from you, she talks about the extreme left as being animal-rights activists. she leaves out black lives matter and antifa and purposely leaves out that the dayton, ohio shooter was documented as a far leftist. this is not what they want you to see, the truth. if you look at what miss mcdonnell said, she was on the news the other day.

blacks for example represent 50% on actual hate crimes and you have to look at that as a ratio. to put in perspective, look at world war ii. the coast guard lost more people per capita than any other branch of the military. if you look at the ratio of numbers of people in the united states, you look at the number of people by race and ethnicity and you see who is actually committing more crimes against the citizenry. host: let's give the professor a chance to respond. guest: i think the data speaks for itself on the lethality question. that has been documented in testimonies to congress and the inference -- and the antidefamation league has presented information on this as well. the most lethal form of extremist terrorism violent -- terrorist violence in the u.s. and that is why we need more attention to this particular form of terrorism from the federal government. host: can you explain this replacement theory a little bit

more and how it has evolved from a superiority theory into a fear of replacement? guest: replacement theory has been around for a long time. in the u.s. it usually has historically been called white genocide by the extreme right. thed lane, a neo-nazi in 1980's was talking about white genocide and these kinds of fears of change through immigration and demographic replacement. a french scholar coined the phrase the great replacement and that caught on with many very extremists whoht are concerned about this idea that there is a demographic change coming, that whites will be the minority in europe and the u.s. in the u.s., we know that to be true in the next couple of decades and this gets framed as an existential threat. you'll even hear people say

things like this is what happened to the native americans. they use the native americans as a cautionary tale saying -- i have heard people say things like white americans lined up on deepvations, this real seated fear of an existential threat from this kind of change. that is called the great replacement. it is that is a shinning of demographic change as a threat to an entire group of people. host: how do they get to concern about that and fear of that, to wanting to accelerate some sort of final showdown? guest: there is this third part of this set of beliefs which is called acceleration, the belief is on the extreme fringe, this is the extreme fringe but echoes of this show up in mainstream rhetoric. the extreme fringe believes that the inevitable result, the way to get change and restore a

white civilization is a new world order at the end of an apocalyptic race war and the best and fastest way to get there is to increase polarization through violence. this is what makes them believe they are engaging in heroic action and you will hear words like going in, going to save my people, i cannot sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. host: where there echoes of this in what we saw in isis? trying to accelerate some kind of final showdown? guest: very much so. we call that reciprocal attic lies a. sometimes isis attacks are celebrated by far right extremists across the world as part of the same process. in that sense, the dayton attack , some motivation is coming out, the misogyny is him and other things, i am not commenting on it because it is still very much in flux, exactly what those motivations were.

was the dayton attack celebrated by far right extremists because it contributes to the same end goal which is acceleration toward a new world order. host: marble town, georgia, jerome is next. caller: good morning. i am an individual that has atnd myself -- if you look the first part that was ratified regulated well militia is across the nation. we have a national guard that to stope prepared outside influences. i have carried a knife or a gun since i was 15 years old. i have been blessed throughout --life but

host: in this segment we are talking about white supremacy in the u.s. are you concerned about militias being thrown into that category? caller: i am a black male. 69 years old. -- detroit,o carry michigan is where i am from and they talk about chicago. i lived in dearborn, michigan and the suburbs and i always concern myself of being accosted by white officers, especially. i am 69 years old. host: that is jerome out of georgia. katie is next out of virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. petitioning -- i

think all lives matter. i think there should be a psychiatry evaluation for anyone who wants a legal pathway to gun ownership. in podunkgangs here ,irginia and central virginia crips, bloods, the arian race, the ku klux klan and if these guys get a gun, it will be a massacre. host: what do you take from those calls? guest: a couple different things. about comparing this to gangs, i think one of the things i would emphasize is that we see a lot of similarities, both across isis and gang engagement of young right ind the far terms of a desire to belong and being a part of something bigger and better for the -- bigger and better than themselves and that

the changes going to help them enact a sense of purpose. also resist and express their anger and resentment at things that are not going right in their lives. i think you are right that when you layer that on to gun laws, you have a recipe for potential disaster, especially when you are talking about young people who may be more impulsive. host: we talked about organization of white supremacy groups. is?you explain what 8chan guest: it is a number of wet -- web platforms that are not monitored essentially or allow unmonitored and any kind of comments to be posted. 8chan has been one of the sites that has been a place where a lot of hateful things get posted , and in many ways it kind of performance -- a kind of

ferments.- it kind of host: is that the only place? guest: there were many others. some of the others -- one of the things about monitoring these and banning the sites is that they sometimes -- people get kicked off of these mainstream platforms like twitter and they that is notomething a legitimate platform or is much worse in terms of its population. host: how do they organize enough to know we are all going to migrate over here now because this got shut down? guest: this happens virally through the kind of communications online but also through messaging and encrypted messaging platforms. there are lots of ways. we saw with the riots in germany, people could fill the streets and a couple of hours, mostly motivated or mobilized

over things like whatsapp. host: our next caller is out of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. two questions. let me ask you this. kids shoved ack retarded kid in feces and urine, was that racist? when six black kids beat a white boy on a bus, was that racism? ferguson, when he picked on a cop and got killed, was that racism? was obama inviting black lives matter to the white house, the people that shot at and killed the cops, was that racism? certainly there are racially motivated crimes from all groups. what we are talking about here

is larger scale mobilized far right extremism enacted through terrorist activities. these are different kinds of conversations. obviously everyone wants crime in general to be reduced that this is not a question about crime. we are talking about terrorism. host: is this mainly a u.s. problem? guest: absolutely not. white nationalism tends to suggest that this is a national issue or that this is really about the american nation but in fact, things are very inc. -- interconnected. it is a global movement. they are inspired by each other, they are sending each other manifestoes they are communicating and listening to each other's music and buying each other's brand-name clothing which has messages about white supremacist ideology in it. interwoveny much across eastern and western

europe and australia and new zealand. host: how much are the governments of europe and the united states and justi -- and new zealand, how much do they work together on these issues? guest: there is some conversation happening. i think governments in europe are doing a much better job at communicating with each other. there are very few scholars for example who work across europe on the issue of the far right but places like the center for right-wing extremism which now has dozens of scholars from several different countries, becomes a place where governments can access resources. host: why was that attack in particular such a flashpoint for this movement? guest: it was significant for a number of different ways. the fast majority of people who were killed were children, young

people and young children. he killed them because they were liberal. he believed he was getting rid of the next generation of people who were going to bring about multicultural norway by our etiquette in a young generation of future political leaders. that horrified the whole world. the idea that that would be a politically motivated attack. it was an incredibly large scale. a 1500 page manifesto that heavily referenced these kinds of theories around a great replacement and what is called -- this idea that europe will turn into a region with islamic rule. see was where we sorted to some of this global interconnectedness coupled with extreme violence. host: several of the attacks in the united states have referenced that 1500 page manifesto. guest: the christchurch shooter

also. we are seeing that global interconnectedness. host: oak hill, west virginia. joyce, good morning. caller: good morning. white supremacy has been in the united states for a long time. when the united states cavalry took the land from the native americans and put them on reservations. when the slaveowners sent their men to africa and kidnapped my ancestors and brought them here. jim crow era. the civil rights movement. your serial killers. your mass shooters. white supremacy has been around a long time and maybe even back in the bible times. i think you are right. as a country in many ways, right off the bat with the genocide of it was foundeds,

on white supremacist been -- principles. talking about white supremacy and its roots in the u.s., what we are seeing right now is more the modern set of white supremacist extremism dating back to the post-vietnam era when we saw this coupling of white supremacy itself which had a much longer legacy, with this organized armed militia and antigovernment rhetoric that kind of created mass violence coupled with white supremacy. host: john in florida, good morning. states, it isited natural to assert that unit states is weitzer premises because 60% of the population is white. they also have the greatest social experiment in the history of the world.

the supposed civil war experiment was that mass-produced modern weapons, repeating arms in the hands of a whole population made it the most lethal population on earth and the civil war never really was resolved. got to gong force away with their guns and became outlaws in the west. the six shooter was designed by colt for a single slaveowner to be able to control many. this is been going a long time. the guns have been around forever. what is different now is young kids -- it is just like the jihadi's. they have old guys on the internet trying to lure young guys. these old guys don't have the guts to start a war. they need these young guys. they recruit them, young disaffected men. had these medications.

they are all part of a thing. you have modern realistic media. it is almost a combat simulator. you look at the virginia tech shooter. , 49 people,eople killed 32 with two concealed pistols. the magazines are a thing. host: you bring up a lot of issues. guest: that was a very rich set of different things going on. both john and joyce the previous caller really emphasize an important point which has to deal with a long history of the u.s.. theink john's point about complex nature of trying to disentangle what causes a person to move into violent action and the truth is, with all the knowledge we have, no one really knows what motivates one individual to become violent compared to another. we understand what moves them into those pathways and the

gateways to extremism and we understand how social media works and the role of things like gun access, but also a sense of inclusion and disenfranchisement. a lack of belonging or connection. we understand how those things make people vulnerable but we need much more research and knowledge on what clicks the switch to make one person move into violent action compared to another. john made the connection when it came to jihadi terrorism on the recruitment side that it is old guys trying to recruit young guys to do it. is there that kind of recruitment happening on the internet for white supremacy? guest: there definitely is recruitment happening on the internet. in this case, i don't know how much older they are. what you are having here is white supremacist -- white supremacist extremism in the far right extremist fringes in general on the antigovernment

toe having figured out how -- they are far ahead on tech for us compared to scholars and policymakers and they also learned how to weaponize youth culture in the -- in a way that we have not quite figured out how to address. they know how to draw people in with humor, with music, with gun culture and style and mixed martial arts. all of those things -- i think john is right, there is definitely recruitment but in this case it i washington journal mugs are available in the c-span store. visit c-span.org. announcer: next, a look at u.s. relations with iran, and what can be done to avoid escalating