A recent spate of activity by ISIS has caused Bruce Hoffman, Council on Foreign Relations' Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, to call 2024 the year of ISIS's "resurrection." The FBI has now confirmed that the suspect in the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans was inspired by the terror group. Hoffman joins the show to discuss the growing terror threat and what forces might be driving people towards extremist ideas.
Bruce Hoffman is a professor at Georgetown University and co-author of Gods, Guns, and Sedition: Far Right Terrorism in America. He served on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, and is a Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the CIA. He serves as a senior fellow for Counterterrorism & Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations and is President & CEO of The Hoffman Group.
Today on Coffee & Conflict, Joshua Huminski sits down with Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, authors of God, Guns, and Sedition, to delve into the rise of far-right terrorism in America and its threat to democracy. They explore how conspiracy theories, white supremacism, and hostility to government have fueled a violent extremist movement, culminating in attacks like the Charleston church shooting and the January 6 Capitol riot.
Unfortunately, Americans are certainly not strangers to far-right terrorism. From the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston, to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, these horrific incidents are only the latest in a decades-long process, in which harmful conspiracy theories, radical ideologies, and hostility toward government come together to form a grave and increasing threat to democracy.
Originally published by David Volodzko
One of the greatest security threats the US faces comes from within. As we enter 2024, the threat of right-wing terrorism and electoral violence is very real. Authors of the new book “God, Guns, and Sedition: Far Right Terrorism in America” Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware join Marc and David to shine a light on the dangers of the far-right and what can be done to combat right-wing violence.
Are the biggest threats to democracy homegrown? A textbook lesson from two of the nation’s brightest scholars says, historically and emphatically, yes.
Bruce Hoffman, the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at CFR, and Jacob Ware, a research fellow at CFR, sit down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the rise of far-right violent extremism in the United States and abroad.
