Right-wing extremists "borrowed from ISIS's playbook""learned how to radicalize people online." [View all]

[EleanorR]

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Former DHS official under trump-

Neumann saw the diffuse nature of right-wing extremist violence as a particular challenge. "It was hard for the counterterrorism community to put their finger on it, in large part because the movement is more of a movement than a group or an organization," she says.

That lack of official group cohesion reminded Neumann of the threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). She watched domestic extremists use the same tactics as the terrorist group.

"They borrowed from ISIS's playbook and they learned how to radicalize people online," she says. In the post-Sept. 11 United States, domestic extremists also adopted an emphasis on smaller attacks that could be carried out quickly with limited planning. What Neumann saw was "the pivot to bring your own weapon to the fight, use whatever you have: a knife, a gun, a vehicle, vehicle ramming," she says. "We've seen a number of vehicle rammings this summer, in fact."

But unlike the urgent interagency response to ISIS, Neumann says there was no clear effort to combat violent extremists on the right.