How Far-Right Extremism Invaded Mainstream Politics
About this episode
Guest host Nicole Hemmer interviews historian Kathleen Belew about how the far-right white power movement moved from the violent fringe into mainstream American politics. Belew traces the movement from Vietnam veterans through the 1980s and '90s — the Order, Ruby Ridge, the Oklahoma City bombing — to its resurgence online and its mainstreaming in the 2010s: the 'great replacement' theory migrating from white-power circles to prime-time cable, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Drawing on 'Bring the War Home' and 'A Field Guide to White Supremacy,' she explains the movement's paramilitary culture, its opportunistic alliances with the Republican Party, and why counterterrorism frameworks failed to treat it as a coherent movement — and what history suggests about the limits of prosecution alone.