YouTube Videos of Mershon/College of Public Health Symposium on Far-Right Extremism are Available. The Symposium was a Success, AND it is Just the Beginning

In October 2022, the Mershon-CPH Symposium, “The Far-Right: Examining its Roots and Challenging its Reach,” brought together humanities scholars, social scientists, policy analysts, a public health professional, activists, and public servants to examine the problem of far-right extremism in the United States and elsewhere. Over two half-day sessions, the virtual symposium assembled an array of people, each with specific expertise, to either share a prepared presentation or respond to the delivered remarks to bring shape to the seemingly intractable problem of far-right extremism. This format worked well for this topic because scholars and affected persons were able to talk about the same problem, allowing each to teach and to learn. The online environment allowed all to raise issues and elaborate on points without disrupting the flow of the main activity. Eighteen videos of the event are available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUVorNqvIoipdfwFOR2EzlFmszLpj2SyS so that viewers can engage with the symposium at their own pace.

The symposium met my aspirations. We got a lot of different people to talk about far-right extremism, making it clear that the problem transcends contemporary personalities and instead is rooted in complex histories dating from the very founding of this and other nations. Far-right extremism is becoming an inevitable threat to democracies whose historical legacies make them especially vulnerable to economic strains during times of uncertainty and upheaval. Marginalized ideas have infiltrated mainstream institutions, influencing reasonable people to scapegoat outsiders and dig into their nationalist identities. To begin to understand what is happening in the United States, Europe, and South America, we needed to hear from historians, communications scholars, philosophers, psychologists, criminologists, folklorists, and others who have studied parts of the larger whole. We also needed a former white supremacist, a state legislator, a public health expert, and a Department of Homeland Security senior advisor to tell us what it is like on the ground. Finally, we needed everyone to come together in the final panel and talk about what might work and what will not work to stop the spread of toxic ideas, misinformation, and hate.

Guided by the four scholars in Panel 1, the delineated arch of white supremacy and antisemitism took shape from its roots in colonial Virginia where White indentured servants gained status in comparison to the enslaved Africans with whom they worked; through its enforcement with anti-democratic White on Black pogroms or riots and the perpetuation of global antisemitic conspiracies of on the Great Replacement; to the struggles to achieve and maintain equity in a post-Apartheid South African university as White supremacist legacies permeate all aspects of structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal experiences for its Black members. Themes from this panel show how fear and othering can be used to prioritize belonging and undermining others over facts, and that the systemic and ubiquitous drive to belong by those with more power will repeatedly reinforce mythologies of superiority so they become invisible truths by which nations thrive.

Panel 2 was charged with discussing how caustic ideology and conspiracy spread to seemingly level-headed individuals in what appears to be an overnight transformation. The panel’s scholars and respondents distinguished between beliefs and actions, as only one is and should only be subject to policing. Yet, beliefs grow and are shared through what has become a convergence culture, where those who are the most shocking become influencers, making money for unseen others by spreading polluted information to reasonable people, like mothers who genuinely want to #savethechildren. We learned in this panel that attempts to counter conspiracy merely expedite its spread and that organized efforts by illiberal leaders in Hungary strategically commandeered progressive institutions from the inside, divesting their resources and fundamentally changing them for illiberal purposes. The spread of conspiracy, extremism, violent ideology, and illiberal ideals observes no borders as alliances form through online venues and take seed in unsuspecting grounds.

Panel 3 started by reminding us of just how vulnerable we all can be to the predation of conspiracy by manipulative others when its tenets resonate with those values that we hold most dear. When our attachment to sacred values is threatened by outside ideas, we might learn to think critically and broaden our perspectives, or we might dig in and more fully commit to our attachments by seeking out and surrounding ourselves with like-minded others. Herein lies a blueprint for broadening far-right movements to include reasonable others, like parents, nurses, and teachers who oppose mandated vaccines; military veterans who miss the structure and cohesion of active duty; conservatives who worry that liberal elites are letting too many others cross national borders; and a broad swath of people across the globe who want to elect new leaders who crassly call out the political hypocrisy. The global far-right is everywhere, becoming police officers, enlisting in the military, running for office, while eroding mainstream conservative parties, and electing leaders like Presidents Trump, Bolsonaro, Prime Minister Orbán, Premier Meloni who seek to compromise democratic institutions in order to preserve and expand their power. Indeed, the drive to power by perpetuating hate and fear seems to override an adherence to any particular ideology, relegating ideology to being a means to an end. As such, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security directs its attention toward the topics of extremist behavior and populism rather than depicting a threat as being from the right or left. Perhaps this mainstreaming of extremism is most tangible in the U.S. just prior to the 2022 midterm election. With 60% of voters having at least one election denier on the ballot, traditional Republicans struggled with how to distance themselves from extremist candidates while also needing their success to achieve or preserve majorities in state and national legislatures.

In essence, these three panels only scratched the surface of just how insidious the far-right movement is. Yet, as organizers, we wanted to dedicate an entire unstructured panel to the question of what to do with what we have learned. A key theme that arose was the importance of having in-person conversations with those who believe in some of these extreme views and to find common ground. We have more in common than we realize when we are only informed by news and social media. Confronting those with distorted beliefs with facts is the playground version of “is not” and will simply lead both sides to commit more deeply to their ideas. Instead, we need to connect with one another and recognize our shared communities and shared values. Perhaps we can draw on heuristic persuasion. Or rely more heavily on what Ella Baker would call spade work, as every engagement, no matter how small, will help us move forward. Perhaps we can find a task that those with differing ideas can work on together. These personal interactions are important, but the panel members rightly asked how we can scale them up. The panelists and respondents drew on known programs that have successfully countered radicalization. Some through connection, like Parents for Peace, which helps families and communities prevent the radicalization of their loved ones. Others counter the spread of caustic ideas more directly, like the Disinformation Index that disrupts the business model of disinformation by exposing to advertisers which news sites rate highly on disinformation. The brainstorming session did a great job in uncovering promising approaches and next steps needed to more thoughtfully counter extremism. I encourage you to watch the Brainstorming on Solutions video from this series to hear more.  

The symposium successfully started the conversation, as more needs to be done. It became clear that many people are concerned about the spread of far-right extremist ideas, but few know what to do about it. We decided to form an Alliance to Challenge Extremism (ACE) that includes concerned people, beginning with those who participated in or attended the symposium. We imagine the alliance as a resource that equips and informs its members by organizing events and compiling and translating research findings so they can be used by those who need them most. We expect that it will be a hub for connecting members with similar concerns, and hope that it will be an evolving coalition that responds to our changing needs and the dynamic environment in which we live and work. The College of Public Health, with the support of the Mershon Center, plans to sponsor it; a few dozen have already signed up. Anyone who might be interested can complete this survey. Finally, the presenters and responders are preparing chapters to be published by Oxford University Press in an open access volume, entitled Far-Right Extremism and Global Challenges: Bridging the Humanities and Social Sciences to Preserve Democracies, that updates their remarks to help move this conversation forward. More will be revealed later.     

Laura Dugan,
Ralph D. Mershon Professor of Human Security and Professor of Sociology