Trouble Brewing On The Horizon

The hour, I’m afraid, is very, very late.

A sign of things to come? Source

Scott Greer explains in his Substack,

Highly Respected

, that we should anticipate a wave of left-wing terrorism in the coming years:

Despite the furor of these anti-Tesla demonstrations, they still pale in comparison to the scale of anti-Trump protests in 2017. There may be some sort of Resistance, but it’s not the mass phenomenon that it once was in the first Trump term. But the violence could be a preview of a new wave of domestic terror in America. Some fear that “left-wing underground terror waves are coming” and it will have significant social support. But these terrorists won’t belong to any groups or real movements. They might not even have much of a clear ideology besides hating Trump and the establishment. They will be lone wolves radicalized by the media and the internet into violence. It will be hard for authorities to do much about them.

Greer refers to the spate of vandalism committed against Tesla dealerships and vehicles, due to CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Greer says to not only expect more of this, but to expect even more violent forms of it in the future.

However, he notes that one feature differentiates the coming terror wave from those of past:

When one thinks of left-wing terrorism in the modern era, the Weather Underground and the Baader-Meinhof Gang are what come to mind. Young people, infused with Marxist ideology and wild fantasies of revolution, form together terror cells to achieve their dreams through assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings. They didn’t pose a threat of toppling the government, but they did sow chaos and fear in their societies. These groups were able to carry sophisticated attacks, such as taking embassies and airliners hostage.

There’s little chance of those types of groups returning. With the decline of ISIS, pretty much all forms of terror–whether Islamist, left-wing, or right-wing–have been lone wolf operations. Much of them weren’t the product of thorough planning. The terrorist simply brought a gun to a location and started shooting. That’s it. These acts in some ways are more frightening. How do you stop lone maniacs who decide on their own to kill for a cause? Unless they tell their e-friends in a Discord chat about their plans, authorities will never know about them beforehand. There isn’t some group for them to infiltrate to disrupt these plots. Lone wolves act on their own. They could go off at any time and in any place.

There’s little difference between them and mass shooters. The former claim a cause for their action while the latter don’t. That’s the only difference.

Greer mentions ISIS, but it’s worth noting: even at their height in the 2010s, the majority of ISIS attacks were carried out by lone wolves. I can’t say this phenomenon applies worldwide, but in the West, the trend for the last 15-some-odd years has been a shift towards lone wolf attacks. And why not? From the extremists’ perspective, it offers the best of both worlds. You get the attack you sought, while plausibly denying any linkage to it.

The concern is that there’s a lot of extremists out there, and while most of them won’t have the guts to carry out an attack, enough of them will. Terrorist groups are extremely difficult to target, lone wolves nearly impossible. Only in world where pre-crime is a thing, à la Minority Report, can you stop lone wolves before they strike. It’s a big reason why mass shootings are so difficult to prevent. Sometimes, there’s nothing more dangerous than one angry person. The days of high-profile, high-casualty terror attacks like 9/11, Oklahoma City, or the 1970s “Days of Rage” may be in the past, but all that’s happened is we’ve exchanged fewer, more devastating incidents for more, less devastating incidents.

Still, we shouldn’t assume that the impact these lone wolf activities will have would be any less destructive. Like crime, enough of it will take a toll, eventually destabilizing society.

Greer notes that we’re already well within the midst of the terror wave:

In 2021, Indians and leftists burnt down several Canadian churches in response to false claims made about the country’s Indian residential schools. The government and media accepted and promoted unfounded assertions that these schools killed several “indigenous” students. While the evidence for that was never offered, individual actors were inspired to retaliate against the supposed perpetrators, vandalizing and torching many churches to send a message.

In other words, making Indians and leftists angry was enough to spark infernos that destroyed properties. Nobody died, but think: how many of you want to live in a society where making people angry is enough to trigger a wave of destruction? Does that sound like “civil” society to you?

Similar events happened in the United States, they were just downplayed in the media:

There was a similar wave of incidents in the US after the Supreme Court cast down Roe v. Wade. Some pro-life pregnancy centers were attacked by individual leftists as a result of the outrage over the SCOTUS decision.

The Tesla arsons could spread to other targets. Leftists could target Republican offices, Trump properties, and other locations. If people feel they can get away with it and receive adoration from deranged online libs, they will do it.

These are all events accomplishing nothing besides raising the internal temperature of the country. The Left will revel in their ability to commit violence with impunity, while hiding behind the fact nobody died. The assassination attempts on Trump last year not only nearly cost the president his life, they did cost the life of one person. The Left might be good at keeping things bloodless for now, but if they continue escalating things, eventually, the body count will rise.

These incidents will also only further radicalize the population, fomenting even greater levels of hatred between the two sides. There’s plenty enough of that already. I often make the point that everything’s fine until it’s not. When it’s not, people use that hatred to do horrible things to one another. Remember: we’re past the point of arguing over tax rates. Now we’re arguing over the very nature of reality. You cannot answer the question of what’s a man or woman, for example, through the political system. To do so is in itself an act of extremism. I think many of you can sense how radicalized even I’ve become.

What concerns me most is the way our society has been conditioned to regard these acts of violence by the Left. I have no clue what the American public really thinks, but what we do know is that the media has done tremendous heavy-lifting to ensure we think only one way about political violence: it’s protest when the Left does it, violence when the Right does it. The Left can block traffic, disrupt, terrorize, and vandalize all they want, but as long as you’re alive in the end, it’s just protest and there’s nothing to even complain about. They can call for the literal destruction of the country, and we’re supposed to pretend like we didn’t hear what we just heard. We all know, however, that if the Right protested the way the Left did, it would undoubtedly trigger vast public outcry, along with condemnation from the media and politicians.

Why left- and right-wing protest is regarded differently is a topic meriting a separate conversation. However, the fact the two are treated differently shows that even the Left intrinsically understands that protest in it of itself isn’t an act of virtue. Why you’re protesting matters much more. Hence, to monopolize the right to protest all for themselves, they’ve created a social order that recognizes only left-wing protest as legitimate, having worthwhile grievances to air.

In case anyone thinks this is all right-wing hysterics, here’s an incident which occurred last year, all on camera:

Source

The Left considers it overreach on the part of the Trump administration to regard destruction and vandalism as terrorism, but if politically-motivated property damage isn’t terrorism, I don’t know what would be.

Finally, Greer observes that terrorism is no longer a young man’s game:

Some say the youth don’t have it in them to do this kind of stuff. Nemets, a Highly Respected guest, argues: “This generation is smaller than previous, and phones plus games are more addictive, so I don't think that even lone wolf terrorism will be much of an issue.” There’s truth to that, but this isn’t limited to the youth. Unlike terrorists in the past, many of these lone wolves won’t be young. The congressional baseball shooter and the second Trump assassin were both old men. Much of these acts could be carried out by middle-aged men (and women) with nothing to lose.

I’ve made the point many times: you need a young population for civil wars to occur, for large-scale, organized violence to be sustainable. The coming civil war will be at a lower scale of intensity, diffuse, and disorganized, in large part due to the demographics of the U.S. and aging of the population. But literally anyone can be a lone wolf. It’ll make the problem that much tougher to tackle, without curtailing civil liberties.

Civil war or not, a wave of violence is coming. Call it our own “Years of Lead” or what have you. Just know that there are millions of angry, radicalized Americans out there and the Trump administration is providing plenty of reasons for them to get even angrier. Remember that it took four years for things to reach a boiling point in 2020; we may not need as long this time. A full-blown insurgency isn’t likely, but that’s cold comfort when there are plenty of people out there motivated to carry out acts of violence on their own accord.

Still not convinced? Read this X thread depicting how users responded on Reddit, a leftist hotbed, to a firefighter warning against setting Teslas alight.

Here’s a sampling:

Source

Incorporate the threat into your planning, preppers.

In The Air Tonight In Europe

Visiting France,

Rod Dreher

explains how certain European politicians perceive the situation in their worlds. It’s not good:

I have been gobsmacked as well by how bad the situation is here in Europe regarding Islamism, migration, and wokeness in power. Talking to Christian politicians from around Europe today at the European Parliament really put me in a grim mood about Europe’s future. Every single person I asked about the prospect of civil war in Europe over migration and its effects said yes, it’s coming. I would bring up Prof. David Betz’s bombshell podcast interview about this topic with Louise Perry, and float some of the major claims he made about civil war possibilities (likelihood, actually) in the UK, and saw a long line of nodding heads. “It’s the same in France,” “It’s the same in Spain,” etc.

Take in what you just read. Then place it in the context of this graphic about crime in European Union-member countries:

Source

Put simply, the five safest countries in Europe are Croatia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Estonia. The five most dangerous are Greece, Netherlands, Bulgaria, France, and Spain. What do the five safest countries have in common? What do the five most dangerous have in common? The connection between immigration, multiculturalism, and crime cannot be severed.

More:

A French politician with whom I spoke expects that the only real future France has is partition of the country between Islamic and non-Islamic areas. If current migration rates and fertility rates hold, a majority of people living in France will be of migrant origin as soon as 2050. That doesn’t mean that Muslims will be in the majority, though; that’s not likely to happen until the 21st century, if it happens at all. Still, the violence and radicalism endemic in France’s Islamic community means that even as a minority, their presence causes massive disruption.

This is startlingly similar to what an active-duty French Army officer said in an oft-cited (by me) interview in 2021 about the situation in his country. One of the possibilities, besides civil war, is for the country to be divided to where the French exist alongside other groups. How this works out in practice, I’m not sure. Even the current arrangement is tenable only because immigrant and non-French are so dependent on the French state. Parasites cannot survive without a host. If France fractures, who will become the new host? How can the French survive in a partitioned land which they must share with those looking for a new body to leech off of?

Here’s what those in the know in Europe are most worried about:

I brought that up in a later conversation with a larger group, and they all agreed that in Europe, governments are terrified of mass Islamic violence. I brought up something I was told by an informed European source at the ARC conference in London: that security authorities in governments across the continent, and in the UK, are scared to death of this, because they know that they don’t have the force to suppress it if it all goes off at once. Indeed, David Betz told Louise Perry that if it goes off in one place in Europe or the UK, it will probably be followed by a continent-wide explosion in rioting. When I floated this, there were nods all around.

The fear of mass Islamic violence, along with their inability to suppress it all, is likely what’s influencing policy throughout the capitals of Western Europe. Ideology is what triggered the Great Replacement, but once they lost control of the situation, they’re finding that the problem is beyond their ability to address, so they resort to effectively negotiating a surrender. However, this surrender was never decided upon democratically. The state may be in charge, but the country belongs to the people. It’s not up to policymakers to just give it away.

In a more recent post, Dreher shared more of the same:

After the discussion, I went to the table to sign books, and to meet the local folks. One man told me that it is more or less forbidden in France to make a link between crime rates and migration. “But if you walk around here,” he said, meaning the town, “everybody knows the truth.” As in Paris, I picked up lots of fear among conservative Catholics that a civil war is coming, over migration, Islam, and the Great Replacement. One of my interlocutors, citing a senior official in the security services (obviously I won’t give his name), quoted the official as saying, “It is no longer a question of if, but of when.”

I contend that we’ll be waiting longer than anyone thinks. We’ve been talking about civil war in France for years. However, remember that it seemed that Russia would never invade Ukraine, until they finally did. It’s just the nature of events. If another 10 years go by and it doesn’t happen, I’d wager that it’s not going to happen in our lifetimes. It won’t mean that disaster was averted, however.

Remember what our French Army officer said:

So, not only should we not try to avoid civil war. But ironically, it is rather virtuous that it should happen. If it did not happen, it would mean that the French have definitively abandoned all ideals and that they have accepted to capitulate in order to preserve the peace, even if it means enjoying this peace as a slave.

It’s a scary thought to think that civil war might be the better option. I would’ve thought it crazy to say so just a few years ago. But now I’m beginning to see what the French Army officer was getting at. When dealing with a hostile invading force already in your land, are you really going to make peace with them? Or are you going at least try to fight first, as the Ukrainians did?

To understand the predicament France is in, read this excellent, yet harrowing, City Journal article about the problem of crime and disorder in the country.

Excerpts:

But there is another growing, and much less reassuring, side to France. I go to Paris about four times a year and thus have a sense of the evolving preoccupations of the French middle classes. A few years ago it was schools: the much vaunted French educational system was falling apart; illiteracy was rising; children were leaving school as ignorant as they entered, and much worse-behaved. For the last couple of years, though, it has been crime: l’insécurité, les violences urbaines, les incivilités. Everyone has a tale to tell, and no dinner party is complete without a horrifying story. Every crime, one senses, means a vote for Le Pen or whoever replaces him.

And:

Antagonism toward the police might appear understandable, but the conduct of the young inhabitants of the cités toward the firemen who come to rescue them from the fires that they have themselves started gives a dismaying glimpse into the depth of their hatred for mainstream society. They greet the admirable firemen (whose motto is Sauver ou périr, save or perish) with Molotov cocktails and hails of stones when they arrive on their mission of mercy, so that armored vehicles frequently have to protect the fire engines.

Here’s the crazy thing: that article was published in 2002. Almost a quarter-century ago. The hour, I’m afraid, is very, very late.

Young And Afraid In Germany

I spoke to a friend of mine in Germany, asking about the political climate in their country. The short story is, it’s as bad as it seems. The country is deeply divided, proving there’s very little consensus or unity to be found in the West these days. The immigrant and Islamic extremism problem is very real and not a right-wing fever dream, according to my friend. To top it all, Germany is dealing with economic problems, which is only further deepening the divide. Despite the country already being quite left-wing, the German left continues to push for even more leftism.

I was surprised to hear all this, honestly. My friend is younger than me and I expected them to hold more leftist views. It was nice to know that at least some young Germans are alert to the problems in their country and aren’t interested in simply surrendering. Part of the reason we don’t hear this perspective is because freedom of speech doesn’t exist in any meaningful form in Germany, as we all know. As such, only leftists have a voice, completely skewing perceptions of what the country is like, what people are thinking. When I asked my friend if they felt they could speak openly, the answer was an empathetic “NO.” Accusations of Nazism are rampant.

I asked another, older, German friend who lives in the U.S. what he thought. He explained that older generations - Boomers and above - are most skeptical of immigration. No real surprise there. Xers - their generation - are indifferent, for a lack of a better term. They grew up in a mostly homogeneous, but increasingly diverse society, though my friend also pointed out that in his day, most non-German residents were of Turkish origin, not from all over the world, let alone the entire Middle East. My friend wasn’t sure what younger cohorts, Millennials and Zoomers, thought.

Young Westerners have only known a diverse society, so it stands to reason that they’d tend to be more supportive of immigration. However, many of these attitudes were borne during better times. I think Millennial and Zoomer attitudes towards immigration currently are primarily a matter of entrenchment, but it’s also because of a lack strong ties to their own countries, along with extreme social pressure to conform to prevailing sentiments.

As times get tougher, it’s going to be interesting to see how Millennial and Zoomer attitudes towards immigration evolves. It’s easy to be open and inviting when things are going well. It’s harder to be generous when you’re struggling to make ends meet. Culture also plays a role; the global East in general has a more skeptical tack on immigration than does the West. Despite being a Western country, Germany is at something of a global intersection geographically. They also have problems with immigration the U.S. doesn’t have. My friend over there says they’re not alone in their opposition to mass immigration, even as many young people not only support the status quo, but want even more of it.

Speaking to my young friend not only reminds us that sometimes, things are what they appear to be. It also reminds us there are real stakes involved. This isn’t just an academic discussion. People’s lives and futures are on the line. I try not to be flippant when I talk about this stuff, because I’m aware there’s a live human being who’s going to be impacted by it all in the end. My friend is just getting started in life and I want them to enjoyably experience all the world has to offer without fearing for their safety, as well as to always have a country to come home to.

We’re not entitled to any of this even in the best of times, but what’s most tragic is that things didn’t have to come to this, either. Prior generations are failing my friend, and they might end up being the ones to foot the bill.

History Is The Study Of Violence

In closing, I would like for everyone to make the time to watch this interview with our friend Nicole Williams, her first as a newly-minted PhD:

For any new subscribers, I interviewed Williams last year, and I hope to get her back in the future. She is, without a doubt, one of the most knowledgable figures on American history, real American history. So much of our understanding of this country is based on deeply flawed readings of our history, outright lies, and outright omissions. Our students at all levels are being failed by not being educated, but instead indoctrinated.

She may insist otherwise, but I consider emerging academics like Ms. Williams to be part of a movement to tell the truth about who we really are as a country, where we’ve been, and where we’re going. Much of her work explores the role violence played in the formation of this country, and I think Americans could use a more mature understanding of violence, why it’s bad, and why it can also be useful.

The floor is yours - what’s your reaction to Scott Greer’s warnings? Do you see a left-wing terror wave on the horizon? When do you think the situation in Europe will finally ignite, or will it ever? What did you think about what my German interlocutor had to say?

Talk about in the comments section. And watch Nicole Williams’ interview!

Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.

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