From ‘evil doers’ to ‘very fine people’: The politics of shifting counterterrorism targets

Over two decades ago, the United States launched the “Global War on Terror” to vanquish Al Qaeda and associated foes. This counterterrorism campaign was characterized by abusive interrogations, indefinite detentions, targeted killing, and mass surveillance. Today, US counterterrorist doctrine must contend with cascading forms of far-right political violence. The rapid ascendency of far-right extremism motivated by white supremacism and nationalism, neo-Nazism, and various conspiracy theories, raises questions about how the contemporary national security state will adapt. To what extent have US authorities utilized the legal framework of post-9/11 counterterrorism and related social and political discourses to counter far-right extremism? Evidence from government reactions to the 2017 Charlottesville hate rally to the 2021 January 6 attack on the Capitol to uneven approaches to preempting and prosecuting domestic terrorism point to significant inconsistencies. This article examines differences between state responses to domestic and international threats, analyzing how political violence is framed, whether far-right violence is classified as terrorism, and how legal and political dynamics limit the extension of global counterterrorism methods to the domestic sphere.