Research Fellow @jonlewis27.bsky.social was recently featured in an article from The Guardian that explores why some of the most recent acts of political violence exhibit the characteristic of leaving behind written messages on their weapons and ammunition.

FBI has been steadily diverting resources away from domestic terrorism investigations, decimating specialized units & discontinuing tools used to track extremism. the admin also gutted millions in federal terrorism-prevention grants. it's effectively abandoned the fight against homegrown violence.

I wish things were at least less stupid if they had to be so dire

Spoke with @drewharwell.com over @washingtonpost.com about Internet culture, memes and how the rush to pin an ideology on Robinson was foolish. Happy to be quoted alongside other experts like @jaredlholt.bsky.social and @jmberger.com in this! They really know their stuff.

Far-right fight nights are events bringing together combat fighting, extremist bands and merch, in an attempt to bring in new recruits and solidify existing relationships. @colborne.bsky.social locates the latest event for a California-based group: www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/09...

NEW from me: Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution from the right, proliferates after Charlie Kirk killing www.nbcnews.com/tech/interne...

NEW @motherjones.com: Pardoned J6ers are using Kirk's killing to call for civil war Stewart Rhodes will rebuild Oath Keepers; Proud Boys call for "retribution"; & ex-insurrectionists are coming "out of retirement." Experts fear they could incite others to violence. W/ @kieraevebutler.bsky.social:

“The singular message emerging from across the right is one of vengeance and retribution ... which only further increases the likelihood of retaliatory vigilante violence,” said @jonlewis27.bsky.social, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.

I wrote for @msnbc.com about what the engravings on the shell casings of Kirk’s shooter represent and where the references originated. Given what we know so far, they suggest a young man who had his brain fried by the irony poisoned, anti-social nature of certain aspects of online culture. /1

A must-read by Jordan Green: “Some neo-Nazis are heralding Kirk’s death as an opportunity for accelerationism — the idea that a moment of heightened political tension can open the door to tit-for-tat violence, creating conditions for revolutionary upheaval.” www.alternet.org/amp/violence...

said it yesterday but the people who commit this violence increasingly show us that they deeply understand how our information ecosystems process it. It appears to be part of the appeal for them. And yet the response doesn't really change. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

NEW: Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here’s What They Mean w/ @megannicolett.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/charli...

Most terminally online people who commit violence aren't connected to O9A or 764; these are fairly specific things and not just "violent people who spent too much time on the computer"

A lot of people who are generally smart and have good thoughts about internet culture have kinda filed 764 into just a more intense version of "internet culture" which doesn't really describe what they are and what they do, even if the internet is involved. It makes for misleading analysis.

“The crusade to silence any voices that may not conform to the hagiography has unfolded quickly.”

“Especially for people who already assaulted law enforcement on January 6 and were pardoned, there is certainly going to be an expectation that, if they answer the call again, they could have the same outcome," @jonlewis27.bsky.social said.

Experts see this as mostly more grifting from J6ers. But that doesn't mean it's not still dangerous. “They’re now being told that the same people who tried to steal this country away from you just killed Charlie Kirk,” @jonlewis27.bsky.social told me, "& someone has to do something about that.”

In 2015, Alex Jones spent a year spinning paranoid stories of US troops planning to enact martial law, assist a Chinese invasion, and execute dissenters in "death domes." In 2025, troops are in the streets, and Alex Jones couldn't be happier. themikerothschild.com/2025/08/27/j...

Once upon a time, there were these groups that we called Anti-Government Extremists, who would become violently exercised over things like this. Wonder what happened to those guys?* * They will be the federal police force now. They didn't object to tyranny, they objected to not being the tyrants.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MEME IS ACTUALLY FUCKING REAL NOW ARE YOU KIDDING

What's gone unsaid in all this talk about homeless people in DC is that so many in the Capital are veterans who are now having the military aimed back at them for the crime of being poor.

Worth also noting that the federal government made substantial progress toward ending veteran homelessness, and Trump has announced via executive order that he's planning to reverse all of that progress. The new plan is just incarceration. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

I joined @jaredlholt.bsky.social and @michaelehayden.bsky.social to talk about a question that has followed me since 2018. Did the alt-right win and upend right-wing politics? I think the answer is: "Yes, but..." (With apologies to Depeche Mode.) www.patreon.com/posts/030-di...

Exactly one type of guy thinks WW2 was caused by British imperialism AND that the Bismarck was a cool ship AND stormed the Capitol AND puts Ph.D. in his twitter handle.

Look back at the history of 20th century White supremacy, and there's an extraordinary amount of analysis about which people with White skin count as White. And when people start making fine distinctions about in-group eligibility, it's usually a bad sign.

Unless you were at the Capitol on Jan. 6

“The guns help push the religion, & the religion helps push the guns,” said @jonlewis27.bsky.social. “You get these networks that are steeped in that kind of rhetoric, & when you combine that with offline mobilization & weapons training, it doesn’t really bode well.” www.wired.com/story/christ...

OUT NOW: We talked to @mehdirhasan.bsky.social about his Jubilee debate, how he manages to win so many arguments, and why he thinks so few people who square off with the far-right end up accomplishing nothing. Some of his answers might surprise you. postthroughit.substack.com/p/029-should...

The thing about that Ken Klippenstein article is that he's not (just) a dumbass, he's willingly lying. The documents which he links to in the piece show that he directly contradicts what they say or twists their content to make them sound less legitimate when they are

So Ken is either being willfully ignorant of what he's saying in this article, or he has just been driven insane by being online. Either way, he is intentionally or unintentionally putting quite a bit of spin on a very real issue. And I'm not sure to what end

Alright motherfucker let's talk about this article I have no idea how many posts will be in here but it's a thread

New numbers are up for the Domestic Extremism tracker! We've added over 100 new events to our dataset, including a few sovereign citizen cases!

Always happy to provide commentary and analysis for the folks over at WIRED. Go support @dell.bsky.social and his colleagues.

Documents obtained by WIRED show FEMA plans to direct states and tribes to halt activities intended to combat domestic violent extremism so as to align with "current administration priorities." www.wired.com/story/extrem...

🧵 As some of you may know, the former leader of Atomwaffen Division, Brandon Russell, is set to be sentenced on Thursday for his plot to destroy the Baltimore power grid. As such, the defense and the government each have an opportunity to lay out their arguments for sentencing. Here's what we have:

Still time to register for today’s Program on Extremism event! Join us at 11 AM ET for a conversation w/ @maurolubrano.bsky.social to discuss his new book, “Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology Extremism”. Link below! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Join us next week for two powerful events: - Aug 4, 11AM: @maurolubrano.bsky.social and @jonlewis27.bsky.social on anti-tech extremism in Stop the Machines - Aug 5, 10AM (Arabic): Zhor Rehihil on preserving Jewish heritage in Morocco Register for these and other events here👇

🚨 Join us for a book talk with Dr. @maurolubrano.bsky.social on Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology Extremism. From eco-fascists to anarchists, explore how this emerging threat is reshaping extremist violence. Moderated by @jonlewis27.bsky.social. 🗓️ 4 Aug | 🕚 11am ET Register here👇

Well, there we have it.

So this is a crazy story: 55yo Long Island guy made a load of bombs. Last month, he planted 5 around Soho and left one on the Williamsburg bridge www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/n...

got this quote at a neo-Nazi event at the University of Florida in 2017, & in the nearly 8 years since it goes viral like this every few months — I suspect because it's a pretty good summation of where the GOP has gone

I talked to @byellalee.bsky.social at @thehill.com about the normalization of political violence in 2025, and the threat posed by the casual acceptance of extremist narratives. thehill.com/policy/natio...

Extremism expert @jonlewis27.bsky.social says the real threat isn’t just the violence - it’s how normalized it’s become. After the Trump scare, his warning hits hard: we’re getting used to something we should never accept. Read his comments in @thehill.com 👇 thehill.com/policy/natio...

The Trump admin / MAGA fallout over the Epstein files is a leopards-eating-faces crisis of its own making www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Meyer, who declined to tell WIRED whether he knew the identity of the perpetrator, says the attack was part of what he calls Operation Lone Wolf, adding that he’s in discussion online with over a dozen people who are willing to carry out similar attacks.