Scott Atran in Psychology Today:
The spread of substate and transnational forms of terrorism that target ordinary civilians for mass murder tears at the social and political consensus in our country and across the world. The aim is to create the void that will usher in a new world, with no room for innocents on the other side, or in the “Gray Zone” between that includes most of humanity.
For 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, who killed 22 people and wounded 24 in El Paso earlier this month, terminating the brown invasion of Hispanics that soils White America to the advantage of the Democratic Party requires mass civilian deaths to save civilization—a mission that ISIS shares, albeit with a different, if equally exclusive, end in mind.
The values of liberal and open democracy increasingly appear to be losing ground to those of narrow, xenophobic ethno-nationalisms and radical religious ideologies. These seemingly opposed movements, our research team at Artis International and the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University has found, in fact tacitly collaborate to undermine free and open societies today, much like Fascists and Communists did back in the 1920s and 30s.
More here. And part 2 is here.