02/04/2025
2025 Homeland Security Threat Forecast: Part I, Terrorism - 1/28/25
Excerpt from part of Article co-written by Daryl Johnson, Senior Strategic Advisor, Clear & Present Strategic Solutions:
"Violent Extremism
A confluence of multiple factors has created an atmosphere conducive to domestic violent extremism (DVE) and domestic terrorist attacks in the United States. Contributing factors such as hotly contested and razor-thin political elections; the war in Ukraine; the Israel-Hamas conflict; the proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation; and growing misogyny, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, and antisemitism, among other deeply polarizing social and political issues will spur violent extremism in America in 2025 and ensuing years. These contributing factors also have manifested in increased threats to lawmakers and election officials (including volunteers); a rising number of extremist politicians and candidates; publicly elected extremist supporters; the spread of disinformation; and heated, dehumanizing rhetoric that allows both far-right and far-left extremism to thrive.
Of the two domestic political extremes, the primary threat to democratic governance remains the radical elements of the far right (i.e., white supremacists, militia extremists, violent sovereign citizens). This is due to the steady infiltration of far-right beliefs – including explicit and coded antisemitism, racism, religious nationalism, and xenophobia/nativism – and actors into mainstream, right-wing political discourse and political machinery. Far-left actors pose a growing, yet smaller, nontrivial threat to liberal democratic norms and governance. Compared with their far-right counterparts, they have had far less influence on policy and lawmaking. Their involvement in non-state violence also is quantitatively and qualitatively not commensurate with their far-right counterparts.
Anti-law enforcement sentiment also has flourished, adding further concern about the destabilization of society through attacks on the rule of law and order. This, in turn, increases the risk of political violence and domestic terrorism. Unfortunately, when such an environment flourishes, it leads to a divided society where some individuals are not afraid to confront authority, legal processes, and societal norms with violence through mass casualty attacks, targeting minorities, authority figures, faiths, women, and others.
A repeat of the January 6, 2021 events at the U.S. Capitol in future years cannot be ruled out, although the probability of a similar attack occurring is highest against a state capital or other type of federal building. Other violent scenarios could include assassinations of political figures, mass shootings, arson attacks, bombings, as well as other violent acts targeting faith-based communities, LGBTQ+, government meetings and facilities, law enforcement, the courts, among other targets of opportunity. For these reasons, government officials, policymakers, and law enforcement should remain vigilant, prepared, and conscientious of this ever-evolving and dangerous internal threat; it should not be underestimated, easily dismissed, or forgotten. This year and several years beyond will be fertile ground for DVEs to flourish, and the U.S. should continue to operate according to this heightened threat environment."
https://www.hstoday.us/featured/2025-homeland-security-threat-forecast-part-i-terrorism/
