The American psyche is plagued by prejudiced propaganda. Violent male-driven misogyny, antisemitic conspiracies, and anti-minority brainwashing repeatedly burrows itself within our society. With the proliferation of the internet, these bigoted worldviews are amplified, accelerating at an alarming pace.
Extremism scholars Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Bill Braniff of PERIL join Jen to discuss this hatred’s devastating and long-term ramifications. For example, on March 12th, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali drove a car into a Michigan synagogue in retaliation to Israel’s strikes in Lebanon killing his family members. As Braniff explains, with the federal government cutting many of the departments focusing on prevention, this type of violence is likely to increase.
Bill Braniff is the Executive Director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. Previously, he served as Director of the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a sociologist and professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education, and is the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL).
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. I am delighted to have Bill Braniff and Cynthia Miller-Idriss, both from PERIL. Welcome!
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Thanks, Jen. Good to see you.
Jen Rubin
Good to see you both. Cynthia, you are in Germany on your book tour. Tell us what the reaction to your book is, Man Up, which is essentially about male toxicity and its relationship to violent extremism. Has the reaction in Germany been different than in America?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Yeah, it’s really interesting. So, I, have been really surprised in general by the reaction to the book tour. I’m wrapping up here with three, cities in Germany, and then to Stockholm, and in two of those places, the venue is not big enough, one has moved to a larger venue. I mean, it’s… there’s a lot of public interest, I would say, and I’ll be doing some government briefings in both places as well. So, I think there’s a ton of interest, a lot of, including in a high school here as well, like, just at every level, of, you know, parents, the public. in German and in English events on Sunday afternoons and on weekday evenings, which is really amazing.
And I would say, earlier in the year, as part of this 6-month tour, I had a chance to brief a multinational delegation of national security leaders. And in that session, I did have a senior German official say, which I now open the German preface to the German edition of the book with in its translation, say, you know, we don’t have this problem, he said. And then he said, And besides, you know, what are we gonna do, dismantle all of patriarchy? To which I will say, like, all the women in the room sort of said, you know, well, we could try! Maybe let’s give it. So it’s a mixed bag, yeah.
Jen Rubin
You know, Germany in particular, which obviously has its particular history, and it had to go through, at least in the West, a denazification process, are they more receptive to your message than Americans? Do they look at the message differently?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Yeah, I think what’s really interesting here is that at the level of, sort of, government prevention officials, people who work in the criminal space, people who work on prevention of neo-Nazism, essentially, which is a huge push in Germany, and there’s been a ton of of resources directed to it. 3 billion euro, you know, from the federal government every year, an incredible amount of resources, 2,400 prevention programs.
And because of its history around the Holocaust, what seems to have happened is that if you’re not talking about the total elimination of people as the goal of a supremacist movement, it’s very hard, I think, for Germans to see, on the prevention side that, you know, suppression exploitation, that there are other kinds of things that can be done to a group of people, like women, as part of the, you know, as part of the financial or operational goals of extremist movements.
So I think that’s part of why I’m starting to realize, the more I explain this book here. Why I had my own blind spots, because the two countries where I have spent my entire career, Germany and the US, I think are actually not as far along as places like Australia, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, at recognizing the connection between misogyny, gender-based violence, and violent extremism.
Jen Rubin
Well, I’m waiting for the book about the book tour, because this sounds very, interesting, and really highlights some of the cultural differences. Speaking of prevention, I want to turn to Bill, who, of course, was in our national security structure, and take us inside, government, or even looking from the outside. We’re a year past DOGE, and we have seen multiple incidents of violent extremism.
We’ve seen a violent extremist ethic, grow up within DHS. What’s your assessment of Where things stand now in the government. Is it a contributory factor? Is it passive? Where’s the U.S. government fall in this matrix of problems?
Bill Braniff
Jen, thank you. Of course, your viewers understand that the U.S. government’s not monolithic, and that there are still offices doing incredibly important work led by civil servants, including a few offices that are still doing training in the prevention space around behavioral threat assessment and management. Supporting state and local offices, to, to continue to do that important work. But by and large, the U.S. government has entirely receded from the primary prevention space, right? The upstream prevention space where PERIL operates, and it’s reduced the amount of resources to state and local partners who also want to do that work, as well as do the behavioral threat assessment and management work that requires some startup resources.
So, I mean, it’s for sure, it’s a net loss. We’re well behind where we were a year ago, there’s no doubt about that. And instead, civil society and research centers and state and local governments are trying to take up this mantle. But of course, it’s hard to replace that, the financial resources and the capacity-building work that the federal government could be offering that’s currently not.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. We saw a—even before this president, took office again—that we’ve had this gradual increase in anti-Semitism, and that has continued to pace, and we just saw an incident at a synagogue in Michigan. Talk to us a little bit, Bill, about the kind of nexus of anti-Semitism, a very spirited, sometimes, inappropriate, frankly, debate about Israel and the war and, the problem in general of young men and violent extremism. How do all those things come together in an incident like, we saw in Michigan?
Bill Braniff
Right, so in Michigan, we saw an individual who was grieving. He had lost two brothers, a niece and a nephew in an airstrike in Lebanon. and condemnably acted out violently in response against the Jewish population at Temple Israel. Of course, the Jewish population in the United States is not responsible for the actions of the State of Israel. But in this case, this anti-Semitic attack occurred in the largest synagogue in the United States, and of course, that underscores the 350% increase in anti-Semitic threats or attacks over the last several years.
This individual stood in the parking lot, or parked in the parking lot for 2 hours before engaging in the attack. His vehicle was filled with, fireworks and gasoline, hardly a sleeper cell, or some high-end foreign operative. This was an individual struggling, you know, grieving, who then acted condemnably in an act of anti-Semitic violence. And I think that’s often the story of anti-Semitism and violence in the United States. You have individuals with underlying risk factors or unaddressed crises. Who then lash out violently and find empowerment through violence. That, that is, you know, often preventable.
Antisemitism is, of course, just a highly intersectional set of conspiracy theories that opens the door to lots of violence against the Jewish population in the United States, but also others, as we’ve explained with you in this series. The top supermarket attack, Walmart in El Paso. the Tree of Life shooting itself, of course, all related to anti-Semitism, but with different targets from Black, Hispanic, and Jewish populations in the U.S.
Jen Rubin
You know, we just had an individual, Joe Kent, who is a senior official in the, counterterrorism, arena, resign because he did not think, he could, abide by the President’s, policy in Iran. That’s perfectly acceptable, lots of people had that issue. But the explanation that he gave was rife with anti-Semitism, and goes back to some of the connections this individual made, as if Jews or Israel control us, as if we are not actors in our own, government. Talk to us about how that metastasizes, particularly in an issue like this, when we’re engaged in a war in which Israel is also involved in, having very complex, iterations, and in which our own government is at times saying things that sound suspiciously anti-Semitic, as in Marco Rubio saying, well. Bibi Netanyahu made us do it.
Cynthia Miller-Idris
Yeah, exactly. So, one of the… most pernicious parts about anti-Semitism is that it’s a… it’s what Amy Spitalnick at the Jewish Council for Policy and Public Affairs has called a punching-down conspiracy theory. So it’s a theory that, unites a lot of other forms of hatred under a false idea that Jews are controlling others, right? So you might have an anti-feminist argument, but the idea is, you know, women couldn’t have done that themselves, so it must be the Jews responsible for declining birth rates, because they’re controlling the women, right? That’s the type of conspiracy theory.
So, anytime you get into something around Jewish control, that phrase is very common in all of these kind of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, whether that’s Jewish control of the media, or Jewish control of, you know, as puppet masters. That’s the kind of—orchestration is the key term that we often see in that part of the conspiracy theory, and all conspiracy theories about control, but particularly anti-Semitic ones. And so, that’s exactly what we see here, and it’s really dangerous because it relates very clearly, then, to that second trope that Bill mentioned, which is one of the fastest moving tropes that we have found, the propaganda tropes online in the post-October 7th moment is the idea that ordinary Jews are somehow responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, and should be punished for that.
So that it’s fair game somehow to attack a synagogue, or a Jewish school, or desecrate a Jewish graveyard, a cemetery, right? That kind of thing is… is absurd, and preventable, I want to say. We also have found very good results in pre-bunking exactly that trope post-October 7th. In ways that should be going on right now, too, at scale, because it’s just another iteration of that same exact age-old trope that ordinary Jews are responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, and that’s not true, and it opens the door to violence from the left, from the right, from Islamist actors and others.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Bill, if you were still in government, and we have a war going on, and we are having these people make these connections or miss connections, what would be the simple message that you would be trying to get out to educators, institutions, individuals, local and state officials?
Bill Braniff
Sure, maybe I can answer the question slightly more… at a higher level than the office that I occupied when I was in government. Right now, the federal government is doing a very poor job communicating the rationale for the war in Iran. There’s many, many different explanations that are offered at different times, and that creates uncertainty. And in uncertain moments, conspiracy theories rush in to fill that void.
And so, even in this instance, you have a U.S. government official basically saying the only explanation is that someone else is controlling us and making us do it, because we don’t have a consistent rationale for why we’re doing this in the U.S. national interest. The information provided is inaccurate. So, the first thing you have to do is communicate clearly, as a government entity and a democracy, your rationale for something as important as going to war. And there had better be a really good national security reason for that, as opposed to an arbitrary war of choice.
Second, I would use this to highlight the importance of investing in prevention before an unanticipated crisis, right? We didn’t predict October 7th. After October 7th, it was really hard to put a bunch of genies back in the bottle. We didn’t predict this war in Iran because it didn’t have a clear rationale. And so, after the fact, it’s really hard to, you know, put prevention resources in place. It’s why we have to be investing in prevention all of the time in anticipation of the unknown. You don’t create fire codes and build buildings according to the fire code. After the building is on fire, you do it before the fire starts.
Jen Rubin
Understood. Cynthia specializes in solutions and building resilience in, societal institutions, in families, in individuals. What can we learn from that, particularly at a time now where the system is so stressed, by war, by conspiracy theories, by economic stress? What are some of the techniques of building resilience that you think we can be advancing right now?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Yeah, I think the number one technique, and this relates to what Bill just said, is that, you know, you can’t anticipate the exact trigger that’s going to unleash potential violence or escalation to violence or mass violence. But we know the kinds of manipulation and the kinds of propaganda that endure no matter what. And so, and in fact, it’s more effective, what we know from our work, is that it’s more effective to prevent people from being persuaded by propaganda, conspiracy theories, by pointing out the manipulation, and helping them recognize manipulation, manipulative tactics, and also kind of outrage politics, or things that are trying to profit from them in one way or another, persuade them into something that’s not in their own interest.
Much more effective to do that than it is to counter-argue. And so, in fact, it’s not that it doesn’t matter what the trigger was, because of course these are horrific events. But… but you’re… but the same problem is throughout, right? In this case, this propaganda trope that that ordinary Jews are somehow responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, was true after January, after the October 7th events, it’s true right now, it’s been true at many other times. Anytime there’s unhappiness with what Israel’s doing, ordinary Jews around the world suffer. And we had, not just in the U.S, there were two anti-Semitic attacks, here in Europe, in the Netherlands, just on Friday alone, in a 24-hour period. It’s, it’s happening everywhere.
Jen Rubin
One of the things that we have also seen, Bill, and I always like to go back to check in, because sometimes these conspiracy theories pop up when they don’t match the facts, they kind of disappear. Right around the time, in fact, right after the Charlie Kirk murder, we heard all of these accusations from the right that this was evidence of left-wing violence. Did we ever find out that there was a political, ideological, motivation, or did we find out other facts about that particular case, that resulted in that horrific incident?
Bill Braniff
Yeah, it is hard to keep up with the news cycle, isn’t it? And sometimes it… that underscores why it’s so important to try to get truthful information out as quickly as possible, because otherwise, the last thing we heard might be something that’s entirely false or misleading. The individual in this instance appears to have been really I don’t even know if the word motivated is the right word, but informed by their experience online, and that it was an offline act of violence against an individual who had been you know, demonstrably and vocally anti-LGBTQ in his rhetoric, and the individual in question, you know, engaged violently because he didn’t like that stance. So it seems to be a more personal motivation that played out in an entirely public way, and that the detritus, the information left behind by the individual perpetrator, really reflect a deep online life. Rife with irony and, what might be called things like shitposting, as opposed to a kind of deeply held ideology.
Jen Rubin
I understand. Cynthia. We have seen now, kind of a new metamorphosis on what used to be called Twitter, which is now X, which has to do with imagery and anti-women, kind of tropes and images. Talk to us a little bit about this. It seems to be exactly in keeping with your book, kind of the images and the way women are cast, particularly online. What’s going on there, and what can we do about it?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Yeah, I mean, what’s happened on X, with the features that allow the, sort of, AI-generated images to create nude, images and videos, essentially, there, but also on a number of other free apps, has really become a little flashpoint in what is a much larger issue in what we call tech-enabled gender-based violence or sexual-based violence, and so there were some, you know, tens of thousands of images on that feature on X that represent child pornography. I mean, it’s now going to be banned in most of Europe. I mean, that’s the way it’s looking, that we won’t have that feature of Grok anymore on X, over here.
But it’s just one, one, you know, that’s a mainstream app, and it’s horrific that it happened there, and how easy it was to generate those images, but it’s part of a much broader issue including, in what we call gender disinformation campaigns that undermine elected officials, that undermine democratic processes, because you know, some 90% of the attacks on Hillary Clinton, for example, tied back to were geotagged back to Russia, Venezuela, and other, you know, places that were seeking to polarize, divide, and undermine U.S. populaces under, you know, around gender, but also to undermine that particular candidate, Hillary, with gender-based disinformation, to weaken, to make her less, of an authority, and we see that now supersized with the use of sexual imagery, pornography that is false, but that looks real, and so we’ve seen that with a number of candidates across Eastern Europe as well, where they’ve had false pornography images circulating and then trying to say that they’ve slept their way to the top, or they used to have a different career, etc. And it’s a crisis for democracy in that sense, in terms of the gender disinformation campaigns as well.
Jen Rubin
As we wrap up our time, it’s very easy, and it’s not only in your space, but throughout the pro-democracy movement, to have a sense of futility. Every day we’re bombarded, things seem to go from bad to worse. Bill, are there trends that you can point to, or kind of green shoots that you can see during this time that give us some hope that at least there are some aspects of society that are recognizing and rallying, to this issue?
Bill Braniff
Civil society certainly gives me hope right now. I think we’re seeing lots of different facets of civil society get their legs underneath them and start to really take action. I’m personally, you know, very proud at Peril that we recently merged with a small nonprofit called Bedrock. Bedrock is the creation of a bipartisan initiative. It’s a hub for 67 different nonprofits around the country who all play a role in preventing hate-fueled and political violence. And we’ve absorbed bedrock, and so now we’re supporting apparel 67 partners around the country who are doing really good work, and to be able to help empower them to continue that work and work with state and local stakeholders and civil society is a massively inspiring thing that I’m happy to be able to report on.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. And Cynthia, let me end with you. Since you’ve been out on the road internationally. What can we learn from democracies abroad in terms of either their successes or their failures that you think you can bring back to the United States?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Yeah, I mean, one, I would say, this real cautionary tale about attacks on gender as a canary in the coal mine, and we’re seeing that in the U.S. as well. I mean, we saw that in Hungary, Viktor Orban attacks gender studies, women’s studies first, and that’s happening, in the U.S, now in Texas and Florida and other places as well, at universities. And so, you know, we see that, we see that higher education and that gender and women’s studies and women’s rights, in fact, get attacked as part of the decimation of democracy.
So that, I think, is something to keep an eye on globally and to make sure that authoritarianism doesn’t succeed by dividing us along gender or sexuality lines. But I also want to say that this six months on the road has really been… I mean, I’ve been back and forth, but a lot on the road with a lot of publics. Young publics in high schools, in colleges, with parents, with policymakers in 6 different countries, and… Everywhere, people really want help, and I think that is a pretty amazing feeling, to feel like people are coming into these rooms, including high school students, including high school boys, saying they don’t like what their algorithms are doing to them, they want to know how to fix it.
They want to know how to change it, and there’s a burgeoning men’s health and men’s wellness movement that is trying to advance how boys and men lead and engage and can be called into the advancement of gender equity work. So, I’m really heartened by things like the MenCare Changemakers Initiative that Equamundo is launching this year. I mean, really. not just saying we’re gonna leave this to the algorithm and the profiteers, we’re also gonna try to change it from within, and I think that’s what the public wants. That’s what people want. They don’t want to live like this either.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Well, I cannot thank you enough. I always enjoy our conversations, I always learn a lot, and for a day or so, I look at the world through a different prism. I’m sure you do that all the time now. But thank you for all you’re doing. Safe travels, continued, good wishes, Cynthia, for your trip. They are… she used to minus the same, but they are pouring into her events. they’re moving to larger and larger forum, which I guess is a I know is a compliment for her, but also perhaps a comment on our times and the need Absolutely. So, thank you so much, Cynthia. Thank you, Bill. Great talking to you. We’ll see you soon.
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
See you soon.
Bill Braniff
Bye.
