Loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have reportedly told the British prime minister that they are withdrawing support for the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Loyalists are supporters of Northern Ireland being a part of the U.K., and the decision was taken amid concerns over the U.K.’s Brexit deal with the European Union. The development raises fears of renewed violence.

The U.S. Capitol Police Department says it is taking seriously intelligence about a possible plot by a militia group to breach the Capitol on Thursday. A far-right conspiracy theory has been circulating on social media platforms, contending that Donald Trump, who is continuing to spread lies about a fictitious mass voter fraud which cost him the election, would return to power on 4 March. This date was inauguration day for U.S. presidents until 1933, when it was moved to 20 January.

Germany’s interior intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has classified the entire Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as an “extremism suspected case.” The two largest parties in Germany, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party are members of the governing coalition, making the populist, far-right AfD the leader of the opposition in the Bundestag. The designation allows the BfV to use additional surveillance powers given to it by the Bundestag last year, including monitoring email communications and recruiting party members as informants.

DBI director Christopher Wray told lawmakers today (Tuesday) that there wasn’t any evidence to suggest that left-wing extremists or “fake Trump supporters” were involved in the 6 January attack on the Capitol. The claims about fake Trump supporters, and similar conspiracy theories about how it was violent leftist extremists rather than Trump supporters who were behind the violence on 6 January, have been promoted by pro-Trump media outlets.

The acting chief of the US Capitol police urged for security measures to remain in place amid ongoing threats by extremists. “Members of militia groups that were present on January 6 have stated their desires that they want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the State of the Union,” Pittman told members of the House Appropriations Committee.

Lenawee County, Michigan, had an apocalyptic Christian nationalist militia problem about a decade ago. The group called itself the Hutaree, a name that members said meant “Christian Warriors,” though the FBI said it didn’t mean anything at all. The FBI had an informer inside the group, and nine of its members were charged with conspiracy, sedition, and various weapon charges. Judge Victoria Roberts acquitted the Hutaree members of the serious charges of conspiracy and sedition. Why should anyone care about the Hutaree now? Jacob Schulz writes that we should, “because one of those serious charges was seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C.§ 2384. It was the last time the Justice Department would use the statute until the present day.” It’s looking more and more like prosecutors might dust off the statute in response to the insurrection of Jan. 6. “The trial judge’s decision in the Hutaree case isn’t binding precedent. But the Hutaree are worth a second look.”

The characteristics of peoples’ brains might offer clues about the political beliefs they hold dear. In a study of around 350 U.S. citizens, we examined the relationship between individuals’ cognitive traits – the unconscious ways in which their brains learn and process information from the environment – and their ideological worldviews. We found parallels between how those with extreme views perform in brain games and the kind of political, religious and dogmatic attitudes they adhere to.

Last week we offered a couple of paragraphs from the landmark speech given by the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) on the floor of the Senate on 13 February. McConnell voted for acquitting Donald Trump because, he argued, the Senate had no power to sit in judgement of a former official who is now a private citizen. But in a memorable speech which will likely be read in high school civics classes and in American history classes in colleges, McConnell excoriated Trump for poisoning the minds of his followers with a “growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.” McConnell added: “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.” Todya we publish the entire first half of the speech, addressing Trump’s responsibility for fomenting the political unrest which, he hoped, would allow him to stay in power in defiance of the will of the American voters. 

An examination of the records of 212 of the more than 250 people arrested by the police for taking part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, shows that only 25 percent of those arrested were affiliated with extremist groups such as Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. The other 75 percent appear to be the product years of lies and repeated conspiracy theories being circulated and amplified within a nearly hermetically sealed ecosphere of disinformation, fertilized by conspiratorial radio personalities, TV channels competing with each other in their support for Donald Trump, and Trump’s own unrelenting torrent of falsehoods with which he has fed his followers. We may be seeing a new breed of extremists, foundationally animated more by a devotion to Trump than a commitment to a specific ideology or party.