Predictions for REMVE Extremism In 2025: Emerging Technology And Shifting Discourse Present New And Evolving Threats
Violent extremism had a banner year in 2024. Across the ideological spectrum, the last 12 months have seen rising levels of hatred and violence, and the landscape of extremism both in the United States and around the world has simultaneously become increasingly muddled and hostile. Traditional ideological boundaries between extremist factions have weakened as hot-button issues – such as the Gaza war, immigration, and economic inflation – offered common ground to those angry at the status quo, and blurred ideological distinctions.
Major events, such as the assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, the fall of the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Syria, and elections in the United States and around the world galvanized previously opposing extremist forces into unlikely alliances, and opened up new avenues for ideological hybridization and the merging of extremist ideologies.
2025 has begun in similarly deadly fashion: The United States experienced two terrorist attacks within twelve hours of the New Year's beginning. An alleged ISIS supporter killed at least 15 people when he drove a truck through New Year's revelers in New Orleans, and an active duty special forces soldier appears to have detonated a Tesla Cybertruck rigged with a car bomb outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.
It is clear that effective monitoring of extremist groups and individuals will be imperative for the safety and security of the public in the United States and around the world in 2025 and beyond. The MEMRI Domestic Terrorism Threat Monitor (DTTM) project will continue to report on the trends, trajectories, and developments within the broader Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist (REMVE) movement globally.
A key element of MEMRI's monitoring is the regular assessment of the future of the extremist landscape, and the prediction of future threats. Annually, the DTTM provides an overview of the emerging and projected threats the coming year may bring. Naturally, unforeseen events such as pandemics, disasters, rapid technological advancements, or other global events can drastically change the trajectory of specific extremist ideologies or the extremist space as a whole. However, these predictions are informed by an analysis of the current trends and developments within the groups, organizations, and ideological circles that the project monitors on a daily basis.
The following report will highlight some of our team's predictions for the development of REMVE ideology and activism in 2025.
YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO THE MEMRI DOMESTIC TERRORISM THREAT MONITOR (DTTM) TO READ THE FULL REPORT. GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA CAN REQUEST A COPY BY WRITING TO DTTMSUBS@MEMRI.ORG WITH THE REPORT TITLE IN THE SUBJECT LINE. PLEASE INCLUDE FULL ORGANIZATIONAL DETAILS AND AN OFFICIAL EMAIL ADDRESS IN YOUR REQUEST. NOTE: WE ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE A COPY ONLY TO MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT, LAW ENFORCEMENT, MEDIA, AND ACADEMIA, AND TO SUBSCRIBERS; IF YOU DO NOT MEET THESE CRITERIA PLEASE DO NOT REQUEST.
Increased Ideological Hybridization
Ideological Hybridization was the most significant development of 2024, and will likely continue and even accelerate, in many ways, in the coming year. Ideologies such as White Jihad and National Bolshevism are emerging ideological amalgams, and will likely present a growing threat of terrorist violence in 2025. Additionally, the anti-capitalist fervor that has developed since the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 has made unlikely allies, and may create new ideological groupings among anti-tech and anti-capitalist extremists and neo-Nazi accelerationist movements.
Attacks Inspired By The War In Gaza And The Middle East: 'White Jihad' Will Grow
Similarly, the blending of REMVE and jihadi ideologies that has been developing over the last 18 months has the potential to trigger real-world violence; REMVE groups or lone-wolf actors may introduce new methods of violent action. Neo-Nazis have been inspired and re-radicalized by the Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing conflict in Gaza. Some have attempted to capitalize on the pro-Palestine movement by engaging in outreach to jihadi groups as well as to student-led solidarity campaigns - some neo-Nazis have leafletted at protests and even appeared on mainstream Arabic-language media outlets.
Anti-Government Sentiment
Increasing mistrust in Western governments, inflamed by hot-button issues such as crisis management, immigration, and identity politics has created an increasingly fertile environment for the development of anti-government violent extremism. Simultaneously, as radical ultranationalist parties fail at the electoral level – particularly in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, and Romania – white supremacist and ultranationalist groups and activists have become increasingly militant and have adopted more overt anti-government beliefs.[iii]
Growing Ideological Nihilism And Attacks With Unclear Motives
Along with the blending of ideologies that has marked the last year, a muddling of ideologies has also been occurring. While once it was relatively straightforward to assign motive and ideology to terrorist actors, some acts of mass violence are becoming increasingly difficult to define. Recent years have seen the emergence of concepts such as Ideological Nihilism and Mixed, Unclear, and Unstable (MUU) ideologies. Security and intelligence communities have had to contend with an increasing trend of violence without a clear motive.[iv]
Increased Use Of Artificial Intelligence For Disinformation And Violence
The rise of generative Artificial Intelligence has presented a litany of new and emerging threats over the last two years, as chronicled by MEMRI DTTM's reporting on the subject. Between the ever increasing fog of disinformation hastened by deepfake videos, voice emulation, and image generation, and the potential for the use of A.I. engines in the planning and execution of attacks – both cyber and kinetic – on infrastructure, soft targets, or government property, the risk presented by A.I. appears to be growing exponentially. Indeed, following the car-bomb explosion by a special forces soldier in Las Vegas on New Year's morning, it was revealed that the perpetrator had used ChatGPT to aide in his planning of the attack.
A New Era Of Conspiracy Theories
A key element of the evolving A.I. landscape is the impact that it has had, and will continue to have, on conspiracy theories, a rapidly growing threat catalyst. A.I.-generated content related to the California wildfires, for example, has demonstrated that the technology can and will continue to be used for the propagation of conspiracy theories related to any crisis, whether climate-related, security-related, or economic.
A.I. is a conspiracy theory force-multiplier, and can lend newfound believability to malicious and dangerous theories including those intentionally trafficked by white supremacists, such as the Great Replacement Theory. The risk presented by these theories is extremely real, and can result in real-world cases of violence. Mass shootings, including the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, have been linked to conspiracy theories.
Transnational Extremism
Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism (REMVE) has, for a long time, been viewed as a purely domestic issue. Compared to the understanding of jihadist and Islamist extremism as inherently transnational movements, the language of homegrown terrorism and ultranationalist extremism in the U.S. suggests an entirely internal and isolated process, that develops strictly within national borders, and whose effect is similarly isolated.
However, fascist ideology has been consistently transnational since the 1920s - and even in the decades before, ever since fascism emerged as a concept in the late 19th century. Indeed, Adolf Hitler viewed the axis of Germany, Italy, Spain, and Imperial Japan – among others – as the seeds of a new fascist world order, with senior officials of Hitler's party even advocating for an alliance with Britain in the pre-war years, and supporting fascist movements such as the paramilitary Blackshirts in nations across Europe.
This process has expanded and accelerated hugely since the emergence of the internet and social media over the last three decades, and even more so since the COVID-19 pandemic forced extremist groups to adopt a more digital-forward model for recruitment and communication. The MEMRI DTTM has reported extensively on the transnational nature of fascist extremism over the past five years, covering international conferences, marches, training events, martial arts events, and much more.[vii]
The full text of this post is available to DTTM subscribers.
If you are a subscriber, log in here to read this report.
For information on the required credentials to access this material, visit the DTTM subscription page