S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show. Language around the extremist ideology that led to the deadly attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego. And school has been murky. We'll clear it up. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The teenagers who opened fire and killed three innocent people at the Islamic Center of San Diego were motivated by far right conspiracies and white supremacist networks. Their manifesto includes hateful rhetoric towards Muslims , Jewish people , black people , the LGBTQ plus community and women. They also promoted symbols long associated with white supremacist and Nazis.
S2: These subjects did not discriminate on who they hated.
S1: That's FBI Special Agent Mark Grimley speaking at a press conference yesterday. It's the latest in what's becoming a pattern of violent right wing extremism. KPBS military and veteran affairs reporter Andrew Dyer joins me now to talk about it. Andrew. Welcome. Hi.
S3: Hi. Thanks for having me.
S1: Always glad to have you here. You've spent the last 48 hours sifting through the suspects manifesto writings of these attackers. I mean , there's a lot in those pages.
S3: Unfortunately , these are the same baseless conspiracy theories we've seen multiple shooters espouse. The shooting in El Paso against , you know , Latino people. Um , of course , the shooting in Christchurch against Muslims , which is the most direct through line , given that these two shooters idolized that , um , that killer and , um , sought to pay homage to that shooting by basically copying it , writing on their firearms , live streaming , the , um , atrocity. And , um , you know , they say as much explicitly in their their manifesto.
S1: The teenagers were were motivated by the 2019 mosque shooting in Christchurch , New Zealand. Remind us what happened that day.
S3: Well , a , um , you know , a gunman , um , live streamed from a body cam , um , took an assault rifle into , uh , two different , uh , as long as enters mosques and killed 51 Muslim people. Mm.
S1: Mm.
S3: But this kind of this new I , I can't say it's new , but this modern , hate motivated mass shootings kind of , uh , traces back to Dylann Roof , who , um , you know , inspired a lot of extremist , um , violence. Um , one shooting inspires the next shooting. And there's these cultures online that , um , Revere these young men and idolize them and declare them to be saints and seek to , um , add their names to the pantheon of great mass killers.
S1: And some of that extremism is mainstream. I think at that time , the U.S. around that time maybe was dealing with Muslim bans. Um , and so , you know , out of that are these , these ideologies , uh , are given confirmation and emboldened. Sure.
S3: Sure. Since I mean , since nine over 11 , there's been , you know , the level of Islamophobia in the US and in the world has kind of gone up and down depending on , you know , global events and and what political leaders see as advantageous to them to to highlight. You know , we had the threat levels at one point and , um , you know , Donald Trump did a. Wanted to do a muslim ban. He did one. And then he's repeated that in this term. But , you know , marginalized groups , including Muslims , of course , but there is a mainstream political movement that just kind of takes turns demonizing various marginalized groups , whether it's LGBTQ plus people , um , uh , immigrants of all races and of course , the Islamic community.
S1: You know , one ideology that allegedly appears in the suspect's manifesto is this great replacement theory. Uh , talk a bit about what that is and how , you know , have extremists used it to actually justify their violence ? Sure.
S3: This this theory undergirds so much of what we see , and it's really important. You know , this is a something that was once confined. I think two extremist networks associated with it is a white supremacist conspiracy theory that there is a group of people controlling the world who want to dilute the authority and power of white people in the United States by bringing in people of other races. Um , this is where these phrases like white genocide come from , where they want to they , they they say that there's there's an effort to kind of dilute whiteness. And , um , this was a fringe conspiracy. But in recent years it has very much become mainstream. Um , most notably , I think Elon Musk , um , repeatedly espouses , um , great replacement , uh , type rhetoric on , on his ex account. I mean , he bought he bought Twitter , in part because he didn't like that white supremacists were getting banned for , um , for so-called hate speech. And the great replacement theory is definitely part of part of that. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. On yesterday's show , we talked about this concept of stochastic terrorism.
S3: But they say things like , oh , they're incompatible with our culture , the destroying our country. They don't belong here. They , you know , if you look at some of the rhetoric from from President Trump talking about , uh , Somali people and whenever a few months ago when everybody was , you know , looking at daycares and harassing people at Daycare centers the rhetoric , the dehumanizing way that they talk about marginalized groups. When some people hear those words and exist in this world of in. That subscribe to that belief system. You know , they just take it , you know , one step further. Right. Okay. Well , if they don't belong here and they're still here , maybe I need to take it into my own hands to to make them not be here. I mean , that is the the train of thought there. And it explicitly describes that in the the manifesto.
S1: And you , I believe , spoke with the co-founder of Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Um , tell me about that , because I think we have a clip. Yes.
S3: Yes. So Heidi Barak is the co-founder , and she tracks this movement online. And , you know , she talked about how the kind of recent embrace by the conservative movement of some of these , this rhetoric may have contributed to to this environment.
S4: It's a hard thing to talk about , but it has to be confronted. These kids were radicalized into neo-Nazism , acceleration , ism and hate , and they were also radicalized by the conversation demonizing Muslims coming from the conservative world. It's documented in the manifesto.
S1: You know , the suspects were also motivated by misogynistic views. They wrote about women rejecting them.
S3: But there are pockets online where mostly young men go , where all of these ideas and all of these ideologies , they all mesh together , right ? So , you know , even when they talk about Muslims. One of the the killers says , you know it. You know , it's actually the Jews that are bringing the Muslims here , right ? Like , they're they are steeped in all of these , you know , hateful ideologies. And that , of course , includes women. Um , the way they get into this , these communities , it's a lot of the times it's attraction to violence. Or they want to watch video , gore videos , videos of people being killed. Um , and once you're in these niche interest groups , um , you know , one thing leads to another. And and before you know it , you're , you know , it's it is a hodgepodge of hate. It really is.
S1:
S3: And what he was saying was that there are , you know , white supremacist and extremist ideologies available on mainstream platforms like TikTok and Instagram that you may come across by accident , you may stumble into. But these spaces where a group of people sit around and venerate violence and idolize these shooters , these are not places you're going to come to accidentally. These young people are seeking them out.
S1: And , you know , just this , this news , it's so heavy. It's hard to process for many people.
S3: And it's something I asked experts on extremism. Whenever I interview them , I always ask where they're at on media coverage and how. And the best way to talk about this stuff. And , you know , for a long time , it's almost like the the social contagion theory. It's why , you know , we don't report on things like suicides. And , you know , they. There was a belief that we should not go into details on some of the , of this ideology. And , and I do subscribe to that. You know , myself , you know , I'm I'm not you know , I'm not publishing the manifesto. I'm not quoting the manifesto and I'm not , you know , I'm not talking about the extremist groups or the specific symbols that these shooters put on their , their fatigues and stuff. So there is still some of that , but it's also very important for the public to understand that these attacks aren't happening in a vacuum. There is no lone wolf , you know , syndrome. There is no , you know , perhaps there is some mental instability that could very well be true. Certainly , access to guns plays a role , of course , but the the motivating factor , the hate , the thing that's driving their ideology is out there , and there is a global kind of white supremacist movement that is seeking this acceleration of movement that is seeking to , um , inspire these types of acts of violence.
S1: Given that that these are movements , these are organizations.
S3: You know , two weeks ago , the Trump administration came out with its , um , counter counterterrorist , um , like , uh , plan for this year highlighting three threats. Uh , that would be , um , Islamic jihadist like terrorism , um , drug trafficking and the far left or Antifa. Um , and it criticized prior prior attempts to , um , curtail far right , um , terrorism. So , uh , yeah , it remains to be seen how how far they're willing to take that angle.
S1: All right. You can follow Andrew's reporting and reporting from the rest of the KPBS newsroom on our website , KPBS. I've been speaking with KPBS military and veteran affairs reporter Andrew Dyer. Andrew , thank you so very much.
S3: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
