Last week’s U.S. presidential inauguration ceremony was heavily fortified, with 12-foot fences encircling the Capitol grounds and 25,000 National Guard troops keeping watch in Washington, D.C. While Inauguration Day passed without incident, the FBI had warned that armed protests were being planned in all states ahead of the inauguration, including by extremist groups—some of them involving veterans of the U.S. military. There are signs that the threat that manifested itself at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is broadly spread and deeply rooted, and it will likely intensify in the months ahead.
One reason to expect further unrest is that, as a violent mode of political expression, terrorism is a form of “propaganda by the deed.” For Peter Kropotkin, a radical theorist behind the 19th-century anarchist movement, acts of terrorism communicated protest, combining the value of example with terroristic effect and “raising … revolutionary confidence.”
