The siege at the US Capitol that took place in the wake of President Trump’s disinformation campaign challenging the results of the 2020 election has highlighted the fragile nature of our most trusted institutions.

Horgan, professor of psychology who heads the Violent Extremism Research Group at Georgia State University, has been studying terrorism and the psychology behind it for decades. His book, The Psychology of Terrorism (Routledge, 2014) is now in its second edition and published in more than a dozen languages worldwide.

Here, he shares why he and many other experts are preparing for more violence:

Can you put this time in American political history in context as far as the level of danger we might be facing?

It is an exceptionally dangerous time. The United States is in a very precarious spot right now. We’ve witnessed a steady erosion of democratic norms, with increased polarization and radicalization that has reached a boiling point. This, in a climate of both a real pandemic and a pandemic of misinformation, has created an explosive mixture of tension, anxiety, and fear. All that was needed was for someone to point the most ardent supporters of President Trump in the right direction, and that directly culminated in the assault on the Capitol.

The country is now so polarized it will take years to heal. It will require positive, constructive leadership at many levels, bipartisan reconciliation, and a very basic recognition that we came close to losing a sense of what it means to be a democracy. I don’t believe we realize just how perilous things are right now.

What are some of your overarching concerns as far as the threat of political violence and terrorism?

I hope the massive security crackdown we’re currently seeing in advance of the inauguration will deter that segment of Trump supporters from attempting a second attack on the Capitol.

I am concerned about the prospect of small-scale, coordinated violence that will still have the potential to terrify communities and affect our way of life, even during the pandemic. I am seeing an avalanche of threat messages on right-wing message boards and social media platforms calling for assassinations of public figures and journalists.

Read the full article about right-wing violence by Noelle Toumey Reetz at Futurity.