Within the months earlier than he was charged with storming the U.S. Capitol, Doug Jensen was sharing conspiracy theories he’d consumed on-line. But it surely hadn’t all the time been that approach, says his brother, who remembers how he as soon as posted the type of household and trip images acquainted to almost all social media customers.
A world away, Wahab hadn’t all the time spent his days immersed in jihadist educating. The product of a rich Pakistani household and the youngest son of 4, he was into automobiles and video video games, had his personal bike, even studied in Japan.
No two ideologues are an identical and the gulf between completely different sorts of extremists, together with in how deeply they embrace violence within the identify of their trigger, is as vast as it’s apparent. However to dwell solely on the variations obscures the similarities, not solely in how folks soak up extremist ideology but in addition in how they feed off grievances and mobilize to motion.
For any American who casts violent extremism as a international drawback, the Jan. 6 Capitol siege held up an uncomfortable mirror revealing the identical situations for fantastical considering and politically motivated violence as any society.
The Related Press examined the paths of radicalization via case research on two continents: a 20-year-old man rescued from a Taliban coaching camp on Afghanistan’s border, and an Iowa man whose brother watched him fall sway to nonsensical conspiracy theories and finally be a part of the mob of Donald Trump loyalists that stormed the Capitol.
Two locations, two males, two completely different tales as seen by two family members. However strip away the ideologies, says John Horgan, a researcher of violent extremism, and take a look at the psychological processes, the roots, the experiences.
“All of these issues,” Horgan says, “are likely to look way more comparable than they’re completely different.”
THE AMERICAN
America met Doug Jensen, 42, through a extensively circulated video that uncovered the mob mentality contained in the Capitol. Jensen’s the person in a darkish cap and black “Belief the Plan” shirt, main a crowd chasing a Capitol Police officer up the steps.
William Routh of Clarksville, Arkansas, had an unsettled feeling even earlier than the riot. “I stated, should you go down there and you are going to do a peaceable factor, then that is wonderful. However I stated hold your head down and do not be doing one thing silly.”
In interviews with the AP days and months after his youthful brother’s arrest, Routh painted Jensen, a Des Moines father of three who’d labored as a union mason laborer, as a person who loved the trimmings of a traditional American existence.
“This was a shock to me greater than something, as a result of I’d not have thought this from my brother Doug, as a result of he is an excellent, hardworking household man and he has good values.”
Exactly how Jensen got here to soak up the conspiracies that led him to the Capitol is bewildering to Routh. However within the months earlier than the riot, the brothers communicated about QAnon as Jensen shared movies and different conspiracy-laden messages he purported to seek out that means in.
Earlier than Jan. 6, Routh says, “We now have been being advised for the final — what? — seven, eight months that if the Democrats get management, we’re dropping our nation, OK? That scares lots of people.”
A Justice Division memo that argued for Jensen’s detention cites his felony historical past and his eagerness to drive greater than 1,000 miles to “hear President Trump declare martial legislation.” It notes that when the FBI questioned him, he stated he’d gone to Washington as a result of “Q,” the motion’s amorphous voice, had forecast that the “storm” had arrived.
His lawyer, Christopher Davis, countered by calling Jensen a “sufferer of quite a few conspiracy theories” and a dedicated household man whose preliminary devotion to QAnon “was its said mission to eradicate pedophiles from society.”
In July, a federal decide agreed to launch Jensen on home arrest, citing a video displaying Jensen referring to the Capitol constructing because the White Home as a probable indication he could not have deliberate an assault upfront “when he had no primary understanding of the place he even was that day.”
However in September, Jensen was ordered again to jail for violating the situations of his freedom. A federal officer visiting Jensen discovered him in his storage utilizing an iPhone to observe information from Rumble, a streaming platform common with conservatives.
THE PAKISTANI
Wahab had all of it. The youngest son of 4 from a rich Pakistani household, he spent his early years within the United Arab Emirates and for a time in Japan, learning. Wahab preferred automobiles, had his personal bike and was loopy about video video games.
His uncle, who rescued the 20-year-old from a Taliban coaching camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this yr, requested that his full identify not be used as a result of militants have deep-reaching tentacles within the northwest the place the household lives. He agreed to be quoted utilizing his center identify, Kamal.
Kamal is one in all 5 brothers who runs the family-owned import/export conglomerate. Every brother has groomed their sons for the enterprise.
Wahab’s future was to be no completely different. He returned to Pakistan in his early teenagers from overseas.
His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teenagers Wahab socialized with of their northwest Pakistan hometown, plus video video games and Web websites his pals launched him to that advised of Muslims being attacked, ladies raped and infants killed.
“He felt like he hadn’t recognized what was occurring, that he had spent his life in darkness and he felt he must be concerned. His pals insisted he ought to. They advised him he was wealthy and will assist our folks,” his uncle stated.
To his uncle, Wahab appeared to turn into more and more aggressive, fixated on violence.
Earlier this yr, Wahab abruptly disappeared. When Wahab’s father found his son was at a coaching camp, he was livid, his uncle stated.
“He advised the folks `Go away him there. I do not settle for him as my son anymore.’ However I took it on myself to convey him again,” Kamal stated.
Right this moment, Wahab is again within the household enterprise, however is being intently watched.
“We’re watching all of the younger boys now, and most nights they should be dwelling — until they inform us the place they’re,” Kamal stated.
——
Ethical outrage. A way of injustice. A sense that issues can solely be fastened via pressing, violent motion.
These are what are likely to inspire individuals who gravitate towards extremism, says Horgan, who directs the Violent Extremism Analysis Group at Georgia State College.
“These similarities you can see repeated throughout the board, whether or not you are speaking about excessive right-wing militias in Oklahoma otherwise you’re speaking a couple of Taliban offshoot in northwest Pakistan,” Horgan says.
Analysis exhibits individuals who espouse conspiracy theories are likely to do poorer on measures of vital considering, lowering complicated world issues to reassuring solutions, says Ziv Cohen, an professional on extremism at Weill Cornell Medical Faculty of Cornell College.
That is the place the tales of Jensen and Wahab seemingly intersect. Each have been looking for one thing. Each discovered solutions that have been attractive, enticing — and distorted variations of actuality.
“For causes he doesn’t even perceive at the moment, he turned a `true believer’ and was satisfied he (was) doing a noble service by changing into a digital soldier for `Q,”‘ Davis, Jensen’s lawyer, wrote in a June courtroom submitting. “Perhaps it was mid-life disaster, the pandemic, or maybe the message simply appeared to raise him from his extraordinary life to an exalted standing with an honorable objective.”
However is that objective ever reached? Maybe counterintuitively, analysis has proven that when extremists’ conspiracy theories are bolstered, their nervousness ranges rise fairly than fall, Cohen says.
“Folks appear to not be capable of get sufficient of a conspiracy concept,” he says, “however they’re by no means fairly glad or actually reassured.”
——
Related Press author David Pitt in Des Moines contributed to this report.
