The plots have repeatedly failed, however, and sociologists say that even if they do succeed, the kind of disasters they seek to create rarely result in members of the population turning on one another — though they could prove costly, and deadly.
In July, two former Marines, both active in an online neo-Nazi community, were sentenced to prison for a plot in which they stole military equipment from Camp Lejeune as part of an intended attack on a power substation in the Pacific Northwest. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the plotters, Liam Collins and Paul Kryscuk, “conspired, prepared, and trained to attack America’s power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology.” ...
Many plots of this kind are specifically motivated by accelerationism, the belief that creating conflict and unrest will hasten a broader societal clash, said Molly Conger, a researcher based in Charlottesville, Va., who covered the Collins-Kryscuk plot on her podcast, “Weird Little Guys.”
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