Friend:

Thank you for your many responses to my email last week and letting me know how you are. You shared snarky and strategic ideas to counter the attacks on abortion rights; you sent me songs, cartoons and statements; you shared your feelings of deep frustration, rage and helplessness; you let me know that you are out protesting in the streets and happy to see signs that read “Reproductive Freedom is Religious Freedom”; and you offered us blessings. We are buoyed by your notes and busy as ever plotting new strategies and implementing our strategic roadmap in exciting ways. We are here for the long haul to fight with you for our democracy and the separation of religion and government.

I learned a new phrase this week that I can’t stop thinking about, especially in the context of religious extremism: stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism is inciting violence through rhetoric, but not explicitly. Instead, stochastic terrorism foments violence with implicit calls to arms and dog whistles, knowing that someone in the audience will eventually execute the implicit call. So the violence is “statistically predictable but individually unpredictable,” and, importantly, the speaker can plausibly deny any connection to the bloodshed.

The tragic and disturbing events from last weekend show just how seriously we must take this threat. Stochastic terrorism shines a new light on the threat posed by conspiracies and disinformation, such as replacement theory—the racist, antisemitic conspiracy that elitist forces are working to “replace” white people with immigrants and people of color. Combined, these motivated the gunman who killed 10 people and wounded three others in a predominantly Black community in Buffalo, N.Y., last Saturday.

Like you, I am heartbroken and outraged at the extremist violence and hate that continues to fester in our country and that especially targets Black, Asian and other communities of color. As I noted in my statement about this latest shooting and two others last weekend that targeted Asian communities in California and Texas, hate fuels hate. Dangerous white nationalism and religious extremism are growing threats to our freedom, to our democracy and to our lives.

We saw another dangerous example of white Christian nationalism last weekend: Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke used his Sunday sermon not only to cast doubt on whether racism or religious extremism triggered the Buffalo shooter, but to threaten another insurrection (in between demonizing Democrats, abortion supporters, LGBTQ people and others).

AU reported Locke to the IRS for blatantly violating the Johnson Amendment when he demanded that Democrats get out of his church and insisted, “You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation.” But the most disturbing part of his sermon (and there was much to be disturbed by) was the cheer from his congregation when he proclaimed, “You ain’t seen the insurrection yet. You keep on pushing our buttons, you low-down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating communists, maybe you’ll find out what an insurrection is.”

Once upon a time we all might have shrugged off Locke’s bombastic sermon as empty threats. But coming hours after the deaths in Buffalo, and with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol still fresh in our minds, we can’t ignore the connection between inflammatory rhetoric that disparages groups of people and the violence that sometimes follows. That’s stochastic terrorism—the probability that hateful speech of influential people will incite impressionable followers to violent action.

We must speak out against hateful, violent speech and actions because there can be no freedom for any of us in America until we are all free to attend our house of worship, shop for groceries or go to a hair salon without fear that we will be harmed because of who we are, what we look like or what religion we practice. With your support, Americans United will never stop fighting for an America that fulfills its promise of freedom without favor and equality without exception for everyone.

In solidarity,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO