Amy Cooter, Ph.D.
@amycooter.bsky.social
15K followers 1.6K following 420 posts
Militia expert. Sociologist. Research Director ARC (@arcglobal) and exciting news soon Nostalgia, Nationalism & the US Militia Movement: http://tinyurl.com/yvme26ad
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amycooter.bsky.social
These are law enforcement personnel who have been reallocated to ICE activities. Check out that first line. It's the reason I've been telling journalists that we're not going to fully realize what we've done to ourselves until there is some awful, *preventable* tragedy.
Graphics in the story showing numbers of reallocations including 12,353 from Homeland Security investigations
amycooter.bsky.social
This is your periodic reminder that government shutdowns mean many active duty military and their families do not receive their paychecks and may have difficulty accessing other services, too.
amycooter.bsky.social
Oh hey, book launch day, in which I have two co-authored chapters
maargentino.com
It is Book Launch day for @amaramarasingam.bsky.social and My edited volume "Contemporary Far-Right Culture The Art, Music, and Everyday Practices of Violent Extremism"

www.routledge.com/Contemporary...
amycooter.bsky.social
I was just at an airport Starbucks with pumpkin spice signage everywhere, and, while conveying the order down the line, an employee referred to someone's drink as a "messy white woman." And this has made my day.
amycooter.bsky.social
Gentle reminder that "nihilistic" is not a synonym for "we don't know their ideology"

It's been A Week, so I'm not unpacking that, but a lot of folks were worried about slippage into meaninglessness after Palm Springs and it seems to be happening
amycooter.bsky.social
Not well in a bsky post - they are connected but nve is heavily influenced by accelerationism and the occult and also takes on a different character with what social media provides today. We're working on a big explainer, but maybe we can also chat soon!
amycooter.bsky.social
part of the territory, unfortunately, but I appreciate your support!
amycooter.bsky.social
Yes, opsec is not a concept he's ever heard of
amycooter.bsky.social
Not remotely surprising that dude has massive amounts of anti-lgbtq content. Also some pro prison labor content
Reposted by Amy Cooter, Ph.D.
klasfeldreports.com
NEWS

A federal judge BLOCKS the Trump admin from using the military in California for civilian law enforcement in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Ruling storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Background www.allrisenews.com/p/general-sc...
For the foregoing reasons, the Court ORDERS that Defendants are enjoined from deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California, and any military troops heretofore deployed in California, to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants, unless and until Defendants satisfy the requirements of a valid constitutional or statutory exception, as defined herein, to the Posse Comitatus Act. The Court STAYS this injunction until 12:00 noon on Friday, September 12, 2025
amycooter.bsky.social
Honesty, I don't care about the Cracker Barrel thing. As a kid, I never saw a point eating at a place that made meals that looked like every single one at my house. But this guy is now doing circles ina TN roundabout, and what on earth have y'all done?!
Poor quality Uncle Herschel statue in a chair on a flat truck bed. And by poor quality, I mean something between the undead and Michael Myers
amycooter.bsky.social
It's vitally important that we keep analyzing and monitoring these online ecosystems to develop effective and realistic prevention.
amycooter.bsky.social
I spoke with NPR's Odette Yousef about the Minneapolis shooting.

Cases like this are always going to have unanswered questions, and it naturally feels particularly frustrating when we can't identify a concrete, coherent motive behind an attack.

www.npr.org/2025/08/29/n...
'There is no message': The search for ideological motives in the Minneapolis shooting
The FBI is calling the attack at a Minnesota Catholic church an act of domestic terrorism driven by "hate-filled ideology." Extremism analysts say the picture may be more complex.
www.npr.org
amycooter.bsky.social
Maybe. We're starting to see survivors of this ecosystem whose trajectories hold some promise, but I am not sure we have a generalizable approach yet.

The biggest key is prevention before entry into this pathway ever begins. And that's not always easy either
amycooter.bsky.social
I certainly don't have sweeping solutions, no one does. But if you're in a position to advocate for greater understanding and greater resources to be directed towards these spaces, please do so.

And if you want to read ICDE's report on Westman's influences, it's here:
Annunciation Catholic School Shooting — ARC
Minneapolis high school shooting suspect was motivated by numerous violent extremist and targeted violence influences. On August 27, 2025, an individual carried out a mass shooting at the Annunc...
www.accresearch.org
amycooter.bsky.social
State and local governments are going to bear the brunt of the burden for investigation, deradicalization, and prevention, alike. From what we're currently seeing, they're almost uniformly unprepared for this burden.
amycooter.bsky.social
With cuts to funding and a deemphasis on this space (one that extends beyond the US), there is simply no way we can adequately prevent or track this kind of actor.

And they're targeting and grooming kids as young as 8 with the explicit goal of destroying social bonds and human society.
amycooter.bsky.social
It's not the first time we've seen militant accelerationiam and NVE and terminally online identities so thoroughly and intentionally congealed.

And it won't be the last.
amycooter.bsky.social
There are attempts to resonate with so many grievances and potentially aggrieved groups. I think it's the first time I've seen Waco and Ruby Ridge mentioned so closely to Breivik and Bowers, for example.
amycooter.bsky.social
It's a case like too many we've seen that doesn't have a simple or satisfactory cause or trajectory to violence.

There are both left and right wing perspectives. There are an overwhelming number of both overt and subtle references to other mass violence actors.