Plots of political extremists target the electric grid to broaden a societal clash much like “Helter Skelter”

US power grid regulator NERC is warning of rolling electricity blackouts in parts of the US as extreme temperatures and drought stress the power grid.

Revelation 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Political extremists have attempted a number of attacks on electrical infrastructure and substations in recent years, with a goal of sowing chaos and civil conflict.
  • 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.”
  • The year before, officials said they foiled another, similar plot, this one targeting the grid in Baltimore. The two alleged plotters, Sarah Beth Clendaniel and Brandon Russell, were described by the FBI as “racially- or ethnically-motivated extremists,” and officials said they targeted Baltimore in large part because of its status as a majority-Black city.
  • 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.”
  • “What they think will happen is that, if there’s a crisis, it will provide cover for violence, but it will also force normal people to engage in violence. And that’s not what will happen,” Conger said.
  • Instead, she said, “All that will happen is old people who need their oxygen machines will die, and it will cost the energy company a billion dollars.”
  • If plots like the above had been enacted successfully, they could potentially have caused even more damage simply because they sought to inflict deliberate sabotage.
  • The theory that sowing this kind of chaos could make the population turn on each other has recurred often in American culture.
  • Charles Manson, for instance, believed the murders committed by his followers would spur “Helter Skelter,” a race war from which they would emerge to take control.

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