Her brother couldn’t make it to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., but she worried that he would join a new insurrection — that one day “he would be one of the people on TV.”
The woman in her 30s asked her family to make plans, she said, hoping to keep her brother busy. Then she contacted a nonprofit called Parents for Peace that seeks to pull people back from extremism, hoping to “save” him, after years of dismay at his hatred of Muslims and Mexicans and now alarm at his anger over the presidential election.
Dissecting her brother’s life and their relationship in weekly sessions, she started to wonder whether she was part of the problem.
The woman, who did not want her name or location made public so as not to upset her brother, is part of a surge of desperate families and friends calling organizations that aim to deradicalize and “deprogram” extremists across the ideological spectrum. Such organizations say demand for their free services has never been higher.
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Groups and movements like the Proud Boys, QAnon and the subculture of incels — “involuntary celibates” who preach extreme violence and misogyny — are part of the new wave of what Rangel called “pop-up” renditions of white supremacy. Members of all have sought help from Life After Hate, Rangel said, arguing that the growing eruption of far-right violence has made the need for intervention and rehabilitation more pressing than ever.