The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman

Leila Stillman-Utterback graduated from Middlebury Union High School in June and decided to take a gap year to pursue a dream. The 18-year-old Vermonter traveled to Israel to participate in a solidarity program that included volunteering with Rabbis for Human Rights in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to help Palestinians harvest olives. She was part of an effort to provide “protective presence” for Palestinians who are under constant attack from right-wing Israeli settlers. She said she wanted to live the Jewish values of tikkun olam (repairing the world) and b’tselem elohim (a belief that everyone is created in God’s image). 

On October 29, Stillman-Utterback was detained by Israeli soldiers, spent a night handcuffed in a police station and was accused of violating the terms of her tourist visa by entering a closed military zone. After being hauled before a judge at 3 a.m., she was deported and banned from Israel for 10 years.

Leila’s treatment at the hands of Israeli authorities was deeply personal for her mother. Danielle Stillman is the rabbi of Middlebury College. She teaches the values that Leila is living. Her daughter is now paying the price. 

The Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu may have hoped that by coming down hard on a young American activist that it would silence her. The opposite has occurred. Stillman-Utterback has spoken out in multiple interviews in the Israeli press. 

“My deportation felt like a betrayal,” wrote Stillman-Utterback in a powerful essay about her ordeal in The Forward, an independent Jewish American news publication. “Israel was supposed to be for me, for every Jew. But the settler movement and the current government would like to redefine what it means to be Jewish along political lines.”

Stillman-Utterback rejects the notion that criticizing Israel is somehow antisemitic. “I've grown up my entire life with a connection to Israel, with a love for it even,” she told The Vermont Conversation. “I have also grown up my entire life being allowed to be critical of Israel and … frustrated [and] angry.” She added that it was essential that “in a time of real rising antisemitism globally, that we are able to hold criticism and love at the same time. I really do think that it's possible.”

Stillman-Utterback’s treatment is part of a larger crackdown on Palestinians and Jewish activists by the Israeli government and right-wing settlers who operate with near impunity in Palestinian communities. In October, there were 126 olive harvest-related settler attacks against Palestinians, and Israel detained and deported 32 foreign activists who were accompanying Palestinian harvesters near the town of Burin, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Stillman-Utterback, who two years ago was named a Bronfman Fellow, a cohort of high-achieving Jewish teens, is appealing her ban from Israel and is committed to staying engaged. “We need to maintain our relationships in order to show that there are people who are committed to a peaceful and just future. It doesn't matter what it looks like, whether it's a two state solution, whether it's binational, it only matters that that we end the violence and that we end the occupation, that we move towards equality. Any movement towards equality and towards an end in violence, towards accountability for settler actions, is a move in the right direction.”

Rabbi Danielle Stillman said that she’s “inspired by [Leila’s] principled willingness to hang in with Israel despite this really harrowing, dramatic experience, and that that really comes from her Jewish values … to contribute to building a better society in a place that she's come to really care about.”

Rabbi Stillman said that American Jews are deeply divided about Israel, especially along generational lines. A recent Washington Post survey found that just over half of Jewish Americans — and two thirds of those over 65 — say they are emotionally attached to Israel, but only about one third of those ages 18 to 34 feel that attachment. About half of younger Jews are more likely to say Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, compared to about one third of older Jews.

Leila’s arrest and expulsion “just makes me really concerned about the future of the relationship between Israel and the diaspora, between American Jews and Israeli Jews,” said Rabbi Stillman.

Rabbi Stillman criticized how antisemitism is being “used in a certain way to further an agenda of silencing solidarity with Palestinians and silencing speech in general on many college campuses.”

Leila Stillman-Utterback is now back home in Middlebury figuring out what she will do with the rest of her gap year before attending Williams College in the fall of 2026. She expressed gratitude towards her parents.

“I was taught to always stay in a place of not knowing, even if it's uncomfortable, and I feel immensely grateful for never being told that only one answer is right, and for always being taught to live in that liminal space.”

Every week, two local newspapers close somewhere in the country. Some 50 million Americans have limited to no access to local news. That may increase with loss of public media funding. 

What is the future of journalism in an age where truth itself is under attack? 

Local news is essential because “that's where rebuilding confidence in facts and truth starts,” said VTDigger editor in chief Geeta Anand. We spoke at a public event at the Manchester Community Library on Nov. 11. 

“If you've actually gone to a meeting and seen a story based on it and met the reporter and it actually seems the article matches what you heard, then you begin to disbelieve the discrediting of journalism that is happening, led by the leaders of our country, which is having a devastating effect on our democracy.”

Anand’s career as a journalist and author spans the globe. Her stories on corporate corruption in the Wall Street Journal earned her a Pulitzer Prize in 2002, and she was a finalist again in 2003. Her book, "The Cure," about a father’s fight to save his kids by starting a company to make a medicine for their untreatable illness, was made into the 2010 movie, Extraordinary Measures, starring Harrison Ford. She was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in India. 

Anand’s roots in journalism are in covering local news. She worked at Cape Cod News and then covered local government and courts at the Rutland Herald. In 2018, she became a professor at the UC Berkeley journalism school, where she was dean in 2020. She was at Berkeley until taking over leadership of VTDigger in July 2025. 

Anand spoke about how local journalism is a critical link in the information ecosystem. “Our coverage right now of immigrants getting picked up and spirited off to other parts of the country -- that's the way the world finds out that these things are happening. Our stories get picked up by national media, and the national media hold our national leaders accountable. We matter to you here in Vermont, but we're also a key part of the web of national and international news.”

Anand said that for community and democracy to function, it is critical to support local news. “If we aren't vibrant, if we're not there at the city council meeting or at the school board meeting and telling those stories, government isn't held accountable. It's almost like these things haven't happened if we're not there.”

Thanks to Greater Northshire Access Television for recording this conversation. 

The health care apocalypse has arrived. 

In the past month, many of the 30,000 Vermonters who get their health insurance through Vermont Health Connect — part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it's popularly known — are experiencing sticker shock. Average health insurance premiums on Vermont Health Connect are projected to more than double, the highest rate increases countrywide.

This is a disaster foretold. Democrats in Congress have warned for months that unless pandemic-era health insurance subsidies were extended, the 24 million Americans who get their health insurance through ACA marketplaces would see astronomical price hikes. Yet, despite a 43 day government shutdown, Republicans in Congress and President Trump refused to extend subsidies. 

The price tag for inaction has just arrived.

Vermonters are now faced with excruciating choices. Middle-income participants are facing additional premiums of $10,000 per year for individuals and $32,000 for a family of four. Others are considering going without insurance all together. 

“We can't take out a second mortgage on our house to afford one year of health insurance,” said Arica Bronz, a pilates instructor in Williston, where she lives with her husband, a primary care physician, and their two daughters. 

Bronz’s monthly family premium will rise from $1,100 to $2,700 per month in 2026. After factoring in a $15,000 annual deductible, she said that in case of a serious medical event, her family will pay $47,000 before their insurance kicks in. 

Bronz feels she has no choice. She is going to cancel health care coverage for her family. “We're trying to get all the scans done and just make sure we're tip-top healthy before we make the leap. I can't tell you how much sleep I've lost considering what it's like to jump in this day and age to no health care for a family.”

If too many people drop health care coverage, experts warn that Vermont’s struggling health care financing system could enter a death spiral. 

“I have a tremendous fear that what we are watching before us is the undoing, the dismantling of our healthcare financing system,” said Michael Fisher, Vermont’s chief health care advocate. “This is devastating and it's self-inflicted. And the majority in Congress think it's the right thing to do."

Fisher nevertheless said that those whose income falls within 400% of the federal poverty level — around $130,000 for a family of four — may still qualify for subsidized health care premiums.

As Arica Bronz contemplates a future without health insurance, she said, “We don't have a safety net. Hopefully that will inspire us to just be really thoughtful and careful. ... It's kinda terrifying.”

The No Kings protests in October, which drew over seven million people across the country, were hailed as the largest demonstrations in American history. Now the question for many people is: What works to stop authoritarianism?

Maria Stephan has been studying this question. Her award-winning book, “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” co-authored with Erica Chenoweth of Harvard, examines a century of resistance movements around the world. They determined that nonviolent protests are more than twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts. Chenoweth went on to coin the widely cited 3.5% Rule, which states that when 3.5% of the population protest nonviolently, the movement will win. 

“When you have 3.5% of a population, which in the United States is roughly 12 million people, that means a movement is representative. It's hard to ignore. It's highly disruptive. And behind those 3.5% are many, many more people who support the aims of the movement,” Stephan told The Vermont Conversation.

Maria Stephan was a strategic planner with the U.S. Department of State and founded and directed the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She is the author and editor of five books on authoritarianism and civil resistance. She was born and raised in Vermont and currently lives in New York City, where she is chief organizer with the Horizons Project, which she describes as “building a strong pro-democracy front that brings people together from different parts of society to effectively counter authoritarianism in the U.S.” 

Stephan highlighted the many tactics of the movement against authoritarianism. “We know from studying nonviolent resistance campaigns against authoritarian regimes around the world that it's the organized acts of non-cooperation — when people withhold their consumer buying power, when workers withhold labor, when security forces refuse to use repression vis a vis peaceful protesters — these acts of non-cooperation are what is really key to the success of pro-democracy movements, and we're seeing this across the country.”

She cited examples of “people taking courageous stands both as individuals and collectively.” These include “the powerful image of the Idaho teacher, Sarah Inama, who refused to take down the sign ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ in her classroom, which resulted in the whole community mobilizing in support of inclusive classrooms.”

There was Rachel Cohen, “the young lawyer who left her law firm after it capitulated to Trump. She not only left the firm, she organized thousands of lawyers to similarly commit to not be part of firms that engage in that type of capitulation.” 

Stephan said that in the higher education sector, “seven out of nine universities have refused a higher education compact offered by the Trump administration that would have offered access to federal funding in exchange for various forms of censorship on campus.” And the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, she said, refused ICE agents access to their grounds to coordinate arrests of immigrants and undocumented people.

“For all these reasons and all the powerful, joyful, creative acts of defiance and community care I'm seeing across the country. I believe we will prevail.”

On New Year’s Day 2020, Adam Tendler unexpectedly received his father’s final gift: a wad of cash stuffed into a manila envelope handed over in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in West Lebanon, NH. The strangely furtive exchange launched a musical journey.

Tendler, a renowned concert pianist who grew up in Barre decided to use his inheritance to commission an all-star cast of modern composers to compose piano pieces exploring the theme of inheritance. In his pitch to his composer friends, Tendler wrote that he wanted “to plant that cash in the soil of something that may actually grow and — if you'll forgive me — live on.” 

To his amazement, every composer he wrote to agreed to contribute. The result is a critically acclaimed album and concert tour called Inheritances, which the New York Times has called a collection of “little masterpieces.” Tendler will perform Inheritances at the Barre Opera House on November 16.

Tendler initially did not know what to do with the money that he received. Taking a trip or paying down a credit card seemed inadequate. “This is an inheritance so something should be done with it that sort of honors the gesture,” he told The Vermont Conversation. 

“The thing I do for a living is ideally creating experiences for people … which [are] cathartic and beautiful and [provide] a sense of connection,” he said. “What if I use it to facilitate that experience for people?” Tendler originally told his story in a 2023 essay for the New York Times, “My Father’s Death, An Envelope of Cash, A Legacy in Music.”

Adam Tendler is a Grammy-nominated pianist and a recipient of the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists and the Yvar Mikhashoff Prize. The Minneapolis Star Tribune called him "currently the hottest pianist on the American contemporary classical scene." After graduating from Indiana University, Tendler performed solo recitals in all fifty states as part of a grassroots tour he called America 88x50. He has appeared as soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, LA Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony and at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and other venues. He is on the piano faculty of the Steinhardt School at New York University. 

Tendler took a circuitous route from Barre to the concert stages of the world. After college, he worked at the landfill in Coventry and was a substitute teacher at U32 and Twinfield high schools. His relationship to his hometown is both affectionate and ambivalent. 

“I love Barre, I love Vermont, but it wasn't really the most easy place to grow up as a queer kid,” he recalled. “Music was a safety hatch … a real place within which I could hide, protect myself, express myself. I created a little fortress within it."

"That vessel motivated me to actually start to really train to the point of getting into conservatory.”

Tendler said that his work on Inheritances transformed his complicated feelings about his “semi-estranged” father “into something that feels like a companion in a good way.”

“This project and having to sort of confront him on a human level, even though we're talking about music, has brought me back to him. I am my father's son. We are family.”

In 2016, Jamie Raskin was elected to Congress from Maryland just as Donald Trump was first elected president. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, and Trump, a real estate developer who flouts rules and shatters norms, have been locked in a struggle ever since.

When Congress impeached Trump in 2021 for inciting an insurrection, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tapped Raskin to be lead impeachment manager, essentially Trump’s chief prosecutor. He subsequently served on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. 

Raskin is now the Ranking Member of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and has been a vocal adversary of the Trump administration. In the past few weeks, he has accused U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Krisi Noem of “unlawfully detaining U.S. citizens,” demanded that Trump explain “a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional effort to steal $230 million from the American people” and denounced “military-style tactics” in Chicago. 

Jamie Raskin represents Maryland’s 8th Congressional District, which borders Washington, D.C. He has authored several books, including the bestseller “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy,” a searing exploration of the death of his son and the struggle to defend democracy under Trump. 

I spoke with Rep. Raskin on Tuesday as the government shutdown approached the one month mark. 

They are being described as possibly “the biggest ever mass demonstrations in American history.” More than 7 million people participated in No Kings protests on Saturday, October 18 across more than 2,700 events in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and in cities around the world.

In Vermont, organizers estimate that some 43,000 people participated in more than 40 events around the state. People came out to protest the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants, LGBTQ+ rights, public education, the government shutdown and more.

At the Vermont State House, where some 6,500 people gathered in cool fall weather, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., fired up the crowd with a call to fight back against Trump’s authoritarianism. Then she talked about the hero’s journey, an archetype in mythology and narrative storytelling (think Star Wars and the Hunger Games) that involves an ordinary person who faces a challenge, embarks on a journey, triumphs over adversity and returns transformed.

“I know that many of you feel anxious, you feel scared, you feel overwhelmed,” Balint told the crowd. “We have to see this as part of a hero's journey that we are all on together. We must shift our thinking into believing that we, each of us, embody that hero is going to lead us to a better day. And what I know is the first step on the hero's journey is answering the call. And that is what you have done today. You are answering the call.”

Asked about the deepening impact of the federal shutdown, Balint told the Vermont Conversation, “Millions of people are at risk of losing their health care, and we know that health care right now is one of the things that is making it incredibly emotionally, psychologically, economically devastating for families. We have to fight for health care, and we also have to say to this President, No, you will not bully us into submission. We're not going to sell out our people back home because we're afraid of your wrath.”

Millions of Americans are receiving notices of soaring health care premiums as Congress remains deadlocked over extending Covid-era subsidies, as demanded by Democrats. Premiums will rise by 18 percent on average, according to the nonpartisan health policy group KFF.

Sen. Peter Welch advised Vermonters to hang in there. “We don't know how this is going to end, but we know that the only real chance it has to end well is if we show that we are committed to democracy and we're willing to act together.”

Welch said that Trump sending troops to cities led by Democrats is “just a lawless exercise. It's a prelude to him potentially sending troops in if he doesn't like the vote outcome in the next election.”

I asked Paul Burns, an attorney and the longtime executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, whether he believed the legal system was up to the task of defending democratic institutions.

“We're seeing a Supreme Court where decisions appear no longer based on legal principles or court precedents," he said. "The court has no compunction about turning its back on long standing principles on any sense of consistency under the law. Absent that, we have to wonder whether the law can be there for us in any way that it has been in the past. And so I am deeply concerned.”

Burns said that what gives him hope is “looking over at my 14 year old son and he and other young people who bring to this an earnestness and an openness and interest in just living their lives in a free way, a belief still that we can and must have a democracy here. They are not tainted or jaded or cynical." He vowed to do "everything that I can to try to make this better.”

Clara White, a 14-year old eighth grade student from Montpelier, had a distinctive voice and message among the lineup of politicians and activists. She said that “people my age, we are not just sitting around waiting. We are more connected than generations before us. We care about each other. We know how to share information, organize online and learn from people all over the world. We are creative problem solvers because we have had to be.”

She cited examples of of how young people in her community “started a Green Up Day program, came together to feed families in need, and volunteered at a summer camp to help other girls feel empowered.”

"I choose hope because I've seen what happens when people come together. I choose hope because giving up is not an option. I choose hope because I believe in us."

The world’s attention is focused on the Middle East this week as a fragile ceasefire takes hold in Israel’s two-year long war in Gaza. Split-screen images show joyous reunions as Palestinians and Israelis who had been held captive greet their families, alongside scenes of shocking devastation in the Gaza Strip.

For Mohsen Mahdawi, this story is personal. In April, Mahdawi sat in a Vermont jail cell for more than two weeks fighting for his freedom. Mahdawi is a Palestinian-born student at Columbia University who was arrested by immigration agents at what he was told would be a citizenship interview in St. Albans. Mahdawi, 35, grew up in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but is now a legal permanent resident living in Vermont. He is a practicing Buddhist, was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association and co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union.

The Trump administration is trying to deport Mahdawi, claiming that his pro-Palestinian campus activism poses a threat to national security. Vermont federal Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Madahwi’s release on bail on April 30, comparing his arrest to the unlawful repression of free speech under McCarthyism. But the Trump administration appealed, arguing that Crawford did not have the right to intervene in Mahdawi’s detention. Madahwi vs. Trump was argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Sept. 30. Madahwi has a separate deportation case in immigration court that is ongoing.

“It's not my case that is on trial,” Mahdawi said. “It is the constitution that is on trial. One of the most important and significant principles of democracy is the ability of expression and free speech. That's the first amendment right in this country, and what we've seen through targeting me and other students and other even journalists is a direct violation of this principle that every American is so proud of and they hold very dearly.”

This legal drama has not slowed or silenced Madahwi. While out on bail this spring, Mahdawi graduated from Columbia University, receiving a standing ovation from his classmates as he walked across the stage to receive his diploma. This fall, he began a master’s degree at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

“I felt validated, that my efforts and the risk that I have taken is being honored and respected,” he said of the support from his Columbia classmates. “I felt that I'm not alone, and I felt a strong level of solidarity and that the community here made it very clear to the government and to those who have been targeting me that they are standing on the right side of history.”

Mahdawi was just named a 2025 Beerman Foundation Fellow for Peace and Justice for his work that “bridges faith, activism, and dialogue to advance nonviolence and dignity for all.”

Mahdawi is guardedly optimistic about the new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.  

“While there is a sense of relief and ability to say 'I'm glad this is happening', there is also still suspicion about how long this would last,” he said.

“I pray that the war is over, but at the same time, I see that Israel now is saying that they have a historic right to the West Bank, which would prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, something that the majority of the world, more than 80% of the international community, the states, have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state, except America, and America has vetoed it,” Mahdawi said. “So I don't say the war is over before giving Palestinians their rights, the right to self-determination, the right to freedom, the right of return and the right to live in dignity.”

The Vermont Conversation also spoke with Bernard Avishai, a visiting professor of government at Dartmouth College, and the author of four books including “The Tragedy of Zionism.” He writes regularly about Israeli politics for the New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Politico and other publications. He lives half the year in Israel.

“I do feel much more sense of hopefulness that both sides have learned what losses are entailed by this kind of war, and that it might be time to turn the page,” Avishai said. 

Avishai is a strong critic of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he believes “is slowly converting (the) country from an open society to a closed and authoritarian one.”

“The real divide in Israel is between supporters of Greater Israel," the nationalist movement intent on taking over Palestinian lands — “and supporters of global Israel," or those who want to integrate Israel into the global economy.

Avishai believes that the Netanyahu government must go. “A change of government, a change of face to Israel, will at least begin the process of having Israel kind of rebuild relations with the Western world, but it's a fundamentally dangerous economic situation for Israel to be on the one hand trying to build a global technological center, a hub in the global economy, and at the same time be alienating all the people they have to work with.”

Avishai said that Israeli media largely showed images of Israeli losses over the past two years, not Palestinian suffering. 

“It became tremendously numbing, and we have not, with all that numbing and self absorption and grief, really been able to focus on the cruelty and the difficulties we created in Gaza,” he said. “And I would like to believe that over the next five, six years, we will.”

Chuck Collins, the heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune, gave away his millions to progressive political causes when he was in his twenties. Ever since, the resident of Guilford has fought to expose how the rich make themselves richer at everyone else’s expense.

In his new book, "Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet," Collins shows how the actions of the top .01% have dire consequences for everyone else. He argues that when the system is rigged to favor to rich, working people pay the price in higher taxes, fewer affordable houses and a health care system stripped of both health and care. 

Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. He writes the Oligarch Watch column for The Nation. He is the author of a number of books, including "Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good"; and with Bill Gates Sr., "Wealth and Our Commonwealth," a case for taxing inherited fortunes. 

Collins says we are living through a new Gilded Age. In the first Gilded Age, which lasted from about the end of the Civil War to 1900, “there were 400 wealthy families that by some estimates may have had 40 to 50% of all the wealth in the country,” Collins told the Vermont Conversation. But from 2020 to 2022, “the flow of billionaire wealth, not just to the 1% but the top one tenth of 1% in the billionaire class, is dizzying.” He said that the combined wealth of US billionaires went from under $3 trillion at the beginning of the pandemic to $7.8 trillion by the end.

“Pretty much everything you care about is undermined by that concentration of wealth and power: your health, your housing, the quality of your environment.”

Collins warned of the danger of “billionaire capture.”

“You have the billionaires lining up behind one particular presidential candidate who has totally delivered for the billionaire class to the point where our political system is captured. ... They are using that government shutdown as a way to shrink government and lay off workers. And we're not even going to publish unemployment rates and the data necessary for us to understand what's happening in the economy.”

Collins believes that change will come from both the grassroots and from “cracks within the billionaire elites that we should be paying attention to,” such as those who want to address climate change.

“As people start to see how their pockets are getting picked, they will wake up and want to push back on this oligarchic capture of our society.”

Collins says that change begins by taxing enormous wealth, reinvesting in social programs, and in grassroots mobilizations such as “No Kings Day” that represent “an awakening that we have never seen.”

“We have to say, Look, we're not going to vote for people who are going to be lapdogs of the billionaires. ... We're going to see people run for Congress and win and run for higher office saying, I want an economy that works for everybody, not just the billionaires.”

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is the latest in a growing list of incidents of political violence. There have been 150 politically motivated attacks just this year, and a 2000% increase in targeted violent plots over the past two decades.

What explains this surge in political violence?

Extremism expert Cynthia Miller-Idriss confirms that this is “the worst moment of political violence since the 1970s,” adding, "We are in an era of mass shootings." 

She argues that rising polarization and “the common thread" of misogyny links many recent attacks. Miller-Idriss is the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab at American University, where she is also a professor in the School of Public Affairs and the School of Education. Her latest book is “Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism.” She is an MSNBC columnist and regular commentator who appears frequently on CNN, PBS and other news outlets.

President Donald Trump has vowed to mount a government assault on “the left” in response to Kirk’s assassination. But a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that despite a small uptick in “left-wing” violence this year, ”right-wing” terrorism has far exceeded all other forms of political violence in the number of fatalities and attacks in the past decade.

Miller-Idriss contends that most mass shooters, terrorists and violent extremists have two things in common: Nearly all are men, and they are almost always “virulent misogynists, homophobes or transphobes.” She says that the media — herself included — have long overlooked this link between political violence and misogyny.

The U.S. now averages more than one mass shooting per day. 

“Virtually every mass shooter in the U.S. has a history of gender-based violence in some way,” with 60% of them having documented histories of domestic violence or “stalking, harassment, rape threats, cyber porn, revenge porn, sexual assault, rape, anti-LGBTQ violence,” Miller-Idriss said. “Even when the targets are not very clearly women or the LGBTQ community … gender or homophobia really significantly play a role.”

Miller-Idriss highlighted two factors that make this era of political violence unique — the proliferation of guns and online communities that traffic in hate.

“We have a lot of shootings that don't seem to have any ideological motivation at all but are really at the hands of extraordinarily online young people … who spend a lot of time in online spaces, in gaming spaces, in very meme-driven, irony laden spaces,” she said. Attackers “are kind of communicating, almost in a way that may be detached from reality, with online communities as part of the attack.” 

Shooters are “not just highly online but expressing a lot of online misogyny and gender-based harms or harassing teenage girls online,” she said.

Miller-Idriss said that even “everyday forms of misogyny” that she and other women face are linked to more extreme forms. She said she observed that in the hate mail that she receives that there was “a very clear pattern of containment, that what they wanted was for me to not be front and center.”

“There's some sort of anger there about a person, a woman, being in a public space at all, and it makes you realize that phrases like ‘lock her up,’ ‘send them back,’ ‘get back in the closet,’ ‘get back in the kitchen’ (are) containment metaphors (that) are very, very common in everyday life directed toward women or LGBTQ folks who are seen as being too public or too flamboyant or too out,” she said.

Everyday misogyny “can evolve into a trajectory in which some young men are conditioned through online influencers to believe that they have lost their rightful place, that women belong in a more submissive role,” Miller-Idriss said.

“Some men are so easily mobilized to anger if they're denied what they think they're entitled to (and) that might escalate eventually into rage in a more public way,” she said.

Miller-Idriss and her colleagues at the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab work with young people to “off-ramp” violent online hate. 

“If you start to recognize that part of the problem of mass shootings and mass violence is rooted in very everyday harms, then you can take action on those everyday harms,” she said. “It should be an empowering message to say, ‘Let's have a conversation about what this looks like, and let's have a conversation about the experience of boys compared to girls.’”