Substations beware: 'Accelerationists' see power grid attacks as way to create chaos, end contemporary society

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If all forces result from interactions, the cross-mix of technology and capitalism has supporters and haters. Hunter Walker describes one of the latter in Talking Points Memo: "The first chapter of the black-and-white PDF magazine begins with an ominous warning. Over four dense pages, the anonymous writers paint a picture of 'an anti-tech revolution, beginning with the annihilation of the U.S. energy grid,'"  "'Hospitals would fail. . . the collapse of the system. . . . chaos, agony, and death.' . . . Along with a depiction of a widespread blackout, it included a precise list of the locations of 'The Most Critically Important Electric Substations in the U.S.'"

Walker writes, "This apocalyptic brand of extremist rhetoric — and the focus, specifically, on targeting substations — is part of a growing phenomenon . . . . Experts have attributed the wave to the digital spread of right-wing accelerationist ideology, which aims to hasten societal collapse. . . . It is easy to dismiss these writings as digital bluster, but law enforcement and academic experts have repeatedly attributed the frightening online rhetoric to the real-world rise in assaults on power stations."

Over the past 10 years, the pairing of anti-capitalism ideologies with an actionable plan has evolved. "The electric grid has increasingly come into the crosshairs since an April 2013 sniper attack on a Pacific Gas and Electric substation in Metcalf, California," Walker reports. "Since then, the idea of shooting attacks on the power grid has gained traction. . . . The proliferation of extremist materials online is a challenge for law enforcement. According to the Department of Homeland Security, there are over 79,000 substations that play a vital part in the nation's electrical grid. Many are in remote locations and are privately owned, which means they have varying standards for security."

"Relatively simple shooting attacks from far-right white supremacist terrorists have emerged as a major threat to the grid," Walker writes. "Thirteen individuals associated with the white supremacist movement faced federal charges related to 'planning attacks on the energy sector' between 2016 and 2022, according to a report from the George Washington University Program on Extremism. . . There is a consensus among federal law enforcement agencies that white supremacists have become the top domestic terror threat."

Michael Edison Hayden, spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, told Walker, "Thinking about how the power lines function. . . it is the central nervous system of contemporary society, and that's why it's so important to accelerationists. . . . As they see it ... the system that is oppressing them cannot function … without power. . . . Things around gender and sexuality right now are animating extremists on the right more than race. . . . That reverberates from the White House when Trump was there all the way down to accelerationist cells." Walker adds, "White supremacists are not the only adherents of accelerationism. There are anarchists and some on the far left who could be described as accelerationists."