Expert Available: Hurricane Relief Workers Evacuate a North Carolina County After Armed Militia Threatens to “Hunt” FEMA

WASHINGTON (October 14, 2024) – Federal workers responding to assist hurricane victims in hard-hit Rutherford County, N.C. had to evacuate the area due to concerns over “armed militia” threatening government workers in the region, The Washington Post reports. An official message from the U.S. Forest Service on Saturday told federal agencies in the area that that National Guard troops ‘had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA.’

Faculty experts at the George Washington University are available to offer insight, analysis and commentary on matters relating to political violence. If you would like to speak with an expert, please contact GW Media Relations Specialists Tayah Frye at [email protected] and Cate Douglass Restuccio at [email protected].

Matt Dallek, a professor at GW’s Graduate School of Political Management, is a political historian with expertise in the intersection of social crises and political transformation, the evolution of the modern conservative movement, and liberalism and its critics. Along with four co-authored books, Dallek is the author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, which explores the history and influence of America’s right-wing activism. Dallek can discuss the history of political violence.

Jon Lewis is a Research Fellow at the GW Program on Extremism, where he studies domestic terrorism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the United States and federal responses to the threat. Lewis has spoken about how political rhetoric can embolden extremists and incite violence.

Ethan Porter is an associate professor of media and public affairs and of political science at GW. He holds appointments in the School of Media and Public Affairs and the Political Science Department and is the Cluster Lead of the Misinformation/Disinformation Lab at GW’s Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics. His research has appeared or is forthcoming in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Communication and other journals. Porter can discuss how mis/disinformation often fuels political violence.

Joe Cordes is professor of Economics, public policy and public administration, and international affairs and a co-director of the George Washington Regulatory Studies Center. Cordes was a Brookings Economic Policy fellow in the Office of Tax Policy in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and served as a senior economist on the Treasury’s Tax Reform project. He has been a consultant to the Washington, DC Tax Revision Commission, the RAND Corporation, and numerous government agencies including the Congressional Budget Office, Internal Revenue Service Office of Research, the U.S. Treasury Department, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Research Council. Cordes can discuss the importance of government agencies such as FEMA and why it’s important to keep them funded and protected.

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