Using Inferential Methods to Find a Link Between the Opioid Epidemic and White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism

According to the United States Congress, white supremacists are among the most significant domestic terrorism threats. Along with a steep rise in white supremacy activity in the U.S., the number of drug overdoses related to opioids increased drastically between the years 2020 and 2021 and is set to continue to increase. Prior qualitative research has indicated that many white supremacist groups believe the opioid epidemic to be a government conspiracy purposefully targeting only white Ameri- cans. Such rhetoric is used to radicalize and recruit new members to white supremacist organizations which can lead to more violence. This article addresses this putative link between white supremacy, or racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (RMVE), and the opioid epidemic. Specifically, a detailed analysis was undertaken to identify “hotspots” in the U.S. for white supremacy incidents which co-occur with opioid use information. To do so, the geography of the opioid epidemic, location-based socioeconomic and crime factors, and white supremacist incidents as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate, Extremism, Anti-Semitic and Terrorism (H.E.A.T) Map were systematically extracted for 2018 to 2021. The results of a canonical regression indicated that the most influential factors for white supremacist incidences are motor vehicle theft rate, robbery rate, and homi- cide rate, among others as well. A negative binomial regression model was constructed using opioid-use indicators and significant socioeconomic factors to predict the risk of RMVE incidents in every county throughout the United States. This model was able to show a significant positive association between the number of opioid overdose deaths and the number of white supremacist incidents in a given county with and without other social factors. Multidimensional scaling was implemented to show the similarity between counties while looking at the distance between opioid deaths and white supremacy incidents, as well as geographic distance. This scaling created a new map, as well as showing what counties were the most dissimilar. We conclude that the prevalence of the opioid epidemic in an area is a significant predictor of white supremacist incidents. However, its influence is overall small, and there exist other factors that also influence these incidents such as physical and mental health indicators, food insecurity, racial demographics, and unemployment levels.