In the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, global terror groups who took no part in the storming have found a point of admiration in the tactics of domestic extremists, a news story to hold up as justification in their claims that America is weak from within and vulnerable, and a model of inspiration for their own operatives to similarly target locations that hold deep symbolism and may not be as secure as once thought.

Domestic terror movements and Islamist terror groups have long shared similar themes and memes in the ways they recruit and incite as extremists of varying ideologies feed off each other’s best practices. These include using current events to stoke grievances and appealing to existing grievances to reel in sympathizers and recruits while encouraging revenge, promoting the accelerationist belief that societal collapse will hasten their aims to construct a civilization with their ideology dominant, promising training and operations intended to appeal to recruits’ feelings of inadequacy, and heavily promoting successful attacks – regardless of the perpetrators – in order to encourage both cells and lone actors to learn from the attacks’ flaws and emulate the high points.

Read more: Homeland Security Today