Episode 354: Note to the Trump Administration: don’t ignore far right extremism!
In politics, right and left are relative terms. Most people may self-describe as ‘centrist’, but we all have issues on which we lean more right (conservative) or more left (liberal). This is all natural, but what is not – and more importantly worrisome – is when either side goes further right/leftward and starts to think violence is an acceptable expression of their views and/or demands. In the US today there is a lot of talk about ‘political’ extremism, but not about one aspect of it: the far right? Is the US sleepwalking into a disaster by ignoring this threat? I talk to a former US counterterrorism specialist on this issue.
About my guest
Dexter Ingram is a counterterrorism, counter weapons of mass destruction, and counter violent extremist strategist with over 25 years of experience. He’s led U.S. interagency delegations to Asia and Africa focusing on nuclear proliferation deterrence. Dexter’s assignments have included serving as Senior Advisor to the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Senior CT Advisor to INTERPOL in Lyon, France; Senior Political Advisor in Helmand, Afghanistan; Deputy Director of the State Department’s WMD Terrorism effort; International Counterterrorism Fellow at the National Defense University; and as a senior liaison to the FBI and DHS.
https://dexteringram.substack.com/p/the-threat-we-erased-just-marched
https://dexteringram.substack.com
Substack link
Spotify link
About Phil Gurski
Phil worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation. From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East. He also served as senior special advisor in the National Security Directorate at Public Safety Canada from 2013, focusing on community outreach and training on radicalisation to violence, until his retirement from the civil service in May 2015, and as consultant for the Ontario Provincial Police’s Anti-Terrorism Section (PATS) from May to October 2015. He also ran Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting from May 2015 to May 2025.
He was the Director of Security and Intelligence at the SecDev Group from June 2018 to July 2019 and the Director of the National Security Programme at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute from 2020-2022. He has also taught on national security issues at George Brown College, the University of Ottawa and Georgian College. Mr. Gurski has presented on violent Islamist-inspired and other forms of terrorism and radicalisation across Canada and around the world and is actively sought by Canadian and international media on national security and intelligence issues. He has written hundreds of op-eds on these matters for several Canadian media since 2016
He is the author of The Threat from Within: Recognizing Al Qaeda-inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West (Rowman and Littlefield 2015) Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), The Lesser Jihads: Taking the Islamist fight to the world (Rowman and Littlefield 2017), An end to the ‘War on Terrorism (Rowman and Littlefield 2018), When Religion Kills: How Extremist Justify Violence Through Faith (Lynne Rienner 2019), The Peaceable Kingdom? A history of terrorism in Canada from Confederation to the present (self-published: 2021, republished by Double Dagger in 2022), The Fenians: Brotherhood of fools or Canada’s first terrorist threat? (Double Dagger: 2025) and the 9/11 The Unfinished Battle: Why Jihadi Terrorism Is Stronger, Wider, and Far From Over (September 2026). He regularly blogs and podcasts, and posts on Bluesky (@borealissaves.bsky.social), X (https://x.com/borealissaves , and Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@philgurski) on terrorism and intelligence matters.
