For most of modern history, extremism was understood as something that thrived in the shadows. It recruited quietly, organized discreetly, and avoided sustained public scrutiny until it erupted into violence.
Counter-extremism policy was built around that assumption. The task was to expose what was hidden, disrupt covert networks, and respond once a threat crossed a clear legal line.
That model no longer fits the reality of 2026.
Extremism today does not fear visibility and no longer relies on secrecy to grow.
Instead, it operates openly through mainstream institutions, speaks fluently in the language of morality and justice, and presents itself not as a threat to democracy but as an authentic expression of its values.
The danger has not disappeared. It has adapted. Policy, however, remains anchored in an earlier era.
Extremism in plain sight
Some of the most destabilizing extremist narratives now circulate in plain sight. They move through advocacy groups, academic discourse, civil society organizations, and major media platforms, benefiting from the assumption that visibility signals legitimacy.
Because these ideas do not resemble the clandestine threats policymakers were trained to detect, they are often categorized as something else entirely. They are labeled protest, activism, or political expression and rarely treated as a security concern.
In recent years, movements that openly rationalize or excuse violence against civilians have gained credibility through nonprofit campaigns, academic forums, and professionalized advocacy, without ever triggering existing counter-extremism thresholds.
By the time violence is contextualized or morally justified, the narrative groundwork has often been laid far from the attention of security institutions.
Across the political spectrum, there is deep reluctance to engage ideology before it turns violent. On the Right, this often takes the form of insisting that the state act only at the point of clear criminality, when rhetoric becomes operational and legal authority is unambiguous.
On the Left, hesitation appears differently, with radical movements framed primarily as expressions of grievance that must be shielded from scrutiny to avoid accusations of repression.
The instincts differ, but the outcome is the same. Policy waits, while extremist ecosystems continue to expand.
What has changed is not the nature of radical ideas, but how they accumulate power. Many contemporary movements no longer depend on underground organizing or clandestine recruitment.
Instead, they pursue normalization, embedding exclusionary or dehumanizing claims within familiar institutional language until those claims feel not only acceptable but morally obligatory.
When violence is later justified, excused, or carefully contextualized, it appears as a logical extension rather than a rupture. Democratic systems are especially vulnerable to this shift. Openness is a strength, but it creates predictable blind spots.
Institutions designed to protect debate and dissent are deeply uncomfortable drawing ideological boundaries, particularly when doing so carries reputational cost or internal conflict.
In that vacuum, radical narratives gain influence not because they prevail in open debate, but because confrontation is endlessly deferred.
Security policy has been slow to adapt. Counter-extremism frameworks remain narrowly focused on secrecy and imminent violence, leaving civil and private institutions to manage ideological risk without guidance or accountability.
Technology platforms are asked to moderate content absent a coherent strategy. Law enforcement is constrained to act only after harm occurs. Meanwhile, the visible work of reshaping norms, redefining language, and legitimizing extremist ideas continues largely unchecked.
Addressing this reality does not require abandoning democratic values. It requires applying them with clarity. Policymakers should expand counter-extremism frameworks to include sustained ideological risk assessment alongside threat response.
Public institutions that receive state funding should be held to baseline standards regarding the normalization of violence and collective punishment.
Civil society and academic spaces need clearer distinctions between protected dissent and the legitimization of movements that undermine democratic order. Technology governance must move beyond reactive moderation toward consistent, values-based accountability.
Extremism today does not arrive whispering from the shadows. It arrives credentialed, confident, and institutionally fluent. A policy framework that can only recognize danger once violence occurs is not principled restraint. It is a structural delay.
Democracies that seek to protect free expression, rather than surrender it to fear or denial, must confront extremism as it now operates openly, strategically, and in full view.
The author is a strategic project manager specializing in public diplomacy and strategic narrative development. He holds a master’s degree in international relations and a bachelor’s degree in government and strategy. His writing has appeared in The Hill, The Jerusalem Post, and The Algemeiner, and he is a contributing author to Young Zionist Voices: A New Generation Speaks Out.