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The white supremacists marching at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year were not ashamed when they shouted, “Jews will not replace us.” They were not ashamed to wear Nazi symbols, to carry torches, to harass and beat counterprotesters. They wanted their beliefs on display.

It’s easy to treat people like them as straw men: one-dimensional, backward beings fueled by hatred and ignorance. But if we want to prevent the spread of extremist, supremacist views, we need to understand how these views form and why they stick in the minds of some people.

It’s important because they’re not going away. This weekend in Washington, DC, a second Unite the Right rally will convene. No one is really sure how many white nationalists will attend, or if the counterprotesters will greatly outnumber them. But they plan to meet in front of the White House to once again put their beliefs on proud display.

Last year, psychologists Patrick Forscher and Nour Kteily recruited members of the […]

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