After all, ISIS style-extremism appeals to a tiny minority of a tiny minority within Western societies. Even where it has proportionately more appeal, within Muslim majority communities, the attraction is minuscule. Moreover, there is no country in the world where we can imagine that an ISIS-style entity could conceivably emerge again, given that its neighbours and the world would immediately gather to crush it.

When it comes to white supremacy, and the wider universe of white nationalism that it draws from, none of that is the case. Sympathy for either white supremacy or white nationalism is far greater in our Western societies than any kind of ideology sympathetic to ISIS. Indeed, I would argue that even when we compare to the lure that ISIS-style ideology has in Muslim majority societies, we may even have more of a problem proportionally with white white supremacy. But we still do not call out white nationalism and white supremacism commensurate to the threats they pose.

Compare this to how we examine sectarianism in the Arab world. Sectarianism against Muslims of different sects, and non-Muslim faith communities like Christians or Yazidis, has claimed the lives of many. We regularly — and correctly — identify that sectarian discourse inhabits certain parts of the far-right portions of the Islamist universe, and thus the impact it has.

But when it comes to white supremacy, are we so clear and direct about the threat? Or do we minimize it?