The chilling crime spree of The Order – and its lasting effect on today’s White supremacists

White supremacists murdered Jewish radio talk show host Alan Berg in the driveway of his home in June 1984. Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post via Getty Images by Matthew Valasik, University of Alabama and Shannon Reid, University of North Carolina – Charlotte Justin Kurzels’ new historical crime drama, “The Order,” starring Jude Law and Nicholas Holt, is being described as a riveting “cat-and-mouse thriller.” But for criminologists like us, the White supremacist extremism that takes place in the film is not a nod to a distant past, but a reflection of beliefs and rhetoric that still percolate on social media and inspire acts of terror. The film’s namesake, the real-life White supremacist group The Order, which operated in the early 1980s, laid the groundwork for many of the White power gangs that are active today. The Order’s origins The Order, also known as Brüder Schweigen, which is German for “The Silent Brotherhood,” was founded in 1983 by Robert “Bob” Mathews, an avid antisemite and White supremacist who held anticommunist and conspiratorial, anti-government beliefs. A lifelong member of the John Birch Society and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mathews joined the National Alliance, which was led by William Pierce,...