"For several years now, law enforcement and researchers have been monitoring racially and ethnically motivated violent white supremacist groups and their growing fascination with our country's power grid. Many in these groups are 'accelerationists,' convinced that the best way to achieve their goal of a white supremacist future is to cause society to collapse by plunging it into darkness. 'The belief is, when the lights go out, people will become violent when they realize the government can't help them,' said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the Counter Extremism Project, an international policy organization. 'It's also a great recruitment tactic.' Attacking the electrical grid, he noted, is a topic of growing interest in the neo-Nazi tracts he's reviewed in recent months."