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Wow. Tragic in the classic sense—no one wanted any of these outcomes, except maybe the knife-wielder, and yet one thing led to another. It really does beggar belief.
I remain confident that radicalization and counter-radicalization will not meaningfully escalate. Radicals and edgelords say shit on Twitter all the time; the unusual thing about this case is that outlets happened to run with it. As for backlash, I don’t think that any number of tweets will convince random people that environmentalists are a threatening entity. They will (correctly) continue to be viewed as something that happens other people.
Twitter is okay at convincing other users that one believes/will act on something. It’s pretty abysmal at convincing outsiders that such a belief has accrued a meaningful following. News sites will say such-and-such is trending, and show screenshots of one or two inflammatory examples. This will fail to mobilize counter-radicals as long as they aren’t affected personally by one of them.
"Wanted" as in consciously acted towards this world-state? Probably not.
But preferring it to one in which a highway wasn't protested and the green movement didn't gain a "martyr"? Well, there is at least Mr. Mueller.
To the degree one conflates these two, depends on how charitable one is.
From the other side of the aisle, the right is often accused of "wanting" muslim terror-attacks or anti-European hate-crimes, because it can use them to build a cae against immigration.
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