Inspired by Stephen Taylor’s post on U. S. political violence but not entirely satisfied with either its framing or analysis, I decided to do my own. The graph above is the outcome. I think that graphs provide a better understanding of trends than tables or written descriptions.
The definition of “right-wing” incidents are those motivated by “white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies” while “left-wing” incident are those motivated by “black nationalism, anti-police sentiment, communism, socialism, animal rights, environmentalism, anti-white ideologies, and other left-wing ideologies”.
I think that my dissatisfaction with that framing should be pretty obvious. Start with the fact that “right” and “left” as a means of characterizing political views is 200 years old now, stemming from seating in the post-revolutionary French legislature. Add that I find characterizing “black nationalism” as left while “white supremacy” is right is not only distasteful but, like a fan dancer’s fan, conceals as much as reveals. I’ve added a separate line for antisemitic violence. It’s certainly violence. Is it left violence or right? Sometimes left and sometimes right?
My sources are the ADL, CSIS, and Washington Post.
What I see is that incidents of political violence both “left” and “right” have quadrupled over the last 20 years while incidents of antisemitic violence have quadrupled in the last five years. That last began before Hamas’s 10/7 attack or Israel’s war against Gaza so they cannot be deemed causal. Whether “left”, “right”, or neither those are disturbing increases over relatively short periods. I don’t believe our society can tolerate a continuing trend of that sort.
The ADL does a separate report on violence and extremism. It claims that killing had decreased the last 3 years and that all of the killings were related to right wing ideology. Since I agree it’s sometimes hard to define the political ideology involved looking at the total is important.
“In 2024, domestic extremists killed at least 13 people in the U.S., in 11 separate incidents. These deaths are significantly lower than the 20 people killed by extremists in 2023 or the 28 people killed in 2022. The number of people in the U.S. killed by extremists has decreased for three years in a row, but this trend will not continue.”
“The ADL Center on Extremism’s annual Murder and Extremism report also found that all extremist-related killings of 2024 were connected to right-wing extremism, with eight of the 13 killings involving white supremacists and the remaining five having connections to far-right anti-government extremists. This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings. Also, unlike in many recent years, no extremist-related mass killing events took place in 2024.”
The ADL is concerned that the New Years attack may presage more Muslim attacks but I dont recall anymore so far. At any rate, at least to me, that is far different than the concerns about left wing-right wing motivated violence. Also of note, the ADL changed its definitions so that in many cases anti-Israel speech is considered antisemitic.
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2024
Steve
I think a problem with a lot of the left-right binary thinking on this is that it’s often a mixed bag. And what I’ve found is that there is a lot of motivated reasoning to make sure one’s own side is less bad than the other side. You can see this in how people jump to conclusions based on preliminary or incomplete facts. To me, the relative differences in right vs left – as dumb as that binary is, matter much less than the total scope and scale of the problem.
Plus, not everyone neatly templates onto left-right ideology, especially kooks who want to try to kill people. Trump’s two would-be assassins fit the kook mold. Gifford’s shooter was just crazy. The guy who beat Pelosi’s husband was a super weird combo of kook beliefs. The jury is still out on this Robinson guy, but ultimately, which “side” people will argue that he templates onto matters less than the principle that killing people is wrong, especially for political motives, even crazy or kooky ones.
The bigger concern for me is that the trend-line is going up, although the numbers are still low compared to the late 60’s and early 70’s when there was constant violence. I’m also concerned about the rise in anti-semitic attacks, which neither “side” cares enough about IMO, beyond the usual motivation to say the other side is doing most of it.
Your data is convenient, Steve. Get a clue.
ADL data, not mine. The same ADL that Dave quotes as authoritative.
Steve
If you go back and read these, Cohn wrote a nice piece following up on my comments on political violence. Turns out people have actually asked about specifics of violence.
https://archive.ph/UXxOv#selection-933.0-945.159
“Among attentive respondents, Bright Line Watch found 4 percent who said it is “ever justified” to commit “violent felonies” to advance “political goals.” A More in Common poll found that 3 percent to 4 percent of Trump and Biden supporters thought “physically attacking” the other side was justified if they thought the election was stolen. The Polarization Research Lab found that, among other examples, 2 percent of Americans “supported arson” against the opposing political party headquarters. Only about 1 percent supported murder.
The broad pattern is clear: As the poll question gets more specific and imagined acts become more violent, support for violence falls close to zero. The requisite level of specificity makes it challenging, or even impossible, for pollsters to ask a broad question about political violence. Even with a specific question, it’s not clear that the minuscule remaining support is even real.”
Steve