Right-Wing Violence Is Not a Fringe Issue

Opinion|Right-Wing Violence Is Not a Fringe Issue

It is simply a fact that the far right has been responsible for most of the political violence committed in the United States since the start of the 21st century, with particular emphasis on the past 10 years of American political life.

There was the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a far-right extremist killed a counterdemonstrator. There was the 2018 Tree of Life attack in Pittsburgh, where a shooter killed 11 people (all of whom were Jewish) and wounded six others at a synagogue. Echoing the so-called great replacement conspiracy theory, the perpetrator blamed Jewish people for bringing migrant “invaders” into the United States. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” he posted on the social media website Gab, a haven for online white supremacists. “Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

There was also the 2019 slaughter in El Paso, where a shooter targeted Latinos — killing 23 people and injuring 22 others — after posting a manifesto in which he condemned “cultural and ethnic replacement” and a “Hispanic invasion” of the United States. Nor should we forget the 2022 Buffalo supermarket attack, in which still another shooter citing the great replacement conspiracy theory targeted members of a minority group, killing 10 people (all of whom were Black) and wounding three others.

In a piece written just after the Buffalo shooting, my colleague David Leonhardt, citing data from the Anti-Defamation League, observed that out of 450 killings committed by political extremists from 2012 to 2022, about 75 percent were committed by right-wing extremists, with more than half connected to white supremacists. “As this data shows,” he concluded, “the American political right has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left.”

What’s critical for us to understand that this isn’t a problem of the fringe. Not only was President Trump permissive of right-wing violence throughout his first term — consider his reaction to the violence in Charlottesville — but after losing his bid for re-election, he also led an organized effort to overturn the results, culminating in a riot in the Capitol. And what was one of his first acts back in office? He pardoned the rioters, in as clear an endorsement of violence on his behalf as one can imagine.

In the years since the Jan. 6 attack, supporters of Trump, honoring his demands to “stop the steal,” engaged in a campaign of intimidation and harassment toward election workers. Trump himself used one of the attacks — the assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of a former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi — as fodder for jokes and entertainment. Speaking of entertainment: There is also much to be said about the right-wing media ecosystem, where prominent voices indulge and even endorse violence against their political opponents.