Right-Wing Violence Is Prevalent In America.

Far Right-Wing Violence Outweighs Other Forms Of Political Violence In America.

Capital Grounds, Jan 6th 2021.

We have a political violence issue in America we can no longer ignore. However, let a Republican tell you and they would have you think most of this violence comes from those left of the spectrum.

A recent example of this is them insisting Democrats were to blame for the first Trump assassination attempt, despite the shooter being a registered republican.

Then there’s Donald Trump himself blaming Democrats for the recent New Orleans terror attack. By now, if there’s one thing we know its following a tragedy a Republican will blame the left. And usually with no evidence to support it.

So I thought I would analyze this claim, the data we have on it, and see how true it is. And let me tell you, it’s probably the furthest thing from it.

Follow The Data, Not Feelings.

It’s always been funny to me how the “facts don’t care about your feelings” crowd quickly turned into the “alternative facts” crowd when they became inconvenient. All of a sudden facts are biased, academics are owned by liberals, and we can’t trust any study.

And one might ask, what’s changed?

Well its simple really, the right realized sticking to the facts isn’t something that benefits their side. For example, they are objectively less efficient when in office. So now instead of talk about their policies, they just attack Democrats. And it’s similar with the subject of political violence.

So let’s take a look then, as this simple push-back is surprisingly missing from mainstream media. Despite it being rather easy to disprove. I mean the data is about as objective and unanimous as you can get.

The first piece I want to discuss is reporting from New America, who analyzed politically motivated attacks in the United States that resulted in a death since 9/11.

Number of People Killed in Deadly Attacks in the Post-9/11 Era, by Ideology.

While not number of attacks, it measures totality of deaths caused, and finds far right-wing violence is easily the largest single contributor. By a count of 134 dead to far right-wing violence since 9/11, it outweighs jihadist attacks by 27 and notably left-wing violence by 133 as it has only caused 1 death since 2001.

We then have a report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who analyzed data from 2017-2022 to determine throughout two separate presidencies how prevalent political violence was.

Different Forms Of Right-Wing Foreign Terrorism.

Compared to 2005-2007 where there were 7 instances of right-wing violence, 2017-2019 had 27 incidents, and 2020-2022 had 40. Showing clearly this is a growing problem, expanding both in incidents and ideology.

Throughout the period studied, the ADL found the government to be the most common target with 18 individual attacks. This includes conspiracies against federal officers, or more infamous plots like the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping.

A 2022 study conducted by Jasko, LaFree, Piazza & Becker found that radical acts conducted by those on the left are far less likely to turn violent. They also analyze the psychology behind why this might be so, and what they found is quite interesting.

“In comparison to left-wing supporters, right-wing individuals are more often characterized by closed-mindedness, dogmatism and heightened need for order, structure, and cognitive closure.

Because such characteristics have been found to increase in-group bias and lead to greater out-group hostility, violence for a cause may be more likely among proponents of right-wing ideologies.”

A 2021 paper by Celinet Duran finds that from 1990-2020 far right-wing ideologies are responsible for 227 attacks taking more than 500 lives. In the same time, left wing ideology attributed just 42 attacks resulted in 78 lives cost.

Meaning in this 30 year period, far right attacks were over 5 times more likely, and 5 times more deadly.

Some more interesting connections you can draw if you spend time researching, which is the antithesis to Republican ideology, paint an even clearer picture. The leading cause of radicalization, especially into things like white supremacy is propaganda rather than political beliefs.

This is pretty widely studied on, and another thing widely studied is the fact conservatives are on average more succeptible to falsehoods and propaganda.

Far Right-Wing Attack Locations 2007-2017

A look into the database of Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS), between the years of 1948-2022 show left-wing violence happening at a rate of .33, right wing violence at a rate of .61, and Islamic jihadist violence at a rate of .62.

Which just highlights the hypocrisy in the Islamophobia that runs rampant in the Republican party, labeling all Muslims and Arabs terrorists essentially, given they commit acts of terror at similar rates.

If we look at START’s Global Terrorism Database from 1970-2017, a sample size of 72,000 with 523 unique subgroups, we see when left-wing attacks do occur they are also 45% less likely to turn fatal than a right-wing attack.

So after analyzing the data, trying to hear out the Republican claim in the best good faith representation I can, it seems there is no merit. This Fox news narrative of “Antifa” being just as dangerous as the proud boys is a myth.

It seems to be another case of Republicans trying to damage control something negative about their side, by preemptively saying the Democrats are just as bad or worse.

Which is why I say data is the antithesis to the Republican party, as the internet becomes more prevalent and the average voter becomes more aware their platform will become obsolete. As they essentially rely on people believing what they say to the extent they do zero research on their own.