By Art Jipson and Paul J. Becker
After the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump claimed that radical leftist groups foment political violence in the U.S., and “they should be put in jail.”
“The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, asserting that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.
Top presidential adviser Stephen Miller also weighed in after Kirk’s killing, saying that left-wing political organizations constitute “a vast domestic terror movement.”
“We are going to use every resource we have … throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” Miller said.
But policymakers and the public need reliable evidence and actual data to understand the reality of politically motivated violence. From our research on extremism, it’s clear that the president’s and Miller’s assertions about political violence from the left are not based on actual facts.
Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.
Political violence rising
The understanding of political violence is complicated by differences in definitions and the recent Department of Justice removal of an important government-sponsored study of domestic terrorists.
Political violence in the U.S. has risen in recent months and takes forms that go unrecognized. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxing.
Kirk’s assassination illustrates the growing threat. The man charged with the murder, Tyler Robinson, allegedly planned the attack in writing and online.
This follows other politically motivated killings, including the June assassination of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. and former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.
These incidents reflect a normalization of political violence. Threats and violence are increasingly treated as acceptable for achieving political goals, posing serious risks to democracy and society.
Defining ‘political violence’
This article relies on some of our research on extremism, other academic research, federal reports, academic datasets and other monitoring to assess what is known about political violence.
Support for political violence in the U.S. is spreading from extremist fringes into the mainstream, making violent actions seem normal. Threats can move from online rhetoric to actual violence, posing serious risks to democratic practices.
But different agencies and researchers use different definitions of political violence, making comparisons difficult.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security define domestic violent extremism as threats involving actual violence. They do not investigate people in the U.S. for constitutionally protected speech, activism or ideological beliefs.
Domestic violent extremism is defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as violence or credible threats of violence intended to influence government policy or intimidate civilians for political or ideological purposes. This general framing, which includes diverse activities under a single category, guides investigations and prosecutions.
Datasets compiled by academic researchers use narrower and more operational definitions. The Global Terrorism Database counts incidents that involve intentional violence with political, social or religious motivation.
These differences mean that the same incident may or may not appear in a dataset, depending on the rules applied.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security emphasize that these distinctions are not merely academic. Labeling an event “terrorism” rather than a “hate crime” can change who is responsible for investigating an incident and how many resources they have to investigate. “investigate IT”?
For example, a politically motivated shooting might be coded as terrorism in federal reporting, cataloged as political violence by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, and prosecuted as homicide or a hate crime at the state level.
Patterns in incidents and fatalities
Despite differences in definitions, several consistent patterns emerge from available evidence.
Politically motivated violence is a small fraction of total violent crime, but its impact is magnified by symbolic targets, timing and media coverage.
In the first half of 2025, 35% of violent events tracked by University of Maryland researchers targeted U.S. government personnel or facilities – more than twice the rate in 2024.
Right-wing extremist violence has been deadlier than left-wing violence in recent years.
Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.
Illustrative cases include the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered; the 2019 El Paso Walmart massacre, in which an anti-immigrant gunman killed 23 people. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.
By contrast, left-wing extremist incidents, including those tied to anarchist or environmental movements, have made up about 10& to 15% of incidents and less than 5% of fatalities.
Examples include the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front arson and vandalism campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, which were more likely to target property rather than people.
Violence occurred during Seattle May Day protests in 2016, with anarchist groups and other demonstrators clashing with police. The clashes resulted in multiple injuries and arrests. In 2016, five Dallas police officers were murdered by a heavily armed sniper who was targeting white police officers.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Hard to count
There’s another reason it’s hard to account for and characterize certain kinds of political violence and those who perpetrate it.
The U.S. focuses on prosecuting criminal acts rather than formally designating organizations as terrorist, relying on existing statutes such as conspiracy, weapons violations, RICO provisions and hate crime laws to pursue individuals for specific acts of violence.
Unlike foreign terrorism, the federal government does not have a mechanism to formally charge an individual with domestic terrorism. That makes it difficult to characterize someone as a domestic terrorist.
The State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list applies only to groups outside of the United States. By contrast, U.S. law bars the government from labeling domestic political organizations as terrorist entities because of First Amendment free speech protections.
Rhetoric is not evidence
Without harmonized reporting and uniform definitions, the data will not provide an accurate overview of political violence in the U.S.
But we can make some important conclusions.
Politically motivated violence in the U.S. is rare compared with overall violent crime. Political violence has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarization.
Right-wing extremist violence has been more frequent and more lethal than left-wing violence. The number of extremist groups is substantial and skewed toward the right, although a count of organizations does not necessarily reflect incidents of violence.
High-profile political violence often brings heightened rhetoric and pressure for sweeping responses. Yet the empirical record shows that political violence remains concentrated within specific movements and networks rather than spread evenly across the ideological spectrum. Distinguishing between rhetoric and evidence is essential for democracy.
Trump and members of his administration are threatening to target whole organizations and movements and the people who work in them with aggressive legal measures – to jail them or scrutinize their favorable tax status. The administration’s focus is on left-wing organizations, but research shows that it’s organizations on the right that the government needs to focus on with prevention and investigation.
Art Jipson and Paul J. Becker are both associate professors of sociology at the University of Dayton.
Heidi says
I see you e mentioned threats but can you please name the people who were killed for their beliefs by the right?
Heidi says
I guess my question isn’t really that. It would be recent number one and because of religious and political differences. The church was a racial crazy white supremicist and that doesn’t make him republican it makes him a crazy racist. In either case those on the right didn’t celebrate either or make horrible comments on TV or podcasts. We all need to be afraid of what’s going on in this country. It’s how everyone reacts afterwards that is disgraceful. I’m glad Flagler residents came out to celebrate the death of a dad and husband .
c says
You know, you can be arrested for spewing facts.
Dibs says
And, just where do you get your facts? Is this a total leftist site?
Ed P says
It’s a societal problem.
Parsing words, pointing fingers, or vilifying a side but not being horrified by any of these killings, should question one’s humanity.
Period.
Pogo says
@Art Jipson and Paul J. Becker
Thank you.
To Whom It May Concern
Thanks for the text book demonstration of how to score page 1 ranking on search engines — perfected.
It’s a living, good on you.
Allyn Susan Feinsetin says
Ask anybody who’s attended college/university since 10/7/2023 how “right wing” political violence has interrupted the peace and security of America’s campuses. Ask all the politico figures on the Right who have to travel with security surrounding them and still don’t feel safe how much “Right wing violence” is the cause of political/terorrist violence in our country. You can’t ask Charlie Kirk because…
Ask the parents of those dead kids who were recently shoot to death in a barricaded (by the murderer) disgruntled Trans person how much “right wing” violence has cost them. And on and on and on…
Political violence is a problem on BOTH sides of the political aisle. And those who deny that fact are part of the problem.
Pierre Tristam says
From reality. Try it sometime.
PaulT says
As a BBC commentator said last week, the assassination of Charlie Kirk may be Donald Trump’s ‘Reichstag moment’.
If you don’t know what that infers maybe you should Google ‘aftermath of the Reichstag fire’.
DaleL says
@Heidi:
2025 – 2 killed: A right-wing extremist assassinated Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home, and shot State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, leaving them wounded.
2024 – 13 killed: Every extremist murder that year was far-right: 8 by white supremacists, 5 by anti-government extremists. Victims included police ambushed in the line of duty and civilians gunned down in hate-driven attacks.
2023 – 20 killed: Among the dead were victims of the Jacksonville Dollar General shooting, where a white supremacist murdered three Black shoppers. Other incidents targeted immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and law enforcement.
2022 – 25 killed: There was the Buffalo supermarket massacre: 10 Black Americans murdered by a shooter radicalized online. The Club Q nightclub attack: 5 killed, dozens wounded in an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime. Additional shootings and assaults, all rooted in far-right ideology, drove the death toll to 25.
Source: https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/the-deadly-arithmetic-of-right-wing
Sherry says
To those of you who “quite mistakenly” think that political violence from the left happens the same, or more than violence from the political right. . . please pay attention to the actual factual data . . . which trump’s Justice Department is now trying to HIDE. . . this from The Hill:
The Justice Department quietly removed from its website a study showing far-right extremists were responsible for the bulk of ideologically motivated deaths — a move that comes as the GOP seeks to back claims from President Trump that the “radical left” poses a greater danger than the right wing.
The 2024 study, in which several criminal justice researchers reviewed National Institute of Justice data, found far more instances of deaths credited to right-wing groups.
The study was still available on the Justice Department website last week, but a researcher on extremism posted on social media that it had been removed in the days after the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
“The number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism,” the study says.
“Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives,” the study states.
“In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”
Allyn Susan Feinsetin says
Personal insults do not a credible political response make. Just sayin’.
Kola says
Hey Pierre, liberals conveniently forget how many people they’ve canceled in the last decade!
Pierre Tristam says
@Kola, neither forgetting nor excusing, but when it comes to equivalency, it don’t wash.
Laurel says
PaulT: I believe you are correct. Charlie Kirk’s death fell right into Trump’s lap. Trump doesn’t give a damn about far right activists unless it promotes his agenda somehow. Remember folks, Trump has changed his political voting status five times. Whatever works for him at the time.
RobdaSlob says
Doesn’t sound like we are in agreement that violence is unacceptable.
c says
@Heidi :
You want examples of right-wing attacks? Tryr these just for starters. Oh, by the way, the internet has this thing called ‘Search’ – where you can get all kinds of information abut almost anything. Just type in “right-wing fatal attacks” to see more info you will want to ignore. Meanwhile, try :
https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/the-deadly-arithmetic-of-right-wing
(good listing year-by-year of fatalities by rw attackers)
or
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507682-doj-removes-far-right-extremism-study/
(Get your news while the government still allows .. clock is ticking)
Sherry says
@kola. . . Cancelled. . . you mean like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert? They were both cancelled by pressure from trump!
In addition. . . many people were fired over their inappropriate comments over the terrible Kirk murder. . . . BUT! BUT! BUT! Not the Fox talking head who said homeless people should be killed. . . simply for being homeless!
Look kola. . . you can’t have it BOTH ways. Freedom of speech is being “Cancelled” by trump/Maga. . . is that OK with you?