The murder of conservative activist and Trump supporter Charlie Kirk in September triggered a nationwide debate over rising violence attributed to the far left. Donald Trump claims that antifa “explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” and designated the movement a domestic terrorist organization. Other right-wing opinion leaders have backed Trump, even urging for the deployment of the military to suppress the movement. However, statistics show that the primary threat in the U.S. is not left-wing but far-right violence: ultraright extremists are responsible for two-thirds of all politically motivated killings carried out via terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
The killing of Charlie Kirk has sparked a full-blown moral panic in the U.S. Some senior government officials have moved to live on military bases, Rutgers University professor and antifascism scholar Mark Bray left the country after receiving threats, and the media continue to debate both the far left threat and the potential rise of fascism.
Conspiracy theories have been swirling around the killer of Charlie Kirk: 22-year-old Tyler James Robinson. Trump and his supporters describe him as a leftist, while left-leaning figures place him on the right, calling him a Trump follower and a Republican. But Robinson’s motive — and whether he held any political affiliation at all — remains unknown.
Nonetheless, the Trump administration continues to use the killing as evidence that the chief domestic threat comes from left-wing radicals.
From Jan. 1, 1975, to Sept. 10, 2025, politically motivated terrorist attacks in the U.S. claimed 3,597 lives, which accounts for 0.35% of all homicides committed during that period. Eighty-three percent of the victims of such attacks were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Another 5% (168 people) died in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
The Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who held ultraright views and sought to retaliate against the U.S. government for FBI and federal law-enforcement operations in which civilians were killed — namely the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians’ ranch in Waco and the 1992 siege and shootout at Ruby Ridge. Not only ultraright extremists but also many human rights advocates believe federal authorities exceeded their powers in these incidents, and two events significantly radicalized the U.S. far right.
According to Cato Institute studies, Islamists are responsible for 87% of deaths in terrorist attacks within the U.S., but ultraright ideology ranks second as a motivation, accounting for 391 deaths, or 11%. At the same time, the far left has killed 65 people in attacks, representing 2% of all victims.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
Excluding 9/11 from the tally, the ultraright accounts for 63% of deaths in domestic terrorist attacks, Islamists for 23%, and the left for 10%. By any measure, left-wing political violence is hard to call America's main domestic threat.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
These findings are confirmed by numerous think tanks and organizations studying domestic terrorism in the U.S., including the National Institute of Justice, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice. According to one of its studies, since 2012 right-wing extremists have killed 520 people in 227 attacks, while the far left killed 78 people in 42 attacks.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
In the days following Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Department of Justice, headed by Pam Bondi — the attorney who defended Trump during his first impeachment — removed the study without explanation.
Political violence is not inherently linked to either right- or left-wing ideology, notes Lisa Gaufman, an associate professor of European politics and society at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and co-author of The Trump Carnival: Populism, Transgression and the Far Right. “A hundred years ago, you would most likely imagine a left-wing terrorist. Even looking at Russian history, terrorism was primarily linked to leftist ideology — such as the Narodnaya Volya (the People’s Will) movement,” Gaufman notes. “Violence is an extreme step when political forces see no alternatives for participation. If you cannot register your party or run in elections, you are outside the legal arena of political struggle. That usually pushes groups toward violent methods.”
American ultraright extremists are a fairly diverse phenomenon. Researchers of right-wing extremism and radical groups identify more than a dozen different movements advocating a variety of often disparate right-wing ideas. The ultraright includes white supremacists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, anti-government extremists, anti-abortion activists, incels, anti-immigration advocates, and militia movement members.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
American ultraright extremists comprise more than a dozen distinct movements advocating a variety of disparate right-wing ideas
It is difficult to pinpoint a single reason why ultraright violence in the U.S. surpasses far-left violence. Some researchers focus on ideological predispositions. They note, for example, that leftist ideology inherently contains more ideas of tolerance and coexistence with people outside one’s own group. Perhaps as a result, a University of Maryland study found that attacks by left-wing extremists are 45% less likely to result in fatalities than attacks carried out by ultraright extremists.
At the same time, numerous studies also show that contemporary ultraright groups often operate under a sense of existential threat. In right-wing ideology, “outsiders” are those who are perceived as threatening to dilute the group or replace its members. Experts say this perception helps legitimize aggression and the use of physical violence.
According to University of Groningen professor Gaufman, these mechanisms are currently at work within America's ultraright communities. She sees the civil rights movement’s victory after 1968 as a key turning point in the position of right-wing ideologies in the country: “Before that, there was no real democracy in the U.S. Because it isn’t democracy when you decide, based on skin color, that people cannot vote or cannot use the same restroom as you.”
Only after the end of segregation and the granting of full civil rights to Black Americans, Gaufman believes, did the U.S. fully embrace democratic values, including the protection of minorities and political opposition. “In a democracy, most political norms exist to protect various minorities and marginalized groups,” Gaufman explains.
As a result, many white groups changed their stance, having lost their de facto monopoly on civil rights. According to Gaufman, most contemporary right-wing extremists in the U.S. believe that minorities have “too many rights.”
“Ultraright extremists believe that minorities, due to their genetics, could not succeed without government assistance,” Gaufman says. “That is why the ultraright so fiercely seeks to dismantle this system and undo what they see as a balancing of the scales.”
Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League identify three periods in the history of right-wing extremism. The first peak of violence in the 1980s is explained as a reaction to Black Americans gaining equal rights. The second, in the 1990s, is linked to confrontations between the federal government and paramilitary groups. The third peak began in the 2010s and continues through to today, driven both by rising anti-immigrant sentiment and the spread of extremist ideas through social media.
The National Institute of Justice study also notes that today's ultraright groups have stronger organizational skills. They tend to recruit more individuals with experience in institutionalized violence, such as former military personnel.
In addition, the political culture of the U.S. has several features that determine the connection between ultraright ideology and violence. One of them is gun culture. “In America, guns are an essential part of political discourse,” Gaufman says.
About 32% of U.S. adults own firearms. While extremist violence and terrorist acts can involve various types of weapons, more than 80% of such attacks on U.S. soil are carried out with firearms. Some of the country's ultraright groups are organized specifically around guns and the right to bear them.
One example is the militia movement, which emerged in the 1980s and gained traction in the 1990s despite federal attempts to tighten gun control. By the mid-1990s, membership numbered between 20,000 and 60,000, with representation in every state. The movement’s rise was fueled by the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents — the same events that ultimately led to the Oklahoma City bombing.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
Opposition to the federal government remains a central theme in ultraright movements in the U.S. today. For example, right-wing “sovereign citizens” believe in a variety of conspiracy theories and hold that people should resist federal taxes and laws, including COVID-19 restrictions.
Since the mid-2010s, militia ideology has been revitalized with the emergence of the Boogaloo Boys movement. Its members come from diverse political backgrounds, but they share one belief: that the U.S. is on the verge of a second civil war or revolution. As a result, they prepare in advance, stockpiling gear and promoting the gun culture online.
The slain Charlie Kirk also had a massive online presence, sharing his ideas not only at student events — like the one at which he was killed — but also on social media and podcast platforms, where he had a multimillion-strong audience.
Key ideas promoted by Kirk included the right to bear arms, advocacy of traditional values (including opposition to transgender rights), and skepticism toward COVID-19 and climate change. He was also anti-abortion, anti-immigration, and was known for racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, and sexist statements.
On Sept. 25, two weeks after Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a study stating that in the first six months of 2025, far-left violence exceeded far-right violence in terms of the number of incidents.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
According to the study, from 1994 through the 2000s an average of 0.6 incidents per year were committed by left-wing radicals. From 2016–2024, that number rose to an average of four incidents per year. And between Jan. 1 and Jul. 4, 2025, the center recorded five incidents motivated by left-wing ideology, with far-left violence accounting for 42% of all terrorist acts in the U.S. over the period. In 2024, that figure was 12%, and in 2023, 3%.
However, as the study’s authors, Daniel Byman and Riley McCabe, note, the overall upward trend in far-left violence is not reflected in the “impact” of such attacks, which remains quite limited. Unlike terrorist acts carried out by perpetrators of other political motives, the vast majority of far-left attacks are nonfatal.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
The vast majority of far-left attacks are nonfatal
Since 2020, these attacks have resulted in only two deaths: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, killed by Luigi Mangione in New York in December 2024, and Trump supporter Aaron Danielson, allegedly shot by left-wing activist Michael Reinoehl in August 2020.
Despite an increase in terrorist attacks by the left in recent decades, a comparatively small 13 people were killed in such incidents, according to the center’s count. In contrast, ultraright attacks resulted in 112 deaths, while jihadist strikes caused 82 fatalities.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
Notably, both right-wing and Islamist terrorist attacks have been on the decline of late. The researchers attribute the decline in jihadist attacks to the weakening of al-Qaeda and ISIS. However, the sharp drop in right-wing terrorism is more surprising and harder to explain. From 1994 to 2000, followers of this ideology perpetrated an average of 21 attacks or planned attacks per year. From 2000 to 2010, the annual average fell to seven, though from 2011 to 2024, it rose back to 20 per year. In the first half of 2025, using the same methodology, the study’s authors recorded only one ultraright terrorist incident in the U.S.: the killing of Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
The study’s authors view Trump’s election as a possible reason for this radical shift:
“The [Trump] administration has aggressively targeted immigrants, with high-profile efforts to identify, detain, and deport them,” the report states. “Anti-immigrant sentiment is one of the most important violent extremist motivations in recent years. The Trump administration has also warned of 'deep state' abuses, criticized and abolished programs involving diversity, promoted some conspiracy theories, and hired individuals who openly embraced white supremacy.”
The CSIS report quickly faced serious criticism.
First, the U.S. has no official, public, consolidated database tracking all cases of domestic terrorism, meaning research centers have to compile their own datasets. In particular, CSIS relied on data from the international Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and media reports collected by the center itself. Other researchers might choose different datasets or compile their own from scratch.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
The second issue is that the collected data must be coded. Coding involves setting criteria for what counts as terrorism and determining the underlying motivation of each attack, including whether it is political. However, different researchers may apply different criteria.
“If someone draws a swastika on a synagogue, do you say that's antisemitic terrorism? We tended to focus on risk of life, so that sort of violence would not count,” CSIS researcher Daniel Byman explains. “In a more political context, the arson attacks on Tesla would not count because there doesn't seem to have been any attempt or intent to kill individual people.”
Subjective decisions by individual researchers have a strong influence on the analysis and study of such extremism, says Amy Cooter, deputy director at the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, who criticized the study: “Basically, it's up to teams of researchers deciding their own criteria for what counts or doesn't [regarding] a particular dataset.”
In particular, Cooter notes that the study’s authors did not include the May 2025 killing of two Israeli embassy staffers as a far-left attack, even though the assailant had posted “Death to Israel” and shouted a slogan demanding Palestine’s liberation before opening fire. At the same time, the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is coded in the CSIS report as “clearly left-wing,” even though the true motivation of Luigi Mangione, who became the subject of numerous left-wing memes on social media, remains unclear.
Moreover, Cooter argues that the figures cited in the CSIS study are too small to draw meaningful conclusions. “Five is a really low case number to try to make any kind of inference from and try to say that we're having a major increase in any kind of problem,” she says. “Compared to historical data, almost any increase in left-wing violence is going to look like a big jump.”
Another issue is the methodology, which tries to fit all terrorist incidents into a left-right dichotomy. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray introduced the concept of “salad-bar extremism” — a mix of disparate ideologies typical of violent radicals.
Gaufman agrees: “There is now a group of people without a specific ideology,” she says. “They’ve read all sorts of things online, and their beliefs are a mash-up of different ideologies. Combined with access to firearms in America, this leads to violence.”
In 2025, the FBI introduced another category for coding attacks: “nihilistic violent extremism,” an ideology focused primarily on destroying the system itself, rather than advancing right- or left-wing views.
The emergence of such categories is another indication of how difficult it is to draw a line between political and nonpolitical violence and terrorism in a country where guns are widely accessible, mass shootings number in the hundreds each year, and access to mental health care is limited.
“If you’re a right‑wing individual in America, you probably want to beat and torture non‑white people. In the past, you had to take a rifle to a school to do that. Not anymore — now you just need to sign a contract with ICE,” says Dan Storyev, an American‑studies scholar and host of the Forgotten in America podcast on America’s heartland. According to Storyev, right‑wing violence isn’t declining — it is becoming legitimized: “Put on a uniform, and that’s it — what you do no longer really counts as violence.”
Immigration police have been accused of numerous civil rights violations and of effectively becoming an instrument of intimidation during Trump’s second term. Large-scale, routine raids targeting migrants, the use of aggressive tactics and violence during arrests, brutal detention conditions, and racial profiling (which the Supreme Court, incidentally, ruled constitutional in September) are all signs that the U.S. is institutionalizing far-right violence, experts say.
New York Times reporter Alan Feuer noted the suspicious absence of far-right demonstrations in the first half of 2025 and found an explanation. As Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio put it: “Things we were doing and talking about in 2017 that were taboo, they’re no longer taboo — they’re mainstream now. Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”
Storyev believes Trump and his supporters have been ideologically consistent: “What Trump 2.0 is doing is not in contradiction to what Trump 1.0 did. But Trump 2.0 is doing it much more openly, much more loudly, and far more competently than the administration of his first term.”
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
Many in the United States compare ICE to the Gestapo
According to Gaufman, Trump and his administration normalized far-right discourse during his first term. In 2025, that normalization reached a new level.
“This is essentially a state policy of terror. Many of my colleagues in the U.S. compare Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Gestapo,” the researcher says. “Armed men with covered faces roam around and terrorize small neighborhoods and communities, checking anyone who looks nonwhite or foreign. In their view, the U.S. should be inhabited by white Americans. So when people talk about a decline in far-right violence, they fail to account for the fact that this violence has now shifted into state hands — it’s been outsourced to the government.”
Both Gaufman and Storyev note that Trump’s current administration includes supporters of the culture tied to the American far right. J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller hold far-right views, and Miller’s speeches even contain references reminiscent of Goebbels.
Outside the administration, the ecosystem of right-wing influencers continues to grow. Even after Charlie Kirk’s death, podcasters and bloggers such as Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan continue to advocate for conservative policies.
Even Trump himself, Gaufman argues, is an adherent of far-right ideology: “He was sued back in the 1970s for racially discriminating against his tenants. We’ve long known that he is a consistent racist.”
Trump indeed has a long trail of racist scandals and controversial statements. Moreover, even in public appearances, he has repeatedly spoken positively about far-right groups. Gaufman recalls the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which was prompted by the local authorities’ decision to remove a Confederate monument. The removal was decided after a white supremacist attacked a Black church in Charleston in 2015, a shooting that killed nine people, including the church’s pastor.
The Charlottesville rally brought together alt-right groups, including neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, and militia members. During the march on the night of August 12, a white supremacist drove a car into a crowd of people protesting the right-wing rally, killing one person and injuring 35 others. This year, on the eighth anniversary of the Charlottesville attack, one of the march organizers, far-right blogger and lawyer Augustus Sol Invictus, wrote on X: “Eight years ago you were an extremist if you protested being replaced by immigrants. Your life was over if you talked about stopping or reversing it. Now it is official White House policy.”
According to Storyev, during this presidential term Trump and his administration are actively working to change America and its political culture. “Just look at the propaganda now being posted by the official White House account [referring to the Department of Labor account]. Some posters may as well have been published in Berlin in 1940. It’s as if someone prompted AI: ‘Please make a poster about the American labor market, but in the style of Nazi Germany.’”
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.
Indeed, many U.S. government accounts have looked unusual since Trump took office for his second term. Posts from the Department of Homeland Security, in particular, evoke bizarre feelings. One of them is a video that opens with dark footage of men preparing weapons and gear in the shadows. The voiceover is Robert Pattinson’s line from The Batman: “They think I hide in the shadows. But I am the shadows.” The caption reads: “Darkness is no longer your ally. You represent an existential threat to the citizens of the United States, and U.S. Border Patrol's Special Operations Group will stop at nothing to hunt you down.”
The White House, for its part, openly publishes lists of deportees with mugshots. Meanwhile, President Trump — who was blocked on X in January 2021 for violating the platform’s policy against glorifying violence — posts AI-generated videos on his social media showing him dropping feces on people protesting against him at a recent No Kings protest.
The monarchic references are apt. In their book Trump’s Carnival: Populism, Transgression, and the Far Right, Gaufman and her co-author Bharat Ganesh suggest viewing the political behavior of Trump and his supporters through the lens of a medieval ritual. According to 20th-century Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, in a carnival the boundaries of what is acceptable shift, and social distance decreases. “At this moment, people can behave inappropriately. It’s a time when people can go wild, let off steam, and do whatever they want. As a result, it helps them feel in power,” Gaufman explains.
Carnival uses laughter and the body to transgress and forget the existence of conventional norms. Gaufman compares Trump to a jester, a figure who is allowed to go even farther than the other participants in the carnival: “He could make a joke about the size of his penis or insult a woman — and get away with it. Remember what a scandal it was when Barack Obama wore a tan suit? But that doesn’t compare to what Trump does. In his case, all political norms seem to have been suspended.”
Gaufman likens Trump’s antics on social media and at official events to the tactics of a vendor in a carnival marketplace: “Trump is, of course, the chief vendor. That’s how he gets very high ratings: everything he does is aimed at making the biggest possible splash.”
The White House's September memorandum labeling antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization” has no legal or judicial effect and serves only Trump’s PR purposes, says Igor Slabykh, lawyer and author of the USlegalnews Telegram channel. Unlike Russia, the U.S. has no legal concept of a “domestic terrorist organization,” so only foreign organizations can be designated as terrorist.
“It was done just for show, to send a signal to the public: look, there’s an entity behind everything that's wrong, and we’re fighting it,” he says.
Previously, Trump fought against the deep state within the government, but now the administration largely consists of his appointees and MAGA supporters. Antifa has become the new enemy.
The left is a convenient target, Storyev confirms. Historically, the U.S. government has often opposed the left — like in the McCarthy era, for example.
“The left is being made responsible for all political violence in the U.S. Everything is a leftist conspiracy. At the same time, leftists don’t know how to shoot. Leftists aren’t real men — they don’t have men at all, and the men they do have aren’t scary because they’ve transitioned to women. The same goes for immigrants. They come from Mexico, rape everything in sight, and kill. But they also don’t know how to speak English (proper English, that is), they’re stupid, and paying them a thousand dollars is enough to make them leave,” he explains.
Although Trump and his administration target the left as domestic enemies, one should not expect U.S. law enforcement to start specifically hunting down leftists and fabricating cases against them in the way Russia’s anti-extremist “Center E” agency does. American police cannot rely on presidential decrees to obtain search warrants and must still follow standard procedures.
“You cannot be convicted simply for being a member of antifa or for supporting the movement’s goals. A criminal statute is still required to prosecute, and standard procedures must be followed,” notes Slabykh.
In October, the White House held a roundtable where Trump and his supporters discussed the possibility of designating antifa as a foreign terrorist organization. This move could have real consequences, such as criminalizing financial or other support for antifa, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice has the authority to designate antifa as a foreign terrorist organization. Project 2025, which the Trump administration aims to implement during his second term, has as one of its goals the transformation of the Department of Justice from an independent entity within the executive branch into a combat wing of the executive branch.
However, if the Department of Justice designates antifa as a foreign terrorist organization, lawsuits challenging violations of the First Amendment could arise, creating serious political risks for Trump, notes Slabykh. “The courts constrain Trump, and we see, for example, that he does not always get what he wants in criminal proceedings,” the lawyer points out.
Project 2025 is a political program developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. It is aimed at reforming the U.S. government and consolidating executive power. The program is designed to strengthen the far-right agenda within the state apparatus and to prepare the ground for the next conservative president.
In 2014, President Barack Obama donned a tan suit to attend an event where the U.S. strategy in response to ISIS actions in Syria was discussed. A debate erupted on social media as to whether it was appropriate for the head of state to participate in events of state while clothed in such informal attire.
In philosophy, transgression is the overcoming of boundaries, going beyond the realm of the permissible when it comes to social, moral, and other prohibitions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. This year, the number of detainees held in the agency’s removal centers has risen by 50 percent. Approximately 60,000 people are currently held in these facilities.
After Charlie Kirk’s killing, the U.S. government cut funding for the University of Maryland’s research into right-wing extremism.
The Cato Institute’s methodology includes ultraright extremists such as white supremacists, anti-abortion activists, incels, and other right-wing ideologies.
In both cases, federal authorities suspected the participants of violating firearms laws.
These calculations exclude individual hate crimes, which are typically more personal and spontaneous than terrorist attacks, even if they are often difficult to distinguish from terrorism.