In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the media and Democratic politicians are in a full press to dismiss any claims that left-wing violence is a thing, let alone on the rise.
Politicians who dehumanized Republicans as fascists are saying that Charlie’s death is a case of gun violence, streamers like Hasan Piker, who called for the streets to be painted with “the blood of capitalists,” lectured their audience on the need to show signs of sympathy, and influencers like Krystal Ball said conservatives have embraced cancel culture for trying to get people who glorified Kirk’s death fired from their job- something Ball herself had supported in the past when conservatives were being fired.
At the heart of their defense is a study from the Anti-Defamation League linking right-wingers to the rise in political violence. Liberal provocateurs and politicians, including Mehdi Hasan, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, Seth Moulton, and Eric Levitz from Vox, have cited the ADL’s study as evidence that political violence is simply a rightwing phenomenon and they don’t need to look inward for any blame.
The ADL study reported between 2015 and 2024, where homicide was on the rise, specifically due to the rise of Black Lives Matter, rightwing extremism was responsible for more than three-quarters of all deaths from domestic extremist-related killings.
While many people who aren’t politically savvy would look at this chart and be horrified by the numbers, the truth is that the ADL’s list has almost nothing to do with political violence.
Guess which murder from 2024 was not included in the ADL’s list of politically motivated homicides? Luigi Mangione’s assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Why?
In all of Mangione’s writings, he never spoke about Donald Trump and said in one interview that he agreed with RFK Jr. about several things related to healthcare. They reason:
“Because hostility towards the healthcare system or health insurance companies is not in itself an ideology and because a good portion of the anger on Mangione’s part may have stemmed from purely personal reasons—though it does not appear that he utilized UnitedHealthcare himself—the Center on Extremism has not categorized the murder of Thompson as an extremist-related murder, though that designation may change if more information or clarity emerges in the future.”
Yes, that same Luigi. Christopher Rufo did a great job detailing how Luigi moved into left-wing nihilism.
That same level of nuance is not shared among all the listed killers in the ADL database, even though many have no political motivation. Here are just a few examples of what the ADL lists as rightwing extremists committing politically motivated homicides in 2024:
A New Hampshire man who shot his younger half-brother for informing the police that he fired a gun at an anonymous house, injuring no one. The man in question belonged to a white supremacist gang, but neither the original crime nor the murder of his half-brother had ties to the gang or white supremacy. The ADL lists this as an extremist murder.
A sex offender with a lengthy criminal record from Texas murdered an 11-year-old girl. He has ties to the Aryan Brotherhood and two swastika tattoos, though the murder was not race-focused and had no ramblings or writings about politics. Nonetheless, the ADL lists this as a rightwing murder.
A Washington man murdered another man with a baseball bat. The murder was motivated by a dispute over an earlier incident. There was no political connection, but because he had an affiliation with a white supremacist gang, they included it as a rightwing gang.
Two members of the Aryan Knights in Idaho were charged with first-degree murder and other crimes related to a violent escape attempt. As you can guess, this was also not politically motivated.
The ADL links crime committed by someone with even the most loose affiliations with any white supremacist, neo-Nazi, or Aryan Brotherhood prison gangs as being part of the extreme right, so any crime committed by them is linked to rightwing extremism, even though nearly every case has nothing to do with politics.
Leftwing extremism doesn’t have the same type of guilt by association with loose associations to black gangs, even though their members have preached about black power or have their roots in black liberation ideology. Nope, unless they’re explicitly holding a copy of The Communist Manifesto while wearing an AOC “Power to the People” t-shirt, it doesn’t count according to the ADL.
While the ADL is actively promoting a lie about political violence, they’re hardly the only ones.
The Prosecution Project, led by Michael Loadenthal of the University of Cincinnati, which The Economist has cited, also ties in people with no political affiliations to conservatives or political motives to make the case that right-wingers are responsible for an overwhelming number of politically motivated crimes.
Loadenthal examined felony criminal cases involving illegal political violence occurring in the United States since 1990 to make the case that right-wingers are really to blame for political violence.
Who does Loadenthal consider to be part of this vast rightwing conspiracy?
Linda Mueller and two friends were arrested for peacefully protesting outside of an abortion clinic in West Chester, PA.
Four men from Dover, New York, who robbed residents and targeted them based on their race, specifically looking to rob Mexicans. All four of the robbers were black.
Madeline Ann Cramer caused $10,000 in damages to the Cathedral Basilica of Immaculate Conception in Denver, spray painting words like “KKK” and “Satan Lives Here" on the building. She was later arrested in Portland and passed away after spending years fighting bipolar disorder.
Shahid Hussain was charged with a felony hate crime for damaging and defacing a synagogue with Nazi imagery. Despite being an anti-Jewish Muslim radical, he was labeled as a rightwing extremist.
Tiffany Harris, a black woman from Brooklyn with a long history of petty crimes, went around a Jewish community yelling and assaulting members of that religious community. She never belonged to any rightwing organization but was labeled as a case of rightwing extremism.
Jacksonville pastor Joseph Welburn Evans was arrested for driving without a license and said he was part of the Embassy of Heaven Church, whose members claim “diplomatic immunity” as “ambassadors to the Kingdom of Heaven.” They counted this as rightwing extremist violence.
You know what wasn’t counted as politically motivated violence… almost any of the arson, rapes, and murders from BLM and Antifa activists during the 2020 summer of love. Burning the police station in Minneapolis, the rape and assaults in the CHAZ zone, or the six deaths associated with the trans cult, the Zizians.
Left-wing violence isn’t violence, while anyone can be considered rightwing violence, even if it isn’t right-wing or particularly violent.
Wow. This fully explains the problem. It’s an outright coverup. Whenever I see a list of right wing political far outpacing left wing political violence - post BLM - I have always felt it didn’t make sense at all; it just didn’t ring true to what we all witnessed during the era of BLM. Now it all makes sense.
Thank you Ryan. You and John Lott (via Ann Coulter link) both present compelling fact-based information on crime and murders as relates to right versus left-wing violence.