Studies claiming most political violence is right-wing are transparently bogus

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Ilhan Omar tweeted out an Anti-Defamation League chart that purports to prove that right wingers perpetrate the majority of politically motivated murders in the United States.

“Data isn’t vibes,” she wrote. “If you need vibes, check out the hate filled comments the rightwing will leave on this post and all my posts.”  

This ADL graph is very popular with left wingers. The problem is that it’s based on one of the most dishonest reports you’ll ever read. 

Let’s begin with the ADL’s most recent “Murder and Extremism in the United States” survey.

The group claims there were 13 murders motivated by extremism in the country last year. Eleven of them, the ADL contends, were committed by right-wingers.

The ADL has long padded its “right-wing extremism” by including incidents of non-ideological criminality by perpetrators suspected of being white supremacists.

This year, though, virtually none of the incidents listed by the ADL as having been committed by “white supremacists” or “far-right anti-government extremists” seem to have any political motivation.

The list includes murders that occurred during attempted prison escapes, sex crimes, robberies and family squabbles, none of which has anything to do with furthering the tenets of white supremacy or any cause.

In one of these supposedly “right-wing extremist” incidents, the police have yet to find a motive for the homicide.

The only characteristic that qualifies all these acts as “right-wing” is the perpetrators being identified as possible white supremacists, usually by their tattoos.

Does the ADL check as well to see if murderers have hammer-and-sickle tats or copies of Che Guvera’s “The Motorcycle Diaries” in their homes?

In only one of 11 murders classified as right-wing on the 2024 ADL list was the perpetrator clearly inspired by ideology.

It’s not irrelevant that white supremacists are prone to criminality and murder — but these incidents do not rise to political terrorism in a way commonly understood.

On the other hand, the assassination of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was explicitly ideological in nature — the shooter wrote an anti-capitalist manifesto.

Yet the ADL did not categorize it as a left-wing attack, and did not include it in its list of extremist murders at all.

It’s fair to say that not all violence is the same. Contra Omar, attempting to quantify political violence isn’t scientific “data.”

Many attacks, like the one on Paul Pelosi, were perpetrated by mentally ill people with no coherent ideological outlook.

But while a murder over a custody dispute is abhorrent, it is not political violence.

Just ask the socialist with a “Free Luigi” t-shirt.

Many similar surveys of political violence, including from the FBI, suffer from similar problems.

The most infamous example is the Global Terrorism Database, widely used by the researchers who compile these reports, which counted the Las Vegas mass shooter who murdered 59 people in 2017 as right-wing “anti-government extremist.”

In truth, we have no clue what that shooter’s motivations were, unless the GTD has inside information from the FBI.

Of the 32 other incidents the organization labeled right-wing terrorism that year, 12 were merely “suspected” of being on the right (mostly because they had white skin).

Even if the ADL’s list was more accurate, it is worth noting that a gang member with a swastika tattoo might be a right winger, and often violent — but he is, despite the contentions of the left, ideologically miles away from popular conservatism.

The leftist who assassinated Charlie Kirk harbored ideas that were not alien to the average progressive.

No honest person contends that right-wing extremists do not exist. Or, that all progressives are accessories to violence.

But it’s plainly obvious that groups like the ADL have concocted misleading reports to smear the right and hide their own side’s increasing radicalism. 

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner.