Research data indicates that since the end of WWII, people on the political left, right and elsewhere have committed acts of political violence. No surprise there. Post-World War II violence changed over time from left to right. During the 1960s-1980s, left-wing political violence was more prominent, primarily from groups like the Weather Underground and various anti-war organizations. However, this trend reversed significantly by the 1990s.
In more recent times, the Center for Strategic and International Studies compiled the most extensive dataset of domestic terrorism, analyzing 893 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States between 1994 and 2020. Their findings:
Right-wing terrorists: 57% of all attacks and plots
Left-wing terrorists: 25% of all attacks and plots
Religious terrorists: 15% of all attacks and plots
Ethnonationalists: 3% of all attacks and plots
In recent years the disparity is more pronounced. Right-wing extremists perpetrated about two-thirds of attacks and plots in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020. Government Accountability Office data confirms this trend, showing that from 2010 to 2021, among 231 tracked domestic terrorism incidents. Racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism constituted about 35% of incidents, while anti-government extremism about 32% of incidents. Right-wing categories accounted for ~67% of all domestic terrorism incidents tracked by federal agencies in this time period.
Thus, when djt and MAGA elites accuse what they now routinely call the "radical left" of causing all of America's political violence, they are either lying or ignorant and wrong. And to be very clear, MAGA elites routinely accuse the "radical left" of causing all the violence.
John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at The Federalist, a radical right MAGA outlet, wrote, “The left is a violent revolutionary movement that wants all those who oppose it dead. It’s incompatible with American constitutionalism. Charlie Kirk’s assassination should confirm what we already should have known: We cannot share a country with the left.”
This blast of lies and slanders by Matt Walsh, a podcaster at The Daily Wire, one of the largest media outlets on the radical MAGA right, summarizes how MAGA elites see political opposition, radical or not. This was his response to the murder of Charlie Kirk:
“Charlie tried to have conversations with you on the left, and you killed him for it. You’re killing us in our churches, you tried to kill our president, you killed one of our greatest advocates in Charlie Kirk. You have been openly cheering for and celebrating and encouraging and committing political violence for years. It’s too late to turn the temperature down. This is not a time to hold hands. It’s a time for justice. This is a time for good to fight back against evil. It is time for the righteous to prevail.”
Did Kirk really try to have conversations with people on the left? Yes, if one considers MAGA demagoguery, lies, slanders and irrational emotional manipulation an example of trying to have a conversation. No, if one considers it a bad faith, fake conversation.
Why let MAGA, in its rancid ill-will and bad faith, define what a "conversation" is? Based on how Walsh uses the term "conversation", it is a contested concept, maybe even an essentially contested concept.
Also notice, that (1) the MAGA elite Walsh speaks for the MAGA wealth and power movement, and (2) he is clearly advocating violence against the left because he believes righteousness must prevail over evil.
Qs: Is "both sides do it" the best we can say about political violence, or is it more complicated, e.g., 'yeah, both sides do it, but .....' ? But what, if anything, e.g., but MAGA demagogues the issue, making it seem far worse than it is at least for most of the radical right and probably some of the non-radical right?
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