The landscape of political violence in the United States over the past century reveals stark disparities between right-wing and left-wing extremism in terms of scale, tactics, targets, and lethality. While both ideological spectrums have produced violent actors, the data demonstrates that right-wing violence has been consistently more deadly, more widespread, and more systematically organized than its left-wing counterpart. This analysis examines the historical evolution, methodologies, and impact of political violence from both sides of the ideological divide, providing crucial context for understanding contemporary threats to American democracy.
Right-Wing Political Violence (1920s-2020s)
The Architecture of Terror: Systematic Violence as Social Control
Right-wing political violence in America has historically operated as a mechanism of social control, designed to maintain existing power structures and racial hierarchies. Unlike the sporadic, ideologically-driven actions of left-wing groups, right-wing violence has been characterized by its systematic nature, broad social participation, and state acquiescence or complicity.
The Era of Lynching and Racial Terror (1920s-1960s)
The most devastating period of right-wing violence in American history occurred during the height of the Jim Crow era, when systematic racial terror served as the primary enforcement mechanism for white supremacy. Between 1883 and 1941, there were 4,467 documented victims of lynching, with 3,265 being Black Americans. During the 12-year Reconstruction period alone, at least 2,000 Black women, men, and children were victims of racial terror lynchings.
The scale and public nature of this violence defied conventional notions of extremist activity. Lynching did not only happen in the dead of night by masked figures—it happened in broad daylight, in front of crowds of hundreds or thousands of people, sometimes advertised in newspapers with schools closing so families could attend. This spectacle of violence served a dual purpose: eliminating perceived threats to white dominance while terrorizing entire Black communities into submission.
The Ku Klux Klan: America's First Terrorist Organization
The Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1865 and characterized by historians as America's first terrorist group, has maintained a persistent presence throughout American history. Unlike left-wing groups that typically operated in small cells, the KKK functioned as a mass movement with broad social integration. Many KKK members held government positions, helping keep segregation legal and enforced, including state leader Edwin "Daddy" Debarr, one of four original instructors when the University of Oklahoma opened in 1892.
The Klan's influence extended beyond adult membership. Many communities in Oklahoma had women's Ku Klux Klans and Kiddie Klans for children to join. This multi-generational approach to indoctrination created a sustained infrastructure for violence that persisted across decades.
Modern Right-Wing Terrorism: The McVeigh Legacy
The transformation of right-wing violence in the modern era reached its apex with Timothy McVeigh's 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh's attack killed 168 people (including 19 children), injured 684, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.
McVeigh's radicalization process illustrates the evolution of right-wing extremism. He was influenced by "The Turner Diaries," a 1978 novel sometimes referred to as "the bible of the racist right," and found community on the gun show circuit where he sold books, bumper stickers, guns and ammunition. His connections extended to organized groups: McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols had connections with the Wolverine Watchmen militia group—the same organization whose members were later arrested for plotting to kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Contemporary Surge: The Digital Age of Right-Wing Violence
The modern era has witnessed an unprecedented surge in right-wing extremism. According to terrorism data, right-wing extremists perpetrated two-thirds of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020. This dominance extends to fatalities: From 2016 through 2019, white supremacists alone killed 116 people in terrorist attacks, hate crimes and other violent acts, with other right-wing movements adding 21 more deaths.
The contemporary threat landscape reveals sophisticated organization and planning. Right-wing extremists engage in a wide variety of murders, assaults, hate crimes, shootings, vandalism, street violence, threats and intimidation that may not rise to the level of terrorism but are nevertheless significant and dangerous.
Institutional Penetration and State Response
A distinguishing feature of right-wing violence has been its relationship with state institutions. ACLED data shows that police used far greater force at left-wing protests than at right-wing protests throughout 2020, despite conservative ideological bias. This differential treatment extends historically, with law enforcement often tolerating or actively supporting right-wing violence.
The January 6th Paradigm Shift
The January 6, 2021 Capitol attack represented a new paradigm in right-wing violence—the direct assault on democratic institutions by supporters of an incumbent president. Hundreds of extremists launched an assault on the U.S. Capitol that killed five people and injured more than 100 police officers. The event demonstrated how right-wing violence had evolved from targeting marginalized communities to attacking the foundations of democratic governance itself.
Geographic and Demographic Patterns
Political violence in the United States has been greatest in suburbs where Asian American and Hispanic American immigration has been growing fastest, particularly in heavily Democratic metropoles surrounded by Republican-dominated rural areas. Most of the arrested January 6 insurrectionists hailed from these areas of demographic change rather than from Trump strongholds.
Contemporary Lethality and Scale
Recent data underscores the continued dominance of right-wing violence. The Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all 61 political killings in the U.S. were committed by right-wing extremists. Right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 domestic terror incidents and 91 fatalities since 2015.
Part II: Left-Wing Political Violence (1920s-2020s)
Ideological Violence vs. Systematic Oppression
Left-wing political violence in America has been fundamentally different from its right-wing counterpart in scope, scale, and methodology. While right-wing violence has historically served to maintain existing power structures, left-wing violence has typically emerged as a response to perceived injustices, often targeting symbols of authority rather than individuals based on immutable characteristics.
Early Labor Violence and Anarchist Activity (1920s-1940s)
The early period of left-wing violence was primarily associated with labor organizing and anarchist movements. The United States has a history of leftist militant activism traced from radical abolitionists such as John Brown through massive labor protests of the Gilded Age and early twentieth century. However, this period was characterized more by industrial conflict than systematic terrorism.
Unlike the broad social participation seen in right-wing violence, early left-wing militancy was typically confined to specific industrial disputes or ideological cells with limited popular support. The violence was often reactive, emerging in response to state or corporate oppression rather than as a proactive campaign to restructure society.
The Revolutionary Decades: 1960s-1970s Peak
In the late 1960s and 1970s, violent fringes were mostly on the far left, committing extensive violence largely against property (with notable exceptions) in the name of social, environmental, and animal-rights causes. This period represented the peak of organized left-wing violence in American history.
The Weather Underground: Symbolic Violence
The Weather Underground was an American far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, with an express political goal to create a revolutionary party to overthrow the United States government. The FBI described the WUO as a domestic terrorist group.
However, the Weather Underground's approach differed markedly from right-wing violence. The police killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton prompted the Weather Underground to issue a declaration of war upon the United States government, but their targets were typically government buildings rather than individuals. Their February 1970 attack involved three gasoline-filled Molotov cocktails exploded in front of Judge John Murtagh's home, shattering windows and scorching surfaces, but the judge and his family were unharmed.
The Black Panther Party: Self-Defense vs. Aggression
The Black Panther Party, founded in 1966 in Oakland by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, was originally created to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense.
The Panthers' approach to violence was fundamentally defensive. Party members were among the first to openly challenge police violence, often converging on scenes when officers stopped young Black men. They started with confronting police violence because the community saw it as the single biggest problem.
Internal conflicts led to the Newton and Cleaver factions carrying out retaliatory assassinations of each other's members, resulting in the deaths of four people, after which hundreds of members throughout the country quit the party from mid-to-late 1971.
Other Left-Wing Groups of the Era
Between 1973 and 1975, the Symbionese Liberation Army was active, committing bank robberies, murders, and other acts of violence. The May 19th Communist Organization was active from 1978 to 1985, formed by splintered-off members of the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army.
The Decline and Transformation (1980s-2000s)
Most left-wing terrorist groups that had operated in the 1970s and 1980s disappeared by the mid-1990s. Recent decades have seen a precipitous drop in far-left political violence. This decline coincided with the end of the Cold War and the resolution of the Vietnam conflict, removing key ideological motivators.
Contemporary Left-Wing Activity: Antifa and Property-Focused Actions
During the 2016 campaign and after, far-left activists in the antifa movement have used violence and the threat of violence, in some cases succeeding in shutting down events where far-right groups were intending to march or speak.
However, the scale and lethality of contemporary left-wing violence remains limited. Since January 1, 2020, left-wing terrorists account for 22 percent of politically motivated murders, compared to over half by right-wing terrorists.
Tactical and Strategic Differences
Left-wing violence has historically focused on symbolic targets—government buildings, corporate headquarters, military installations—rather than civilian populations. They committed extensive violence, largely against property (with notable exceptions), in the name of social, environmental, and animal-rights causes.
The organizational structure of left-wing groups has typically been cellular and secretive, contrasting sharply with the mass-movement character of right-wing violence. While groups like the KKK operated as broad social organizations with public ceremonies and community integration, left-wing groups operated as underground conspiracies with limited popular support.
Contemporary Data and Trends
Left-wing terrorists murdered 65 people between 1975 and the present, representing about 2 percent of all terrorism-related deaths during this period. When excluding the 9/11 attacks, the left-wing share rises to 10 percent of murders in terrorist attacks.
The contemporary threat from left-wing violence appears to be primarily focused on property destruction and disruption rather than mass casualty events. Incidents of left-wing terrorism occasionally occur, though they tend to be smaller in scale and primarily directed against property.
Comparative Analysis and Historical Context
Scale and Lethality Disparities
The statistical evidence reveals dramatic disparities between right-wing and left-wing violence. Right-wing terrorists account for 391 murders (11 percent of the total when including 9/11, 63 percent when excluding it), compared to left-wing terrorists' 65 murders (2 percent including 9/11, 10 percent excluding it).
When examining the broader historical context, the disparity becomes even more pronounced. The systematic lynching campaigns of the early-to-mid 20th century alone account for thousands of deaths—far exceeding the total casualties from all left-wing violence in American history.
Organizational Structures and Social Integration
Right-wing violence has typically enjoyed broader social acceptance and institutional support. The mass participation in lynchings, the integration of KKK members into local government, and the differential police treatment of right-wing protests all demonstrate how this violence has been embedded within mainstream social structures.
Left-wing violence, conversely, has been consistently marginalized and actively suppressed by state institutions. The FBI's COINTELPRO operations specifically targeted left-wing groups while often tolerating or ignoring right-wing activities.
Temporal Patterns and Evolution
During the 1960s and 1970s, many extremists joined left-wing groups, often spurred by the Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War. By the 1990s, more extremists were joining right-wing organizations, including militias and white supremacist groups.
Starting in the late 1970s, political violence shifted rightward with the rise of white supremacist, anti-abortion, and militia groups. The number of violent events declined, but targets shifted from property to people—minorities, abortion providers, and federal agents.
Contemporary Threat Assessment
The majority of political violence in the 21st century has been committed by right-leaning perpetrators. As of 2021, political violence comes "overwhelmingly from the right," according to the Global Terrorism Database, FBI statistics, and other research.
A 2023 poll by PRRI reported that one in three Republicans supported political violence, compared with 13% of Democrats. Another 2024 survey showed that 27% of Republicans and 32% of pro-Trump Republicans agreed that "patriots may have to resort to violence," compared with 8% of Democrats.
Conclusion: Understanding the Asymmetry of American Political Violence
The historical record reveals a profound asymmetry in American political violence. Right-wing violence has been more lethal, more systematic, more socially integrated, and more persistent across time. It has served as a mechanism for maintaining existing hierarchies and has often enjoyed tacit or explicit state support.
Left-wing violence, while certainly present in American history, has been episodic, primarily property-focused, and consistently marginalized by mainstream society and state institutions. Its peak period (1960s-1970s) coincided with major social upheavals and largely ended with the resolution of those conflicts.
This asymmetry reflects deeper structural realities about American society—the ways in which existing power structures have been maintained through violence and the differential tolerance for violence depending on its ideological orientation and targets. Understanding this history is crucial for comprehending contemporary political violence and developing effective responses that address both the symptoms and underlying causes of extremist activity.
The persistence of right-wing violence across more than a century of American history suggests that it represents not merely criminal activity by isolated extremists, but a recurring feature of American political life that emerges whenever existing hierarchies face challenge or demographic change threatens established power structures. This understanding is essential for developing effective counterterrorism strategies and protecting democratic institutions from future attacks.
Citations:
ACLED. 2021. "US Crisis Monitor Releases Full Data for 2020." Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. https://acleddata.com/2021/02/05/us-crisis-monitor-releases-full-data-for-2020/
Anti-Defamation League. 2025. "Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2024." ADL Center on Extremism. https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2024
Jones, Seth G. and Catrina Doxsee. 2020. "The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States." CSIS. https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
Seguin, Charles and David Rigby. 2019. "National Crimes: A New National Data Set of Lynchings in the United States, 1883 to 1941." Socius 5: 2378023119841780. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023119841780
Wendy, Thanks for making this clear. I had no idea about some of it. I appreciate so much everything you do. Your writing is amazing. Your knowledge is more amazing. Keep doing what you're doing.
Very interesting. A question regarding the number of lynchings. There were 1,200 lynchings that were not of black people. Were they other races? Western justice (horse thieves, etc)?