But terrorism carried out by right-wing actors eclipsed that of leftist movements in the 1990s, and then, the country’s focus shifted to foreign terrorist organizations for more than a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Now, government agencies and scholars across the political spectrum agree that far-right movements have caused most of the political violence in the U.S. over the past few years – and present the most dangerous threat today. Data shows that the involvement of veterans and service members in some of these groups is helping to further the violence.
The idea that far-right extremism poses a threat to the country has been contested by political pundits and some Republican lawmakers, who have attempted to minimize far-right violence and argued that far-left ideologies should receive more focus from law enforcement. But to even compare far-right and far-left movements in the U.S. today is a false equivalency because of the rate at which far-right violence outpaces the far left, said Miller-Idriss – analysis seconded by Liz Yates, a researcher at the immigration advocacy organization Human Rights First.
Thomas Spoehr, a scholar with the conservative Heritage Foundation who’s argued against “wokeness” in the military, agreed that right-wing extremism is more prevalent than other ideologies, though he believes the issue of extremism overall is taking up too many government resources.
The numbers are hard to argue with. Right-wing ideologies were behind a majority of the nearly 600 domestic terror attacks that occurred from 2010 through 2021, according to data shared with Military Times by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. During that period, right-wing extremists were charged with 353 plots or attacks that caused 147 deaths, the data show. In the same time frame, far-left extremists carried out 126 plots or attacks, killing 23 people. The rest of the political violence during those years was committed by jihadist groups and ethnonationalists, which included antisemitic and Jewish extremists and Cuban exiles, among others.