Is the violente political crimes commited more often by the righ?
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Executive summary
Data from multiple research and watchdog organizations show that over recent decades right‑wing extremists have carried out more violent attacks and more deadly ones than left‑wing extremists, though some 2025 analyses — notably by CSIS — report a short‑term uptick in left‑wing incidents that for the first half of 2025 exceeded far‑right incidents in raw counts (CSIS counted five left‑wing vs. one far‑right incident Jan–July 4, 2025) [1] [2]. Major trackers and civil‑society groups (ADL, University of Maryland researchers, NIJ summaries cited by FactCheck) continue to document a historical pattern in which right‑wing violence outpaces the left in frequency and lethality [3] [4] [5].
1. Right‑wing violence dominates the long‑term record
Researchers and watchdogs report that, across decades, right‑wing extremists have accounted for a plurality or majority of politically motivated attacks and extremist‑linked murders. Analyses cited by PBS/The Conversation summarize that right‑wing extremist violence has been both more frequent and more deadly than left‑wing violence in recent years, and ADL’s 2024 review found that all identified extremist‑related killings that year were connected to right‑wing extremism [3] [4].
2. 2025 was an inflection point in short‑term counts — but context matters
CSIS researchers compiled 750 domestic attacks and plots from 1994 to July 4, 2025 and found that in the first half of 2025 far‑left incidents outnumbered far‑right incidents for the first time in more than 30 years; they coded five left‑wing incidents and one right‑wing incident in that span [1] [2]. Journalists and analysts stress this is a short‑term shift in small absolute numbers and not necessarily proof of a sustained reversal [2] [6].
3. Small numbers, big headlines: the danger of false equivalence
Experts say the raw counts in a brief window can mislead. CSIS’s own authors and independent commentators note the left‑wing increase in 2025 rose from very low levels and remains far below historical peaks of right‑wing and jihadist violence; one interview emphasized that a blip in a few months does not make the left’s threat “comparable to right‑wing terrorism at its peak” [7] [6].
4. Different metrics produce different narratives
Which dataset you consult changes the story. CSIS focuses on attacks/plots and found a mid‑2025 shift [1]. Other trackers look at murders, lethality or multi‑year trends and still show right‑wing actors causing more deaths overall — Cato’s tally since 2020 lists right‑wing terrorists accounting for over half of politically motivated murders in that period, and ADL noted right‑wing links to all extremist killings in 2024 [8] [4]. The DOJ’s 2024 NIJ study (removed from the DOJ site after Sept. 2025) was also cited as showing far‑right attacks outpacing others [5] [9].
5. Motive coding and selection decisions matter
Scholars warn that coding decisions — how researchers classify an attack as “left” or “right,” whether non‑ideological killings by extremists are included, and which incidents qualify as terrorism — materially change counts and interpretation. CSIS and other authors acknowledge choices in attribution and note that many conclusions about trends are “speculative” without longer windows and consistent coding [7] [2].
6. Public perception and politics complicate interpretation
Surveys show wide partisan disagreement about who poses the greater threat; political actors have incentives to emphasize one side over the other. FactCheck and media outlets document that political leaders have used selective data to argue the problem is disproportionately left or right, and researchers caution against weaponizing short‑term counts for policy that targets one political bloc [5] [10].
7. Reporting limitations and what’s not in these sources
Available sources in this set document the CSIS short‑term shift, long‑term patterns favoring right‑wing violence, and watchdog tallies for 2024–2025, but they do not provide a unified, single authoritative time series reconciling all coding differences. They also do not settle whether the 2025 left‑wing uptick will persist beyond mid‑year; long‑term reversal is not asserted by these analysts [1] [6].
Conclusion — the bottom line for your question:
Across multi‑decade research and major extremist‑tracking organizations, right‑wing actors have committed more violent political crimes and more deadly attacks historically; however, specific 2025 datasets (CSIS) recorded a short‑term increase in left‑wing incidents that, in raw counts for the first half of 2025, outnumbered far‑right incidents — a notable development that experts caution is small‑number and provisional, not definitive evidence of a permanent shift [3] [1] [6].