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Fact check: Which specific right-wing extremist groups have been linked to violent attacks in the US since 2020?
Executive Summary
Multiple sources in the provided dataset identify right-wing extremism as the dominant source of ideologically motivated lethal violence in recent decades, with several analyses asserting a majority share of domestic terrorism deaths; however, the documents disagree on trends since 2020 and provide limited, inconsistent naming of specific groups tied to attacks after 2020. The strongest claims come from academic and government-linked analyses asserting a sustained right-wing homicide trend through 2024, while contemporaneous 2025 reports describe a sharp near-term decline in right-wing incidents and limited direct attribution to named organizations [1] [2] [3].
1. What the analysts claim about the scale of the threat — numbers that demand attention
Multiple analyses assert that right-wing extremists accounted for the majority of domestic terrorism deaths in recent decades, quantifying that roughly 75–80% of domestic terrorism fatalities since 2001 are attributable to right-wing actors and noting hundreds of ideologically motivated homicides since 1990 totaling over 520 lives lost in one compilation. Those figures are presented as evidence of a persistent and lethal phenomenon and form the backbone of claims that the right-wing threat has dominated U.S. domestic terrorism mortality metrics [1] [2].
2. A new narrative for 2025: did right-wing violence really drop?
A September 2025 study challenges the long-run narrative by reporting that right-wing terror attacks plunged dramatically in 2025, while left-wing incidents rose modestly, shifting recent-year patterns compared with the longer-term record. That analysis presents averages — roughly 20 right-wing incidents per year historically versus about three left-wing incidents annually through 2011–2024 — but emphasizes a marked 2025 decline in right-wing activity that complicates simple, single-trend interpretations [3].
3. Who gets named — specific groups that appear in the files
Across the dataset, named organizations include the Proud Boys, Atomwaffen Division, and entities described as “Blood Tribe” or hard-right networks, but the materials stop short of consistently linking these groups to particular violent attacks since 2020 in a way that satisfies forensic causation. Some dispatches catalog activities such as marches, billboards, and recruitment rather than direct operational responsibility for specific homicides, leaving a gap between organizational presence and proven attribution for particular crimes [4] [5].
4. A removed DOJ study and what its removal reveals about evidentiary friction
One document notes a Department of Justice study that was removed after publication, which concluded far-right extremists committed more ideologically motivated homicides since 1990, citing 227 events and over 520 deaths. The existence and later removal of that study highlights institutional sensitivity and potential political controversy around labeling and transparency, and it emphasizes how administrative actions can affect public understanding of the evidence base even when the underlying numbers are repeatedly cited elsewhere [2].
5. Investigative limits: FBI concerns and the challenge of attributing attacks
FBI-facing reporting in the dataset underscores the agency’s focus on online radicalization and child-targeting by violent extremists, while also acknowledging difficulty in categorizing incidents as left- or right-wing and in linking individual attacks to organized groups rather than lone actors. That operational ambiguity is important: the presence of extremist networks does not automatically equate to direct organizational responsibility for a specific violent act, and open-source reports frequently stop at behavioral and threat-level descriptions without forensic attribution [6] [7].
6. Contrasting interpretations: long-term dominance vs. short-term shifts
The materials present two compatible but distinct narratives: a long-term record in which right-wing extremists cause the majority of domestic terrorism deaths, and a short-term 2025 snapshot showing a steep decline in right-wing incidents and a small uptick in left-wing activity. Both can be true simultaneously; each narrative relies on different time frames and analytic choices. The discrepancy underlines the importance of timeframe, case definitions, and data-source selection when citing trends [1] [3].
7. Where the evidence is strongest — and where it is missing
Evidence is strongest for the broad claim that right-wing extremism has historically driven more domestic terrorism fatalities in the United States, backed by multiple analyses and a cited DOJ compilation of homicide events. Evidence is weaker for definitive, source-linked accounts of which specific right-wing groups carried out violent attacks since 2020: named groups appear in reporting, but direct, unanimously corroborated attributions linking organizations to particular post-2020 attacks are scarce or inconsistently presented in the provided documents [1] [2] [4].
8. Bottom line and what to watch next
The dataset supports a firm conclusion that right-wing extremism has been the deadliest domestic ideological threat historically, but it also shows a contested short-term picture in 2025 and incomplete attribution of specific attacks to named groups since 2020. For a sharper answer, readers should prioritize sources that publish incident-level attributions, official investigative findings, and transparent methodologies; contemporaneous deletions or revisions of government reports signal both substantive debate and information-management dynamics worth monitoring [1] [2] [3] [4].