Which far-right extremist groups in the US committed violent attacks since 2020?
Executive summary
Far‑right actors have accounted for the majority of U.S. extremist attacks and plots in recent years: CSIS found right‑wing extremists were responsible for about two‑thirds of attacks in 2019 and over 90% of attacks between Jan. 1 and May 8, 2020 [1]. Numerous organizations and analysts — including CSIS, ADL and multiple press outlets — identify white‑supremacist, militia and accelerationist networks as the principal sources of violent incidents from 2020 through 2022 [2] [3] [1].
1. The pattern: concentrated violence from the far right
Researchers documenting domestic terrorism put far‑right actors at the center of the post‑2020 violence surge. CSIS’s datasets show right‑wing perpetrators dominated attacks and plots around 2019–2020, and the ADL counted a spike in right‑wing terror incidents peaking in the 2020–2022 period [1] [3]. Independent reporting and government commentary likewise point to white supremacists, anti‑government militias and “accelerationist” subcultures as the main violent drivers [3] [1].
2. Who are the groups commonly named?
Open‑source reporting and threat assessments repeatedly list a mix of militia outfits, white‑supremacist organizations, and networked neo‑Nazi cells — for example, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, various militias, Patriot Front and accelerationist networks — among those tied to violence, including the January 6, 2021 Capitol assault [4] [3] [1]. Reuters and other outlets report newer or smaller extremist formations — such as the Aryan Freedom Network — gaining visibility and sometimes being implicated in demonstrations and local violence [5].
3. Events everyone cites as evidence
The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is a clear, widely cited instance of coordinated far‑right violence involving multiple groups and hundreds of participants [4]. Researchers also point to a concentration of demonstration‑related attacks in 2020 in which far‑right perpetrators were responsible for a majority of such incidents (58% of demonstration‑related attacks in 2020, per CSIS) [2]. These episodes anchor broader datasets showing far‑right predominance in that timeframe [1] [2].
4. The methodological and political disputes to know
Scholars and policymakers disagree about trends after 2020. Some 2024–25 analyses show a decline in right‑wing incidents through early 2025 with a rise in left‑wing incidents that, for the first half of 2025, outnumbered right‑wing incidents in some datasets — a reversal that researchers emphasize reflects small absolute numbers and changing patterns, not an equivalence in lethality or historical scale [6] [7] [8]. The Department of Justice’s removal of a study showing far‑right attacks outpacing others has further politicized the debate [9] [10].
5. Scale and lethality: right‑wing attacks tend to be deadlier
Multiple sources report that right‑wing extremist incidents have been not only more frequent but also more lethal in recent years. CSIS and other analysts say far‑right incidents were significantly likelier to be lethal because of weapon choice and target selection; historical tallies attribute more ideologically motivated homicides to far‑right perpetrators across recent decades [1] [9] [3].
6. What the datasets actually capture — and what they miss
Available datasets emphasize “attacks and plots” coded by ideology, but researchers caution about small sample sizes, coding choices and year‑to‑date comparisons that can flip short‑term narratives [7] [8]. The ADL notes many incidents are lone‑actor or small‑cell attacks rather than large, organized group operations, meaning the label “group” can overstate formal organizational structure in many cases [3].
7. Where to look next and what questions remain
Current reporting highlights white‑supremacist, militia and accelerationist networks as the chief violent far‑right threats through 2022 and into 2023; more recent dynamics in 2024–25 show changing incident counts and political contention over interpretation [3] [1] [7]. Available sources do not mention a complete, single inventory of every far‑right group that carried out violent attacks since 2020; they instead offer incident‑level datasets, organizational profiles and trend analyses (not found in current reporting).
Limitations: this summary relies on the cited CSIS, ADL, Reuters and other reporting and notes contested interpretations in 2024–25 studies and government actions [1] [3] [5] [9]. Where sources disagree, both views are reported: the pre‑2023 consensus on far‑right predominance and the 2025 analyses showing a short‑term rise in left‑wing incidents that reshaped year‑to‑date tallies [1] [7] [8].