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Fact check: Has there been more violence from the left or the right?
Executive Summary
The preponderance of evidence across long-term datasets shows right-wing political violence has produced more deaths and higher lethality historically in the United States, but recent 2025 reporting identifies a rise in far-left incidents that complicates simple comparisons. The answer depends on whether one counts fatalities vs. incidents, which time window is used, and how researchers classify events as terrorism, political violence, or criminal acts [1] [2] [3].
1. Why the headline — right-wing violence has been deadlier for decades — holds up
Multiple multi-year analyses converge on the finding that right-wing extremist attacks account for the majority of domestic terrorism deaths since 2001, with some summaries putting that share near 75–80 percent; long-term comparative research also found right-wing groups historically had greater capacity for large-scale violent action [1] [4] [5]. These sources measure lethality and fatal attacks across decades, showing far-right actors caused more fatalities than left-wing actors or lone Islamist actors in U.S. domestic contexts over extended periods [1] [5]. Government strategic assessments emphasize the rising threat of domestic extremism overall, but do not present a contrary long-run picture that would overturn the historical pattern [6] [7].
2. Why recent 2025 data complicates the story — left-wing incidents on the rise
A Center for Strategic and International Studies brief published in 2025 documents an uptick in far-left plots and attacks in the first half of 2025, reporting that far-left incidents outnumbered far-right incidents in that limited window and noting a recent decade-long increase in left-wing plots directed at government and law enforcement targets [2] [8]. Critics and some analysts caution that the CSIS snapshot covers a narrow time slice and relies on definitions that can be hard to apply consistently, which can produce short-term reversals that do not necessarily reflect long-term lethality or broader trends [3]. The CSIS data still shows fewer fatalities from left-wing attacks over the past decade than from right-wing attacks, underlining the distinction between incident counts and death tolls [2].
3. Definitions and classification drive divergent conclusions — incidents vs. deaths matter
Researchers and agencies diverge on whether to prioritize counts of plots/attacks, convictions, or deaths, and whether to include vigilante violence, politically motivated property destruction, or single-actor mass-casualty events; those choices reshape comparisons between left and right. CSIS emphasizes incident counts and motivations like anti-capitalism; other studies and long-term datasets emphasize deaths and lethality, producing different rankings of threat [8] [5]. Federal assessments and some recent reports avoid binary left/right tallies and instead highlight the broader rise of partisan-motivated attacks and the difficulty of neat categorization, implying that methodology, not ideology alone, explains much of the disagreement [6] [9].
4. What surveys and trend reports add — public attitudes and new forms of violence
National surveys from 2023–2024 show stable levels of public willingness to accept political violence for specific objectives, with about a quarter of respondents endorsing violence for at least one goal, but these surveys do not break respondents down by ideology, so they do not directly resolve left-versus-right incidence questions [10]. Trend reports for 2024 flag growing vigilante mobilization and organized violence against marginalized groups, noting an increase in violent mobilization without providing a simple left/right split; law-enforcement pattern studies continue to highlight extreme-right fatal attacks as a significant driver of lethal domestic terrorism historically [11] [12].
5. How to reconcile the datasets — a conditional, evidence-based conclusion
Putting the pieces together: historically and in terms of deaths, right-wing political violence has been greater and deadlier, a finding supported by longitudinal analyses [1] [5]. Short-term 2025 data from CSIS indicates a rise in far-left incidents that outpaced far-right incidents in a limited period, but those incidents remain less lethal overall and are sensitive to classification choices and the selected timeframe [2] [3]. Federal and academic sources therefore recommend tracking multiple indicators — fatality counts, incident frequency, target types, and ideology — rather than relying on a single metric to answer whether “more violence” comes from the left or right [6] [9].
6. What policymakers and the public should watch going forward
Decision-makers should monitor both fatality trends and incident counts, improve cross-agency classification standards, and track motivations and target types because short-term spikes in one ideological direction can coexist with long-term lethality patterns in another. Reports urge protective measures for government and marginalized communities and annual updates to threat assessments; the most responsible posture is to treat domestic political violence as a multifaceted problem that transcends simple left/right binaries and to use consistent metrics when comparing ideologies over time [7] [9] [11].