Beware of Political Violence Data Manipulation
We are all being gaslighted when it comes to determining who is committing most of the political violence in America. The truth is that most of it comes from the Left.
Democrat operatives and the legacy media (but I repeat myself) are trying to downplay the effects of their dehumanizing rhetoric on the cultural landscape. Representative Seth Moulton (MA) was one of the first Democrats to condemn left-wing violence after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Nevertheless, he immediately deflected by claiming that political violence is far more frequent on the Right than it is on the Left.
To support his claim, Moulton cited an Anti-Defamation League (ADF) report positing that 76% of political violence comes from right-wing extremists, while only 4% comes from left-wing extremists. However, the report fails in at least three ways:
The ADF lies that “2023 was the second year in a row in which far-right extremists committed all the documented murders.” Recall that the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, occurred in 2023, and the assailant — who was gender-confused and anti-Christian — was clearly a left-wing extremist. Horrifically attacking school children because you are militantly pro-transgenderism and hate Christians is politically motivated left-wing murder.
The ADF fails to count all the left-wing violence committed by BLM rioters in 2020, which included nearly two dozen murders and billions in property damage. Furthermore, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez, “Researcher Travis Campbell tracked more than 1,600 BLM protests nationwide between 2014 and 2019 and found that a 10% rise in civilian homicides followed as a result. That means that between 1,000 and 6,000 additional homicides occurred.”
The ADF makes no mention of the spate of heinous attacks on pregnancy resource centers and churches in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Apparently, that doesn’t count as left-wing violence either.
This citing of questionable reports isn’t strictly limited to Democrat House reps, though. The Economist also tepidly endorsed a source that accuses the Right of committing the majority of political violence. The research was compiled on a website called the Prosecution Project, which is run by Dr. Michael Loadenthal, an “openly anarchist Antifa-affiliated … researcher at the University of Cincinnati who, by his own admission, is a far-left violent extremist,” according to The Federalist’s Eoin Lenihan. Trusting Loadenthal’s information would be like trusting Hamas’s civilian casualty numbers — something only a leftist would be deranged enough to do.
1776 Project PAC founder Ryan James Girdusky comments:
You know what wasn’t counted as politically motivated violence… almost any of the arson, rapes, and murders from BLM and Antifa activists during the 2020 summer of love. Burning the police station in Minneapolis, the rape and assaults in the CHAZ zone, or the six deaths associated with the trans cult, the Zizians. Left-wing violence isn’t violence, while anyone can be considered rightwing violence, even if it isn’t right-wing or particularly violent.
Then there’s the libertarian Cato Institute, which published a study conducted by Alex Nowrasteh that classifies some individuals incorrectly as “right-wing” and fails to count left-wing violence. According to PJ Media’s Matt Margolis, Nowrasteh misclassifies the Club Q shooter, the Buffalo supermarket shooter, and the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooter as “right-wing.” None of them would have self-described as right-wing. The Club Q shooter is a mentally ill man who identifies as “nonbinary,” and the Buffalo and El Paso killers were “eco-fascist national socialists.”
Cato neglected to even include the Waukesha killer, as well as other instances of political violence that useful idiots have decided to ignore.
Does anyone else find it odd that @CatoInstitute failed to include the George Floyd riots and other leftist violence from 2020-2021 in this chart? pic.twitter.com/4rvqzbp8jC
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) September 17, 2025
For conservatives, the gaslighting and manipulation of the data regarding political violence merely underscore the point that was highlighted by the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The Right chose not to riot but to glorify God. Even on January 6, 2021 — the most horrific day in leftist history — the only one who died was a protester, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Most conservatives condemn the January 6 rioting. Leftists riot at the drop of a hat and leave murder and destruction in their wake. They perpetually jockey for more violence as a means of intimidation.
There’s the Left’s “truth,” and then there’s the Truth. When confronted with reality, the Left refuses to change. It doubles down, obfuscates, and cherry-picks pseudo-truths to support its narratives. We are not the same.
