...The go-to talking point making rounds among Democrats and their media allies centers on a study from the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh, which purports to show that right-wing extremists commit the majority of politically motivated killings in America...
When I saw a graph from the study showing murders in politically motivated terrorist attacks (excluding 9/11), two things immediately jumped out at me.
- The first is the big spike in 1995. While obviously because of the Oklahoma City bombing, the question I had was how Nowrasteh categorized it. As I suspected, he categorized Timothy McVeigh's ideology as “right-wing,” but this classification is debatable. McVeigh was an anti-government extremist whose rage stemmed from anger over the 1993 Waco siege and the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff, not from conservative ideology. McVeigh rejected both political parties, described himself as agnostic, supported abortion rights, and drew inspiration from militia and anarchist movements rather than conservatism.
- The second red flag is even more damning. Notice how the data conveniently shows a dip in 2020, the same year America witnessed the most destructive riots in its history. The George Floyd riots not only caused billions in property damage nationwide, but at least nineteen known deaths. Yet somehow, none of these deaths made it into Nowrasteh’s tally of political violence. How convenient.
