Cato Institute: Politically Motivated Violence Data

[SkyBubble]

The libertarian Cato Institute provides context about politically motivated violence in the US. Their conclusion is that it’s rare.



Any violence is too much, but we live in a nation with lots of ammosexuals who want their 15 minutes of fame for killing somebody.

Here’s their breakdown of all the politically motivated murders in the last 50 years:

View attachment 2564973

I've already posted evidence of why that study is wrong.

 

[Lazaran]

I've already posted evidence of why that study is wrong.

Nah, you really haven’t.



Hope that ^ helps.





We. Told. Them. So.

 

[SkyBubble]

I have; several articles. You just don't want to acknowledge it. They show how incidents are miscategorized and teh methodology is wrong.

 

[LilKitKat]

Once again, no sources, no rational argument. You just know I must be wrong because you say so.

Never mind actually making an effort to address the FACTS in the articles.

guess you missed how I simply basically said what you did...

 

[MajorRewrite]

I've already posted evidence of why that study is wrong.

Nope. The DailyCaller attempted to reclassify right wing political murders as not right wing, and you accepted their propaganda without question.

Over the last 50 years there have been six times as many politically motivated murders committed by the right wing than committed by the left wing. Six times.

 

[SkyBubble]

No, it's the other way around. The study simply defined its terms in a way that reclassified events as something they were not.

Your statement is false, and as usual, you have NOTHING to support your falsehoods.

 

[MajorRewrite]

No, it's the other way around. The study simply defined its terms in a way that reclassified events as something they were not.

Your statement is false, and as usual, you have NOTHING to support your falsehoods.

Poor Totally Fact Free SkyBubble. 100% bluster, 0% facts.

 

[Hel_Books]

https://thefederalist.com/2025/09/2...out-right-wing-violence-is-full-of-fake-data/
fter Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week, conservatives noted that most political violence comes from the left.

In 2020, Steve Bannon called for beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and then-FBI director Christopher Wray. Before she was elected to the House, Marjorie Taylor Greene endorsed social media posts that urged murdering Rep. Nancy Pelosi and FBI agents, and she expressed support for hanging Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The current FBI director, Kash Patel, reposted a video of himself taking a chainsaw to Trump’s political enemies, including former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. (When he was asked about this hideous social media post at his confirmation hearing, Patel replied, “Senator, I had nothing to do with the creation of that meme”—a weaselly statement that did not address his amplification of the violent imagery.) In 2023, Trump suggested that Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserved to be executed. GOP Rep. Paul Gosar did the same.

 

[icanhelp1]

Typical. Don't actually read the article and comment on the facts it provides, just attack the source.

And that surprised you??

 

[Lazaran]

Poor Totally Fact Free SkyBubble. 100% bluster, 0% facts.

I don’t know if you remember the poster we referred to as BoBo (banned multiple times), but they (BoBo) were famous for their “Nuh-uhhhhh” posts when confronted by facts from other posters and challenged to produce facts / data / evidence in support of their posted claims / positions.



Feel free to refer to this latest chode as “SkyBoBo” - it fits.





We. Told. Them. So.

 

[SkyBubble]

Poor Totally Fact Free SkyBubble. 100% bluster, 0% facts.

I already showed you the evidence of how they manipulated the definitions, in more than one link. Typically, you simply argued that the links must be wrong because they don't agree with you, then tried to claim that they don't actually exist.

You, as usual, have provided nothing except name-calling.

 

[DanOkeffie]

Who's inciting violence?

On January 6, 2021, a defeated and desperate Donald J. Trump told his fanatical followers, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” A MAGA mob marched to the Capitol and attempted to lynch Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other leaders. It was the worst act of violence against the pillars of American democracy since the Civil War. In his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists convicted for their violent actions that day.

Trump has encouraged his supporters to assault journalists, and even made comments that could at least be interpreted as suggesting that he wouldn’t mind seeing members of the media killed. He has repeatedly urged police and other law enforcement agents to inflict violence on suspects, and in 2017, made the extraordinary announcement that there were “some very fine people” among the rioters who terrorized the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia.

He has advocated using the military against domestic protesters. In 2020, amid the George Floyd uprising, Trump approvingly quoted a Southern police chief from the 1960s who said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This year, he actually sent the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, to intimidate residents resisting his authoritarian administration.

He renamed the Defense Department the Department of War, and then posted on social media that Chicago was about to find out why it had been renamed.

Trump has said that a number of his political opponents should be prosecuted for treason (a capital offense). He has suggested that “Second Amendment people” might have to intervene against Hillary Clinton. He has publicly stated that Gen. Mark Milley, ex-head of the joint chiefs of staff, should be killed. He has withdrawn the security details from former vice president Kamala Harris and many other opponents against whom his followers have repeatedly threatened violence.

omg get over it and move on

 

[DanOkeffie]

Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are right wing. Conservatives aren’t the only people in the right wing. The MAGA flock of sheep is full of authoritarians, Neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Right wing politically motivated murders are 6x higher than left wing. 6x. As detailed in my original post.

more bullshit, the left kills far more than the right.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I already showed you the evidence of how they manipulated the definitions, in more than one link. Typically, you simply argued that the links must be wrong because they don't agree with you, then tried to claim that they don't actually exist.

You, as usual, have provided nothing except name-calling.

Right wing politically motivated murders are 6x higher than left wing. 6x. As detailed in my original post.

 

[stxjimmy]

You’re attempting to use the DailyCaller to refute the Cato Institute?

Why would the libertarian Cato Institute want to fabricate any bad data about the right wing, which they are part of?

Stable genius.

Would you expect any less? It’s the playbook used by the right, here and everywhere. Echoing each other and using that to “refute” anything literate. Their cries of fake news and hoax are increasingly damaging political and public discourse.

 

[stxjimmy]

Once you actually examine the 391 so-called “right-wing” murders in Nowrasteh’s dataset, a striking pattern emerges. The overwhelming majority are not committed by conservatives, Republicans, or even self-identified “right-wing” activists in any recognizable sense of the term. They are carried out by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other fringe extremists who openly reject the very principles conservatives stand for.

Lumping these deranged killers in with everyday Republicans or Trump supporters is not just sloppy – it is intentionally misleading. The narrative that “the right” is responsible for political violence only works if you pretend that neo-Nazis and mainstream conservatives belong to the same movement. They don’t.

This is why no serious conservative figure tolerates neo-Nazis or white supremacists. They are universally denounced and driven out of the movement whenever they try to co-opt the conservative label. Charlie Kirk himself went out of his way to confront anyone at his events who tried to spout racist rhetoric, telling them they had no place in conservatism.

By contrast, the radical left fringe, from Antifa to BLM extremists and militant LGBTQ activists, is not shunned by the Democratic Party. It is embraced, legitimized, or at the very least tolerated. That is the crucial distinction.

Bit rich coming from a poster who lumps every left organisation together regularly.

And who was it said of Charlottesville
“Some Very Fine People on Both Sides”

Or to the proud boys “stand back and stand by.”

 

[SkyBubble]

more bullshit, the left kills far more than the right.

True.

 

[SkyBubble]

Right wing politically motivated murders are 6x higher than left wing. 6x. As detailed in my original post.

Based on faulty methodology and bad definitions, as I have shown in prior posts.

 

[SkyBubble]

And who was it said of Charlottesville
“Some Very Fine People on Both Sides”

Even your boys at Snopes aren't trying to sell that anymore.

Ther were good and bad people on both sides of the issue of tearing down statues. In the very next paragraph, he denounces the Nazis and white supremacists and he speaks out against the violence. But hey, don't let that stop you.

 

[dmallord]

Invalid study. Bad methodology.

https://dailycaller.com/2025/09/19/...nstitute-right-left-wing-violence-statistics/

"
“Right-wing terrorist killers”

1. Dylann Roof — properly categorized
2. John Russell “Rusty” Houser — Houser was described as having right-wing political positions, but there is no conclusive evidence that they were a motivation in his decision to shoot up a Lafayette movie theater. As CNN reports, Houser had severe mental health problems in the years leading up to the shooting and “Why Houser chose the city or what he was doing there remains a mystery.” Former Columbus mayor Bobby Peters said of Houser, “If you look at the whole pattern he had all these dreams and they kept falling apart and it comes to a situation like this.” There is speculation that he targeted a movie by Amy Schumer because of his misogynistic views, but police never confirmed this.
3. Robert Lewis Dear — properly categorized
4. James Harris Jackson — This one is a bit complicated. Jackson, who stabbed a black man to death with a sword, reportedly hated black people from a young age despite growing up in a liberal family that supported integration. Nonetheless, he voted for Barack Obama in 2012 because he did not like Sarah Palin. Because he later started getting involved in far-right YouTube and message boards and liked Donald Trump ahead of the killing, I’m calling this one properly categorized.
5. Jeremy Joseph Christian — properly categorized
6. James Alex Fields, Jr. — properly categorized
7. Matthew Edward Riehl — Riehl, who served as a combat medic in the Iraq War, was reported to be suffering from PTSD and psychotic episodes. He had stopped taking his medication before the shooting. Riehl livestreamed the shooting to Periscope, during which he said he “would not hurt anyone except to defend himself.” Online posts he made before the shooting were described as “rambling” and “nonsensical.” He made several online posts complaining about local law enforcement officials before his rampage.
8. Samuel Woodward — Woodward was raised Catholic and was struggling with his sexuality. He had expressed anti-gay sentiments but then decided to meet up with a gay man he met online. When the gay man kissed him, Woodward became enraged and killed him. Homophobic, sure. Right-wing political violence? No.
9. Gregory A. Bush — Bush was motivated by a hatred of black people in killing two black shoppers at a Kroger in Kentucky. There is no public evidence that he was politically motivated. He did not like Obama, but because he was black — not because he was a Democrat. The case was classified as a hate crime. Bush also had a history of schizophrenia.
10. Robert D. Bowers — properly categorized
11. Scott Paul Beierle — properly categorized
12. Anthony Comello — Anthony’s attorney presented a pretty fantastical defense at trial, claiming he was radicalized by QAnon and therefore should not be held accountable for killing a prominent mob boss. Comello played into the bit by writing pro-Trump messages on his hands in the courtroom. He was supposedly trying to take down the “elite cabal.” However, police said that Comello didn’t kill the mob boss over his online radicalization — rather, he was upset that the mob boss didn’t want Comello to date his niece. There were other versions of what Comello said happened when confessing to police, including that he had been blackmailed to carry out the hit by people who said they would reveal that he had HIV. There are too many competing theories to say this was politically motivated and court records related to his sentencing were not made available to the public due to concerns over the mob threatening Comello.
13. John T. Earnest — properly categorized
14. William Santino Legan — properly categorized
15. Patrick Crusius — properly categorized
16. Steven Carrillo — properly categorized
17. Robert Justus — properly categorized
18. Roy Den Hollander — properly categorized
19. Robert Aaron Long — Long went on a shooting spree at Asian “massage parlors,” because he was angry over his sex addiction and how it conflicted with his religious beliefs.
20. Nathan Allen — Allen stole a box truck, crashed, and then targeted two black people, killing them. He had written anti-black and pro-white screeds. He was not publicly reported to be involved in any white supremacist groups and there is no other public evidence of his political beliefs. This is better classified as a hate crime.
21. Payton S. Gendron — properly categorized
22. Benjamin Jeffrey Smith — properly categorized
23. Anderson Lee Aldrich — properly categorized
24. Mauricio Martinez Garcia — properly categorized
25. Ryan Christopher Palmeter — properly categorized
26. Solomon Sahmad Charlie Henderson — properly categorized
27. Vance Boelter — Boelter was reportedly a registered Republican and held pro-life views, but was previously a longtime Democrat and a state government appointee of Gov. Tim Walz. His writings indicated he believed he was carrying out the assassination of state Democratic lawmakers on behalf of Walz to clear his path to becoming a Democratic nominee for senator.

If we’re being generous, that puts the final tally at 21 right-wing terrorist killers to 17 terrorist killers as opposed to 27:17. If we’re being less generous, it’s closer to 19:17. A pretty negligible difference.

But then we have to also consider that Nowrasteh left some left-wing terrorist killers off his list.

1. The Waukesha killer in 2021 who drove his truck through a Christmas parade had a litany of anti-white social media posts, supported Black Lives Matter, and rapped against Donald Trump. A local BLM chapter raised money for his bail.
2. Jessica Doty-Whitaker was shot and killed by BLM protesters after she or someone she was with declared “all lives matter.” Her case remains unsolved.
3. An anti-natalist bombed an IVF clinic in 2025, killing one person

That would nudge the left-wing category over the right-wing category.

Of course, the other issue with Nowratseh’s list is that it only counts killings, so we miss highly notable political violence like the two assassination attempts on Trump, the 2017 Republican baseball shooting, the attempted stabbing of Lee Zeldin, a neighbor attacking Sen. Rand Paul, the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a bomb planted under a Fox News van that failed to detonate, and others."

Let's stick to the data as presented. You're attempting to obscure that.

 

[SkyBubble]

No, I'm actually trying to correct the data.

 

[dmallord]

No, I'm actually trying to correct the data.

No... you are citing biased parroting that twists terms into what you believe. No one else does that.

 

[stxjimmy]

Even your boys at Snopes aren't trying to sell that anymore.

Ther were good and bad people on both sides of the issue of tearing down statues. In the very next paragraph, he denounces the Nazis and white supremacists and he speaks out against the violence. But hey, don't let that stop you.

It won’t, and you’re now aligning with david duke in defending trumps response.

 

[Bray123]

No, I'm actually trying to correct the data.

You're ignoring the fact that Kirk was killed by a Fuentes-follower, because Kirk wasn't right wing enough.

You can quote your silly propaganda sources as much as you like, but they destroy any credibility you had (which wasn't much, in fairness). The vast majority of ideological murders in the US are by the right wing who are mostly KKKhristian ammosexuals but also a tiny number of Islamists who have a similar viewpoint about supremacy of their superstitions etc.

 

[Hel_Books]

Hel_Books said:
Who's inciting violence?

On January 6, 2021, a defeated and desperate Donald J. Trump told his fanatical followers, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” A MAGA mob marched to the Capitol and attempted to lynch Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other leaders. It was the worst act of violence against the pillars of American democracy since the Civil War. In his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists convicted for their violent actions that day.

Trump has encouraged his supporters to assault journalists, and even made comments that could at least be interpreted as suggesting that he wouldn’t mind seeing members of the media killed. He has repeatedly urged police and other law enforcement agents to inflict violence on suspects, and in 2017, made the extraordinary announcement that there were “some very fine people” among the rioters who terrorized the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia.

He has advocated using the military against domestic protesters. In 2020, amid the George Floyd uprising, Trump approvingly quoted a Southern police chief from the 1960s who said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This year, he actually sent the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, to intimidate residents resisting his authoritarian administration.

He renamed the Defense Department the Department of War, and then posted on social media that Chicago was about to find out why it had been renamed.

Trump has said that a number of his political opponents should be prosecuted for treason (a capital offense). He has suggested that “Second Amendment people” might have to intervene against Hillary Clinton. He has publicly stated that Gen. Mark Milley, ex-head of the joint chiefs of staff, should be killed. He has withdrawn the security details from former vice president Kamala Harris and many other opponents against whom his followers have repeatedly threatened violence.

omg get over it and move on

When it's pointed out that he's wrong, Danny boy simply waves his little hands and says "omg!" because he has no coherent reply . . .