Prepare the Fainting Couches

[Content Note: Terrorism; violence.]

Hayes Brown at Think Progress—New Study Highlights Threat from Far Right-Wing Groups in the United States:

A new study from a think tank connected to the West Point Military Academy highlights the threat of violent far-right movements in the United States, leading to the conclusion that, while diverse in in their causes, they are similar in their use of violence to achieve their aims.

West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center was founded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and has primarily focused its research on international terrorist threats. Titled "Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America's Violent Far-Right," this new report instead looks as the risk that domestic groups pose to the U.S. Breaking down these groups into three categories — the Racist/White Supremacy Movement, the Anti-Federalist Movement, and the Christian Fundamentalist Movement — allows the study to examine the background ideologies and methods of each subset thoroughly, opposed to lumping them all together as most studies have.

Each of the groupings in the study represent competing ideological views, with none of them likely to cooperate in achieving their aims. The chances that each of these groups will use violence also varies. What they share, however, is a use of violence against their chosen targets — be it minority races or abortion clinics — to draw attention to and emphasize their given ideology.

Naturally, conservatives are already refuting the study with great comebacks like: "The $64,000 dollar question is when will the Combating Terrorism Center publish their study on real left-wing terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground?"

That rhetorical is almost TOO perfect.

I don't know what else I can say about rightwing eliminationist violence that I haven't already said fully one million times. A lack of empathy allowed to fester unchallenged will inevitably become a violent urge. We cannot indulge this toxic intolerance with narratives of "both sides have their extremists" for a moment more.