Far-right responsible for every extremist killing in the United States in 2018: report
On Wednesday, a report from the Anti-Defamation League documented every known extremist killing in the United States in 2018. And according to its findings, right-wing extremists were responsible for every single one:
Right-wing extremists killed 50 people last year, mostly with firearms, making them responsible for more deaths than in any year since 1995, according to the ADL's data.
The report focuses on incidents like the February mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, committed by a teenager who expressed sympathy towards white supremacist ideology; the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue by an avowed anti-Semite; and the shooting spree at a Tallahassee yoga studio by a man bent on committing violence against women.
Guns were responsible for 42 of the 50 deaths documented by the ADL.
The ADL's list may not even capture the full scope of right-wing terror in 2018. For example, it would not include Cesar Sayoc, the pro-Trump Florida bodybuilder who sent a series of pipe bombs to Democratic officials, because mercifully none of his bombs killed anyone.
Since President Donald Trump was elected, the number of hate crimes has risen sharply. In addition to violent rhetoric about his political opponents, Trump and his GOP allies have fanned the flames of right-wing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about liberal Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire George Soros — none of which has contributed positively to political tensions in America.
