RIGHTWING TERRORISM? WHAT RIGHTWING TERRORISM?

President Donald Trump has said that he does not view rightwing extremism as a rising threat. This puts him at odds with his own FBI director, Christopher Wray, who recently told a Senate committee that the growing number of domestic terrorism cases owes to "some version of what you might call white supremacist violence." In fact, according to a January report by the Anti-Defamation League, every extremist killing in the United States in 2018--and there were at least fifty in all--had a rightwing link.

Here are some of the most deadly and horrific acts of domestic terrorism driven by rightwing ideology in just the past year:

OCTOBER 27, 2018

A forty-six-year-old trucker armed with three Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle murders eleven people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The shooter, who blamed Jews for helping migrant caravans from Central America, a major Trump bugaboo, yells "All Jews must die!" before opening fire.

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

A forty-year-old man with a handgun shoots six women, killing two, at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida, before killing himself. He had made a number of racist and misogynistic YouTube videos, blaming women for his status as an "incel," or involuntary celibate. In one video, he expressed sympathy for another woman-hating mass murderer.

APRIL 27, 2019

A nineteen-year-old white supremacist employs his AR-style assault rifle at a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one person and injuring three before fleeing. The man, an admirer of both Hitler and the shooter in a deadly New Zealand mosque attack, then calls 911 to turn himself in, saying, "I just shot up a synagogue... because Jewish people are destroying the white race." He has pleaded not...