Thread by @DavidNeiwert

1) For some reason, folks on the right have extremely short memories when it comes to acts of right-wing political violence. This is especially the case when they are in the middle of a propaganda campaign to make "the left" look violent. A long thread with lots of pix follows.

2) Now, what many of them are actually talking about is street violence specifically. But of course, that means they're completely oblivious to their own behavior in that regard.

3) However, when it comes to a propensity for actual political violence directed at their opponents – or at victims they have targeted for various reasons – there really is a huge difference.

4) There are two incidents of left-wing violence that have to be recorded here. The first is Floyd Corkin’s shooting of a guard at the Family Research Council in 2012. The second is James Hodgkinson’s shooting at congressmen and staff in 2017.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Cong…

5) These were, of course, horrible incidents. And in the end they’re all betrayals of the principles of common decency that many of us believe animate progressive politics. There’s no justification for them whatsoever.

6) However, these are the only two such incidents I can find involving leftist attacks on right-wing or other targets.


In contrast, here's a timeline that follows, of right-wing killers of the past decade. All of them targeting innocent people over political beliefs.

7/27/08
Jim David Adkisson, author of a manifesto urging violent war against liberals, opens fire inside a Knoxville, TN Unitarian Church during the youth performance of a musical, killing two and wounding seven. He tells investigators all liberals should be killed.

1/21/09
Keith Luke, Brockton, MA: Luke, a neo-Nazi angry about the inauguration of Barack Obama, kills two and injures one in a rape and murder spree targeting "nonwhite people." He is halted before reaching a synagogue, and later convicted of murder.

2/26/09
Dannie Roy Baker, Miramar Beach, FL: Baker, a former GOP volunteer angry about immigration, opens fire on a roomful of Chilean students, killing two and injuring three. He pleads no contest to murder.

4/4/09
Richard Poplawski, Pittsburgh, PA: Poplawski, a white supremacist, fearful of a plot by President Obama to take his guns, kills three police officers and leaving two others injured in a standoff at this home. Poplawski is convicted of murder.

6/10/09
James Von Brunn, Washington, DC: Von Brunn, a neo-Nazi seemingly influenced by Posse Comitatus ideology, walks into the U.S. Holocaust Museum and opens fire, killing a black guard. He dies while awaiting trial on murder and hate crime charges.

4/20/10
Ross William Muehlberger, Wichita Falls, TX: Muehlberger yells “White power!” as he shoots up a café, injuring four black and Latino women and killing one white bartender before killing himself.

7/22/11
Anders Behring Breivik, 32, sets off a car bomb in Oslo that kills eight people and injures 209. He then travels to a youth camp on the island of Utoya, where he slaughters 69 people, most of them teenagers. His online manifesto describes a right-wing war.

Note: Like many current alt-righters, Breivik believed he was fighting "cultural Marxism," a hoax concept cooked up by white nationalists.

8/5/12
Wade Michael Page, Oak Creek, WI: Page, a member of the neo-Nazi Hammerskin Nation, kills six and wounds four during a shooting rampage in a Sikh temple, before killing himself.


splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…

4/13/14
Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. (aka Frazier Glenn Cross, Jr.), Overland Park, KS: Miller, a former grand dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, embarks on a shooting rampage at two Jewish community institutions, killing three. He’s found guilty of capital murder.

5/22/14
Elliot Rodger, 22, the child of a Hollywood producer, goes on a killing rampage in Isla Vista, CA, near the Cal-Santa Barbara campus, targeting women after leaving a mysoginist video explaining his actions. He kills six people and injures seven before killing himself.

6/8/14
Jerad and Amanda Miller, Las Vegas, NV: The Millers, married Patriot movement sympathizers who had spent weeks at the Cliven Bundy ranch standoff, go on a shooting rampage that kills three people, including two police officers, in Las Vegas. They are killed by officers.

6/17/15
Dylann Roof, Charleston, SC: Roof, a white supremacist radicalized online, joins a bible study session at the Emanuel AME Church, then opens fire, killing nine and wounding another. He is convicted on 33 counts of federal hate crimes, including murder.

7/23/15
John Russell Houser, Lafayette, LA: Houser enters a movie theater with a gun, killing two and wounding nine, before killing himself. Investigators find he praised Roof, and urged readers of his manifesto to target liberals for mass murder.

11/23/15
Allen Lawrence Scarsella, a white supremacist who had been infiltrating and filming Black Lives Matter protests, shoots and wounds five protesters at a BLM protest outside of a Minneapolis police station. Scarsella is found guilty of felony riot and assault charges.

6/26/17
Jeremy Christian, 35, who had participated in local alt-right rallies, begins harassing two Muslim women on a Portland commuter train; when three men intervene, he stabs all three of them, two fatally. At his arraignment, he declares he is standing up for “free speech.”

10/1/17
Stephen Paddock, 64, opens fire on a crowd attending a country festival at an open-air venue in Las Vegas with high-powered rifles, killing 58 people, injuring 851. Paddock subscribed to far-right conspiracy theories about guns and may have acted on those fears.

4/23/18
Alek Minassian, a 22-year-old self-described “incel” angry at women drives a van into a crowded shopping center in downtown Toronto at high speed and kills 10 people, injuring another 16, most of them women. He posted on Facebook his intent to begin an “incel revolution."

This timeline, of course, is not complete. There are other incidents I could have easily included here but haven't. I think the point is clear.

@threadreaderapp unroll please