The Left-Wing Terrorism That Doesn’t Count

The Center for Strategic & International Studies has a new report out which is making headlines this week. The gist of the report is that, for the first time in decades left-wing terror attacks have outpaced right-wing terror attacks in the United States.

The nature of domestic terrorism has undergone a striking reversal this year, new research indicates: For the first time in more than 30 years, left-wing attacks are outnumbering those from the far right.

The reason that left-wing incidents this year have outpaced right-wing incidents is twofold, the researchers said. First, the number of incidents of right-wing terror plummeted this year to levels not seen during the study period. In seeking to explain the drop in right-wing incidents, researchers speculated that, because of the Trump administration policies on immigration and diversity programs, “it is probable that at least some extremists do not feel the need to act violently.”

While the number of right-wing incidents dropped, the researchers said, the number of left-wing incidents rose.

“What our data shows us is that indeed left-wing violence has risen in the last 10 years and that 2025 marks the first time left-wing incidents have outnumbered those from the violent far right,” said Riley McCabe, an associate fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan think tank, and co-author of the research.

As always with research like this, the devil is in the details. Specifically, how did the authors of this report define terrorism and what did they include and exclude in the report.

This analysis defines terrorism as the deliberate use or threat of premeditated violence by nonstate actors with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact. Using this definition, CSIS researchers compiled and analyzed a dataset of 750 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States between January 1, 1994, and July 4, 2025…

This brief defines left-wing terrorism as that which is motivated by an opposition to capitalism, imperialism, or colonialism; black nationalism; support for LGBTQ+ rights; support for environmental causes or animal rights; adherence to pro-communist, pro-socialist beliefs or “anti-fascist” rhetoric; opposition to government authority under the belief it is a tool of oppression responsible for social injustices; support for decentralized political and social systems, such as anarchism; or partisan extremism, where violence is justified against political opponents and parties perceived as advancing right-wing agendas.

Right-wing terrorism as used in this analysis includes incidents motivated by ideas of racial or ethnic supremacy; opposition to government authority, believing it is tyrannical and illegitimate; misogyny, including incels; hatred based on sexuality or gender identity; belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory; opposition to abortion; or partisan extremism, where violence is justified against political opponents and parties perceived as advancing left-wing agendas.

The first giveaway that these researchers aren’t scoring things reasonably comes from the fact that left-wing terrorism was still limited to just 8 incident in 2020, the year in which BLM riots did an estimated $2 billion in damage nationwide and resulted in multiple shootings and deaths. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that a peaceful protest by BLM should count as terrorism, but arson attacks and violent riots probably should. There were violent riots nearly every night in Portland for weeks with people throwing fireworks at law enforcement. Did any of that count? What about burning down police stations and businesses? This violence clearly had anti-police political goals. I wonder if the definition is omitting these acts because they are not “premeditated.”

But at the end of the report you get a mea culpa about all the other things that haven’t been counted.

This analysis excludes a number of incidents that further contribute to the perception of an increase in left-wing violent activity in 2025. Different definitions and coding might legitimately include these, but the explanation below details why they are excluded from this dataset.

The definition of terrorism used here excludes the series of attacks against Tesla vehicles and facilities. There were more than 20 such incidents in the United States from January to April 2025. Attacks on Tesla in the United States were linked to individuals expressing opposition to CEO Elon Musk’s political affiliations, particularly his role and actions in the Trump administration. Although the CSIS study team determined these attacks were incidents of economic vandalism rather than terrorism, many involved substantial property destruction and drew sharp condemnation from the Trump administration and the Department of Justice. In some cases, prosecutors have even sought terrorism enhancements in charging decisions. Although excluded from this dataset, these highly publicized incidents attracted significant attention and reinforced the perception of escalating left-wing violence in 2025.

There were three high-profile terrorist attacks in the United States in the first half of 2025 motivated by the conflict between Israel and Palestine. These include the April arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence, a May shooting that killed two Israeli Embassy staff in Washington, D.C., and a June firebombing of a pro-Israel solidarity walk in Boulder that injured 15 demonstrators. In this dataset, these attacks are classified as ethnonationalist incidents, rather than left-wing ones. However, it is noteworthy that all three incidents involved attackers motivated by opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza or U.S. support for Israel—a political position traditionally (though not always) associated with left-wing politics in the United States.

Finally, political demonstrations against immigration and customs enforcement activity across the United States in 2025 also resulted in many violent encounters, namely between law enforcement and demonstrators. However, most of these incidents did not reach a level of violence that satisfied this study’s definition of terrorism, and they were not intended to cause a broad psychological effect. Nonetheless, they too contributed to the perception of growing left-wing violence.

So throwing bricks at ICE vehicles and setting police cars on fire as part of an anti-Israel protest doesn’t count? They claim these actions weren’t intended to have a broad psychological effect despite the fact that these people are holding mass protests and organizing apps to track ICE movements.

Also, the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers definitely doesn’t count (according to this description), even though the shooter shouted “Free Palestine!” after the murders. 

And the weeks of arson and vandalism aimed at Teslas and Tesla dealerships, which also had a specific and clearly stated political goal (to punish Elon Musk for his cuts to government through DOGE), is not being counted in this study.

This is absolute garbage. Any study which ignores years of anarchist, anti-Israel, anti-ICE and anti-Elon Musk violence is not worth taking seriously. It’s remarkable that even with all of these omissions, leftist violence still comes out on top.

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