I think that most recognize the violent actions that bigots have always taken in America. From abortion clinic violence to lynchings, they have always been a problem in America. But all of these extremist groups are dangerous.From the NY Times This morning
IDEA OF THE DAY: EXTREMIST VIOLENCE
The Anti-Defamation League counted 42 killings in the United States last year that were committed by political extremists. Of those 42, right-wing extremists committed 38.
That continued a pattern. Over the past decade, right-wing extremists have committed more than 75 percent of killings by extremists.
Another such killing took place this week, according to investigators in New Jersey. They say that Roy Den Hollander fatally shot Daniel Anderl, the 20-year-old son of Esther Salas, a federal judge, and wounded Salas’s husband. Den Hollander identified himself as part of an “anti-feminist” movement doing battle with a cabal of “feminazis.” His online screeds also included racist language.
Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League points out that extremists on both ends of the political spectrum have committed violence over the years. On the left, the Weather Underground and some Black nationalist groups did so in the 1960s and ’70s, as did some animal-rights and environmental extremists in the 1990s. More recently, a left-wing gunman shot a Republican congressman and three other people at a baseball practice in 2017.
But that case has proved to be the exception in recent years.
Right-wing violence — by white supremacists, anti-abortion extremists and others — began to mount in the 1980s and ’90s. It began rising again around 2008, around the same time as the election of the first Black president, Pitcavage said.
“This should no longer come as a shock to anyone,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the A.D.L.’s chief executive, said earlier this year. “Lawmakers, law enforcement and the public need to recognize the grave and dangerous threat posed by violent white supremacy. We cannot begin to defeat this deadly form of hatred if we fail to even recognize it.”
Center for Extremism
Give them an environment in which they feel empowered and they become a greater danger, and Trump has done so for those on the far right. Put someone like Sanders in office and we might see something similar from those on the far left.