XPost: alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.misc, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.fan.sean-hannity   
   From: leroysoetoro@americans-first.com   
      
   https://amac.us/newsline/politics/liberals-push-bogus-stats-and-biased-   
   experts-to-blame-conservatives-for-political-violence/   
      
   Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk last week, liberals have been   
   scrambling for talking points to shift the national conversation away from   
   the escalating and now undeniable trend of left-wing political violence.   
   They seem to have found a new favorite talking point in a supposed   
   “statistical analysis” from a libertarian think tank that purports to show   
   that most political violence in the United States comes from the right.   
   However, it doesn’t take much digging to unearth serious questions about   
   the accuracy and legitimacy of that claim.   
      
   The rapid proliferation of this dubious data point throughout the liberal   
   echo chamber and corporate media ecosystem provides a case study in how   
   the left legitimizes unreliable, biased, or downright false statistics to   
   assert authority on certain topics. As such, it’s worth examining in   
   detail – both for the purposes of debunking this specific accusation and   
   for exposing the left’s common refrain that the “experts” agree with them.   
      
   On September 11, just hours after Kirk’s death, Alex Nowrasteh authored a   
   blog post which declared that “politically motivated violence is rare in   
   the United States.” Nowrasteh is the Vice President for Economic and   
   Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that   
   has been particularly critical of the new direction of the Republican   
   Party under President Donald Trump.   
      
   While not an expressly left-wing organization, Cato has found itself   
   increasingly siding with Democrats on one issue after another in recent   
   years. The organization has, for instance, routinely provided a platform   
   to self-described “Never-Trumpers,” opposed Trump’s tariffs, opposed   
   efforts to restrict abortion, and criticized Trump’s executive actions   
   like the dissolution of the U.S. Agency for International Development –   
   despite claiming to support the cause of shrinking the federal government.   
      
   Nowrasteh has himself been even more explicitly hostile toward   
   conservatives. On his X account, he has variously referred to Vice   
   President JD Vance as the “Scoldy Schoolmarm in Chief,” reshared a post   
   suggesting that a Kamala Harris administration would have been better for   
   free speech, and opposed Trump’s decision to use the military to eliminate   
   a drug cartel boat off the coast of Venezuela.   
      
   All of this provides important context, as Cato and Nowrasteh want us to   
   believe that they are providing us with unbiased data showing that the   
   right is really responsible for most political violence in the United   
   States. But Nowrasteh has vociferously opposed President Trump’s strong   
   denunciation of left-wing political violence, leaving plenty of reason to   
   be skeptical that his analysis of what counts as “left-wing” vs. “right-   
   wing” violence is unbiased.   
      
   In his September 11 piece, Nowrasteh asserts that “A total of 3,599 people   
   have been murdered in politically motivated terrorist attacks in the   
   United States from January 1, 1975, through September 10, 2025.” Excluding   
   the 9/11 attacks – 83 percent of that total – leaves 620 deaths associated   
   with politically motivated terrorism. Of that number, Nowrasteh ascribes   
   the following body counts to these ideologies: separatism (4);   
   unknown/other (9); foreign nationalism (8); left-wing (65); Islamism   
   (143); and finally right-wing (391).   
      
   Predictably, the corporate media seized on this statistic as “proof” that   
   conservatives are the real political violence threat in the United States.   
   On September 16, Time Magazine repackaged the data in a nifty pie chart,   
   proclaiming that “terrorists inspired by right-wing ideology are   
   responsible for 63 percent of deaths from political violence during that   
   time [1975-2025], compared to 10 percent for left-wing attacks.”   
      
   That talking point has since been shared countless times online and by the   
   corporate media, along with being parroted by elected Democrats. The   
   Atlantic, PBS NewsHour, The Economist, and The Independent were just a few   
   of the other major news outlets who covered the study.   
      
   But those same liberal voices smugly reporting that left-wing ideology   
   only accounts for 10 percent of all politically motivated murders have   
   shown a stunning lack of curiosity in where that data actually comes from,   
   or whether we can trust it.   
      
   Returning to Nowrasteh’s blog, we see that none of his tables or charts   
   have links to any actual data. When a user clicks on “get the data” below   
   each chart, it just redirects to a downloadable Excel document of the same   
   chart.   
      
   Another link, which Nowrasteh says contains his “methodology and sources,”   
   takes readers to a much longer statistical study published in March of   
   this year. But that article specifically focuses on “50 Years of Foreign-   
   Born Terrorism on US Soil.”   
      
   What about politically motivated killers born in the United States? Why   
   does Nowrasteh tell us that 63 percent of all deaths from political   
   violence come from the right and then link to a study that only talks   
   about deaths from foreign-born terrorists? Better yet, why did no one in   
   the corporate media bother to check whether his numbers were reliable? Or   
   did they, and then decide to publish his claims anyway?   
      
   After some digging, I finally came across a Substack piece from Nowrasteh   
   in which he provides a full breakdown of the names and body counts of all   
   politically motivated terrorists included in his data. Immediately,   
   suspicions about Nowrasteh’s methodology proved justified.   
      
   Once you actually examine the 391 so-called “right-wing” murders in   
   Nowrasteh’s dataset, a striking pattern emerges. The overwhelming majority   
   are not committed by conservatives, Republicans, or even self-identified   
   “right-wing” activists in any recognizable sense of the term. They are   
   carried out by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other fringe extremists   
   who openly reject the very principles conservatives stand for.   
      
   Lumping these deranged killers in with everyday Republicans or Trump   
   supporters is not just sloppy – it is intentionally misleading. The   
   narrative that “the right” is responsible for political violence only   
   works if you pretend that neo-Nazis and mainstream conservatives belong to   
   the same movement. They don’t.   
      
   In fact, they are as diametrically opposed to conservative principles as   
   the far left is. Conservatives believe in equal justice under the law,   
   ordered liberty, and the dignity of the individual. White supremacists   
   believe in tearing those values down and replacing them with racial   
   tribalism and authoritarianism – just like the far left. That ideology is   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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