NBC News reports:

The number of right-wing terror attacks in the U.S. plunged dramatically in the first half of 2025, while the amount of political violence from the left creeped up, a new study found.

The report on terrorism and political violence by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan research group, found that, through July 4, “2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing terrorist attacks outnumber those from the violent far right.”

The study noted there had been one right-wing terrorist incident this year — the June murder of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband.

The report, written by the Washington think tank’s Daniel Byman and Riley McCabe, called that number “a remarkable drop off.”

Their analysis reviewed terror attacks and plots, which they defined 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.”

From 2011 through 2024, an average of 20 right-wing terror incidents took place each year, compared to an average of nearly three left-wing incidents annually during that same period.

The report also found that the average number of left-wing incidents was two per year from 2011 to 2015, and then an average of four per year from 2016 to 2024.

“It’s important to note it’s risen from very low levels and remains at very low levels,” McCabe told NBC News.

In the past decade, left-wing attacks killed 13 victims, the report found, compared to 112 by right-wing attacks in the same time period. [Continue reading…]

Last month, Ali Breland wrote:

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security debuted a recruitment strategy to expand the ranks of ICE: sign-on bonuses. Thanks to a rush of cash from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the department announced that it’s offering up to $50,000 to newly hired federal law-enforcement agents. The offer caught the eye of one group that seemed to be particularly pleased by the government’s exciting career opportunity. On Telegram, an account linked to the Toledo, Ohio, chapter of the Proud Boys declared: “Toledo Boys living high on the hog right now!!”

Whether members of the extremist group have pursued job openings at ICE, much less been hired and handed a big check, is unclear. I asked the Toledo chapter whether its members are applying to work for the government, but I didn’t hear back. Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said in an email that “any individual who desires to join ICE will undergo intense background investigations and security clearances—no exception.” But the Toledo Proud Boys’ enthusiasm for the work, if nothing else, is telling. The Trump administration is enacting a mass-deportation campaign centered around aggression and cruelty. The Proud Boys are staunchly against undocumented immigrants, and have repeatedly intimidated and physically antagonized their enemies (during the first Trump administration, they often got into fights with left-wing protesters). The group’s ideals are being pursued—but by ICE and the government itself.

There was every reason to believe that the Proud Boys would run wild in Donald Trump’s second term. On his first day back in the White House, Trump pardoned everyone who was convicted for crimes related to the insurrection on January 6, 2021—including roughly 100 known members of the Proud Boys and other extremist organizations. They had received some of the harshest sentences tied to the Capitol riot: All 14 people who were still in prison when Trump returned to office were affiliated with either the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers. At the time, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations warned that the pardons “could be catastrophic for public safety,” sending a message to extremist groups that violence in the name of MAGA “is legal and legitimate.” Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys who himself was pardoned, announced that there would be hell to pay: “I’m happy that the president is focusing not on retribution, and focusing on success,” he said on Infowars, “but I will tell you that I’m not gonna play by those rules.”

Six months later, though, the Proud Boys have been surprisingly quiet. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a nonprofit that tracks political violence, the Proud Boys have been less active in 2025 than over the preceding several years. Since his release, Tarrio’s most prominent action has been helping launch “ICERAID,” a website that pays people in crypto in exchange for reporting undocumented immigrants. Tarrio, who did not respond to an interview request through a lawyer, also co-hosts frequent livestreams on X. In one episode of a livestream last month, Tarrio nursed a cigarette while a man who identified himself only as “Patriot Rob” waxed nostalgic about how inescapable the Proud Boys once were. In 2020, members of the militant group showed up at anti-lockdown rallies across the country, clashed with racial-justice protesters, and earned a shout-out from Trump himself during a presidential debate. (The Proud Boys so frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., for various kinds of protests in 2020 that Politico wrote about their favorite bar.) Now, Patriot Rob said on the livestream, “there’s very few of us left.” [Continue reading…]