Violent extremists like the Minnesota shooter are not lone wolves

  After a two-day manhunt, Minnesota authorities arrested and charged 57-year-old Vance Boelter on June 15, 2025 after he allegedly shot and killed Minnesota House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home and seriously injured another state senator and his wife.

  Boelter, disguised as a police officer, went to other Minnesota politicians’ homes late in the evening on June 13. In his parked car, he left behind a list of names and addresses of other Minnesota state and federal elected officials, as well as community leaders and Planned Parenthood locations.

  This incident is the latest to demonstrate how political and often hate-based violence is becoming a more common part of American politics.

30 years later, Waco siege still resonates – especially among anti-government extremists

  Feb. 28, 2023 marked 30 years since the beginning of the Waco siege, the confrontation at a Texas compound that killed around 80 members of the Branch Davidian religious community and four federal agents.

  Part of the siege’s legacy in popular culture is tied to sensational coverage that has presented the Branch Davidians as a cult. But the tragedy is also a powerful moment in political extremist groups’ ideologies. As scholars of domestic extremism, we have repeatedly seen how what happened at the Mount Carmel Center has been used by anti-government groups from the 1990s to today.

Violent extremists are not lone wolves – dispelling this myth could help reduce violence

  On Feb. 15, 2023, a judge informed Payton Gendron – a white 19-year-old who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo Tops market in 2022 – that “You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”

  The week before, Patrick Crusius – a white 24-year-old who gunned down 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 – received 90 consecutive life sentences.

  The threat of domestic terrorism remains high in the United States – especially the danger posed by white power extremists, many of whom believe white people are being “replaced” by people of color.

After Trump, Christian nationalist ideas are going mainstream – despite a history of violence

  In the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections, some politicians continue to ride the wave of what’s known as “Christian nationalism” in ways that are increasingly vocal and direct.

  GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Donald Trump loyalist from Georgia, told an interviewer on July 23, 2022 that the Republican Party “need[s] to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”

President Trump: Don't ignore terror from the radical right

  Last week PBS premiered Oklahoma City, an illuminating documentary that revisits the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the broader climate of far-right extremism that spawned the homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh.

  The documentary couldn’t have come at a better time.

  We should all hope that President Trump and his advisers are paying close attention, because by focusing their attention exclusively on terrorism inspired by overseas groups like ISIS, they could be missing the next McVeigh.