Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin speaks during a news conference Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/David ‘Dee’ Delgado) On July 16, representatives of 65 nations attended a ministerial summit convened by the State Department to address the alleged threat from far-left extremist groups. The meeting was the latest gambit in President Trump’s campaign against the “radical left,” launched after the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Focusing on imaginary threats inhibits the ability to counter real ones. Unfortunately, this year’s National Counterterrorism Strategy does exactly that. The document prioritizes Islamists, drug cartels and other “violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist” but ignores far-right extremists.
In my extensive research and writing on terrorism I have never encountered a “violent” and “radically pro-transgender” extremist group. During the more than 20 years I participated in the Department of Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, I taught that groups across the political spectrum use terror as a weapon. Strategy must be based on an objective assessment of actual threats, not an ideological predilection to dislike certain groups.
Until now, law enforcement and intelligence agencies conducted objective threat assessments, concentrating their efforts on groups most likely to attack Americans at home or abroad, regardless of ideology. Those threats have changed over time.
During the 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan launched terrorist campaigns against the Civil Rights Movement, including the infamous Birmingham Baptist Church bombing that killed four young African American girls in 1963.
The next threat came from the left. The Marxist Weathermen-Weather Underground carried out more than 20 bombing attacks from 1969 to 1975. The Fuerzas Armadas Liberacion Nacional Puertoriquena, a leftist Puerto Rican separatist group, conducted 72 bombings and 40 incendiary attacks between 1974 and 1981.
During the 1990s, the U.S. suffered terrorist attacks from both left and right. From 1995 to 2010, the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front committed 66 criminal acts, including several serious arson attacks.
The decade also saw the emergence of anti-government militias. That movement inspired Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including 19 children. Following McVeigh’s success, the number of militia groups expanded to 370 by 1996, but number fell to just 68 by 1999 due in part to a crackdown of law enforcement.
After 9/11, U.S. counterterrorism concentrated on the Islamist threat posed first by al Qaeda and then the Islamic State. As that danger waned, the far-right threat reemerged. Although the number of active groups had declined, white supremacist and anti-government ideology never disappeared.
The election of Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, in 2008 led to a dramatic increase in the number of hate groups.
In 2009, Army Veteran Steward Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers, which recruited active duty and retired military, police and emergency responders, requiring them to swear that they would not obey orders that infringed on citizens’ rights as it defined them. That same year Michael Vanderboeg founded the III Percenters, a loose coalition of local groups claiming to be the modern embodiment of those who fought the Revolution (alleged to be 3 percent of the population). Both groups were heavily armed and participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the capital.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 101 hate groups, up from 34 the previous year. That same year the Department of Homeland Security determined that far-right extremist groups posed a greater threat to Americans than ISIS.
But now the radical right had a new champion, as Donald Trump embraced some of its ideas. The empowerment these groups felt following his election was on full display at the August 2017 “Unite the Right Rally” in Charlottesville, Va., at which marchers with tiki-torches chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
In response to Charlottesville and other far right activities, a new movement appeared which has been the focus of the administration’s ire ever since: Antifa, which is not and has never been a single group or a unified movement with any national organization or leadership. The term originated in Germany with the “Antifaschistiche Aktion (Antifascist Action)” movement created to oppose the Nazis. Beginning in 2016, some protesters in the U.S. adopted the name or had it applied to them by opponents.
Some clashes, assaults and property damage have been attributed to groups or individuals identified as ANTIFA but only one successful prosecution of alleged members on terrorism charges has occurred — the March conviction of protestors at a Texas detention center in which an ICE officer was shot in the neck. However, while the prosecution convinced the jury to find one man guilty of attempted murder and eight others of providing “material support for terrorism,” it did not prove that they belonged to an ANTIFA cell, which five of them denied under oath.
Nonetheless, Trump blames ANTIFA for Jan. 6 and insists it is a pervasive menace.
As circumstances changed over the past half century, law enforcement and intelligence agencies have adapted, devising strategies to deal with real threats — until now. The new Department of Homeland Security approach focuses on imaginary dangers while ignoring real ones, leaving the country vulnerable to terrorism.
Tom Mockaitis is a professor of history at DePaul University and the author of “Conventional and Unconventional War: A History of Modern Conflict.“
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Al Qaeda Animal Liberation Front Antifa Birmingham Baptist Church Charlie Kirk Department of Homeland Security Donald Trump Earth Liberation Front far-left extremists far-right extremists Former President Barack Obama III percenters Islamic State Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol Ku Klux Klan Marxist Weathermen/Weather Underground national counterterrorism strategy Nazi Germany Oath Keepers Oklahoma City bombing President Trump radical left Southern Poverty Law Center state department Timothy McVeigh Transgender ideology Unite the Right rally weather undergroundCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comments: Link copiedMore Congress Blog - Homeland Security News
See All
Congress Blog - Homeland Security California’s hostage crisis shows political violence is at a breaking point by Don Aviv and Jeremy Hurewitz, opinion contributor 1 day ago Congress Blog - Homeland Security / 1 day ago 
