The Afternoon Dispatch is written by BillOReilly.com staff.
One of the more grotesque features of our age is this: Whenever there’s a mass killing or an attempted political hit, our first question is often whether the perp is an ideological teammate or on the other side. Islamic terrorist? MAGA type? Lefty loon? Trans? And when the villain is not one of ours, we breathe a sigh of relief.
This was evident once again when 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen stormed the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, apparently intent on killing Trump aides and maybe even the president himself. Conservatives on Fox News and liberals on MS NOW quickly manned their battle stations and recited the usual talking points. To the right, this was the latest in a string of ‘progressive’ violence.
They have plenty of evidence in Allen’s so-called manifesto, which reads like it was cribbed from Joy Reid, Lawrence O’Donnell, or any number of far-left kooks who spew anti-Trump vitriol every night and day.
They have plenty of evidence in Allen’s so-called manifesto, which reads like it was cribbed from Joy Reid, Lawrence O’Donnell, or any number of far-left kooks who spew anti-Trump vitriol every night and day.
But the left quickly presented a counter-argument, an academic study of political violence conducted by the Cato Institute. The study claims that right-wing sorts are responsible for far more political violence than those on the left. Thus, every time a lefty tries to murder someone, pundits on CNN and MS NOW trot out a Cato study. Even on Fox News, The Five’s token liberal Jessica Tarlov cited Cato and insisted that conservatives are far more likely to kill their political opponents.
However, as has been pointed out, notably by Batya Ungar-Sargon on NewsNation, the data are skewed. Cato doesn’t include those killed during the left-wing 2020 George Floyd riots. Then there's Thomas Crooks, who tried to murder Donald Trump in Butler, PA, in the summer of 2024. The study claims there is ‘no good direct evidence’ that he was motivated by politics. Crooks is therefore missing from the list of lefty killers.
However, as has been pointed out, notably by Batya Ungar-Sargon on NewsNation, the data are skewed. Cato doesn’t include those killed during the left-wing 2020 George Floyd riots. Then there's Thomas Crooks, who tried to murder Donald Trump in Butler, PA, in the summer of 2024. The study claims there is ‘no good direct evidence’ that he was motivated by politics. Crooks is therefore missing from the list of lefty killers.
In addition, there are other organizations that act as referees in this macabre game of who is killing whom. One is The Prosecution Project, compiled by radical leftists and often quoted in mainstream publications. The Project does not count the killing of Charlie Kirk as ‘political’ but lists as right-wing violence every person arrested for blocking access to abortion clinics. Then there’s the ADL, which classifies nearly every prison murder as ‘right-wing’ violence. These scorekeepers often rely on data from the odious Southern Poverty Law Center, which stands accused of funding the KKK and other organizations in order to manufacture more ‘right-wing hate.’
People on all sides of the political spectrum, with the notable exception of a few whack jobs like lefty darling Hasan Piker, usually make a point of decrying any violence, regardless of who is responsible. But almost all of us also have that unfortunate tendency to keep score, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that the most recent horrible acts have been perpetrated by anti-Trump leftists.
So when you hear about studies that claim to prove the exact opposite of what you see with your own eyes, it’s advisable to keep in mind the words of Mark Twain: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies … and statistics.’
