The assasination of political activist Charlie Kirk on September 10 immediately became a white-hot center of gravity for issues of gun access, political violence, polarization and domestic terrorism in the U.S. However, the domestic history of political violence is long and complex.
SFS Professors Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware attempt to unravel the threads of nationalism and white supremacy woven into the fabric of American political violence in their book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America. First released in 2024 and winner of the 2025 Airey Neave Memorial Book Prize, the book was released in paperback in August 2025 in a year that also marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Authors Hoffman and Ware answered a few questions for us to help explain the longer, larger context surrounding the Kirk assassination and the environment of political violence present in U.S. culture and life.
Q. One of the recurring themes in your book is accelerationism—the idea that seemingly unrelated, though dramatic, acts of violence by like-minded individuals can accelerate societal movement toward those individuals’ collective goals. Briefly, how has accelerationism been embraced by American white supremacist thought leaders? What is the ultimate goal of white supremacist accelerationism?
A. Dating to its origins in the 1960s and 1970s, the modern American white supremacist movement has openly embraced revolutionary rhetoric and tactics, crystallized in a strategy called accelerationism. In the accelerationist doctrine, small acts of violence will lead to a broader conflagration, from which the righteous extremist movement will emerge triumphant having successfully defeated its (in this case, racial) enemy. Many modern acts of far-right violence, accordingly, were predicated on this concept, perhaps none more than Dylann Roof’s white supremacist attack on Charleston ten years ago, in an effort to start a race war.
Q. Another recurring theme in your explanations of far-right terrorism in the U.S., from the 1970s to today, is “leaderless resistance.” Much of this dogma derives from a book titled The Turner Diaries, first sold as a paperback in 1978. Has the idea of leaderless resistance helped extremists be more effective in their deadly goals?
A. Leaderless resistance, often colloquially known as “lone actor terrorism,” is a longstanding strategy of far-right terrorism that relies on lone individuals or small cells rather than hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations. Although originally articulated by American white supremacists in the 1970s, leaderless resistance has in fact been adopted today by most violent extremist movements, from the far-right to Salafi-jihadist groups like the Islamic State. The United States and its Western allies have repeatedly struggled to prevent attacks by lone actors who skirt underneath the counterterrorism radar until they arrive on scene and launch their attacks.
Leaderless resistance is fundamentally a strategy of counter-intelligence: not only does it aim to complicate government infiltration and interdiction of violent plotting, but it also hopes to contain the damage of any one leak or arrest. These small cells would instead lay dormant, safe from prying law enforcement, until the moment comes for them to strike.
“Let the coming night be filled with a thousand points of resistance,” Louis Beam, the father of the American leaderless resistance tradition, wrote. “Like the fog which forms when conditions are right and disappears when they are not, so must the resistance to tyranny be.”
Q. This past April marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, which remains the largest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. How did both accelerationism and leaderless resistance as concepts assist executed mass murderer Timothy McVeigh in killing 168 people in 1995?
A. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing remains not only the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history, but also a template for many far-right extremists today. Indeed, McVeigh and his two accomplices perfectly weaponized the leaderless resistance concept, displaying to tragic effect the havoc that a small but well-trained cell of terrorists can wreak. McVeigh also voiced accelerationist aims, even including pages from The Turner Diaries in his getaway car, including the accelerationist promise “to create unrest by destroying the population’s sense of security and their belief in the invincibility of the government.” Federal prosecutors even claimed the book had been a “blueprint” for his attack.
Fortunately, although the leaderless resistance was devastatingly effective in this case, the accelerationist strategy failed, as Americans instead largely rejected violence and the government succeeded in a crackdown on militia groups after the bombing.
Q. You devote a chapter in the book to conspiracy theories and the mainstreaming of these ideas that once seemed preposterously fringe. Why do conspiracy theories leaving the shadows and taking center stage in our discourse pose such risk to Americans?
A. Social media has played a pivotal role in bringing once-fringe ideas directly into the mainstream of American society, providing the chaotic stage where Americans elevate and argue over vastly different portrayals of the same events. Although a longstanding American tradition, conspiracy theories have been boosted by social media and then hypersonically weaponized by state actors such as Russia and by tragic events such as the Coronavirus pandemic. We now sit at a precipice as a country, where fringe ideas and conspiracy theories permeate government and its opposition, and where partisans will often dismiss objectively truthful information if it does not satiate their thirst for fury against their political opponents.
Our democracy does not rely on one set of ideas and answers, but it does depend on some kind of agreement about shared facts, norms and values. Conspiracy theories destroy such a consensus, leaving Americans living in two fundamentally different realities, where the “other” is demonized and violence against them frequently justified.
Q. On September 10, conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while hosting a public event. Within hours of the shooting, U.S. President Donald Trump blamed the shooting on the “radical left,” saying, “Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” and then continuing, “for years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Based on your research of the history of domestic political violence in the U.S., how much has been incited or executed by far-left actors versus that caused by far-right actors?
A. The assassination of Charlie Kirk marks one of the darkest days in our country’s recent history, and is arguably the highest-profile political assassination the United States has seen since the violent days of the 1960s. Although pundits and politicians have been quick to link him [Kirk’s killer] with the far left, and the nature of his target certainly supports that assessment, very little in his writings or statements point to any real political interest. Indeed, a note left for his roommate and partner showed he may have been inspired as much by a personal dislike of Charlie Kirk as any broader ideological platform: “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk,” he wrote, “and I’m going to take it.”
Regardless, over the past several years, far-right terrorism has posed a far greater threat to the U.S. homeland than other manifestations of ideologically-motivated terrorism, as was seen in tragedies in places like Charleston, SC; Pittsburgh, PA; El Paso, TX; and Buffalo, NY. Data released by nonpartisan organizations like CSIS, the ADL and the Cato Institute also supports this conclusion. Both parties should take responsibility for lowering the temperature in our country and returning to a more civil national dialogue.
“We now sit at a precipice as a country, where fringe ideas and conspiracy theories permeate government and its opposition, and where partisans will often dismiss objectively truthful information if it does not satiate their thirst for fury against their political opponents.” – Bruce Hoffman & Jacob Ware
Q. In the final chapter, you offer suggestions for legislation related to issues from social media to veterans’ services that might ease the threat of domestic terrorism. How likely is a legislative solution in the next few years? Is there any political will in the U.S. to do something truly constructive against domestic terrorism?
A. In short, no. American politicians have shown repeatedly that they will refuse to take action on both domestic terrorism issues as well as the broader polarization that has paralyzed our political system. In our book, we call for a range of legal remedies, from the passage of domestic terrorism laws to gun control measures to social media regulation. Our country needs a serious, sustained, bipartisan and national conversation on pushing back against violent and divisive forces, but our current politicians seem unwilling to capitalize on the shame and anxiety permeating our country after Kirk’s tragic murder.
Q. Your book is a sobering read. And yet, you both work to prepare students to engage with the world, encounter difference and improve the safety and security of the U.S. for everyone. Why?
A. In our final chapter, we warn that our country is facing a generational struggle to move beyond the forces of anger, division and violence that plague our politics today. Accordingly, it is our students and their friends and colleagues who will determine whether our country will rise from this period or not. The best we can do is guide them on their intellectual journeys and provide them with the tools they need to build strong, resilient institutions, and encourage the difficult and uncomfortable conversations that will accompany them throughout their careers.