The Left-Wing Terror Memeplex

Here’s how the nature of political violence works now.

Many of us who work in politics have felt sickened since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. We sense that a line has been crossed, perhaps permanently.

For years, the Left had accused conservative intellectuals of fomenting “stochastic terrorism”—incendiary rhetoric that inspires violence. This accusation was used to purge conservatives from social media, and, during the Biden administration, contributed to the F.B.I.’s decision to monitor conservatives, including parents who opposed critical race theory. The Left sought to use the stochastic terrorism construction as an all-purpose censorship tool.

This year, the tables have turned. Donald Trump is in power and left-wing violence has surged. Even The Atlantic, which previously seconded the idea of stochastic terrorism, has now conceded that political violence from the Left outstrips that from the Right.

After studying several recent incidents of left-wing terrorism, I want to articulate some initial thoughts about what I call the “left-wing terror memeplex.” This system, in which left-wing narratives inspire decentralized acts of violence, has four elements: prestige narratives, radicalized memespaces, copycat models, and disturbed individuals.

The memeplex is not organized like the older model of left-wing political terrorism, which relied on organized groups (such as the Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army), decentralized cells, ideological formation, and meticulous planning. By contrast, the memeplex is decentralized, mediated through the Internet, and, on the surface, appears unorganized. Left-wing media and political figures peddle narratives through the digital sphere; an individual commits an act of terrorism inspired by those narratives; and the media and political figures pretend that the two are unrelated and that the terrorist was a “lone wolf.”

But if you dig beneath the surface, it becomes apparent that these dots are often connected and that the memeplex, though decentralized, is designed to radicalize disturbed individuals and generate bloodshed—with plausible deniability for political actors. In other words, the progressives who seed the memeplex are fomenting precisely the “stochastic terrorism” that they previously decried.

Let’s examine the elements one by one. First: the prestige narratives. For the past decade, the Left’s elite media and political figures have entrenched a series of hyperbolic and highly polemical narratives: that Donald Trump is analogous to Adolf Hitler; that America is about to fall to fascism; that conservatives are organizing a genocide of transgender people; that deportations are laying the groundwork for martial law. These narratives have taken root not only on the fringes of activism and academia, but are reflected in the headlines of the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Public Radio, MSNBC, and other mainstream outlets.

Likewise, the Democratic Party has deployed these narratives in political campaigns, protest rallies, and social media messaging, arguing that the Right is on the verge of abolishing democracy and ushering in an authoritarian regime. None of these narratives is true, but each yields an emotional payout. Traditional liberals who donate to Democratic politicians and left-wing NGOs genuinely fear that President Trump desires to be a strongman and will do anything necessary to seize power. Politicians have always relied on heated rhetoric to solicit votes and donations. But the left-wing terror memeplex is different, in that the party’s “progressive” faction deploys these carefully crafted narratives in part to activate the radical elements within the broader coalition, including, most notably, anti-fascist and transgender activists.

The second element is the radicalized memespace. The prestige media writes the metanarratives, which filter downward through Reddit, Discord, Steam, Twitch, and other web platforms. Because these digital spaces rely on user-generated discussion and lack the editorial guardrails of a traditional publication, individuals can plunge deep into the radicalization process and take the premises of left-wing narratives to their grim conclusions. Democratic politicians shout that Trump is a fascist; users on Reddit and Discord conclude that the proper response to fascism is political assassination.

These radicalized memespaces are also tailored to psychosexual themes that, while not overtly political, are built on highly ideological concepts, such as intersectional identities. Transgender activists, for example, have anchored their narratives in queer theory, a discipline that is deeply tied to the politics of the Left, particularly in its most radical forms. In the memespace, the personal is always political.

A spate of recent terror incidents illustrates the connection. The Annunciation Catholic Church shooter, for example, appears to have been radicalized into a transgender identity through radicalized memespaces. The alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk reportedly played a “dating simulator” involving “furries.” Audrey Hale, who killed three children and three adults at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, identified as a transgender man and, in her diaries, described a desire to “kill my own race” and to “kill all the white kids,” showing how trans ideology can overlap with far-left racial politics.

The third element of the terror memeplex is the copycat model. Social scientists have long observed that spectacular acts of violence or terror can inspire others to engage in similar acts of violence and to view them as a competition: more blood, more spectacle, more death. Hale is typical, leaving behind more than a dozen notebooksthat documented her fascination with school shootings, including the Columbine massacre, which remains the ur-event for this kind of violence.

More recently, Luigi Mangione’s alleged assassination of health insurance executive Brian Thompson has sparked a desire for emulation. While most mainline Democratic politicians and prestige media outlets have been careful not to endorse the murder of Thompson, the radicalized memespace has celebrated Mangione, turning him into an icon, calling for copycats, and seeding the ground for future assassinations. Many memeworld leftists have latched on to Mangione’s elite education and handsome appearance to give his nihilistic violence the patina of romanticism and celebrity. And their threats are not idle: the number of American executives who have sought security protection has increased, with many fearing that the C.E.O. assassination archetype, like the school shooting archetype, could replicate itself.

And finally, the fourth element of the left-wing terror memeplex: the disturbed individual. Since the French Revolution, left-wing movements have relied on psychotic, criminal, violent, and nihilistic people to cross the line into violence. In the past, left-wing organizations would painstakingly recruit, train, manipulate, and drive disturbed individuals to political violence through repeated human-to-human interactions. In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government was able to infiltrate groups of this nature through wiretapping, confidential informants, and other human intelligence, which, over the years, led to those groups’ destruction.

Human relationships are complex, and those involving disturbed individuals who want to commit violence are fundamentally unstable and can quickly blow up or burn out. The new left-wing terror memeplex transcends those limitations. The interactions that drive the new terror are not human-to-human in a direct sense, but rather, are mediated by digital technologies and decentralized at each link in the chain.

The psychological profile of these individuals has changed, too. The left-wing terror memeplex has sought to manipulate sexual ideologies and drive emotionally unstable loners and losers into violence. The alleged Kirk assassin, Annunciation school shooter, and Nashville school shooter all experienced sexual disorders, had troubled relationships with families, and spent an inordinate amount of time in the radicalized memespace, where they built the desire for death. Like in the film The Manchurian Candidate, the memeplex operates to remove “guilt and fear” through brainwashing and political conditioning—but, this time, in a totally decentralized and depersonalized manner.

It will not be easy to interrupt the left-wing terror memeplex. While I wholeheartedly support President Trump’s recent designation of Antifa as a domestic terror group, the left-wing terror memeplex is mostly distinct from the masked “black bloc” protesters who have, for example, descended on federal buildings in Portland, Oregon. While dismantling these Antifa groups is noble and just, it might not have a discernible effect on the digitally mediated violence generated by the terror memeplex.

But adopting other proposals could, in the long term, reduce the threat of left-wing terrorism. First, we must mete out social punishment for politicians and media figures who promote irresponsible narratives about impending fascism and “trans genocide.” They should be held accountable for their rhetoric and encouraged to moderate it—or to pay the political price. Those who romanticize, celebrate, and call for political violence should be met with social stigma.

In addition, law enforcement must develop a comprehensive strategy, within the confines of the First Amendment, to monitor radical left-wing memespaces and disrupt acts of violence. At a minimum, federal law enforcement agencies should develop the tools to track radical networks online, uncover illegal activity, and swiftly identify and arrest ringleaders, in the same way they target other criminal networks and conspiracies.

Eventually, we will also have to grapple with the proliferation of disturbed young Americans willing to commit themselves to nihilistic ideologies and engage in political violence. Our country is awash in DSM diagnoses, psychiatric drugs, and psychological decomposition. Not much can be done about these factors in the short term, but we should begin the conversation now, with no regard for political correctness or undue deference to the medical establishment.

The coming years will be a significant test for the left-wing terror memeplex. The Trump administration would do a great service to the country, and to the troubled young people caught in its web, if it took steps to dismantle it.