Tom Wolfe’s much-quoted adage is that “the dark night of fascism is always descending on America but always lands in Europe.” In a similar vein, one can say that the authorities and the press are always looking for “domestic terrorism” on the right, but in fact, it consistently comes from the left.
The latest left-wing terrorist is Elias Rodriguez. Rodriguez was obsessed with Israel and chanted “Free, free Palestine” after murdering Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, just as if he were participating in a demonstration at Columbia. He left behind a self-justification on Twitter in which he called Israel a “genocidal apartheid state,” a sentiment that could have come from a number of members of Congress. Israel is so evil, according to Rodriguez, that “to many Americans,” murdering Israelis is “in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.”
As is generally the case these days, Rodriguez’s hatred of Israel (and, I assume, Jews in general) was squarely located in a left-wing context. He was a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is now distancing itself from his murders. He participated in at least one Chicago demonstration sponsored by the Communist organization International ANSWER. In his Twitter self-glorification, Rodriguez praised just one other anti-Zionist, Aaron Bushnell. Bushnell was the Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. Bushnell, too, was a leftist. The New York Times says that Bushnell threw “himself into leftist and anarchist activism, talking often about alleviating poverty and opposing capitalism.”
It is often said that if you scratch an anti-Zionist, you will find an anti-American. Thus, from Rodriguez’s Twitter feed:
James Hodgkinson didn’t live long enough to become a hero to the Left, but Luigi Mangione is now a celebrity. So far, 28,000 leftists have donated more than $1 million for his legal defense. We will see whether something similar happens with Rodriguez.
Murderers and would-be murderers are of course relatively rare. But the level of derangement on today’s left is such that it is producing attempted and successful homicides with some regularity. James Hodgkinson, Nicholas Roske, Thomas Crooks, Ryan Routh, Luigi Mangione and Elias Rodriguez are unusual because they carried their convictions to a logical extreme. But the deranged hate that led to their homicidal deeds grew directly out of today’s mainstream Left.
I am afraid that we have not seen anything like the end of left-wing terrorism.
