A senior adviser to US President Donald Trump has described left-wing political violence as a "fatal cancer to civilisation" and suggested that anyone who supports left-wing groups such as Antifa is "deformed".
The remarks by Stephen Miller, Mr Trump's deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, are on brand for one of Washington's most divisive voices.
His comments highlight how the Trump administration is trying to define political violence as something committed almost exclusively by the left.
"The leftist is fundamentally motivated by envy, by hatred, by jealousy," Mr Miller told representatives from 67 countries at a State Department conference on the "resurgence of political terrorism" on Thursday. "The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good, and what is natural, and is filled with envy and hatred."
He said left-wing violence, if allowed to run its course, "always becomes a gulag". He repeatedly likened left-wing violence to a disease that seeks to destroy society, and he spoke with contempt for protesters demonstrating against Mr Trump's hardline immigration enforcement procedures.
"To be blunt, not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal," he said. "They're all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke at the summit, where he said the risk of "radical Islamic terrorism" had been largely stamped out but is being replaced by leftist violence.
"The very idea that far-left terrorism could be a serious threat is treated as a right-wing fever dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy," Mr Rubio said. "It's treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions."
Conservatives have real reasons to be worried about political violence. The murder of Charlie Kirk, threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, attacks on immigration officers and two assassination attempts against Mr Trump have all underscored the dangers.
But acknowledging those attacks does not mean politicians should pretend violence is an exclusively left-wing phenomenon. Both Mr Rubio and Mr Miller studiously avoided any reference to right-wing political violence.
There was no mention of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, or the President's blanket pardon of perpetrators, underscoring how inconsistent the administration can be in reacting to political violence.
By ignoring the elephant in the room, Mr Rubio and Mr Miller reinforced the impression that their angst about political violence is purely selective and somewhat performative. They also missed an opportunity to condemn violence in all its forms and build an international consensus to tackle extremism.
A 2022 study published through the US National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine compared political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the US and globally.
It found that among radicalised people in the US, "those adhering to a left-wing ideology were markedly less likely to engage in violent ideologically motivated acts when compared to right-wing individuals".
The State Department says that over the past decade, far-left terrorist plots and attacks have sharply increased in the US and Europe, with a growing trend of violence against people.
This appears to be a reference to a 2025 report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies that describes a recent increase in left-wing terrorism and plots, but notes this was up from a low baseline and "remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and [Islamist] attackers".
Democracy needs leaders who can condemn violence regardless of who commits it.
By reducing extremism to a one-sided problem, Mr Rubio and Mr Miller seem to be more interested in opening a new front in the culture war than genuinely addressing the problem.
