Sen. Schmitt’s hearing on political violence is a sham

He and his fellow Republicans should look in the mirror before pointing fingers at their Democratic counterparts.

Since the murder of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, the Trump administration and its allies on the Hill have relentlessly pushed a dishonest narrative—namely, that the American left is chiefly if not solely responsible for political violence in America. Political violence is committed by those all along the political spectrum, and, indeed, all data shows that the preponderance has been on the right. On Tuesday, the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution is set to continue the disinformation campaign of asymmetrical blame with a hearing. In the words of Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who chairs the subcommittee, the hearing will highlight the supposed “reality that political violence comes predominantly from one side of the aisle.” Schmitt argues left-wing violence is now so prevalent that it poses “a threat to our constitutional order.”

Schmitt’s claims are nonsense. He and his fellow Republicans should look in the mirror before pointing fingers at their Democratic counterparts.

The senator has not produced any supposed examples of left-wing violence that threaten America’s constitutional form of governance. As the No Kings rallies this month demonstrated, the opposition to the Trump regime is overwhelmingly peaceful. About 7 million people exercised their First Amendment rights, with some wearing humorous costumes and carrying funny signs—not guns. The American right has never put on such a powerful display of peaceful resistance. Moreover, as we’ve written previously, the data consistently show that violence carried out by right-wing extremists is far more common and deadlier than violence conducted by the far left.

(TapTheForwardAssist)

Unsurprisingly, Schmitt neglected to mention the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in his hearing announcement. It is easy to see why. That attack, instigated by President Donald Trump, violently interrupted the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. In fact, it is the only act of political violence that has threatened the “constitutional order” in recent memory. And it was orchestrated by far-right extremists who support Trump.

When he was attorney general of Missouri, Schmitt sought to aid Trump in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Schmitt supported a lawsuit filed by Texas that offered false claims about voting in swing states. The Supreme Court rejected the suit outright. As a Senate candidate in 2021, Schmitt also endorsed Trump’s lies about the election.

Prior to Trump’s second inauguration, Schmitt claimed that the president would take “the exact right approach” when weighing pardons for the Jan. 6 convicts and defendants. “I think you do separate violent acts from nonviolent acts, but I think [Trump’s] been pretty clear he’s going to view these individually,” Schmitt said.

That did not happen. Instead, Trump issued a sweeping pardon and commutation for all those who stormed the citadel of American democracy, including every member of the mob who attacked law enforcement that day. Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted during the Capitol riot. All those officers were victims of political violence wrought by Trump and his lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Schmitt apparently has no interest in investigating Trump’s election lies or unprecedented pardons, including how they might be viewed as justifying political violence. Earlier this month, one pardoned rioter was arrested and charged with threatening House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,” the pardoned rioter reportedly wrote.

Jan. 6 and Trump’s subsequent pardons are hardly the only events that undermine the senator’s politicized narrative and that should be discussed during any hearing on “political violence” in America.

Consider the racist “great replacement theory,” which some experts regard as the “deadliest” conspiracy theory of the internet age. Approximately 100 people have been killed since 2017 by extremists who were motivated, at least in part, by this white nationalist belief. (A brief summary of these attacks is provided below.) In its Americanized version, the theory holds that Democrats and the American elite are seeking to replace white Americans with non-white residents via mass migration. Some versions of this debunked conspiracy are explicitly antisemitic, with Jewish leaders and organizations supposedly orchestrating the replacement scheme. Echoes of this white nationalist belief can be heard in the lies told by Trump and other Republicans, who repeatedly claim that Democrats want large numbers of undocumented migrants to vote. This lie is easily debunked, as non-citizen voting is already illegal and virtually nonexistent.

Though the great replacement theory was once a fringe extremist idea confined to the backwaters of the internet, it has gained popularity as the American right has veered to more extreme positions—even as the body count created by its adherents has risen. For example, Kirk wrote in a Feb. 24, 2024, Instagram post: “The ‘Great Replacement’ is not a theory, it’s a reality.”

As the Associated Press and The New York Times have reported, Schmitt himself employed rhetoric similar to the great replacement theory while running for Senate. Schmitt accused the Democrats of “fundamentally trying to change this country through their illegal immigration policy.” More recently, Schmitt was criticized for echoing the core tenets of the theory, as well as other white nationalist motifs, in a speech before the National Conservatism Conference in early September. For instance, Schmitt accused the American elite of seeking to “replace American workers” by “funnel[ing] in millions of foreign nationals to take the jobs, salaries, and futures that should belong to our own children.”

It is deeply irresponsible for Schmitt and other Republicans to promote such ideas long after they’ve proved deadly. Here are several examples of attacks carried out by white men inspired, at least in part, by the great replacement theory:

• During the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, white nationalists and other far-right extremists openly promoted the “great replacement theory” with chants such as “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!” One of the rally’s participants, James Alex Fields Jr., drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one person and wounding dozens of others. Fields was among the rally participants who “engaged in chants promoting or expressing white supremacist and other racist and anti-Semitic views,” according to the Department of Justice. Before the rally, Fields expressed support “for the social and racial policies of Adolf Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, including the Holocaust,” and espoused violence against non-white ethnic groups.

• On Oct. 27, 2018, Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 Jewish worshippers celebrating Shabbat at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa. Bowers held deeply antisemitic views and was motivated by the great replacement theory. Before the massacre, Bowers focused his online rage at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), an organization that assists refugees, claiming that it was bringing “invaders in that kill our [White] people.”

• On March 14, 2019, Brenton Tarrant massacred 51 people attending services at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant left behind a manifesto, “The Great Replacement.” Although Tarrant’s shooting spree occurred half a world away, as explained below, it subsequently inspired similar attacks inside the United States.

• On April 27, 2019, John Earnest, a 19-year-old man, opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, Calif. (near San Diego), on the last day of Passover, killing one person and injuring three others. Before the attack, Earnest explained his antisemitic, white supremacist views in an open letter posted on 8Chan, a far-right message board that attracts conspiracy theorists and extremists. Earnest praised Bowers and Tarrant in his letter. “I hate anyone who seeks the destruction of my race,” he wrote. Earnest used racist slurs for Hispanic people and Black Americans, claiming they “are useful puppets for the Jew in terms of replacing Whites.”

• On Aug. 3, 2019, Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old man, killed 23 people and wounded 22 others at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. His victims were primarily Hispanic. Crusius posted his own online manifesto, “An Inconvenient Truth,” shortly before his attack. In it, he identified himself as a white nationalist, explaining that he hoped to dissuade more Hispanic immigrants from coming to the United States. Crusius began his hate-filled essay by decrying the supposed “Hispanic invasion” of America and praising Tarrant’s treatise. Although Crusius criticized establishment Republicans for their immigration policies, he argued that “at least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.” Similar to the rhetoric employed by leading Republicans today, Crusius claimed that Democrats were using immigration to replace white Americans and transform the country into a one-party state. “The Democrat party will own America and they know it,” Crusius wrote. “They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc,” he added.

• On May 14, 2022, an 18-year-old man, Payton S. Gendron, shot and killed 10 Black Americans at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. Three other people were wounded. Gendron was motivated by white supremacist beliefs, including the great replacement theory.

• On Aug. 26, 2023, Ryan Palmeter, a 21-year-old man, shot and killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Fla. Palmeter cited Tarrant as the “main inspiration for [his] methods … and targets.”

Of course, Schmitt was not personally responsible for the string of attacks listed above. Nor has he publicly condoned them. But he has employed rhetoric like the hateful ideas that motivated these killers. Instead of holding a hearing to falsely tarnish the American left as uniquely violent, perhaps he should first reflect on the violence wrought by believers in the great replacement theory. He’d also be well-served to revisit the political violence carried out by Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6 and the possibility that some of those who were imprisoned will become violent again.

Tom Joscelyn is a senior fellow at Just Security. Susan Corke is the executive director of Democracy Defenders Action and Democracy Defenders Fund. Norm Eisen is the publisher of The Contrarian.

---