On Saturday morning, I woke up to an article about a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which concludes that “far-right extremists have ramped up an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others ahead of next month’s US midterm elections”.

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: 11 killed and suspect taken into custody Read more

The ADL had found a vast number of antisemitic messages on Twitter. About a third were from bots but the most “worrisome and harmful” were from accounts of “real-life humans”, including leaders of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

This should come as no surprise to anyone with even a casual knowledge of contemporary US politics. Obviously, the first amendment protects antisemitic messages, as it should. But this does not take away from the fact that the recent spike in open and virulent far-right rhetoric will inevitably have real-world consequences.

In just one week, no less than three far-right terrorist attacks have made the news. I won’t name the various suspected terrorists, as this only increases their importance and could encourage copycats. But on Friday, the man suspected of sending more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent critics of Donald Trump was arrested in Florida. The suspect had been driving around in a “Maga van” for months, the vehicle plastered with pictures of Donald Trump and Mike Pence, with the faces of some of their critics, including George Soros, in crosshairs.

Two days earlier, a white man had shot two black people in a Kroger grocery store in Kentucky. You probably haven’t even heard of this attack, which is being investigated as a possible hate crime. The man first tried to enter the First Baptist church of Jeffersontown, a predominantly African American church, police said, but was thankfully unsuccessful because the church was locked down. According to a witness, after he succeeded in shooting black people the gunman told a white bystander: “Whites don’t kill whites.”

Don’t even try to look for the words 'terror' or 'terrorist'. The suspects are 'attackers' or 'shooters'

And then, on Saturday, another white man wreaked havoc in a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 people and injuring six, including four police officers. According to law enforcement agents, he shouted antisemitic abuse during the attack. The suspect was taken into custody.

Responses to the three attacks have been predictable. Far-right pundits and websites claimed the pipe bombings were a “false flag” operation, continuing to spread bizarre conspiracy theories even after the suspect was arrested. Conservatives pulled out their usual “crazy person” defense, calling attack after attack an “incident”. Trump functioned, as always, as the amplifier-in-chief, initially suggesting a false flag operation with regard to the pipe bomber and calling the Pittsburgh shooter “a maniac”, before using the tragedy to call upon houses of worship to arm themselves and to openly muse about the importance of reinstating the death penalty – nationwide, I assume.

The media played its usual role, too. Don’t even try to look for the words “terror” or “terrorist”. The suspects are “attackers” or “shooters” and journalists bend over backwards to not “jump to conclusions” on their motives. Instead, they are happily speculating about their mental health, as if that would exclude the possibility of far-right terrorism. Even when police officers said the man who had just killed Jewish people in a synagogue had made antisemitic remarks, media continued to note, without irony, that the shooter’s motives “are unclear”.

Trump acknowledged the Pittsburgh attack as a case of antisemitism, but did not use the term “terrorism” (unlike whenever he thinks a Muslim is responsible for an attack), did not connect the attack to the two other ones, and spoke in general terms of “so many incidents with churches”, without mentioning that most (recent) violent attacks on churches have been on black churches and had a racist motive.

Pittsburgh shooting: suspect railed against Jews, Muslims on site used by 'alt-right' Read more

While all three men might be “lone wolf” terrorists, operating alone and without support of other individuals or an organized group, they do not act within a political vacuum. Yes, US society is polarizing, but as has been shown well before Trump became the leader of the (far) right, it comes primarily from the right. Conspiracy theories about an allegedly violent left or about the nefarious George Soros have moved from the fringes of Infowars to the tweets of the US president. And they have inspired a host of far-right terrorists.

Sure, only the terrorists themselves are legally responsible for their heinous crimes. But those stoking the far-right fires have at least a moral responsibility. And so have most of the US media, who continue their frame of false equivalence, in which liberals who shout abuse at Republicans in restaurants are equated to far-right terrorists who kill Democrats and minorities, or try to.

As long as media continue to call far-right terrorism “shootings” and treat them as “incidents” by “mentally unstable” or “tragic” loners, while at the same inflating the violence of “the left” (eg by sensationalizing Antifa), there are not just reporting on the problem. They are an important part of it.