Killers without a cause: The rise in nihilistic violent extremism

[Nevilledog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/08/nihilistic-violence-emerges/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/GnAYI


Amid a wave of high-profile killings and political violence in the United States, investigators have been confounded regularly by the absence of a recognizable agenda.

The assailants in several cases — shootings, a bombing, a planned drone attack — resisted familiar labels and categories. They were not Democrat or Republican, or Islamist militant, or antifa or white supremacist.

They were something new. In their manifestos, these attackers declared their contempt for humanity and a desire to see the collapse of civilization. Law enforcement officers and federal prosecutors have begun to describe these attacks as a contemporary strain of nihilism, an online revival of the philosophical stance that arose in the 19th century to deny the existence of moral truths and meaning in the universe.

Recent assailants who have been tagged as nihilists include the following: A 15-year-old shooter in Madison, Wisconsin, who left behind a manifesto titled “War Against Humanity” in which she described the human race as “filth.” A 24-year-old man who plotted a drone attack to blow up the Nashville power grid was seeking to precipitate “the start of the end … for the interconnected or otherwise globalized world.” A self-described “anti-natalist,” 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, blew himself up outside an in vitro fertilization clinic in May, having argued that humans should not be brought into existence without their consent.

*snip*

[malaise]

1. Why did this author include antifa

Won’t read past that

[haele]

3. Maybe because Antifa in Europe is different than antifa in the US.

Antifa is a collective political organization in Germany and currently more of a militant left wing organization, often aligned with Black Bloc, which tends to be more Nihilist.
The Right's Boogyman, the Soros Foundation, wouldn't touch the German Antifa organization with a ten-foot pile.

In this context, Antifa can be fit into the radical "burn it all down" category of political movements.

However, antifa (or "auntie-fa" as I tend to call it) in the US is a recent center/center-left pro-democracy movement that is autonomous, decentralized and aligned to protecting the existing Constitutional Status Quo under local politics rather than some overarching organizational manifesto.

They are radically different, if you'd pardon the pun.

The German Antifa collective considers the US antifa movement to be weak, middle class bourgeoisie, and performative - because we aren't attempting to tear it down the "hypocritical promise" of Democracy and create a Anarcho-Leftist union of workers, scientists, and artists

The author has good points, even though their understanding of political movements is a bit dated.

[democrank]

2. K & R

Lately I’ve been thinking about situational ethics. Now on to the denial of “moral truths” if I’m understanding correctly. It’s unsettling.

Thank you for posting this, Nevilledog.