On May 18, 2026, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, two teenagers attacked San Diego’s largest mosque. They murdered three people before killing themselves. This is not just another episode of gun violence; it is an aspect of the joint terror campaign that the Trump administration and its supporters are waging against us from both within the state and outside it.

All evidence suggests that the tragedy in San Diego is the latest in an ongoing series of white supremacist shootings. According to news reports, one of the shooters “left [a] suicide note that contained writings about racial pride”; the words “hate speech” were written on one of the firearms used in the attack. Anti-Muslim writings were reportedly found in the attackers’ vehicle. A photo is circulating that shows an “SS” sticker on a gas canister that the attackers used. The attack seems to have been at least partially inspired by the anti-Muslim Christchurch massacre in New Zealand in 2019, which left 49 people dead and almost 100 injured

This comes amid a year-long uptick in both autonomous far-right violence and state repression targeting immigrants and anti-ICE protesters. And at the same time, Donald Trump has been promoting the blatantly false narrative that those who oppose this violence are the real threat to the general public. For example, in their “2026 Counterterrorism Strategy,” the Trump administration alleges that “anarchists and anti-fascists” represent one of the “three major types of terror groups” endangering the public, alongside “narcoterrorists”—which, for all intents and purposes, now simply means whichever unfortunate fishermen Pete Hegseth chooses to murder on a given week—and, unsurprisingly, “Islamist terrorists.”

The tragedy in San Diego once again shows how the institutions of power encourage far-right terror while seeking to smear anti-authoritarian protesters and social movements as the dangerous ones. In fact, those who are taking action to oppose fascism are the only ones who are responding appropriately to the dangers of our time.

Far-Right Street Violence

Racist violence has played a fundamental role in shaping the United States for centuries, from the wave of terror that the Ku Klux Klan used to suppress Reconstruction to the bombing that the white supremacist Timothy McVeigh carried out in Oklahoma City. Today, there is no longer any distance between the Republican Party and the openly fascist street organizations through which it seeks to execute its agenda. Under Donald Trump, the Republican Party works directly with Proud Boys, neo-Nazi “groypers,” and the Christian Nationalist movement, endeavoring to popularize and weaponize anti-immigrant sentiments and conspiracy theories such as the “Great Replacement.”

Promoted by ruling-class institutions like the Republican Party, reactionary tech billionaires like Elon Musk, and elite propagandists like Tucker Carlson, the “Great Replacement” conspiracy seeks to channel anger originally provoked by the consequences of capitalist globalization and a declining standard of living against poor migrant laborers who are themselves among the worst impacted. This narrative only pretends to challenge the power of the billionaire elites. In fact, it is designed to excuse and defend it.

The “Great Replacement” conspiracy continues to motivate horrific violence against working-class people, taking the pressure off politicians and capitalists. The attack in San Diego is only one of many mass shootings that fascists have recently carried out in the US. Alongside it, we can count the massacre that the neo-Nazi Dylan Roof perpetrated in a South Carolina church in 2015, the murder of Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the slaughter of working-class Latinos in Texas in 2019, and the attack on working-class Black community members at a grocery store in New York in 2022.

The bloodshed shows no signs of slowing down. This past week, someone murdered a trans student on a college campus in Washington, a man in Pennsylvania was arrested for threatening to carry out attacks, and in Tennessee, where racist politicians have just redistricted to suppress Black voters following the elimination of the Voting Rights Act, a white supremacist live-streamer was arrested after shooting a Black man he had been taunting with racial slurs.

These are part of a much broader trend. At the opening of 2025, a veteran blew up his Cybertruck in front of a a Trump high-rise in Las Vegas, leaving behind a manifesto calling for racial violence. In Florida, a Trump-suppporting white nationalist that students reported as part of a local Turning Point USA chapter went on a mass shooting spree at his university. Online followers of neo-Nazi groups carried out numerous school shootings, as did anti-vaxxers and anti-abortion activists, targeting workers at the Center for Disease Control and others.

At the same time, neo-Nazi and Proud Boy groups have attempted to attack or intimidate participants in the No Kings and Telsa Takedown demonstrations. Trump supporters have harassed anti-ICE student walkouts, while the state rushed to silence and criminalize those who criticized Charlie Kirk.

Republicans are increasingly embracing openly exterminationist rhetoric against Muslims and Black communities. Likewise, they have promoted neo-Nazi conspiracies about Somalian and Haitian communities. Anti-Muslim white nationalists like Laura Loomer have a direct line to Trump.

This rhetoric has immediate real-world consequences. According to the LA Times, the San Diego shooting occurred directly on the heels of a far-right smear campaign intended to turn people against Muslims in southern California:

Amy “Mek” Mekelburg, a social media influencer who frequently propagates anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, had posted on X claiming that plans by the Islamic Society of Orange County to expand would create a “parallel” society and “Sharia enclave” where US laws do not apply, in service of the “Islamization” of Orange County.

The Trump administration directly benefits from far-right violence. They hope that the threat of such violence will frighten people out of taking the streets, out of standing up for themselves. Just as often, however, their strategy has backfired, discrediting Trump and his allies and convincing people that they must come together and take action before things get even worse.

From Charlottesville 2017 to San Diego 2026

From 2016 to 2020, hundreds of thousands of people across the United States mobilized against the threat that the far right posed under the first Trump administration. At the time, Trump and his supporters were doing their best to provide cover and support to the so-called “Alt-Right” while attempting to demonize and prosecute antifascists. After a neo-Nazi murdered Heather Heyer during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, people flooded into the streets in popular mobilizations that succeeded in shutting down the emerging fascist threat. Neo-fascist groups like the Proud Boys were consistently out-mobilized; for example, in Portland, Oregon, thousands bravely stood strong in the face of violent attacks from both the far right and the police.

In 2023, anti-fascists mobilized across the US again in response to neo-Nazis and other far-right groups attacking drag shows and other queer- and trans-inclusive events around the country. Many helped to organize security for Pride demonstrations and similar community gatherings.

Every time that popular community mobilizations have gotten off the ground, they have shown themselves to be more powerful than far-right movements, despite the fact that the latter receive direct financial, logistical, and media support from Republicans and billionaires like Elon Musk. Musk himself spent tens of billions of dollars to take over Twitter for the express purpose of preventing it from serving as a space where people could organize to resist fascism. As soon as he secured control of the platform, he immediately banned us as well as other leading anarchist and anti-fascist accounts. Yet none of these efforts have succeeded in giving fascism the upper hand in the streets, even to this day.

Now that the Trump administration is losing ground, once more, we will likely see them return to their playbook of fomenting street violence, seeking to tie down their opponents in struggles that do not engage the state itself. They are doing everything they can to shift public attention from the gruesome brutality of ICE agents to the supposed threat represented by anti-fascists. Yet as Trump and his cronies become less and less popular, being among their most visible enemies will afford opportunities, as well.

We cannot protect ourselves by attempting to stay out of harm’s way—if we cede the streets to them, we will only see their joint campaigns of ethnic cleansing and political repression intensify, backed by billions of tax dollars stolen from us and the ill-gotten fortunes of powerful tech giants. As Trump continues to lose popularity, he will become more violent and unpredictable; we recall how in 2020, Trump goaded US Marshals into shooting the anti-fascist Michael Reinhoehl down in cold blood. Nonetheless, resistance is our best hope. The only way out is through.

We must convey to the general public that white supremacist mass shooters and ICE agents are part of the same project, and only mass action can defeat them. This was true in the Twin Cities last winter and it remains true today. As data centers, ICE concentration camps, and Flock surveillance systems proliferate, we must articulate and demonstrate what solidarity and community defense means in practice. We can do this.