Misogyny: A New Core Pillar of Far-Right Extremist Ideology

When two teenage neo-Nazis opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, killing three men and wounding an entire community, the attack was quickly categorized as an act of Islamophobia and antisemitism. But a deeper examination of the 75-page manifesto the perpetrators left behind reveals a third, equally central driver of their violence: a virulent, dehumanizing misogyny that experts say has become a defining feature of contemporary far-right extremism.

According to NPR, the manifesto — titled “The New Crusade” and attributed to Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17 — establishes a clear hierarchy of hatred. “After the Jew the most evil creature in this world is the woman,” it declares, framing women as existential threats alongside Jewish people, Muslims, Black people, and LGBTQ+ individuals. The document uses the dehumanizing term “foid” (short for “female humanoid organism”), a slur popularized in misogynist incel communities, and explicitly cites the 2014 Isla Vista killings by Elliot Rodger as an inspiration.

The Misogyny Gap in Media Coverage

Despite the centrality of anti-woman ideology in the manifesto, early media coverage largely overlooked this dimension. Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, wrote in Ms. Magazine that “much of the reporting on this week’s tragic shooting at a San Diego mosque has overlooked how male supremacism intersected with the attackers’ xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and white supremacist ideology.”

DiBranco told NPR she was surprised when she opened the manifesto after having read the prior coverage. “[One of the suspects] starts with talking about Jewish people as the No. 1 enemy,” she said. “And then in his next section says, ‘And then right after Jews, women are the No. 1 enemy.’”

A Fundamental Shift in Extremist Ideology

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said the prominence of misogyny in the San Diego manifesto represents a significant evolution from the white supremacist movements of a decade ago. “He just flat out says he hates women and that they’re the devil and they’re destroying everything,” Beirich told NPR. “And this is an important thing, because that kind of misogyny did not exist in white supremacist circles, say, 10, 15 years ago.”

Beirich argues that misogyny has now become as central to white nationalist ideology as racism or neo-Nazism. “It has completely infected the white supremacist realm,” she said. The shift reflects the growing influence of online incel communities, Gamergate-era harassment culture, and a broader ecosystem of anti-feminist conspiracy theories that blame women for societal decline.

Jill Filipovic, writing in Slate, noted that the shooters’ ideology mirrors a broader trend: “The misogyny running through their ideology has barely been news at all.” She pointed to the mainstreaming of anti-feminist rhetoric in conservative politics, where figures advocating for the repeal of the 19th Amendment or promoting “breeding gulags” have gained influence.

The Accelerationist Playbook

The San Diego attack followed a now-familiar pattern established by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people at two Christchurch, New Zealand, mosques in 2019. The perpetrators livestreamed their attack, uploaded it to a gore-sharing platform, and left behind a manifesto explicitly calling for copycats. They referred to themselves as “Sons of Tarrant.”

Matthew Kriner, executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, said the attack is a textbook example of accelerationist terrorism. “The perpetrators filmed their activities in the same script that we’ve seen previous accelerationist attackers do,” he told NPR. Accelerationism is the belief that societal collapse should be hastened through violence to build a white ethnostate.

Elliot Chandler, a researcher at the Norway-based threat monitoring firm Revontulet, explained that the perpetrators’ goal was to inspire a cascade of violence. “That is the goal, is to [say], ‘Look at what I am doing … remember me for it … and in that veneration, copy it. Do it yourself. Create more of it,’” Chandler said.

A Dangerous Policy Gap

The attack has reignited concern over the Trump administration’s approach to counterterrorism. On May 6, the White House released its 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy, which highlights narcoterrorists, Islamist terrorists, and violent left-wing extremists as major threats — but omits far-right, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist threats entirely.

Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, wrote in Foreign Policy that the document “falls far short of previous counterterrorism strategies and is riddled with partisanship, misplaced assumptions, and a failure to grasp the nuance of terrorists’ ideology.” He told NPR: “Far-right terrorism is alive and well, but you wouldn’t know it from reading this document. This is an unserious document written by unserious people about a deadly serious subject.”

The Mainstreaming of Extremist Rhetoric

Experts point to a troubling feedback loop between fringe extremism and mainstream conservative politics. White House accounts have used the term “remigration” — a white supremacist policy concept calling for the forced removal of immigrants and their descendants. Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk amplified debunked claims about Somali fraud in Minnesota. A congressional “Sharia-Free America Caucus” has gained over 60 members.

As the GPAHE analysis of the manifesto noted, “When there is little distinction between the language coming from a neo-Nazi online forum and the official social media accounts of the White House, there is no meaningful barrier between the fringe and the mainstream.”

What Comes Next

The San Diego attack — which claimed the lives of Amin Abdullah, a 51-year-old security guard hailed as a hero for protecting over 100 children; Mansour Kaziha, 78, a Syrian-born mosque employee; and Nader Awad, 57, who ran toward the gunfire — is a stark warning that white supremacist terrorism remains a persistent and evolving threat.

As the FBI continues its investigation and the families of the victims mourn, the question that lingers is whether law enforcement and policymakers will adapt to the changing nature of the threat — one where misogyny is no longer a footnote in extremist ideology, but a driving force.

“These movements, they’re not confined by borders,” Beirich said. “They are truly transnational.” And as the San Diego manifesto makes clear, their targets are expanding.