Nihilistic violent extremism

Nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), or nihilistic extremism, is a term used by law enforcement agencies to refer to extremism and violence lacking an ideological motivation, instead motivated by a misanthropic worldview and generalized hatred for society.^[1] It is closely associated with groups such as 764 and No Lives Matter. Despite nihilistic violent extremism's characterization as being unmotivated by genuine ideology, groups or individuals falling under this umbrella may adopt the aesthetics of, or have sympathies for, other extremist ideologies, such as neo-Nazism, or the variant of Satanism associated with the Order of Nine Angles, as well as accelerationism. It is also closely associated with sexual misconduct, such as solicitation, production, or possession of child pornography, and sextortion.^[2]

History

Nihilistic violent extremism was originally coined by federal prosecutors in the United States who often used the term in search warrant and indictment filings to describe individuals, often but not always associated with groups such as 764 and No Lives Matter, who were being charged, searched, or found guilty of crimes or attempts at one which were alleged or confirmed to have been motivated by attempts at taking down major societal institutions, attempting to cause political and societal chaos, or otherwise committing violent acts somewhere without a cohesive ideological worldview involving belief systems such as religion and ethnic conflict.^[3] The term has since increasingly been used publicly in dialogue by law enforcement circles regarding criminal investigations of extremist crimes in the United States, most notably by FBI director Kash Patel during an oversight committee in the Senate in 2025, where he claimed that NVEs were a rising terrorist threat and that the FBI had "over 1,700 investigations" dedicated to nihilistic terrorism, which he claimed was a "300% increase" compared to 2024.^[4][5] Patel has claimed that NVEs make up "a large chunk" of domestic terrorism cases in the United States.^[5]