SPLC: Number of hate groups hits 20-year high
Makeup of annual tally does stir controversy
The number of hate groups active in the U.S. rose to its highest level in two decades last year, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Propelled by a rise in extremism, the number of groups that the civil rights organization labels as espousing hate climbed to 1,020, up from 784 just four years previously. In the past year alone, it was up 7 percent.
The groups range from white supremacists to black nationalists, neonazis to neo-confederates.
The annual tally, however, is controversial. It gives the same hate label to some conservative church or political groups like Catholic Family Ministries (listed as a “general hate group”) or Conservative Republicans of Texas (branded “anti-lgbt”) as it does to outfits like the Ku Klux Klan or American Nazi Party.
Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’S Intelligence Project, told USA TODAY the groups that SPLC considers to be hateful enough to make the survey are reviewed carefully before being added and that “we try to err on the side of caution.”
The most significant growth over the past two years has been in white nationalist organizations, up from 193 to 264, said Beirich, who authored the report. It marks a resurgence in the aftermath of the massive 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that focused attention on the movement.
“Much of the energy on the radical right this year was concentrated in the white supremacist milieu,” the report reads. “After a lull that followed the violence in Charlottesville, which brought criminal charges and civil suits that temporarily dampened the radical right’s activism and organizing, newer groups gathered momentum.”
All are driven by concern about dwindling white power, as seen by Census Bureau projections that Caucasians will lose their majority by 2044, according to the report. After a sharp dropoff in the first half of the decade — Beirich said those groups had been driven underground — they revived as the 2016 election approached.
Though the U.S. no longer has an African-american president, hate groups became motivated by what they saw as too slow of progress toward their goals, such as President Donald Trump being stymied in his goal of building a wall along the Mexican border, she said.
Interestingly, the report says the Ku Klux Klan appears in decline. The group, despite a history that stretches back more than a century, has been marked by infighting.
“The KKK has not been able to appeal to younger racists, with its antiquated traditions, odd dress and lack of digital savvy. Younger extremists prefer ... polo shirts and khakis to klan robes,” it says.
But the report also points out there is no shortage of hate-filled alternatives, whether they are neo-nazis, racist skinheads or others who direct their anger at immigrants; lesbians, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals; Muslims; or others.