Hate Groups Topped 1,000 For The First Time Since The Southern Poverty Law Center Began Counting

[Turborama]

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/spring">Intelligence Report, Spring 2011, Issue Number: 141

The Year in Hate & Extremism, 2010

By Mark Potok

For the second year in a row, the radical right in America expanded explosively in 2010, driven by resentment over the changing racial demographics of the country, frustration over the government’s handling of the economy, and the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and other demonizing propaganda aimed at various minorities. For many on the radical right, anger is focusing on President Obama, who is seen as embodying everything that’s wrong with the country.

Hate groups topped 1,000 for the first time since the Southern Poverty Law Center began counting such groups in the 1980s. Anti-immigrant vigilante groups, despite having some of the political wind taken out of their sails by the adoption of hard-line anti-immigration laws around the country, continued to rise slowly. But by far the most dramatic growth came in http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/spring/active-patriot-groups-in-the-us">the antigovernment “Patriot” movement — conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy — which gained more than 300 new groups, a jump of over 60%.

Taken together, these three strands of the radical right — the hatemongers, the nativists and the antigovernment zealots — increased from 1,753 groups in 2009 to 2,145 in 2010, a 22% rise. That followed a 2008-2009 increase of 40%.

What may be most remarkable is that this growth of right-wing extremism came even as politicians around the country, blown by gusts from the Tea Parties and other conservative formations, tacked hard to the right, co-opting many of the issues important to extremists. Last April, for instance, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070, the harshest anti-immigrant law in memory, setting off a tsunami of proposals for similar laws across the country. Continuing growth of the radical right could be curtailed as a result of this shift, especially since Republicans, many of them highly conservative, recaptured the U.S. House last fall.

Full report: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/spring/the-year-in-hate-extremism-2010

A new site worth checking out...

http://whatunites.us/">


---x---

[Azathoth]

1. What's really scary is the willingness of conservatives to embrace and mainstream these nuts

At least under Clinton there was a tacit attempt to distance themselves from the McVeigh types. Now Murdoch is putting these nutjobs in his primetime lineup, and GOP candidates are openly adopting their language.

[Turborama]

2. Yeah, and the fact that the media will take them seriously during the 2012 election is scary, too.

We don't know who's running on the Republican ticket yet apart from Gingrich, but the fact McCain/Palin got 45.7% last time makes me worried that one of these nutjobs could actually pull it off.

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. 3, 2, 1....

Where's the guy claiming the SPLC is a hate group? He should be along shortly.