AS LONG AS Donald Trump remains in power, hope will continue to fester and grow in the United States, according to the latest report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Last year, reports the SPLC in its Intelligence Report, "The Year in Hate: Rage Against Change," the nation saw surging numbers of hate groups. The report was released Wednesday (Feb. 20).
In the U.S., white supremacist fear and anger reached a fever pitch last year as hysteria over losing a white-majority nation to demographic change — and a presumed lack of political will to stop it — engulfed the movement, says the report.
As if to underscore the validity of the report, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday (Feb. 20) that Lt. Christopher Hasson, a member of the Coast Guard arrested last week on drug and gun charges, was, in fact, a terrorist with a lengthy hit list of major Democratic politicians and media personalities from MSNBC and CNN that he wanted to target.
“The defendant is a domestic terrorist bent on committing acts dangerous to human life,” prosecutors said in new court filing.
The alt-right was linked to several multiple killings in the U.S. and Canada in 2018 — a van attack in Toronto; a deadly shooting at a Florida high school; a massacre at a synagogue; and a brutal stabbing outside a Pittsburgh nightspot, according to the SPLC.
Alarmed at the Democrats taking control of the House and a string of setbacks for Trump in obtaining his wall, “The Trump moment is over, and it’s time for us to move on,” said white supremacist leader Richard Spencer.
MAINSTREAM RACISM
MAINSTREAM RACISM
The SPLC report continues: "These fears and frustrations, heightened by U.S. Census Bureau projections that white people will no longer be a majority by 2044, helped propel hate to a new high last year. The total number of hate groups rose to 1,020 in 2018, up about 7 percent from 2017. White nationalist groups alone surged by nearly 50 percent last year, growing from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018. But at the same time, Trump has energized black nationalist hate groups — typically antisemitic and anti-LGBT organizations — with an increase to 264 from 233 in 2017."
Overall, though, the great majority of hate groups are those that despise racial, ethnic or religious minorities and they, unlike black nationalist groups, have moved from the fringes of our society into the mainstream, including into the Trump administration.
The previous all-time high number of hate groups the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) counted was 1,018 in 2011, when rage against President Obama, the first African American president, was roiling. Amid the era of Trump, hate groups continue to increase, rising 30 percent over the past four years.
The midterm elections tended to invigorate hate groups' fears. Many far-right candidates lost.. The election of dozens of women — who an increasingly misogynistic hate movement sees as allies to “white genocide” — stirred up the radical right's fears. Elected to the new U.S. Congress, including two Muslims, Native Americans and more people of color. "For white supremacists, these newly elected officials symbolize the country’s changing demographics — the future that white supremacists loathe and fear," says the report.
TARGETTING IMMIGRANTS
The SPLC was troubled by the administration's apparent anti-immigrant policies. "Whether it is unending ICE raids, abolishing temporary protected status, calling for the end of birthright citizenship, separating families, increasing the number of detentions or sending troops to the border, the administration’s willingness to enact vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies is a travesty of American values," said the report.
Immigration is where Trump’s rhetoric is particularly toxic. He rants and raves about the criminals and drug dealers crossing the southern border and complains about the immigrants and refugees from "sh---hole countries." A Reuters/Ipsos poll from October revealed that immigration is now seen as the top issue for people likely to vote Republican, especially among those who are older and lack a college degree, says the report. Twenty-three percent of Republicans in that same poll said immigration was the “most important problem” facing the country, up from 4 percent in January 2012. Just five years ago, the issue wasn’t nearly so divisive. In 2013, the Senate passed an immigration bill with bipartisan support, something that is unlikely today.
There was a ray of hope, however. The article states, "Most Americans, including almost half of all white people, have come to see Trump as a racist, according to a March 2018 AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. And a majority disapproved of the comments Trump made after the Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' racist and deadly riot, when he said there were 'good people on both sides.'"
But at the same time, Trump’s words and actions are opening up for more hateful views to become "normal," for mainstream America.
Given these trends, there are no signs that the violence, which has been all too common over the past two decades, will let up, says the SPLC. In fact, if the hate movement abandons politics as a solution to demographic change, as recent denunciations of Trump by prominent white supremacists seem to indicate, more angry lone wolves like Hasson and Dylan Roof, who shot up a black church, may see violence as their only option.
DOWNLOAD the full SPLC report: The Year in Hate: Rage Against Change
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