SPLC report: Hate groups in decline as views hit mainstream

Source: Associated Press

SPLC report: Hate groups in decline as views hit mainstream

By AARON MORRISON
March 9, 2022

The number of white nationalist, neo-Nazi and anti-government extremist groups across the U.S. fell for a third straight year in 2021, even as some groups were reinvigorated by the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol last year and by the ongoing culture wars over the pandemic and school curriculums.

In its annual report, released Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it identified 733 active hate groups in 2021, down from the 838 counted in 2020 and the 940 counted in 2019. Hate groups had risen to a historic high of 1,021 in 2018, said the law center, which tracks racism, xenophobia and far right militias.

The number of anti-government groups fell to 488 in 2021, down from 566 in 2020 and 576 in 2019. Such groups peaked at 1,360 in 2012, the year former President Barack Obama was elected to a second term.

“Rather than demonstrating a decline in the power of the far right, the dropping numbers of organized hate and anti-government groups suggest that the extremist ideas that mobilize them now operate more openly in the political mainstream,” says the new report, shared with The Associated Press ahead of its release.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-covid-health-barack-obama-hate-groups-df3c64930014a61c9e430a195f575ad0