Once again, hate is on the rise in America, and we have Donald Trump to thank for it. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of hate groups over the last four years—with a 7 percent increase in 2018 alone. In the SPLC’s annual "Year in Hate and Extremism" report, it designates a staggering 1,020 organizations as hate groups. This number represents a 20-year high.
NPR reports that the SPLC attributes this increase to Trump, right-wing media, and the viral spread of hate via social media platforms. But Trump and his right-wing cronies are only able to sell their message of hate because they have something specific to exploit. The SPLC directly links the growth in hate groups to "hysteria over losing a white-majority nation to demographic change."
While all of this is disturbing and frightening, it is also not new. Trump’s entire political career has been based on stoking fear of the other and tapping into white outrage over an increasing browning of America. Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, says that the data is clear: Trump is not only a polarizing president, but also one that is responsible for radicalizing racists and motivating them to action. "Rather than trying to tamp down hate, as presidents of both parties have done, President Trump elevates it — with both his rhetoric and his policies. In doing so, he's given people across America the go-ahead to to act on their worst instincts."
Unsurprisingly, the SPLC has found that most of America’s hate groups are organized around white supremacy as an ideology. This includes the Neo-Nazis and Klan members that Trump thinks are very fine people, as well as white nationalists, racist skinheads, and neo-Confederates. The center also clarifies the difference between these groups and black nationalist groups, which are also growing in number. They say that black nationalist groups “are often anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT and anti-white but, unlike white nationalist groups, have little support and basically no sway in politics.”
Of course, in the madness of the Trump era, it’s easy for the SPLC’s hate group list to be written off as fake news. The center has received pushback about the groups and individuals included on the list and has been accused of unnecessarily stoking fears about the threat of hate. Three organizations are actually suing over their inclusion on the list. And last year, the group paid $3.4 million to a British political activist for including him on an anti-Muslim extremist list just two years before. The activist, Maajid Nawaz, is a former self-identified Muslim extremist who often aligns himself with anti-Muslim right-wing politicians. The president of the SPLC publicly apologized for the inclusion of Nawaz on the list.
Still, it’s likely that the SPLC gets way more right about hate groups than it gets wrong.
Anyone outside of the MAGA-hat-wearing crowd can see that hate has been on the rise since the candidacy and election of our first black president. It went from a birther movement and conspiracy theories to the MAGA movement to the increase in white domestic terrorism and Neo-Nazis and Klan members openly roaming American streets and killing people. And while Donald Trump and the right-wing media that loves him didn’t invent hate or white supremacist ideology, they have certainly capitalized on it. The small silver lining to this very dark cloud is that, according to the SPLC, Trump’s popularity seems to be waning some among his most-rabid racist supporters. The group uses recent statements by white nationalist Richard Spencer as proof. Spencer, who has been gleefully leading Neo-Nazis in rallies all across the U.S., said this after the recent midterms: "The Trump moment is over, and it's time for us to move on."
We can only hope Spencer is right. And while the moment may be dwindling for some, its effect on American society will likely prove to be long-lasting.