The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has reported a startling increase in hate and anti-government extremist groups, with 1,371 identified as active across the United States in 2024.
This rise signals a broader trend of coordinated efforts aimed at dividing communities and undermining American democracy.
The SPLC’s annual Year in Hate & Extremism report reveals how hard-right movements have increasingly infiltrated mainstream politics, employing chaos, disinformation, and intimidation to promote their authoritarian ideologies.
Margaret Huang, the President of the SPLC, emphasized the critical importance of this data in her statement.
“We cannot surrender to fear,” she said, calling the report essential for understanding the landscape of hate and for empowering communities to fight for a multiracial, inclusive democracy.
The report highlights a disturbing spike in aggressive tactics targeting vulnerable communities, particularly in the Southern states.
School boards and state legislatures have emerged as battlegrounds where policies detrimental to Black and Brown communities, women, immigrants, Indigenous people, Jewish and Muslim Americans, and LGBTQ+ individuals are being intensely debated.
Among the report’s most alarming findings is the organized assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The SPLC documents how anti-DEI rhetoric has become a conduit for white supremacist ideologies.
Notably, influential figures have branded DEI as “white genocide,” invoking baseless claims to discredit these inclusive programs.
For instance, a former Reagan official denounced DEI efforts as an “anti-white, anti-heterosexual indoctrination program.”
Some have absurdly suggested that equity policies are directly responsible for infrastructure failures, such as bridge collapses and hurricane mismanagement, despite lacking factual support.
The SPLC also details how hard-right groups have weaponized conspiracy theories, misinformation, and violence to instill fear in communities and disrupt election processes.
In a striking example, a wave of 33 hoax bomb threats inundated Springfield, Ohio, following false assertions made by former President Trump and Senator J.D. Vance regarding Haitian immigrants.
On Election Day, bomb threats at 60 polling locations in Georgia were linked to Russian email domains, further highlighting the pervasive climate of intimidation.
Local militia groups have proliferated in 2024, even as national organizations like the Oath Keepers have splintered.
The SPLC has documented the existence of 50 active militias operating with heightened secrecy.
These groups, often self-identified as “minutemen,” engage in paramilitary training while disseminating antigovernment conspiracies and white supremacist beliefs.
For example, the Mid-Missouri Minutemen maintain connections to the white nationalist Heartland Active Club through private chats on the messaging platform Telegram.
Telegram has emerged as a primary recruitment and radicalization hub for extremists, allowing various factions to share and amplify their ideologies.
SPLC researchers have found that extremist users are increasingly interconnected, using Telegram’s “similar channels” feature to cross-pollinate between neo-Nazi groups, QAnon influencers, and the Proud Boys.
In a significant move, the U.S. Department of State designated the Terrorgram Collective, a neo-Nazi network based on Telegram, as a global terrorist organization.
Additionally, the report addresses the rise of male supremacist ideologies, especially prevalent in digital spaces.
The SPLC added seven new male supremacist hate groups to its findings in 2024, noting the impact of the Fresh & Fit podcast, which has drawn criticism for its misogynistic overtones targeting Black women.
Related influencers within the manosphere are promoting conspiracy theories that irresponsibly blame Black women for societal issues, all while profiting through coaching and online engagement.
Moreover, the SPLC also observed a decline in traditional neo-Confederate organizations.
Only four such groups showed signs of activity in 2024, a significant drop from over 120 in previous years.
The League of the South, previously a central player in the neo-Confederate movement, has attempted to rebrand itself as the Southern Nationalist League following legal challenges stemming from the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
This rebranding appears to be a strategic effort to escape civil liability while still advocating for a white ethnostate anchored in Christian theocracy.
One of the report’s case studies illustrates the increasing political influence of Turning Point USA, which has been instrumental in supporting former President Trump’s 2024 campaign and has participated in Project 2025, a strategy designed to reshape the federal government.
Turning Point USA’s founder, Charlie Kirk, has publicly endorsed white nationalist theories, including the absurd notion of a “great replacement.”
During a 2024 event, Kirk alarmingly stated that “native born Americans are being replaced by foreigners,” asserting that Trump would “liberate” the country.
The SPLC notes that the idea of “white genocide,” once relegated to fringe groups, has now crept into mainstream conservative dialogue.
The Family Research Council has published nearly 150 articles on immigration in 2024, framing it as an urgent threat to whiteness.
At a summit held by the FRC, speakers claimed that immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals posed dangers to Christian culture, urging supporters to have more white children to “reclaim” America.
These sentiments echo the language of neo-Nazi and white nationalist movements, highlighting a disturbing cultural and political shift.
“This is a profound cultural and political transformation the right pushes to grasp political control,” SPLC researchers warned.
As the report underscores, this colonization of mainstream political discourse is invariably accompanied by violence, threats, and fear-mongering rhetoric.
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