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White supremacy propaganda reached alarming levels in the US in 2020, according to a new report the Anti-Defamation League has provided to the Associated Press.
Aaron Morrison writes for the AP that according to the report, there were 5,125 cases of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and other hate messages spread through physical brochures, stickers, banners and posters during the final year of Trump’s presidency. . That’s nearly double the 2,724 cases reported in 2019. Online propaganda is much more difficult to quantify, and those cases are likely to number in the millions, the anti-hate organization said.
The ADL said last year marked the highest level of white supremacist propaganda seen in at least a decade. His report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute those who stormed the United States Capitol in January, some of whom are accused of having ties to or expressing support for anti-government militias and hate groups.
“As we try to understand and put the last four years in perspective, we will always have these bookends from Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” said the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt. “The reality is that a lot happened between those moments that set the stage.”
Christian Picciolini, a former far-right extremist who founded the de-radicalization group Free Radicals Project, said the rise in propaganda leads with white supremacists and extremist recruiters see crises as periods of opportunity.
“They use the uncertainty and fear caused by the crisis to win over new recruits for their ‘us versus them’ narrative, painting the ‘other’ as the cause of their pain, grievances or loss,” Picciolini told AP. . “The current uncertainty caused by the pandemic, job loss, a heated election, outcry over extrajudicial killings of African Americans by police, and a nationwide settling of accounts sparked by our country’s long tradition of racism has created a perfect storm for recruiting Americans who are afraid of change and progress. “
The propaganda, often distributed with the intention of attracting media and online attention, helps white supremacists normalize their messages and bolster recruitment efforts, the ADL said in its report. The language used in propaganda is frequently viewed with a patriotic slant, making it appear benign to the inexperienced eye.
According to the report, at least 30 known white supremacist groups were behind the hate propaganda. But three groups NJEHA, Patriot Front and Nationalist Social Club were responsible for 92% of the activity. The blurb appeared in every state except Hawaii.
Greenblatt acknowledged that free speech rights allow the rhetoric that “we don’t like it and we hate it.” But when that speech stimulates violence or creates the conditions to normalize extremism, it must be opposed, he said.
“There’s no fairy dust you can sprinkle on this, like it’s all going to disappear,” Greenblatt said. “We need to recognize that the roots of this problem run deep.”
