“White supremacists seem to be more encouraged than ever, and the election year, the pandemic and other factors may have provided these extremists with an added incentive.”
Paul Weaver / Sipa USA via AP
Reverend Jes Kast, pastor of the Faith United Church of Christ at State College, Pennsylvania, helps paint on the white supremacy graffiti left on a pride mural.
While Americans battled the pandemic in 2020, white supremacists were busier than ever, pasting racist stickers on street signs, throwing anti-immigrant banners on highway overpasses, leaving anti-Semitic pamphlets in Jewish community centers and spreading messages of hate on the walls. the country.
The Anti-Defamation League reported on Wednesday that it recorded 5,125 incidents – more than 14 per day – of white supremacist propaganda last year, up from 2,724 in 2019. “This is the largest number of white supremacist propaganda incidents that ADL has already registered, “nonprofit group said in a statement.
At the same time, the number of advertising incidents on college campuses has dropped to more than half, perhaps due to COVID restrictions, ADL said. There were 303 reports of advertising on university campuses in 2020, compared to 630 in 2019.
“Hate propaganda is a tried and true tactic for white supremacists, and that activity on the ground is now greater than we have ever recorded,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO, in a statement. “White supremacists seem to be more encouraged than ever, and the election year, the pandemic and other factors may have provided these extremists with an added incentive.”
The ADL report comes as federal authorities investigate and prosecute hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump who invaded the United States Capitol in January, including many who were linked to extreme right-wing groups and some who appear in social networks like white supremacists or even neo-Nazis.
John Minchillo / AP
Trump supporters at a rally in Washington, DC, on January 6.
President Joe Biden called domestic terrorism “the greatest threat” in the United States and white supremacy “most dangerous people”. He also ordered a review of the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States.
Echoing those words on Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the House’s Internal Security Committee that “violent domestic extremism is one of our most urgent threats to the motherland.”
At least 30 white supremacist groups disseminated propaganda across the U.S. in 2020, according to the ADL report. The highest levels of extremist propaganda activity were found in Texas, Washington, California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according to the organization’s data. The advertisement was found in all states except Hawaii.
Three of the groups – Patriot Front, New Jersey European Heritage Association and Nationalist Social Club – accounted for 92% of activity, said ADL. Each group was founded on the heels of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. It is believed that then President Trump’s hesitation in condemning white supremacists has fueled his rise.
When a white supremacist crashed his car into a crowd in Charlottesville, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others, Trump refused to berate the far-right extremists involved and said there were “very good people” among them. During a presidential debate with Biden, Trump told the violent right-wing group Proud Boys to “step back and wait” for him.
Ryan M. Kelly / AP
People fly as a vehicle approaches a group of protesters protesting against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.
“As we try to understand and put the last four years into perspective, we will always have these bookends from Charlottesville and Capitol Hill,” Greenblatt told the Associated Press. “The reality is that a lot of things happened between those moments that set the stage.”
Patriot Front, a Texas-based white supremacy group whose members, says ADL, claim that their ancestors conquered the United States and bequeathed them only to them, was responsible for 4,105 propaganda incidents last year, or about 80% . The group split from the white supremacist organization Vanguard America after the attack on Charlottesville.
Patriot Front propaganda avoids the symbols and traditional language of white supremacy and instead uses its own iteration of “patriotism” to promote what the ADL has described as a neo-fascist ideology.
“In 2020, the group continued to build its ‘brand’ using the colors red, white and blue in its advertising and adding stencil graffiti as a mechanism to spread its ideology,” says the ADL report.
The advertisement included messages like “America First”, “United we stand”, “Two Parties. One Tyranny ”,“ Reclaim America ”and“ Not Stolen. Conquered, ”reports the report.
Another physical advertisement was spread by neo-Nazi groups such as Hammer, Folks Front and Revolt Through Tradition. His messages focused on promoting “white pride” and attacking multiculturalism.
As Telegram and other social media platforms become increasingly popular with extremists, the physical forms of their advertising, such as stickers, banners and pamphlets, are easily dismissed as ineffective. But they remain cheap and effective methods for extremists to try to incite fear and anxiety in communities and attract new recruits, according to ADL.