White supremacist groups in the U.S. are distributing propaganda at historically high rates in the past few years, says a new report from the Anti-Defamation League. It appears to be part of a backlash against America’s increasing diversity — a trend that is going to continue for the foreseeable future. Pushback to the hate-mongering must come especially from responsible conservative voices, which are less likely to be dismissed out of hand by those who might be susceptible to these toxic messages.
Because these groups usually self-identify as conservative, responsible conservatives should be taking the lead in pushing back on that misrepresentation of their ideology. More forceful and specific condemnation by GOP leaders against Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar for participating in a recent white nationalist event in Florida, for example, would go a long way toward conveying that message and countering this toxic propaganda.
Those in society who are the most susceptible to this poison aren’t likely to listen to the Joe Bidens of the world — but they might listen to prominent Republicans. Those leaders have a vested interest in getting out the message that, regardless of what these vile groups say, true conservatism and white supremacy aren’t parallel belief systems.
The Anti-Defamation League report found more than 4,800 cases of white supremacist propaganda in 2021. That’s down slightly from 2020, but far above the three previous years during which the organization has tracked such propaganda. The propaganda includes racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ banners, flyers, stickers and graffiti plastered around neighborhoods, on synagogues, on bridges over highways and on college campuses. It conveys messages like “Hitler was right,” “Reclaim America” and various takes on the white-nationalist trope of “white replacement” by non-whites.
Some of it is pandemic-themed — blaming Jews or immigrants for the coronavirus, for example — which may partly explain why such incidents began spiking in 2020, the year the pandemic began. But the broader phenomenon of the U.S. population becoming more racially diverse also seems to be a factor. The report’s author, Carla Hill, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told The Washington Post that the spiking incidents reflect racist groups becoming “more and more desperate, losing the chance to have America be white.”
Coordination among various white supremacist groups in distributing propaganda has also increased. “This activity is more coordinated than ever before,” Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism, told National Public Radio.
Recruitment of new members is a big part of what drives the propaganda. The hope is that disaffected young white people, perhaps already nervous or angry at changes in society that they believe have diminished their power, might be nudged to take the next step and join white supremacist or antisemitic organizations and participate in their events (which are also growing more numerous and frequent).
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