For the fourth straight year in a row, the number of hate groups in the United States have grown in number. Donald Trump used his campaign and continues to use his presidency to stoke the flames of white fear and resentment, and it shows, according to a new report.

On Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its yearly report that looks at the number of hate and extremist groups in the United States. “The Year in Hate: Rage Against Change” says that white supremacy has flourished “amid fears of immigration” and the nation’s “shifting demographics.”

In short, white people are afraid of being the minority and that is a fear that is played upon daily by “President” Donald Trump.

The report says that “white supremacist anger reached a fever pitch last year as hysteria over losing a white-majority nation to demographic change—and a presumed lack of political will to stop it—engulfed the movement.”

Many of Trump’s white nationalist and white supremacist followers have lost faith in him, according to the report. They see all his talk of building a wall as being just that—talk. Richard Spencer, one of the major voices of white nationalism tweeted in November “The Trump moment is over, and it’s time for us to move on.”

The U.S. Census projects that white people will no longer be the majority by 2044, and the report posits that this helped to “propel hate to a new high last year.” This is a demographic change that many hate groups and extremists inaccurately refer to as “white genocide.”

SPLC defines a hate group as “an organization that–based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities–has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity. The FBI uses similar criteria in its definition of a hate crime.”

As of 2018, there were 1,020 hate groups in the United States—up 7 percent from 2017. Within those groups, white nationalists groups grew by nearly 50 percent, increasing from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018.

SPLC counts among those numbers black nationalist hate groups, which it said have also been galvanized by Trump’s rhetoric. The report makes the clear distinction, however, that unlike white hate groups, black nationalist groups do not have a firm foothold in the mainstream. White hate groups have had supporters inside the White House. Black nationalist groups have not.

The number of hate groups has been growing consistently over the last four years. There has been a 30 percent growth that coincided with Trump’s candidacy and his presidency. The last time numbers went up like this was in 2011 “when rage against the first black president was roiling.”

The report openly calls out Donald Trump for “mainstreaming hate.” It notes that with the help of Fox News, Trump has been able to push his anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agendas. He has referred to Mexican immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.” He referred to majority-black nations as “shithole countries.”

Trump’s messages get repeated by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, who both have large platforms which they use to even further stoke fear and spread blatant misinformation. And as previously state, he put people with extremist views in his administration—people who have helped craft policy that affect this nation.

The report also notes the role social media and sites such as Facebook have played in helping to spread hate and hate messaging. If the situation with Alex Jones and InfoWars taught us nothing else, it showed us how these companies can be complicit.

The report predicts that hate groups will continue to grow in 2019. The violence will continue to grow. And “Trumpism—a form of race-based populism—is likely to be with us for many years to come as the nation continues to come to terms with its changing demographics and the impact of globalism.”

God help us all.</s>Hate groups have increased by 30 percent in the past four years, reaching an all-time high, according to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The center, which has been monitoring hate groups and other extremists since the 1980s, counted 1,020 hate groups in the U.S. — “the most the SPLC has ever counted,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the law center's Intelligence Project.

Hate crimes saw a “short period of decline,” falling 23 percent from 2011 till 2014, but the law center's report said there has been a steady increase in the past four years.

“Domestic terrorism has also been on the upswing,” Beirich said at a news conference on the release of the center's annual intelligence report. Citing examples like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the two black people murdered in a Kroger's grocery in Kentucky, the law center documented 40 people murdered in the U.S. and Canada by radical right extremists.

These murders, the center explained, are often motivated by fear of demographic changes these extremists falsely believe is causing “white genocide.”

Beirich added that anti-woman sentiment is becoming more commonplace in hate groups. “Rabid misogyny is now an integral part of America’s hate scene,” she said, citing the fatal shooting of two women in a yoga class in Tallahassee, Florida, among others.

In 2017, the law center added “male supremacy groups” to their hate-list, saying the group replicates behavior in other hate groups. Beirich said that these groups, many of which have close ties to white supremacist groups, are largely online and “massive.”

The law center also said that black nationalist hate groups use President Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about African nations and black football players to recruit members. These groups are “typically anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT and anti-white,” but Beirich noted that they are “very different than the white hate groups we track” partly because they have “no supporters in mainstream politics.”

Beirich said that white nationalist groups have been “particularly electrified by Trump’s presidency.” The groups “surged by nearly 50 percent last year, growing from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018,” the law center reported.</s>Washington, DC - Hate crimes in the United States reached a record high last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said on Wednesday, adding that much of the rise is due to the rhetoric of US President Donald Trump.

Driven by Trump's anti immigration rhetoric and policy, the number of hate groups active in the US peaked to 1,020 in 2018, a seven percent increase from 954 recorded in 2017, according to the SPLC, which began tracking hate groups in 1971.

Trump statements echoed by hate groups included describing immigrants as "invaders", calling for a Muslim ban, attacking African nations and speaking against the country's alleged demographic changes.

In 2018, at least 40 people were killed by those motivated by or attracted to far-right ideologies, the watchdog group wrote in its annual report, released on Wednesday.

The last peak in the number of hate groups in the country was recorded in 2011 during the height of a backlash against President Barack Obama, the first black president, the SPLC said. According to the watchdog, there were 1,018 documented hate groups then.

Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said she first heard of building a wall to separate the US from Mexico on a white supremacist site.

The same demand became one of Trump's most famous campaign promises in 2016.

Since then, the SPLC recorded an increase in the number of groups active, which followed three years of decline in groups during the Obama administration.

Federal figures were consistent. Latest statistics from the FBI show that hate crimes increased by 30 percent in the three-year period ending in 2017.

The increase followed three years in which hate crime incidents fell by about 12 percent.

"President Trump has opened the White House doors to extremism," the SPLC report states. "Not only consulting with hate groups on policies that erode our country's civil rights protections, but also enabling the infiltration of extremist ideas into the administration's rhetoric and agenda."

A handful of Trump appointees include officials with ties to groups hostile towards Muslims, immigrants, refugees, and the LGBT community, the report said.

Majority of hate groups - including neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan (KKK), racist skinheads, neo-Confederates and white nationalists - adhere to some form of white supremacist ideology.

The number of white nationalist groups, those particularly electrified by Trump's presidency, surged by almost 50 percent from 100 groups to 148 in 2018.

The SPLC said black nationalist groups also rose 13 percent last year to 264.

The number of anti-Muslim hate chapters, however, dropped from 114 in 2017 to 100 in 2018, according to the SPLC, but rights group have said hate crimes against Muslims were up last year.

Beirich said US hate groups were using the internet to spread their messages and propaganda in the absence of strong online regulations.

She said the web was now the main recruitment tool for hate groups and "absolutely" key for white supremacists.

SPLC have long called on tech companies to take action against the hate on their platforms.

"Similar to ISIS using this to push propaganda and ideas, it has now become the main place for recruiting to happen," Beirich said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the largest demonstration of white supremacists in recent years, was first organised on Facebook.

"There is no question that technology has helped this movement," she said. "Up until 2017 there was so much hate online." Following Charlottesville, Facebook began cracking doing on hate content.

"There is a lot of mainstreaming of hate rhetoric," she added. "The idea of building a wall came from the council of conservatives in [1989]. These ideas are leaping from the extremes to the mainstream. It would be nice to put them back where they came from."

In 2018, the SPLC added a new category to their hate groups to document a growing online movement that targeted women.

In contrast to a time when neo-nazis placed women on a "pedestal", Beirich said now the internet was loaded with "terrible women shaming" and rape.

Although the anti-women movement bred and exists virtually, she said it has been connect to violence over the past year.

Violence and "domestic terrorism" surged around the 2018 midterm election when Democrats won the majority in the House of Representatives, the SPLC said.

Ahead of the election, a slew of pipe bomb packages were sent prominent Democrats before the election. And in late October, gunman entered a the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and killed 11 people, shouting "all Jews must die". The alleged shooter frequently posted anti-Semitic slurs and conspiracy theories online prior to the attack.

Even more angering to hate groups, the SPLC report found, was the number of women elected to the US Congress, including two Muslims, and the election of an openly bisexual senator in Arizona.

"For white supremacists, these newly elected officials symbolise the country's changing demographics - the future that white supremacists loathe and fear," the report said.

Now fueled and legitimised by the sitting president, SPLC has noticed a new trend of hate groups looking beyond Trump as they grow politically frustrated their demands are not being met.

In the past, this has led to acts of violence and will be a worry leading up to the 2020 election, the SPLC said.</s>U.S. Hate Groups Rose 30 Percent In Recent Years, Watchdog Group Reports

Enlarge this image toggle caption David Goldman/AP David Goldman/AP

Updated at 2 p.m. ET

For the fourth year in a row, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks hate groups, reports that hate and domestic extremism are rising in an unabated trend. The center found a 30 percent increase in U.S. hate groups over the past four years and a 7 percent increase in hate groups in 2018 alone, according to the center's annual "Year in Hate and Extremism" report. The group designated 1,020 organizations as hate groups in 2018, a high of at least 20 years.

The watchdog group blames President Trump, his administration, right-wing media outlets and the ease of spreading hate on social media platforms for the alarming increase. The growth, it says, is largely driven by "hysteria over losing a white-majority nation to demographic change."

"The numbers tell a striking story — that this president is not simply a polarizing figure but a radicalizing one," Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said in a statement. "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."

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a revered civil rights watchdog group that has been around since 1971. It is credited with dealing the final blows to the Ku Klux Klan through legal battles.

But in the Trump era, it has been accused of blurring the line between watchdog and activist. Critics accuse the group of overblowing the threat of hate and including groups and individuals on its lists who might not belong, from anti-immigrant groups to exclusionary religious organizations. In 2018, SPLC President Richard Cohen publicly apologized and the group paid out $3.4 million to British political activist Maajid Nawaz for including him on its anti-Muslim extremist list in 2016. The self-declared former Muslim extremist is often criticized for aligning himself with right-wing anti-Muslim politicians, but even his critics questioned his inclusion on the list.

The center found that the majority of hate groups in the United States are driven by white supremacist ideology including neo-Nazis; the Ku Klux Klan, which is on the decline; white nationalists; racist skinheads; and neo-Confederates. But in reaction to the flourishing of white supremacists, the center says that black nationalist groups are also "growing their ranks." It said the groups are often anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT and anti-white but, unlike white nationalist groups, have little support and basically no sway in politics.

The SPLC defines a hate group as an organization that "based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people typically for their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity."

The center's report tracks with the steady rise in hate crimes documented by the FBI from 2015 to 2017. It reported a 17 percent jump in hate crimes in 2017, with a particular increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. But that list isn't complete because local law enforcement agencies report hate crimes to the FBI on a voluntary basis.

The report found that although white supremacists are emboldened under the Trump administration and driven by the fear of the United States' changing demographics — by 2044 the U.S. is expected to be majority minority — and by xenophobia, the groups are beginning to lose faith in the president. It quotes the now infamous white nationalist leader Richard Spencer as evidence. Spencer led a group of white supremacists in Nazi salutes and chants of "Hail Trump" after the 2016 election. But in 2018, following the midterms, he said, "The Trump moment is over, and it's time for us to move on."

Three groups are suing the Southern Poverty Lawsuit Center over their inclusion on the hate groups list. Among those suing is the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank that is widely seen as anti-immigration.

"We stand by our hate group listings," said Heidi Beirich said in a press call. "I would suggest that people take a look at our extremist files ... The Center for Immigration Studies, the group has a history of making racially inflammatory statements associating with white nationalists and circulating the work of racist writers."</s>The number of hate groups in the United States, particularly white nationalist groups, rose in 2018 for the fourth consecutive year, according to a report released Wednesday Feb. 20 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights watchdog group.

The center’s Hate Map shows 1020 documented hate groups in the United States in 2018, the highest in two decades. Hate groups increased 7 percent between 2017 and 2018, and have shot up 30 percent in just the last four years.

White nationalist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups, saw the biggest increase at 50 percent. Also notable was a 13 percent increase in black nationalist groups.

The center’s hate map counts 83 hate groups in California, the most populous state in the union, including several in Southern California.

The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as “an organization that — based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities — has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

The unabated rise in hate groups year after year is worrisome, said Heidi Beirich, director of the center’s Intelligence Project, who oversees the report.

“What we’re seeing is an enlivened hate movement,” she said.

The growing number of hate groups takes place amid an increase in hate crimes for the fifth consecutive year, according to a recent FBI report.

The Anti-Defamation League reported last month that there were 50 domestic extremist killings on U.S. soil in 2018 of which an overwhelming 98 percent were perpetrated by individuals involved in far-right movements, particularly white supremacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been critical of President Donald Trump. Beirich says Trump not just “a polarizing figure, but a radicalizing one.”

“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,” she said. “In doing so, he’s given people across America the go-ahead to act on their worst instincts.”

The center has vocal and passionate opponents who call its labeling of hate groups heavy-handed.

Anti-immigrant and anti-LGBT groups, in particular, have spoken out that they feel targeted by the center for their personal or religious beliefs. The center has also been called a leftist group that targets conservative groups.

Beirich said the center is not targeting conservative groups.

Rather, she said, they are specifically targeting hate speech that demonizes entire groups of people — whether it’s calling immigrants “dirty” or “diseased,” or equating gay men with pedophiles.

Last year, the center’s president Richard Cohen issued a public apology and the organization paid $3.4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by British political activist Maajid Nawaz for including him on their anti-Muslim extremist list in 2016.

Nawaz, a former Islamist extremist, is criticized by Muslims for demanding reforms within Islam. But even his critics were befuddled by his inclusion on the list.

Beirich said the center has learned from its past mistakes.

“What we’ve tried to do is be extra careful that what we’re saying is correct,” she said.

Beirich pointed out that 2018 also saw an increase in black nationalist groups by 13 percent compared to the previous year.

These are organizations that tend to be anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT. But, unlike white nationalist groups, these organizations are “extremely fringe and have no power,” Beirich said.

“They are a reaction to white supremacy and oppression and that’s a different dynamic,” she said. “These groups are using the current political climate to tell black people: ‘This country doesn’t care about you and we’ll protect your civil rights.’”

Anti-white hate crimes are also on the rise in the nation’s largest cities, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism in Cal State San Bernardino.

“The rise of black nationalism can be attributed to resistance-oriented groups and a fragmented socio-political landscape,” he said.

The African-American community’s frustration with police and criminal justice reforms and the ascendance of white nationalism have also fueled the rise of black nationalism in the United States, Levin said.

However, he agreed with Beirich that these groups are nowhere near as violent or powerful as white nationalist groups.

Both white and black nationalist groups preach anti-Semitism, which has been consistently on the rise since the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally when white nationalists marched carrying tiki torches on the University of Virginia’s campus chanting: “Jews will not replace us.”
• Hate crimes rise in Los Angeles, other largest U.S. cities for 5th year in a row, CSUSB report says
• Far-right tied to 98% of U.S. domestic extremist killings, new ADL report says The Internet is where most hate groups influence people and recruit, Beirich said. Dylann Roof, who killed nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, and Robert Bowers,who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October, were influenced by online white supremacist propaganda.

“Hate groups in the physical space are used as a means to suck people into their world view and push propaganda,” Beirich said. “The Internet, on the other hand, is exposing people to propaganda in a way people weren’t able to access before.”</s>Prathaan/iStock(NEW YORK) — The number of hate groups in the U.S. has reached an all-time high, even as membership in the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi outfits have fallen, according to a report by a legal advocacy organization that tracks them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report counted 1,020 hate groups in the nation, an increase of 7 percent from the 954 tallied in 2017.

The previous record for hate groups in the country was in 2011, when 1,018 were counted at the “height of a backlash” against the first black president of the U.S., Barack Obama, said Heidi Beirich, director of intelligence for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This year’s report showed that the number of hate groups has grown for four straight years.

“This time period dovetails with [Donald] Trump’s campaign and then his presidency, a period that has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of these groups,” Beirich said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center defines a hate group as an organization that in its principles or statements from its leaders attacks or maligns an entire class of people typically for their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Several groups on the list have blasted the organization for political bias and exaggerating the threat of hate. Some organizations have also sued to have the hate-group label removed. In 2018, the SPLC publicly apologized and paid out $3.4 million to political activist Maajid Nawaz for including him on its anti-Muslim extremist list in 2016.

California, the country’s most populous and solidly Democratic state, had the most hate groups with 83; followed by Florida with 75 and 73 in Texas, according to the report.

The report also showed the number of white nationalist groups climbed 48 percent from 100 in 2017 to 148 in 2018.

“These are basically racists who wear suits, khakis, and polos who argue for a white ethnostate, a white political space controlled by whites,” Beirich said.

She said the number of black nationalists groups also jumped 13 percent from 233 in 2017 to 264 in 2018.

“These are groups that are typically anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT and anti-white. They are very different than some of the white hate groups that we talk about often and track since they have virtually no supporters or influence in mainstream politics, much less the White House,” Beirich said of the black nationalist groups.

The center’s report also found that for the third straight year, the number of Ku Klux Klan groups fell from 130 in 2016 to 51 in 2018, and the number of neo-Nazi groups fell 7 percent from 121 in 2017 to 112 in 2018.

“The Klan has begun to be a part of the white supremacist movement that just isn’t attracting many folks to its message,” Beirich said. “It’s simply becoming less important, which is a big change.”

The report shows as the number of hate groups has risen, so has the number of hate crimes.

The FBI shows the number of hate crime incidents reported increased about 17 percent in 2017 compared with previous year.

She pointed to a two-week period around the midterm elections in November when the country saw suspects professing to be white supremacists go on shooting rampages.

On Oct. 27, Robert Bowers, 46 — who authorities said “made statements regarding genocide and his desire to kill Jewish people” — shot and killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Bowers is believed to have posted his intent to commit the massacre on the social media platform Gab, which is popular with white supremacists and the alt-right, investigators said.

On Oct. 26, Cesar Sayoc, 56, was arrested on charges of mailing more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent Democrats, other high-profile liberal figures and CNN. Sayoc called himself a white supremacist and was found in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, investigators said. He has pleaded not guilty to charges.

On Oct. 24, Gregory Bush, 51, allegedly shot and killed two African-Americans at a Kroger market in Louisville, Kentucky. A grand jury charged him with murder and hate crimes because he allegedly targeted his victims based on their race, prosecutors said. Bush pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Beirich said a total of 40 people were killed in hate crimes in the U.S. and Canada in 2018.</s>Colorado continues to see a rise in active hate groups, on par with national trends, a Southern Poverty Law Center hate map released Wednesday shows.

The Alabama-based center said its definition of a hate group is similar to that of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — the agency defines hate groups as those that ascribe to beliefs which attack or malign a class of people.

The group tracked 22 hate group locations in Colorado in 2018, an increase from one from 2017’s report. Nationally, the SPLC listed 1,020 active hate group locations, a 7 percent increase from 2017 and a new all-time high since the group began tracking hate groups more than two decades ago.

The numbers top the previous high of 1,018, reached during the height of what Intelligence Project director for the SPLC Heidi Beirich called the backlash against former President Barack Obama.

Colorado’s list includes ideologies that are anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT, white nationalist, neo-Nazi, Christian identity and black nationalist, among others.

Three chapters of Identity Evropa were listed on the map, a white nationalist group that has been making the rounds in the Front Range, passing out literature or placings its logo around cities. The group’s chapters are in Denver, Colorado Springs and Boulder. However, reports of the group’s presence over the past year in Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley have also surfaced.

The SPLC counted each chapter of the alt-right group individually in its report.

The Denver Post attempted to contact four organizations on the hate list but was not successful in reaching them.

“The hate movement has been enlivened over the last few years,” Beirich said. She asserted that President Donald Trump and his administration have fueled the rise in hate groups through fearmongering against Muslims, Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals and other marginalized groups.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of mainstreaming of hate rhetoric that you just didn’t see five years ago,” she said.

The White House has denied the president is a racist.

Hate crimes also have been on the rise nationally, the FBI has reported. In Colorado, the numbers have remained flat.

The SPLC acknowledges that many hate crimes are not committed by the hate groups, but the online hate propaganda exposes individuals in ways that they weren’t before, Beirich said. Unlike during Adolf Hitler’s reign in which he utilized radio to get his message out, online platforms allow for back-and-forth exchanges.

“These things are leaping from the extremes to the mainstream and it would be nice to put them back where they came from,” she said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center also is facing legal challenges from groups that oppose their hate-group designation, but Beirich defended the group’s designations and dismissed criticisms that the group is anti-conservative.

“I doubt conservatives would want to defend that kind of speech actually (from the groups),” she said. “What it is is hateful propaganda.”

One of the groups listed on Colorado’s 2018 list, ACT for America, created a website “exposing” the SPLC.

In a statement on its website, the group said “the discredited” SPLC “has waged a war against ACT for America and every other national organisation that espouses conservative viewpoint and values.”</s>Far-right hate groups are at a record high in America, according to a disturbing new intelligence report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. For evidence of the phenomenon, we need look no further than today's headlines: Yesterday, it was revealed that an active duty Coast Guard lieutenant arrested last week on gun and drug charges was also allegedly planning the mass murder of Democratic politicians (including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar), media personalities, writers, editors, journalists and academics. In a draft email to an American neo-Nazi leader, he wrote: "We need a white homeland as Europe seems lost." Police found an arsenal of 15 guns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in the man's home.

Of course, instead of tweeting about that, President Donald Trump decided to focus his attention on Jussie Smollett, the actor who police say paid two people to stage a racist, homophobic attack in which they placed a noose around Smollett's neck. Voicing his empathy for "MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments"—side note: is MAGA operating grammatically here as an ideological concept? A person? A hat?—makes sense for Trump: His presidency has seen a terrifying increase in white supremacist violence, and his rhetoric, policies, and appointees are partially responsible. No wonder he would rather afford concern to an accessory than to the possibility of more political violence in America.

The general trend in the massive survey of the state of far-right and extremist hate is "it's getting worse," according to the SPLC. They report that "the total number of hate groups rose to 1,020 in 2018, up about 7 percent from 2017." What's more, "white nationalist groups alone surged by nearly 50 percent last year, growing from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018." On the other (and also incredibly troublesome) hand, "Trump has energized black nationalist hate groups—typically antisemitic and anti-LGBT organizations—with an increase to 264 from 233 in 2017."

The very recent increases, the report also shows, track within an increase in extremist and right-wing activity that has been building since before 2016, fomenting toward the end of President Barack Obama's time in office ("the previous all-time high number of hate groups ... counted was 1,018 in 2011"), the nation's first black president. Over the last four years, the number of hate groups rose over 30 percent, and "last year marked the fourth year in a row that hate group numbers increased."

It's not all Trump, specifically; white nationalists, in particular, have been motivated by ire related to sweeping demographic changes in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau now projects that white people will no longer be a majority by 2044. The swearing in of the most diverse Congress ever, with record numbers of women, women of color, and LGBTQ politicians, likely generated even more hate this year—remember that at least two of those freshmen congressional representatives appeared on the aforementioned Coast Guard's kill list.

Though Trump might not use white supremacist rhetoric as explicit as calling for a "white homeland," he has time and again characterized black and brown people, Muslims, Mexicans, and many more in bigoted, racist terms. (Recall when he described certain majority non-white countries as "shitholes.") Or when he said that if he were a team owner he would tell NFL players protesting police brutality—“the son of a bitch"—to get off the field. Or when he signed his original "travel ban," the brainchild of advisor Stephen Miller, that barred all refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. There was the despicable use of the phrase "good people on both sides" when describing the horrific far-right violence in Charlottesville that killed Heather Heyer. The opposite of such measured language is used to describe members of the migrant caravan and others seeking legal asylum at the Mexican border, who he has characterized as rapists and criminals.

Now, the SPLC intelligence report reinforces, we aren't just seeing state intimidation at our ports of entry: extremists are enacting it themselves, in acts of domestic terrorism and street violence. "White supremacists in Canada and the U.S. killed at least 40 people, up from 17 in 2017," the SPLC says. That includes the more than a dozen people murdered in the run-up to the primary elections that brought in all those non-white, non-male legislators, in violent shooting rampages of two black customers in a Kroger supermarket, and at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Not to mention violent street fights waged by the Proud Boys, and the failed pipe-bombs that Robert Bowers sent to media organizations in several American cities. (The study did not even take into account violence against journalists.)

So while the high-profile, high-drama, and yes, highly offensive Jussie Smollett story engulfs our feeds, we need to pay attention to the real trend, and it isn't a bias against red MAGA hats. The Parkland, Florida high school shooter, who killed 17 people, apparently liked to wear one.</s>The white supremacist group Identity Evropa more than doubled the number of its chapters.

The violent neo-Nazi organization Atomwaffen Division grew from one chapter to 27.

The white nationalist group and podcasting site The Right Stuff boasted 34 chapters.

American hate groups had a bumper year in 2018 as a surge in black and white nationalist groups lifted their number to a new record high, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a report issued Wednesday.

The Alabama-based legal advocacy organization recorded 1,020 active hate groups last year, up 7 percent from 2017. The previous record tallied by SPLC was 1,018 in 2011 amid a white extremist backlash against the presidency of Barack Obama, the nation's first African-American president.

The increase was driven by growth in both black and white nationalist groups, the SPLC said. The number of white nationalist groups jumped from 100 to 148, while the number of black nationalist groups — typically anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ and anti-white — rose from 233 to 264.

The SPLC defines a hate group as "an organization that, based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities, has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."

The number of hate groups has grown every year for the past four years, the SPLC said, a 30 percent increase roughly coinciding with President Donald Trump's election campaign and presidency. The increase followed three years of decline toward the end of the Obama administration.

Hate crimes have followed a similar trajectory in recent years. After falling for three consecutive years, attacks on blacks, Jews, Muslims and other minorities increased by 30 percent in the three-year period ending in 2017, according to the latest FBI data.

The uptrend continued into last year, with hate crimes in America's 30 cities surging by an additional 10 percent, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

The majority of hate crimes are nonviolent, but some incidents were deadly. White supremacists in the U.S. and Canada killed at least 40 people last year, up from 17 people the year before, according to the SPLC's tally.

While most bias-motivated offenses are not committed by members of hate groups, the perpetrators of hate crimes draw inspiration from ideas put out by hate groups, said Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project and author of the report.

Beirich blamed Trump's anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim statements and policies for heightening deep-seated white nationalist fears of an impending white-minority country.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that more than half of the nation's children are expected to be nonwhite in 2020, while the U.S. population is slated to become majority-minority in 2044.

"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," Beirich said. "In doing so, he's given people across America the go-ahead to act on their worst instincts."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Black nationalist groups, which advocate separate institutions or even a separate nation, made up about a quarter of hate groups tracked in 2018.

But the SPLC said the black extremist groups "lagged far behind the more than 700 groups that adhere to some form of white supremacist ideology," the report said.

Among white extremist groups, the SPLC counted 112 neo-Nazi groups, 148 white nationalist organizations, 63 racist skinhead groups, 36 neo-Confederate outfits and 17 Christian Identity organizations.

But not all white hate groups thrived last year. The number of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) chapters fell for the third straight year, dropping to 51 in 2018 from 130 in 2016.

With its outdated traditions and penchant for white robes, the KKK, the nation's oldest racist organization, has failed to appeal to young white tech-savvy racists, the SPLC said.

"It may be that the KKK, having somehow endured since 1866, is finally on its last legs," the report said.

The SPLC started tracking KKK chapters in 1987 and later expanded its list to include other hate groups. In recent years, as it has put new groups on its list, including anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ organizations, conservative groups have accused the SPLC of unfairly labeling them.

Last month, the Center for Immigration Studies sued the SPLC in federal court in Washington for "falsely designating" it as a hate group in 2016, saying the SPLC has produced no evidence that the group maligns immigrants as a class.

Beirich said the SPLC is standing by its hate group listings.</s>Hate groups have increased by 30 percent in the past four years, reaching an all-time high, according to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The center, which has been monitoring hate groups and other extremists since the 1980s, counted 1,020 hate groups in the U.S. — “the most the SPLC has ever counted,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the law center's Intelligence Project.

Hate crimes saw a “short period of decline,” falling 23 percent from 2011 till 2014, but the law center's report said there has been a steady increase in the past four years.

“Domestic terrorism has also been on the upswing,” Beirich said at a news conference on the release of the center's annual intelligence report. Citing examples like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the two black people murdered in a Kroger's grocery in Kentucky, the law center documented 40 people murdered in the U.S. and Canada by radical right extremists.

These murders, the center explained, are often motivated by fear of demographic changes these extremists falsely believe is causing “white genocide.”

Beirich added that anti-woman sentiment is becoming more commonplace in hate groups. “Rapid misogyny is now an integral part of America’s hate scene,” she said, citing the fatal shooting of two women in a yoga class in Tallahassee, Florida, among others.

In 2017, the law center added “male supremacy groups” to their hate-list, saying the group replicates behavior in other hate groups. Beirich said that these groups, many of which have close ties to white supremacist groups, are largely online and “massive.”

The law center also said that black nationalist hate groups use President Donald Trump’s disparaging remarks about African nations and black football players to recruit members. These groups are “typically anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT and anti-white,” but Beirich noted that they are “very different than the white hate groups we track” partly because they have “no supporters in mainstream politics.”

Beirich said that white nationalist groups have been “particularly electrified by Trump’s presidency.” The groups “surged by nearly 50 percent last year, growing from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018,” the law center reported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a 30 percent increase in U.S. hate groups over the past four years with a 7% increase in 2018 alone.