White supremacist propaganda surged in 2022, reports indicate

The Anti-Defamation League report states that three far-right groups are responsible for the vast majority of hate-filled leaflets, banners and graffiti.

Anti-Semitic leaflets were dropped in private homes in Southern California. Flyers reading “Stand Up White Man” lie in driveways in suburban Indiana. A laser projector projects hate speech in front of a Florida soccer stadium.

According to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups surged in 2022 as such incidents hit a five-year high nationwide.

In the report released Thursday morning, ADL researchers say they have identified more than 6,750 different occasions over the past year when white supremacist organizations have distributed racist, anti-Semitic or otherwise hateful flyers, stickers, banners, pictures, posters or graffiti. That’s a nearly 40% increase in similar incidents compared to 2021, and a more than five-fold increase since 2018, according to the report.

Hate group propaganda not only serves to scare and harass those who see it, but can also act as a powerful recruitment tool. What’s more, it can desensitize people to aggression towards victims — and even induce violence in its viewers, political violence scientists say.

While most propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups target local communities and are often limited in scope, in many cases they seek to capitalize on more prominent events. The ADL has previously pointed out that some groups piggybacked on hateful behavior last year from rapper Kanye West, who made a spate of anti-Semitic remarks, and in November attended a high-profile dinner with white supremacist leader Nick Fuentes and former President Donald Trump attended.

“There is no question that white supremacists and anti-Semites seek to terrorize and harass Americans and have significantly increased their use of propaganda as a tactic to publicize their presence in communities across the country,” Jonathan said Greenblatt, the ADL’s chief executive officer, issued a statement accompanying the report.

While ADL researchers found that at least 50 different organizations disseminated white supremacist propaganda over the past year, three groups — Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League, and the White Lives Matter movement — were responsible for more than 90% of incidents. Although these groups are not household names like other far-right organizations such as the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers militia, they have spread their racist, anti-Semitic and white racist messages in a variety of ways over the past few years, including through marches, rallies and public harassment campaigns .

According to the report, the Patriot Front, which promotes the idea of ​​a white ethnic state in the United States, has been responsible for the bulk of the propaganda effort over the past year. It often cloaked its openly white, racist ideas in softer and more palatable phrases like “Reclaim America” ​​and “One Nation Against Immigration.”

The group split with another organization, Vanguard America, in August 2017 after the bloody Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Last year she was involved in a series of public demonstrations, including one targeting a local Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which led to the arrest of dozens of its members, including its founder Thomas Rousseau.

The Goyim Defense League has tried to spread a particularly hateful version of anti-Semitism both online and in public for the past several years. In October, after West, now known as Ye, made a series of anti-Semitic statements, the Goyim Defense League and other publicity-cash groups used a laser projector to project a message on the outside of a soccer stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. to show. to read: “Kanye is right about the Jews.”

The White Lives Matter network, which first emerged in 2015 when the Black Lives Matter movement was rapidly gaining traction, has been involved in propaganda efforts over the past year which, according to the report, included handing out stickers with a QR code linked to his Telegram account was linked. The network also distributed literature on the “grand substitute” conspiracy theory, which says leftists are deliberately trying to change the country’s racial balance by encouraging immigration.

The group scored a win in October when West wore a White Lives Matter t-shirt at an event during Paris Fashion Week. While the stunt cost West several lucrative marketing deals, it also provided untold publicity for the white supremacist network that coined the phrase.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.