(MintPress) – In a recent report issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the number of anti-government groups has hit a record 1,360 in 2012, with hardcore hate groups remaining above 1,000. This is after a low of 131 anti-government groups recorded in 2007 and 602 hate groups recorded in 2000.
The rise of the tea party and the proliferation of the radical right suggest a shifting of attitudes. According to a 2012 Associated Press poll, 51 percent of all Americans have expressed explicitly anti-Black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in 2008, while 56 percent have shown implicitly anti-Black attitudes in 2012, a rise from the 49 percent four years ago.
“We have this false idea that there is uniformity in progress and that things change in one big step. That is not the way history has worked,” Jelani Cobb, a history professor and director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut, told the Huffington Post. “When we’ve seen progress, we’ve also seen backlash.”
In light of a rash of social progression — the lifting of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the permitting of women in combat roles, the government’s opposition of the Defense of Marriage Act, etc. — the right has felt more under attack than ever before, leading to a more extreme posture.
As stated in the report, the American Family Association has issued predictions that, in the future, conservative Christians will face the same type of discrimination that African-Americans have faced in the civil rights movement, that the state will assume custody of children at birth and that cities with Christian-based names — such as St. Petersburg or St. Augustine — will be forced to change their names.
Daniel Miller, president of the Texas National Movement, indicated that membership in his organization shot up 400 percent since President Obama took office. TeaParty.org regularly champions the thought that a “Communist coup” is under way.
In a 2010 SPLC’s Intelligence Report article, “Rage of the Right,” it was argued that “Already there are signs of … violence emanating from the radical right. Since the installation of Barack Obama, right-wing extremists have murdered six law enforcement officers. Racist skinheads and others have been arrested in alleged plots to assassinate the nation’s first Black president. One man from Brockton, Mass. … is charged with murdering two black people and planning to kill as many Jews as possible on the day after Obama’s inauguration.”
The roots of fear
In conversation with Mint Press, the author of these reports, SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potow, argued that this radicalism has multiple sources. First, there is a feeling among White America that they are losing their grip on power in this country. With the election of a Black president, the likely election of a woman president in 2016 and projections from the Census Bureau that Latinos will be the new majority as of 2043, many are reacting out of panic and a sense of losing their place socially.
In addition, recent crises — including the sub-prime crisis of 2008 — and the government’s seemingly preferential treatment to the wealthy and elite have embittered many to the government. Lack of remedial assistance from Congress has also made many look toward other sources for assistance.
Most damning for many, however, is the culture of misinformation that proliferates in the right. As Potow points out, for the 2012 election, for example, 49 percent of all Americans felt that ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — helped to steal the election from Mitt Romney. ACORN dissolved in 2010 and currently does not exist in any form.
Another example of the misinformation that circles among the right is the idea that the United Nations is trying to impose its will on the United States via Agenda 21. This issue was so potent among the Republicans that it was introduced in the party’s 2012 platform.
Agenda 21 is a non-binding international protocol the United States agreed to under President George H. W. Bush toward the promotion of renewable resources in urban planning.
Recently, Breitbart News Editor Ben Shapiro reported, “On Thursday, Senate sources told Breitbart News exclusively that they have been informed that one of the reasons that President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called “Friends of Hamas.” Despite the fact that the story was made up, it was still used as a rationale for a possible extension of the filibuster blocking Hagel’s confirmation.
Potow argued that the continuous feeding of propaganda by the right fuels and justifies the angst and frustration that the conservative base feels. Conspiracies about the Obama administration or about the direction of the country serve to mask anti-social racial or anti-government sentiments and rationalize the hate the radical right bears.
This, like all things, will pass
Potow stated, however, that this outburst of extremism is cyclical and will eventually recede. Extremism spiked in the 1980s when the Brady Bill was signed. In light of threats to gun owners’ access and right to bear firearms freely, the number of militias in the country ballooned. This led to the confrontations at Ruby Ridge and Waco, and the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings.
While it is possible that another major crisis will happen in the near future, such as the Newtown school shootings, Potow is optimistic that this rash of extremism will lead to cooler heads and that the polarization of the nation is temporary. Extremism is bound to continue to rise in the short-term, but — when looked at in perspective of the span of history — moderation and rationality will win out in the long term.