Extremist white supremacist propaganda has more than doubled in US: Report

Extremist white supremacists across the United States have doubled down their propaganda efforts this year to promote ideas of hate and racism in the election year, a new report says.

News ID: 449030

Date: 13 February 2020 - 13:07

RNA - The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a report that circulation of white supremacist propaganda material increased by 120 percent so far this year.

“University campuses were frequent targets, the ADL found, with all but seven out of 50 states reporting incidents of banners, posters and flyers,” said the report.

“The data is unmistakable. White supremacists are doubling down on their efforts to promote messages of hate and recruit new members," it added.

The numbers mark this year as the second consecutive year that the circulation of propaganda material has more than doubled.

The US-based organization said it also documented more than 2,713 cases — an average of more than seven per day—over the past year, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.

The cases, including flyers, posters and bumper stickers were using traditional American color schemes and iconography to advance racist ideas.

The groups, however, held 20 percent fewer events, "preferring not to risk the exposure" to the public, said the report.

"The barrage of propaganda, which overwhelmingly features veiled white supremacist language with a patriotic slant, is an effort to normalize white supremacists' message,” said the ADL.

They are trying to “bolster recruitment efforts while targeting minority groups” across the US, the report added.

The ADL also said that the racist groups are making an effort to emphasize "patriotism" in an attempt "to make their hate more palatable for a 2020 audience.”

The Federal Bureaus of Investigation (FBI) admitted last week that racist extremists are now considered a "national threat priority" presenting the same danger as foreign terror organizations.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that combating domestic terrorism and its "close cousin," hate crimes, are at the "top of the priority list" for the agency.

In one case, one of the groups distributed a flyer, which displayed a cartoon image of “the squad,” — the group of four Democratic congresswomen — under the slogan “Send them back!”

This is reminiscent of an incident last year, when US President Donald Trump insulted a group the four progressive congresswomen, calling on them to "go back" to the countries they came from rather than “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States” how to run the government.

Among the group of the congresswomen is Democratic representative Ilhan Omar, a Muslim, who came to the US from Somalia as a refugee and became one of the first Muslim women in Congress.

Trump has long been accused of fanning the flames of racism and white supremacy in the US. Back in 2017, he publically defended a rally by White supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying, “You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

In another incident Trump used vulgar language, describing immigrants and people of color, who cross into the US illegally as “animals.”

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