White supremacist propaganda climbs to all-time high in US, says watchdog

Washington: The United States has logged its highest-ever distribution of white supremacist propaganda in 2022, a spike of nearly 38 per cent, data collected by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has shown.

The League recorded a mammoth 6,751 incidents of propaganda activity in 2022 — a jump from 4,876 incidents in 2021 that the ADL attributed to growth in the number of white supremacist groups and their membership.

Chiefly the surge in white supremacist propaganda has been traced to three white supremacist groups — Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League and White Lives Matter — these were responsible for 93 per cent of the increased activity, which includes banners, posters and events.

“There’s no question that white supremacists and anti-Semites are trying to terrorise and harass Americans and have significantly stepped up their use of propaganda as a tactic to make their presence known in communities nationwide,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL president, said in a statement published along with the report.

Much of the propaganda was found to be specifically anti-Semitic in nature, with the League pointing out that such propaganda grew by leaps and bounds from 352 incidents recorded in 2021 to 852 incidents registered in 2022.

The sudden surge in anti-Semitic propaganda “was largely due to [Goyim Defense League’s] growth and their initiation of propaganda campaigns. The formation of several new such anti-Semitic white supremacist groups in 2022 also contributed to the spike in anti-Semitic incidents,” the ADL report found.

The spikes come as national security leaders in the United States have repeatedly warned that white supremacists are an increasingly large share of the domestic violent extremists in the US

“Racially motivated violent extremism, specifically of the sort that advocates for the superiority of the white race, is a persistent, evolving threat,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last year.

“It’s the biggest chunk of our racially motivated violent extremism cases for sure. And racially motivated violent extremism is the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio,” he added.

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