The SPLC Is Overcounting ‘Hate’ Groups—and It’s Not Just Moms for Liberty
The Southern Poverty Regulation Middle (SPLC) has launched its yearly report on the variety of hate teams within the U.S.—a quantity that’s at all times rising, because of the watchdog group’s characteristically intelligent counting. By including Mothers for Liberty, a conservative grassroots group that bears little resemblance to the neo-Nazi teams the SPLC has traditionally tracked, the 2022 report manages to set a brand new report.
The SPLC has lengthy drawn criticism—not simply from the precise, however from libertarians and the left as nicely—for sustaining that hate in America is at all times rising, whether or not or not the ranks of the purportedly hateful are literally growing. Its notorious “hate map” is consultant of this downside: Irrespective of how small and insignificant a hate group could also be, it nonetheless counts towards the full quantity—and if it breaks aside due to infighting, it would find yourself counting as two teams on the subsequent yr’s listing.
Even so, the SPLC hit a snag in 2020: The general variety of hate teams within the U.S. had appeared to lower barely because the earlier yr, from 940 to 838. The next yr, 2021, produced simply 733 hate teams.
These findings would strike most individuals as excellent news, however they minimize towards the SPLC’s long-documented aim of elevating cash by inspiring concern about rising ranges of hate. (The Montgomery Advertiser‘s investigative report on this topic earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1995.) So the SPLC received inventive: The 2021 map consists of not simply the 733 hate teams but additionally 488 “antigovernment teams.”
Traditionally, the SPLC had tracked alleged antigovernment teams as a definite class, however the 2021 report stated that antigovernment teams and hate teams had “converged round a willingness to interact in political violence, both inflict or settle for hurt, and deny legally established rights to traditionally oppressed teams of individuals.”
Cautious readers, nevertheless, would notice that the general variety of antigovernment teams had declined because the earlier yr as nicely; whereas including the 2 numbers—hate and antigovernment—collectively made for a extra spectacular whole, the basic trajectory was downward. To not be deterred, the SPLC noticed: “Quite than demonstrating a decline within the energy of the far proper, the dropping numbers of organized hate and antigovernment teams counsel that the extremist concepts that mobilize them now function extra overtly within the political mainstream.” Heads they win, tails you lose.
The 2022 listing makes virtually no effort to tell apart between hate teams and antigovernment extremists. The latest hate map lists 1,225 teams, which seems like an enormous enhance from the earlier yr, because the map’s interactive operate prompts viewers to match it with 2021’s 773 hate teams. Apparently, antigovernment teams are added and subtracted as mandatory to supply the specified totals.
Amongst 2022’s hate and antigovernment teams is Mothers for Liberty, a corporation that rallies right-wing dad and mom who disagree with the curriculum and COVID-19 insurance policies of public faculties. This inclusion has prompted appreciable pushback from the precise; the group’s co-founder, Tiffany Justice, rejected the “extremist” label, telling Fox Information, “We’re a gaggle of mothers and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles, neighborhood members which can be very involved in regards to the course of the nation.”
The SPLC defends its description of Mothers for Liberty as an extremist group by citing a number of members who’ve made violent threats towards academics and the LGBT neighborhood. It additionally cites statements that aren’t very excessive, together with this one, from Justice:
“I increase my youngsters. The federal government doesn’t. We don’t co-parent with the federal government. And there are specific delicate topics that we wish to be directing the dialog round for our kids…Mother and father are very involved about this concept about gender identification that was by no means mentioned in our public faculties, and it’s now taking a entrance row seat in our kids’s training. And it’s affecting all the things they do, together with for a lot of of our women, how protected they really feel within the bogs at their college.”
The SPLC clearly objects to the agenda of Mothers for Liberty, which has advocated for the removing of books that debate gender identification, racial identification, and sexuality from public college libraries. However the hate report attracts little distinction between actions that would moderately be described as hateful (i.e., violent and incendiary rhetoric towards the LGBT neighborhood) and regular, right-of-center political organizing. As an example, the SPLC additionally condemns Mothers for Liberty for preventing towards masks and vaccine mandates, searching for to abolish the Division of Schooling, and undermining the affect of academics unions. If these stances are actually adequate to get a corporation labeled “extremist,” then the time period extremism has misplaced all related which means.
Fortunately for the SPLC, Mothers for Liberty is a chapter-based group, which signifies that it may be counted not as soon as however dozens of instances. For instance, the 2022 hate map lists 89 teams in Florida, 28 of that are Mothers for Liberty. In Texas, Mothers for Liberty constitutes 10 of the state’s 72 extremist teams. No effort is made to tell apart these chapters primarily based on whether or not distinguished members have espoused genuinely hateful views; they’re all simply extremists, extremists in all places.
The SPLC didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
