Klan chapters grew from 72 in 2014 to
190 last year, invigorated by the 364 proConfederate battle flag rallies that took
place after South Carolina took down the
battle flag from its Capitol grounds following the June massacre of nine black
churchgoers by a white supremacist flag
enthusiast in Charleston, S.C. Rallies in
favor of the battle flag were held in 26
states — concentrated, but by no means
limited to the South — and reflected
widespread white anger that the tide in
the country was turning against them.
On the opposite end of the political
spectrum, black separatist hate groups
also grew, going from 113 chapters in 2014
to 180 last year. The growth was fueled
largely by the explosion of anger fostered
by highly publicized incidents of police
shootings of black men. But unlike activists for racial justice such as those in the
Black Lives Matter movement, the black
separatist groups did not stop at demands
for police reforms and an end to structural
racism. Instead, they typically demonized
all whites, gays, and, in particular, Jews.
Just as the number of hate groups
rose by 14% in 2015, so did the number
of conspiracy-minded antigovernment
“Patriot” groups, going from 874 in 2014
to 998 last year. The growth was fueled by
the euphoria felt in antigovernment circles after armed activists forced federal
officials to back down at gunpoint from
seizing cattle at Cliven Bundy’s ranch
to pay his grazing fees. So emboldened
were activists by the failure of the federal
government to arrest anyone following
their “victory” at the Bundy ranch that
armed men, led by Bundy’s son, began
occupying a wildlife refugee in Oregon
in January 2016 as a protest against federal land ownership in the West.
The 2015 hate group count almost
certainly understates the true size of the
American radical right. White supremacists are increasingly opting to operate mainly online, where the danger of
public exposure and embarrassment is
far lower, where younger people tend to
gather, and where it requires virtually no
effort or cost to join in the conversation.
The major hate forum Stormfront now
has more than 300,000 members, and the
site has been adding about 25,000 registered users annually for several years —
the size of a small city.
The milieu of the web is an ideal one
for “lone wolves” — terrorists who operate on their own and are radicalized
online. Dylann Roof is the perfect example. His journey began with absorbing
A TIMELINE
The year 2015 was remarkable for the proliferation of radical-right and jihadist conspiracies, terrorism and related
violence in America — a situation so bad, in fact, that the
Anti-Defamation League reported in December that more
people were killed by political extremists last year than in
any year since 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing left
168 people dead. What follows is a timeline of key events.
36 splc intelligence report
The year has hardly begun
when two Islamist gunmen burst into the offices
of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical
magazine in Paris that published what were deemed
blasphemous cartoons of
the prophet Muhammad.
The pair murder 12 people,
and five more are killed in
related assaults in the next
days, provoking an anti-terror march by 2 million people and 40 world leaders.
Although the attack by Al
Qaeda occurs in France, it
stokes fears in America of
Islamist violence.
Violence Hits a New Peak
Last year brought more domestic political violence, both from the American
radical right and from American jihadists, than the nation has seen in many
years (see timeline of violence, below).
According to a year-end report from the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “domestic extremist killers” slew more people in
2015 than in any year since 1995, when
the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 men,
women and children dead. Counting
both political and other violence from
extremists, the ADL said “a minimum
of 52 people in the United States were
killed by adherents of domestic extremist movement[s] in the past 12 months.”
Another tally, by the respected New
America Foundation, found that by
FEB. 14
On Valentine’s Day, FBI
agents arrest Jonathan Leo
Schrader, a West Virginia
man who officials say regularly espoused “venomous
antigovernment, anti-law
enforcement rhetoric.” They
find C-4, dynamite and
other weapons he allegedly
intended to use to attack a
federal courthouse, a bank,
and the Mountain State
Forest Festival in Elkins.
Schrader also allegedly
planned to use a sniper rifle
to shoot at first responders
to the scenes of the explosions he plotted.
FEB. 16
David Joseph Lenio is
arrested in Montana after
allegedly tweeting repeatedly about shooting up a
school — “I bet I could get
at least 12 unarmed sitting
ducks” — and a rabbi. After
being released from jail
pending trial, Lenio, an antiSemite who also accuses
Jews of being behind 9/11,
sends out a series of similar tweets, apparently violating the terms of his
release. Lenio is vocally supported by Karl Gharst, a former leader of the neo-Nazi
Aryan Nations.
AP IMAGES/AURORE MARECHAL, SIPA USA (CHARLIE HEBDO); AP PHOTO/GREG LINDSTROM, FLATHEAD BEACON (LENIO)
THE YEAR IN
DOMESTIC
TERROR
JAN. 7
propaganda about black-on-white
crime from the website of the Council
of Conservative Citizens, a hate group
that enjoyed the attention of Republican
lawmakers in the 1990s, and ended with
the June massacre in Charleston. Like
increasing numbers in white supremacist circles, Roof was convinced after
drinking radical-right Kool-Aid on the
Internet claiming that white people
worldwide were the targets of genocide.