MAY 3
38 splc intelligence report
‘PATRIOT’ GROUPS 1995–2015
1274
1096
998
874
858
824
523
512
435
217
194
158
143
171
152
132
147
131
149
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
BILL CLINTON 1993-2001
GEORGE W. BUSH 2001-2009
than 83 percent of the population,” The
New York Times’ Eduardo Porter wrote
of lower-income whites in a trenchant
essay this January. “Today, their share
has shrunk to 62 percent as demographic change has transformed the
JUNE 3
A police officer and an FBI
agent shoot dead Usaamah
Rahim after he allegedly lunges at them with
a military knife in Boston.
Officials say Rahim initially planned to behead
Pamela Geller, but instead
attacked officers.
JUNE 17
In an attempt to start a
“race war,” Dylann Roof
murders nine black churchgoers at Emanuel AME
Church in Charleston, S.C.,
after accusing African
Americans of raping white
women and trying to “take
over.” The massacre provokes a major backlash
against the Confederate
battle flag, which Roof venerated, and that in turn fuels
enormous rage and pro-flag
rallies on the radical right.
BARACK OBAMA 2009-
United States into a nation where others have a shot at power.
“Their fear is understandable. In general, the concerns of Hispanic and black
American voters are often different than
those of white voters. But the reaction
JULY 16
Four U.S. Marines are
killed by Kuwaiti-born
Muhammad Youssef
Abdulazeez, a naturalized
U.S. citizen, in an Islamist
attack on a military recruiting office and a naval
facility in Chattanooga,
Tenn. Abdulazeez is also
killed. Members of the III
Percenters, an antigovernment group, later insist on
guarding a number of other
recruiting centers with guns
despite officials’ requests
that they not do so.
JULY 21
Former correctional officer Michael O’Neill blows
off his own leg while building bombs in his parents’
garage in Wheatland, N.Y.
While authorities do not
know what O’Neill’s plans
might have been, the garage
is hung with white supremacist propaganda — including
Nazi symbols, Klan posters and Confederate memorabilia — and O’Neill is
ordered held without bail.
AP IMAGES/LES STUKENBERG, THE DAILY COURIER (SIMPSON); AP IMAGES/SALT LAKE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE (SOOFI);
AP IMAGES/MARK GARFINKEL, BOSTON HERALD (KNIFE); LASTRHODESIAN.COM (ROOF); AP IMAGES/DAVID GOLDMAN (FUNERAL)
In Garland, Texas, anti-Muslim propagandist Pamela
Geller holds a Muhammad
cartoon contest, an obvious
provocation that she bills as
a “free speech” event. Two
Arizona roommates, Elton
Simpson and Nadir Soofi,
attempt to attack the gathering in the name of radical
Islam, but are almost immediately killed by a police
officer with a pistol despite
their body armor and semiautomatic weapons.
1360
AP IMAGES/JAN BAUER (CLINTON); AP IMAGES/MIKE GROLL (BUSH); AP IMAGES/CAROLYN KASTER (OBAMA)
Trump. They are angry over the coming loss of a white majority (predicted
for 2043 by the Census Bureau), the falling fortunes of the white working class,
worsening income inequality, the rise of
left-wing movements like Black Lives
Matter, major advances for LGBT people,
growing numbers of refugees and undocumented workers, terrorism, and more.
Their anger, above all, is directed at
the government.
In November, the Pew Research
Center reported poll results showing
that just 19% of Americans trusted the
federal government always or most of the
time, a number that is less than a quarter of the 77% level of trust recorded in
the late 1950s. Just 20% saw government programs as being well run, and
59% said the government needs “very
major reform,” up from 37% under
President Bill Clinton in 1997.
A January poll, this one by NBC
and Esquire, found that the news
makes 77% of Republicans and 67% of
Democrats angry at least once a day.
Whites were angriest, at 73%, compared
to Latinos (66%) and blacks (56%).
“Such voters are nostalgic for the
country they lived in 50 years ago, when
non-Hispanic whites made up more