The number of extremist hate groups in the US has reached an all-time high, according to a study which has linked the spike to Donald Trump’s presidency.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors the activities of extremist groups, said it tracked 1,020 hate groups in the US last year.
The report said: “The previous all-time high number of hate groups the SPLC counted was 1,018 in 2011, when rage against the first black president was roiling.
“Amid the era of Trump, hate groups have increased once again, rising 30 per cent over the past four years.
Hate groups tracked in the US in 2018
By category, according to SPLC research
Ku Klux Klan: 51
Neo-Nazi: 112
White nationalist: 148
Racist skinhead: 63
Neo-confederate: 36
Christian identity: 17
Black nationalist: 264
Anti-immigrant: 17
Anti-LGBT: 49
Anti-Muslim: 100
General hate: 163
“And last year marked the fourth year in a row that hate group numbers increased after a short period of decline. In the previous four-year period, the number of groups fell by 23 per cent.”
The SPLC defines a hate group as an organisation which exists to attack or malign an entire class of people.
Heidi Beirich, director of intelligence, said: “The American population is moving toward a minority-majority future, a shift the Census Bureau predicts will occur sometime in the 2040s.
“Nativists, racists and our president are taking advantage of the browning of America, contrasting it with nostalgia for a perceived better, whiter past, and using that idea to activate citizens into white nationalist thinking.”
