Why I Stopped Covering Hate Groups (Sort Of)

Hate is big business. The harder you look, the higher it goes and someone has to cover it.

Photo by Frederick Shaw on Unsplash

Tracking hate groups is something I’ve done since before the advent of social media and the ensuing explosion in hate group membership. The game might have changed but their tactics were all the same. Secret meetings, marches to intimidate people, and so-called protests at events like Drag Queen Story Hours all over the country, it’s the same playbook that groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) employed a century ago.

Decentralized leadership makes it look as though many of the hate groups are leaderless yet, they all have the same (or very similar) agenda. They share ideas and plans online in small and large communities and their motivations are all the same: white supremacy. An ideology that covers everything from taking women’s rights and trans rights to oppressing Black people, brown people, LGBTQ people, and anything that isn’t a straight white male.

Are nonwhite people sometimes subject to falling in with this crowd? Of course. But it doesn’t mean they’re fully accepted, as we all know. These ideologies were all born of the same white Christian nationalism that created the KKK and many other hate groups. It’s nothing short of a fascist idea that weaponizes religion…