Antisemitic leaflets dropped at private homes in Southern California. Fliers saying, \u201cStand Up White Man,\u201d left in driveways in suburban Indiana. A laser projector casting hateful messages outside a football stadium in Florida.<\/p>\n
Propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups soared in 2022 as such incidents reached a five-year high across the country, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism.<\/p>\n
In the report, set to be released on Thursday morning, researchers for the A.D.L. say they have identified more than 6,750 separate occasions last year on which white supremacist organizations distributed racist, antisemitic or otherwise hateful fliers, stickers, banners, images, posters or graffiti. That is a nearly 40 percent rise in similar incidents compared with 2021 and a more than fivefold increase since 2018, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Propaganda by hate groups serves not only to frighten and harass those who see it, but can also act as a powerful recruiting tool. Moreover, it can desensitize people to acts of aggression against victims \u2014 and even inspire violence in its viewers, scholars of political violence say.<\/p>\n
While most propaganda efforts by white supremacist groups are targeted at local communities and are often limited in scope, in many cases they seek to capitalize on more prominent events. The A.D.L. has previously pointed out that some groups piggybacked on hateful behavior last year by the rapper Kanye West, who made a torrent of antisemitic remarks and attended a highly publicized dinner in November with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist leader, and former President Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no question that white supremacists and antisemites are trying to terrorize and harass Americans and have significantly stepped up their use of propaganda as a tactic to make their presence known in communities nationwide,\u201d Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the A.D.L., said in a statement that accompanied the report.<\/p>\n
While the A.D.L.\u2019s researchers determined that at least 50 separate organizations distributed white supremacist propaganda last year, three groups \u2014 Patriot Front, Goyim Defense League and the White Lives Matter movement \u2014 were responsible for more than 90 percent of the incidents. While these groups are not household names, as are other far-right organizations like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers militia, they have steadily promoted their racist, antisemitic and white supremacist messages by a variety of means in recent years, including at marches, rallies and public harassment campaigns.<\/p>\n
Patriot Front, which promotes the idea of a white ethno-state in the United States, was responsible for the majority of the propaganda efforts last year, according to the report. It often cloaked its overtly white supremacist ideas in softer and more palatable phrases like \u201cReclaim America\u201d and \u201cOne Nation Against Immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group broke away from another organization, Vanguard America, in August 2017 after the bloody \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rally in Charlottesville, Va. Last year, it was involved in a number of public marches, including one that targeted a local Pride event in Coeur d\u2019Alene, Idaho, and resulted in the arrests of dozens of its members, including its founder, Thomas Rousseau.<\/p>\n
Goyim Defense League has sought in recent years to spread an especially vitriolic version of antisemitism both online and in public. In October, after Mr. West, now known as Ye, made a series of antisemitic statements, Goyim Defense League and other groups, capitalizing on the publicity, used a laser projector to display a message on the outside of a college football stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. reading, \u201cKanye is right about the Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White Lives Matter network, which first emerged in 2015 as the Black Lives Matter movement was quickly gaining prominence, engaged in propaganda efforts last year that included distributing stickers with a QR code linking to its Telegram account, according to the report. The network also passed out literature about the \u201cgreat replacement\u201d conspiracy theory, which holds that leftists are purposefully seeking to change the racial balance of the country by encouraging immigration.<\/p>\n
The group scored a victory in October when Mr. West appeared at an event during Paris Fashion Week wearing a \u201cWhite Lives Matter\u201d T-shirt. While the stunt cost Mr. West several lucrative marketing contracts, it also provided immeasurable publicity to the white supremacist network that coined the phrase.<\/p>\n