SPLC Invents Crisis, Claims Trump Rise Fueled by Racism

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, widely described as a hate group for its anti-Christian bigotry, released a new report painting everyone from President Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to their grassroots supporters as dangerous racists and extremists. Dubbed an “intelligence” report, the document is aimed at turning law enforcement against conservatives and Christians by lumping them in with National Socialists and other genuine haters and troublesome characters. But as the SPLC becomes increasingly discredited amid national ridicule and a growing barrage of lawsuits, the report is likely to backfire. Indeed, instead of containing “intelligence,” the report is largely inaccurate and is based on easily debunked propaganda.

Right at the start, even before it gets into blatantly misleading fear-mongering and statistics, the Spring 2019 Intelligence Report unleashes vitriolic hatred against President Trump and his supporters. It claims, for example, that the rise of the president and his alleged bigotry and “white supremacy” can be largely explained due to fears of supposedly racist white Americans, who are said to be concerned about changing demographics caused by mass immigration. Anyone who disagrees with the open-borders policy agenda of the SPLC and its allies is painted as a racist and extremist who is “filled with hate.” Proponents of the “diversification” policies, meanwhile, are described as “filled with hope.”

Trump is exploiting racist Americans with his own racism, the SPLC claims. “He is taking advantage of their rage against change,” claims the editor’s note by Heidi Beirich, the “intelligence project director” for the fringe left-wing group, while celebrating what she describes as the “browning” of America as it becomes a “minority-majority” nation. “Trump tests us nearly daily with his racism, nativism and hateful policies. And as we explore in this issue of the Intelligence Report, the surge in white supremacy and hate-driven domestic terrorism is slowing our progress toward a vibrant, multicultural democracy.” No examples of Trump’s alleged racism, nativism, or hatefulness are provided.

Of course, this Intelligence Report is aimed at government officials — especially law-enforcement officials. Ironically, though, state and local law-enforcement officers absolutely love President Trump. And they backed him by large margins. According to a survey conducted by POLICE magazine, out of over 3,500 poll respondents who planned to vote in the 2016 election, 84 percent said they supported Trump. By contrast, just eight percent supported Hillary Clinton. Since then, Trump has stood beside state and local law-enforcement, earning their trust. In short, with the SPLC painting Trump and his supporters as dangerous and unhinged racists, it seems likely that the SPLC will further alienate their target audience.

But there are alternatives. The Law Enforcement Intelligence Brief, a publication for senior law-enforcement executives produced by the Law Enforcement Charitable Foundation that goes to every police chief and sheriff in America, recently exposed the SPLC’s extremism, its open support for infamous anti-police terrorists such as Bill Ayers, and its dishonest smears of those it disagrees with. Among other absurdities, the SPLC smeared a moderate Muslim as an “anti-Muslim extremist,” an Indian as an “anti-Indian” leader, and a prominent black law professor as a supporter of “white supremacy.” On the other hand, it ignores or downplays the very real and very dangerous anti-police extremism of radical left-wing organizations such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and more.

Obviously, Trump is not the only target of the SPLC. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has emerged as a strong supporter of the president, is quoted under the phrase “WHITE ANXIETY” about the mass immigration swamping America. “No nation, no society has ever changed this much, this fast,” Carlson supposedly said on March 19, 2019 — almost a month after the SPLC publication was released. “Now, before you start calling anyone bigoted, consider — and be honest — how would you feel if that happened in your neighborhood?… The point is, this is more change than human beings are designed to digest. This pace of change makes societies volatile, really volatile, just as ours has become volatile.”

After attacking Trump and Carlson, the publication goes right into claiming that the “alt right,” a boogeyman largely concocted by fringe left-wing activists to smear run-of-the-mill conservatives, was running around murdering people. But even according to their own inflated numbers, an American would be far more likely to be killed by lightning than an “alt-right” activist. According to the National Weather Service, over 50 people are killed each year by lightning in the United States. And according to the SPLC, which has a tendency to imagine and invent right-wing boogeymen under the bed to grab more money from terrified old ladies, some 40 people were killed by “alt-right” figures in America and Canada combined.

In reality, though, even those numbers fall apart under scrutiny. Many of those murderers, for instance, were actually leftists or even socialists, by their own admission. For instance, Robert Bowers, who murdered Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, was an anti-Trump activist and National Socialist (Nazi) who was furious about Trump’s support for Israel and allegedly being too friendly with Jews. Indeed, much of the anti-Semitism of today — from the Women’s March to Representative Ilhan Omar — comes from the hard left. Other killers cited by the SPLC were not political at all. One murder, perpetrated by Joden Rocco, was the result of what appears to have been a drunken fight after wild drinking.

Incredibly, almost half of the murders that the SPLC attributed to the “alt-right” to further its narrative were perpetrated by Nikolas Cruz in Florida — a deranged child who even according to the left-wing fact-checkers at PolitiFact was not killing people for any ideology, despite some debunked “fake news” reports to the contrary. “The portrait that has emerged of Cruz so far is not of a person motivated by political views,” PolitiFact said in giving a rating of “Pants on Fire” to an article that claimed Cruz was motivated by supposed political or religious views. “He had a history of mental illness.” Law-enforcement authorities officially debunked the phony claim that Cruz was somehow affiliated with some political group.

The SPLC also had to include murders perpetrated in Canada to support its phony narrative of dangerous conservatives lurking everywhere. The Canadian killer, who ran over and killed pedestrians in Toronto, was practically the antithesis of a conservative or right-winger. Basically, he was a troubled young man with Asperger’s Syndrome who, brainwashed by cultural revolutionaries into becoming a sex fiend, wanted desperately to fornicate with women. According to the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, the killer was not known for having any strong political affiliations or even strong viewpoints on any particular subject.

Indeed, upon closer scrutiny, after removing socialists and non-political killings, it appears that there was not a single murder perpetrated by a right-wing activist, despite the SPLC’s outlandish fear-mongering. That means law-enforcement agencies that pay attention to the SPLC’s fear-mongering Intelligence Report are wasting valuable resources that could be spent on real threats and dangers — threats such as potential terrorists motivated by SPLC-backed communist terrorist Bill Ayers, whose terror group bombed and murdered police officers in a series of deadly attacks.

In addition to alleged haters, the SPLC also seeks to drum up fear about alleged “anti-government” groups. As with its phony “hate” list, which mixes in mainstream Christian and conservative groups with National Socialists and the KKK, most of the SPLC-designated “anti-government” organizations are blatantly mischaracterized by the SPLC. Consider, for instance, the SPLC’s shrill demonization of the John Birch Society, a constitutionalist organization with chapters across the country and an affiliate of this magazine. Dozens of JBS chapters are listed (all independently as if each one was its own organization) as “anti-government” groups.

And then, the propaganda purpose. In an excerpt within its “anti-government” section, the SPLC says: “CONSPIRACY PROPAGANDISTS The John Birch Society, World Net Daily and InfoWars are crucial to the antigovernment extremist movement in that they help craft and nurture the very conspiracy theories that animate the movement’s activists, such as Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. These conspiracy theories identify grievances, both real and imagined, and demonize groups they deem responsible for them. Conspiracy propagandists often stop just short of offering a solution to the threats, instead leaving action up to movement members while being careful to maintain plausible deniability. These conspiracy theories generate a sense of urgency in the ‘Patriot’ movement that can lead to criminal activity, including terrorism.”

Of course, almost every sentence of that paragraph is inaccurate or an outright lie. First of all, the John Birch Society and many other groups smeared by the SPLC are firmly pro-government. In fact, the JBS has repeatedly warned about the dangers of no government — also known as anarchy — and how it typically is followed by tyranny. And plenty of government officials at all levels are involved in the JBS across the country. The JBS also does not “craft” conspiracy theories, but shines the light on documented facts, such as the late David Rockefeller’s boast in his Memoirs of being a “conspirator” with a “secret cabal” of “internationalists” working against the best interests of America to build a one-world order. And the JBS offers plenty of solutions to the threats, all of which involve educating fellow Americans using truth and nothing more. This can all be verified on the JBS website.

Unlike previous years, when the SPLC’s fear-mongering deception was picked up and parroted by establishment media organs across America, the Intelligence Report appears to have garnered very little attention. Increasingly, law enforcement at all levels has also realized that the dangerous agenda of the far-left group is not aligned with protecting the rights of all Americans. Even liberals and leftists have exposed the SPLC’s extremism and dishonest money-grubbing. Meanwhile, the group is facing a deluge of lawsuits for everything from racketeering to defamation — suits that could put the organization’s massive endowment, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, at the disposal of conservative organizations. Whether the lawsuits succeed or not, it is clear that the implosion of the SPLC’s credibility and influence is well-deserved.

Image: YiorgosGR via iStock / Getty Images Plus

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU or on Facebook.