You make a legit point here that I acknowledge. It doesn't make sense. I disagree with you here. While membership in these groups may only number in the thousands, the community is bigger. The people sympathetic to the movement if far larger - you even have people on here talking about white genocide and how whites are persecuted today. These are white nationalist movement talking points. You have had multiple posters - a large contingent of the right wing posters on here, talking about the fake South African news of white landowners being kicked off their property. I hear lots of hate towards blacks and other minorities from people - so while they may not have their KKK card, they are certainly a white supremacist.
He brings up the Klan and Stormfront but the SLPC has a report about other hate groups. It's a pretty extensive report that includes all hate groups including black hate groups that they define as 'Hating Jews, whites, and the police' and basically every hate group you can imagine. Their summary is that hate in general is rising... https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/intelligence_report_166.pdf This is exactly right. Not everyone is a card carrying member of these groups and how many people are sympathetic to the cause? A growing number of Republicans already believe that racism is a problem...towards whites...and there are multiple studies and polls that are pretty consistent with this that have been released during the last few years. @HTM @cml750 @dachuda86 may not agree...but plenty of researchers do agree. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/10/17670992/study-white-americans-alt-right-racism-white-nationalists Some key points from the article... This isn't news to me, it's everything I said earlier. Again, I challenge others to actually consider that I'm right. Stop taking this _____ personal, I'm not talking about YOU or your Conservative values (unless you think racism is a conservative value...) I'm talking about White Supremacists and propaganda, a duo that has a terrible yet EFFECTIVE history and how white supremacists operate nowadays. They don't wear hoods and scream out their hate or go around lynching black people. They hide online. They recruit online. And they look to infiltrate the military, the police, the government, and most importantly to get their message out through the GOP. If you truly care about the GOP, you truly care about conservative values that aren't attuned to racist values, you'll be a lot sterner than you have been. There's a reason that the GOP has been losing it's vote in every demographic but the white one, even among Asians, there's a reason for that. There is a reason Tucker and Laura are ranting about demographic change and diversity and there's a reason Trump tells you both sides are bad when one side is literally nazis. None of this is some happy coincidence. The plan from them has always been to infiltrate the GOP, steal it away, and turn it into a white interests party. You can go online, find any outpost of theirs, and see that this is their goal and they accomplish it because people downplay the significance of online campaigns. They fluff their numbers up, the move in large groups to upvote or downvote posts on twitter, facebook, whatever, to try and appeal to 'normies' so that their worldview looks normal. They spread their memes like a plague. They even play children games to do so there. It's always funny when I bring up the white moderate and how it offends people, yet, it was something Dr. King preached. There are way too many people I feel that will sit on the sidelines and play neutral while the illness takes over. Some people are more concerned with the term 'racism' than actual racism itself.
Assuredly. It stands to reason that there are more people who sympathize with White Supremacist groups who aren't card carrying members. How many? Unknowable. It very well could be a heavy multiplier on the number of "card carrying members." That's awful but my point, and what I've been trying to stress all the time is it's a matter of scale. There are roughly 200 million (according to wikipedia) "Non-hispanic White Americans" - and we're talking about card carrying Klan members and Neo Nazi's in 10 - 20k range. (roughly) That equals 0.01 of the white population in the United States. I like to consider myself a discerning and critical consumer of information. You have to go beyond the headlines and look at the real data. You cite a Vox article with a sensationalist headline, " Trump doesn't think White Nationalism is a thread but data says otherwise" - Oh wow! Data guys! That can't be manipulated! Lets look at that "data" - Here are the stats this article relies on: 1. the Anti-Defamation League shows white supremacists’ propaganda efforts increased 182 percent last year, with 1,187 distributions across the US in 2018, up from 421 total incidents reported in 2017. - Ok, what does this tell us? I'm not really sure, I don't know what constitutes a "distribution" and I'm not sure what this data is suppose to tell me about the overall state of White Supremacist movements in the United States. What exactly can I take from this? 2. The ADL data shows at least 91 white supremacist rallies or other public events attended by white supremacists were held in 2018, up from 76 the previous year. - Ok, what does this tell us? There were 91 events in 2018, most of which probably had participants in the 10's to dozens across the United States last year. Lets be generous and say that was 2,500 different individuals, though participants probably largely overlap. The United States has a white population of 200 million. The fact 2,500 or so people participated in a White Supremacist event in 2018 tells me 0.00125% of the white population participated. When you actually break down these stats this is the real information. Not the sensationalist stuff Vox purports it to be. 3. Right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 murders last year, a 35 percent increase over 2017, the ADL revealed in January. - It goes without saying, murder is a horrible thing and 1 murder is too many but Vox is using a sample size so small that any one event can substantially alter a year to year statistic. In 2017, there were 17,284 murders in the United States. For arguments sake lets say in 2018 there were 17,000. 50 out of 17,000 is 0.29%. When you put the numbers like that is paints a different picture right? 4. The number of hate groups operating across the US rose to a record high of 1,020 last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed in February. This made 2018 the fourth-straight year of hate group growth, and revealed a 30 percent increase following three consecutive years of decline near the end of the Obama administration. - What does this information mean? What does it tell me? Does this just encompass White Supremacists? Lets be generous and say it does, what does it mean for the numbers of White Supremacists operating in the United States? It is going up? If it is to what number? Are bigger groups becoming smaller groups? How many people are involved on average with each group? This is just a sensationalist statistic that doesn't actually convey any useful information to me. That's why I do my best to find actual numbers about the actual number of operating White Supremacists. 5. Most terrorist attacks in the US in 2017 were thought to be motivated by right-leaning ideologies. Out of 65 incidents, 37 were tied to racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations, Quartz revealed through data compiled and released in August 2018 by the Global Terrorism Database. - Again, sensationalist, but disingenuous when placed in context. Ok lets say that 37/65 attacks in 2017 were done by White Supremacists of some sort. That stands to reason considering there are 200 Million white Americans. By their sheer volume of numbers white Americans are going to more idiots than any other group. It is estimated there are somewhere around 3.5 million Muslims in the United States. (roughly 1% of the population). Examine any of these "stats" in depth and you actually draw out the reality of the situation. White Supremacists represented an extreme fringe 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago and represent an extreme fringe in 2019. Sensationalist headlines and articles like, "White Nationalism on the rise" or "White Supremacy rising threat" - maybe technically true but are extremely disingenuous when placed in the proper context of the population. You have to be careful with stats. Here is an example, The HTM Militant Texas Secessionist Army, went from 3 members in 2018 to 6 members in 2019. That's a 100% increase! OMG! The HTM Militant Texas Secessionist Army is a "rising threat" - Oh, wait, they are statistically insignificant, have no political influence, are widely disowned and operate on the total fringe of society.
I try and operate in the realm of fact. Facts have been shown to me which indicate the number of Klansmen and Neo-Nazi's make up 0.00125% of the white population in the United States. I can't argue with or reason with, "Yea, HTM but there are MORE who aren't card carrying members but they are influential and in the shadows and there are a lot of them" - I agree there are more. What can I say to that, yea, a certain amount but that can't be quantified and a real conversation about their numbers and influence cannot be had. What % of the population does that get us to? A still fairly insignificant amount I would Imagine.
But it can be reasonably quantified by polls that show that a growing number people believe that whites are a victim and that minorities are a threat to their countries which is what studies are showing and multiple studies show that a lot of people that voted for Trump for some white identitarian purpose. Even if that number were say 10%, that's still millions of people, even if from that 10% you'd have a few that are card carrying members of some hate group. The point is this, white nationalists have been focused on subverting the GOP message into their own and they have almost succeeded into doing that and will continue to succeed because people continue to downplay their effects...and honestly they either do so naively, wanting to believe that racism is dead...or they do so maliciously.
It's quantifiable by the increase in violence against Jews and minorities - it's been a large spike and it's not from going from 1 to 2 but into the hundreds. Violence from White Supremacy exceeds the violence from Islamic Extremist by a wide wide margin, yet we make a big deal about having a problem with Muslims in this country and the need to ban Muslims and vet them, then despite more terrorism happening from White Nationalists now in this country, people like yourself say it's not a problem and others including Trump say it's not a problem So please can you explain how is it that murders by White Supremacists which is a much bigger number than from Muslim Extremists yet Muslim Extremists are the bigger problem and we need a Muslim ban?????
Well I'm certainly not the naive one here and I'm certainly not posting maliciously. I also don't only cite my work from committed left wing news outlets. Outlets which have and have always had a vested interest in playing up racial tensions and attempting to associate the GOP with White Supremacists. When you poke through their thin veneer of cherry picked stats, you see the reality of the situation. Racism is not "dead" and likely will never "die" - bigotry and all types of discrimination exist in every society and in every country and I don't imagine those things will ever go away completely. I'll keep a look out for the "White Supremacist Ideology" infiltrating the GOP.
BLM? It'd be more accurate to say something like a black racist. BLM is to amorphous and diverse to use it as some corollary to "white supremacist." You could define BLM to include extremists like the cop-killer you alluded to, but you can't really define it to exclude non-racist moderates that really only see it as a movement of racial equality. "White supremacist" movements don't really include a racial equality wing. But Obama did talk about BLM. Here. Here. Probably many other times. Even if you do think (ridiculously) that BLM is the black corollary to white supremacy, you can't say Obama dodged or ignored the issue -- he signaled his support in word and in deed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...neral-pershing-pigs-blood-video-a8829676.html Trump tells story about US general killing 49 Muslims with ers dipped in pigs blood.
Who said you were either, you also cited nothing in the thread but KKK numbers as if anyone was talking about the KKK and you can't discredit information just because it's from the left or the right. Which cherry picked stats do you refer to? Well, some of us are happy to be settled with the state of the world and some of us strive to make it a better place. As for your look out, let me help you with that... 2018 2011
I'll do it for him. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-far-right.html So really, what you all are doing is telling me that we should NEVER talk about Islamic terrorism or the threat of Islam because the data bears out that it is a much smaller threat.
I cited statistics from the SPLC and BBC. I've cited a variety of statistics. To try and misrepresent that only makes you look worse. I can discredit information when it is manipulated and use disingenuously such as the entire article from Vox with its cherry picked stats that I took apart.
I figured you'd do this for me. Totally discredit yourself with such a bad take. Using plain numbers with no context is sooo disingenuous. What have I emphasized my entire time in here? Scale. There are 200 million white Americans. White Americans make up 61% of the population. Not far off from the 71% number you cite. Muslims make up 1% of the population but a staggering 26% of extremist related fatalities? You think that's a good stat?
You do realize I've also used the SPLC, right? You never took apart the Vox article, either the post was completely missed by me or I didn't see it, that article used data from a study that you never took apart, all you said was that you can't count 'shadow' racists and left it at that. You think this favors you? The entire argument is that it has RISEN...that's what the data shows, do you disagree? Do you agree or disagree that maintstream conservatives are taking white nationalists talking points? You say you'll be on the look out for it but all you've done is handwave it away.
The OP and this entire thread invited a conversation about the state of white supremacy in the United States and I decided to share the information I had collected in my time. I cited the statistics I had access to with regards to the numbers of white supremacists in the country. It was totally appropriate to do so.
