SPLC: Hate groups in the U.S. decline but their influence grows

WAKA Action 8 News,

Posted: May 22, 2025 12:57 PM CDT

The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center says the number of white nationalist, hate and anti-government groups around the U.S. dropped slightly in 2024.

The SPLC says that is not due because shrinking influence, but rather the opposite.

In its annual Year in Hate and Extremism report, the SPLC said it counted 1,371 hate and extremist groups, a 5% decline. The group says there is a lesser sense of urgency to organize these groups because it says their beliefs have infiltrated politics, education and society in general.

Their report says some of the ways this has been done is through a push by some for bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, book bans and protests of drag story hours.

Last year, the SPLC says there were 533 active hate groups. The SPLC lists hate groups to include those which express views that are anti-LBGTQ+, anti-immigrant, antisemitic and anti-Muslim. This number has been steadily declining since reaching a historic high of 1,021 in 2018, according to the SPLC.

“The trends have slightly sort of gone up and down but let’s just say generally, since our tracking, have increased. And that’s not just on a total numbers level but also on a per capita,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project.

The SPLC says the number of anti-government groups last year totaled 838, an increase from recent years. It lists groups that it says see the federal government as “tyrannical” and includes militias and self-described sovereign citizens.

Male supremacy also continues to emerge as an influential hate group, the SPLC says. The SPLC said it documented seven new male supremacist hate groups, making the total 16. Their rhetoric espouses misogyny and strict gender roles, the SPLC said. It notes the rise happened as Kamala Harris ran for president.

“I’m not sure it’s a direct result of the candidacy of Kamala Harris,” Rivas said. However, SPLC researchers went into chatrooms of what it deemed white supremacist organizations during the election and found “intense vilification, the claiming of demonization of Harris as well as just the pushing of the idea falsely that women would not be qualified.”

Some people on what it calls the far right have also pushed a belief that white Christian culture is being threatened by a “demographic crisis” including fewer births, the SPLC claims.

“Politicians, pundits and provocateurs on the right have turned toward demonic language to tar those who disagree with them,” the report states.

Last year’s report said it found “record numbers” of white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups in 2023. The analysis highlighted how it said far-right groups tried to waylay democracy through disinformation, false conspiracy theories and threats to election workers. It also examined how supporters of what it labels as Christian supremacy used similar topics to organize a movement toward authoritarianism.

The SPLC is a liberal advocacy organization that, besides monitoring what it calls hate groups, files lawsuits over justice issues and offers educational programs to counter prejudice. Frequently criticized by conservatives as biased, the nonprofit has faced lawsuits for its designation of some organizations as hate groups.