Rightwing Hate Groups — The Infection is Spreading

No, it’s not just your imagination. There really has been a huge increase in the amount of crazed tinfoil-hattery on the Right. Anti-government militia groups, anti-immigrant vigilantes, Nazi/KKK-type racist fucks — they’re all multiplying and spreading like dysentery in a refugee camp.

According to a report called Rage On The Right — compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center — rightwing extremism has increased 244% in the past year.

In 2008 there were 149 of these “Patriot” groups. By the end of 2009 there were 512 of them.

Chip Berlet, an analyst of the American radical right, said:

“We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history. We see around us a series of overlapping social and political movements populated by people [who are] angry, resentful, and full of anxiety. They are raging against the machinery of the federal bureaucracy and liberal government programs and policies including health care, reform of immigration and labor laws, abortion, and gay marriage.”

And in a related story: Crazed rightwing shit disturbers have gotten a lot more air time on Cable TV stations.

Think there might be a connection?

This Mother Jones article says:

"Righteous anger is one thing. Manufacturing fear, dare we say terror, is another — and over the past year, we have seen cynical politicians and talk-show demagogues increasingly willing to traffic in it. It's no longer just handfuls of militia types trading overheated conspiracy theories; it's America's most popular cable news network giving gobs of airtime to people who all but advocate armed insurrection. It's the man who is now our newest senator chortling that maybe Barack Obama was born out of wedlock."