When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream

[Niels Bohr 72]

Last May, about 30 people gathered at a resort in Jekyll Island, Ga., for a series of discussions about "increasing national instability" and President Obama's "socialized" policies.

The island was chosen for symbolic reasons — the initial discussions about creating a Federal Reserve were held there in 1910 — and the attendees met to formulate a plan for bringing their own radical organizations together.

"One of the interesting things about the meeting is how nondenominational it was," says Mark Potok. "There were Holocaust deniers there. There were anti-Semites. There were also people who have none of those feelings, who are all about the idea that the federal income tax is unconstitutional — people from the old[er] militia movements and so on."

From the Intelligence Report

Rage On The Right: The Year In Hate And Extremism

Midwifing The Militias

Jekyll Island Gathering Recalls Another

Fear Of FEMA

Potok is the director of publications and information for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group's latest Intelligence Report, "Rage on the Right," documents the growth in the number of hate and extremist groups — and how their rhetoric is increasingly entering the mainstream.

In an interview with Fresh Air host Terry Gross, Potok explains that the meetings that took place on Jekyll Island were significant because they helped relaunch the anti-government "Patriot" movement.

"I think it was very important in bringing people together from various sectors of the radical right," Potok says. "I should say that the very same thing happened before the militia movement burst onto the scene in the 1990s. ... Back then, an important idea was to basically de-emphasize the racism in the movement in order to get more mainstream support. I think that did not happen this time. And I think that's partially because the issue of race is really very important right now."

Cover Image: Intelligence Report: Rage Right

Courtesy Southern Poverty Law Center

"Rage on the Right," the latest issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, explores the new extremist groups popping up across the country.

Potok points to race as one of the reasons "anti-immigrant vigilante groups [have] soared by nearly 80 percent" in the past year. He also notes a "dramatic resurgence in the Patriot movement and its paramilitary wing" in the past year — jumping 244 percent in 2009. Potok says that these groups' messages are increasingly moving into the mainstream.

"I think it's very clear that you see ideas coming out of all kinds of sectors of the radical right, from the immigrant radical right, from the so-called Patriot groups, the militias and so on — and you see it spreading right across the landscape at some of these Tea Party events," he says. "I think it's worth saying that much of this is aided and abetted by ostensibly mainstream politicians and media members."

Part of the issue, Potok says, is not what politicians say — but what they leave unsaid.

"I think a lot of these ideas start on the radical right, but they are also being flogged endlessly by Republican officials," he says. "Even those who are sort of considered [to be] responsible Republicans have completely abstained from any kind of criticism of this talk. So even way back when, when Sarah Palin was talking about Obama setting up death panels and so on — what we heard was a deafening silence from the mainstream of the Republican Party."

A new poll from Harris interactive finds that 40 percent of American adults think that Obama is a socialist; 25 percent believe that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to be president; 20 percent say Obama is doing many of the things that Hitler did; 14 percent say Obama "may be the Antichrist."

"I hear a very scary situation developing," says Potok. "The idea that people really have swallowed these stories in such enormous numbers is something remarkable. I covered, as a reporter, the militia movement in the 1990s, which really produced an extraordinary amount of criminal violence. And even back then, you did not hear this kind of talk so broadly spread through this society."