What The Hell America!

The Southern Poverty Law Center works to dismantle white supremacy in public forums and online, exposes hate and anti-democracy extremism and counters disinformation and conspiracies with research and community resources. The Intelligence Project monitors and exposes white supremacy and its impact on communities.  

Trends

Anti-Immigrant activity 

• President Donald Trump-designated U.S. border czar Tom Homan met with an associate of the Proud Boys and Jan. 6 insurrectionist to talk about deportations four times, including a closed-door meeting in Chicago.   

• The Texas Observer published a Feb. 19 article identifying James Rodden as the individual associated with an X profile using the screen name “GlomarResponder.” This profile routinely posted white supremacist and Christian nationalist content. The Texas Observer investigation revealed that Rodden was employed as an assistant chief counsel with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Dallas, Texas. The article provided extensive evidence supporting this identification. 

• The Trinity White Knights expanded activities in Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, and claim to have organized a multi-Klan Klonklave gathering in February. The Trinity White Knights have become one of the most active Klan groups in recent months, with a focus on immigration that included false claims about Haitian immigrants. The group recently ramped up flyering efforts in response to the administration’s deportation policies. 

White Nationalist organizing 

• Patriot Front held four rallies focused on anti-immigrant sentiment across the U.S. in February. Patriot Front’s show of force included Boston, where a judge recently issued a default judgment against the group and ordered them to pay $2.75 million to the person they assaulted.   

• Extremists attended the annual anti-abortion March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24. This included several members of the New Columbia Movement as well as approximately 100 uniformed Patriot Front members.  

• Dozens of Proud Boys marched through the streets in Washington, D.C., on Trump’s inauguration day. This was their first march in the city since the Jan. 6 insurrection where approximately 100 leaders, members and associates were arrested. 

Neo-Nazi efforts 

• Around a dozen members of the neo-Nazi group Hate Club held a demonstration in a predominantly Black community outside Cincinnati, Ohio, on Feb. 7. The men, several of whom were armed, shouted slurs and white supremacist slogans at passing vehicles and pedestrians. Residents staged a counterprotest and seized one of Hate Club’s swastika flags, which they then set on fire, according to reporting from CNN, as well as a video circulated on social media. While based in Missouri, the group previously held a similar demonstration in Columbus, Ohio, in mid-November, shortly after the election. 

Antigovernment activity 

• In January, Timothy Westervelt, founder of the Yellowstone Militia of Billings, barricaded himself in a Starbucks and engaged in an armed standoff with law enforcement in Livingston, Montana, while also facing multiple counts of child sex abuse in neighboring Yellowstone County. Along with commanding his militia, Westervelt served on the Physical Defense Committee of Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights Network.   

• In February, three Montana Tactical Civics operatives testified before a Montana House committee in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would create citizen grand juries. One of these operatives is Bart Crabtree, who has traveled the state on behalf of the issue for the group. These citizen grand juries can create a mechanism for hard-right extremists to harass and intimidate their perceived enemies by allowing a small number of people outside the legal system to call a jury and seek prosecution based on what they claim to be crimes. These citizen grand juries build on the legacies of groups like the Posse Comitatus and Montana Freemen.  

• Longhouse Preparedness, a preparedness group that espouses antigovernment beliefs, launched its own forum. An Instagram post announcing the forum stated it would help “keep guys in the ‘know.’” Prior to Facebook or similar social media platforms, militias often networked using forums sympathetic to their beliefs. 

• Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionist who tried starting a national militia from jail, announced he plans to run in the Florida GOP Senate primary to fill Marco Rubio’s empty seat in 2026. Lang’s campaign has already filed with the FEC, and Lang claimed to be in the process of leasing a campaign headquarters, according to a Feb. 17 interview on “The AlphaWarrior Show” podcast. 

• The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and its organizers faced fierce criticism from the Jan. 6 faction of the MAGA movement after a number of pardoned insurrectionists were barred from entering the event, including Stewart Rhodes, Enrique Tarrio and Jake Lang. While most would later be let in, Lang was not. David Clements later posted to X.com: “Too many gatekeepers have shaped narratives at CPAC on how to think about J6. Same people incorrectly tried to shape a narrative that ‘violent’ offenders (that were entrapped) should not have been pardoned.” 

• James Timothy Turner, the former president of the sovereign citizen group Republic for the united States of America (RuSA), recently resigned from the group, citing the constant bickering between members. Serving as the group’s “attorney general” since being released from prison in 2024, Turner’s decision to resign points to a tension between the sovereign citizenship popularized in earlier decades and the current one that features new demographics and enhanced networking and coordination with other extremist groups such as Tactical Civics. 

• The U.S. Department of Education canceled 18 grants totaling $226 million that were awarded to the Comprehensive Centers Programs, claiming that the “Comprehensive Centers have been forcing radical agendas onto states and systems, including race-based discrimination and gender identity ideology.” The move came just 24 hours after anti-DEI activist Chris Rufo took to X, tagged the Department of Government Efficiency, and criticized the comprehensive centers for pushing “left-wing ideologies” and being “taxpayer-funded witchcraft” that “must be defunded.” 

• The SPLC joined 96 civil rights and education groups in submitting a letter to senators demanding that they oppose the confirmation of Linda McMahon for U.S. Secretary of Education. While awaiting her confirmation, the Department of Education has already taken action to alter public education, including: dismissing complaints regarding banned books that the department stated were part of “Biden’s Book Ban Hoax”; and informing institutions that they were no longer to consider race “pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.” Failure to comply by the 14-day deadline will put institutions in jeopardy of losing federal funding. 

• The Trump administration replaced the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFCI), started in the George W. Bush administration, with the Faith Office. Trump picked Paula White-Cain to lead the effort. White-Cain is notable as she has ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, a leading Christian supremacist movement that has been a vocal backer of Donald Trump’s neo-fascist takeover of the U.S. government. Unlike its prior incarnation, the Faith Office has been moved to the Domestic Policy Council. The executive order establishing the Faith Office also mentions “Centers for Faith” or “Faith Liaisons” that will report to White-Cain and will be responsible for carrying out the Faith Office’s work in each federal agency.   

• Australian senator Ralph Babet, in an apparent Facebook exchange with Elon Musk, posted, “Demons control the world.” This is in line with a growing trend among right-wing politicians in the United States, and now more globally, to use demonic language and demonology to undermine democracy and pillory their political opponents. 

Hard-right technology topics 

• A judge in Brazil has suspended that country’s access to U.S.-based Rumble, a video-streaming platform favored by the far right in both countries, citing Rumble’s failure to comply with court orders. The same judge had previously banned Brazilian access to X, Elon Musk’s social media platform. These episodes, like France’s August 2024 arrest of Pavel Durov, owner of the messaging app Telegram, exemplify how governments are attempting to assert control over technology companies. 

• Male supremacist influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrived in Florida on Feb. 27 after Romanian authorities lifted travel restrictions related to their trial on charges of rape, criminal organization and human trafficking. This decision came a few weeks after a Trump administration official expressed interest in the case to the Romanian foreign minister at the Munich Security Conference, though the Trump administration denies involvement.  

• The far-right Hungarian government is set to award a significant public contract to New Land Media and Századvég to promote Hungarian tourism in the United States and abroad, investigative Hungarian news outlet Átlátszo reported on Feb. 14. These firms, known for their state-funded propaganda campaigns, will now handle media and research tasks for two government-linked nonprofits that focus on tourism. The contract, valued at over $1.3 million (half a billion Hungarian forints), involves promoting Hungary to international tourists, particularly targeting high-status travelers and the domestic population. Hungarian government-aligned nonprofits have promoted right-wing and far-right talking points to Western audiences for years.  

Anti-LGBTQ+ activity 

• On Jan. 14, Joseph Kohm III, director of public policy at Family Policy Alliance, stated in an interview on an episode of FPA’s limited series “Truth Exposed: God’s Design for Sex Intimacy”: “Pornography is the main tool for proselytizing to children in the LGBT way of life.” FPA’s anti-LGBTQ+ reasoning for engaging in anti-pornography policy demonstrates a clear pivot in rhetoric from false claims of protecting kids’ to attacking “LGBT way of life” as immoral. FRC’s Washington Stand published an article on Jan. 19 titled “Rising Porn Use among Teens Contributes to Increasing Transgenderism, Say Experts.” 

• Anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Family Research Council launched a website to track the fulfilment of Donald Trump’s campaign promises including renaming Fort Liberty “back to Fort Bragg,” in honor of the Confederate general who enslaved more than 100 people. 

• Anti-LGBTQ hate group MassResistance drafted text for a resolution designed to challenge and overturn same-sex marriage, this resolution has been introduced in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Wyoming, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. The resolution has passed the House in Idaho and North Dakota. Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver, who introduced legislation there, has lost his staff and committee assignments due to a racist X post promoting the racist “great replacement” theory. On March 2, MassResistance praised Schriver despite his racist X post.  

Confederate memorials 

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posts, “Bragg is Back!” after signing an order reverting Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg and signals he may restore other Confederate names to U.S. military bases. Because bipartisan legislation prevented Hegseth from choosing a Confederate name, he renamed Fort Liberty after Pfc. Roland Bragg, who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart in World War II. 

• On his personal X account, Hegseth wrote: “Bragg now. More to come.” This may be a reference specifically to Fort Moore. In 2023 the U.S. military changed the name of Fort Benning, named for secessionist and white supremacist Henry Benning, to Fort Moore, to honor Hal Moore, a Korea and Vietnam War veteran who earned the Distinguished Service Cross for valor, and his wife Julie, an activist and leader in supporting military families.  

• The renaming of Fort Liberty also follows a Virginia school board decision in 2024 to return the Confederate names of two public schools that had removed these offensive names in 2020.  

• Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, denounced the change back to Fort Bragg as cynical and insulting. 

Image at top: Members of the far-right militia group Patriot Front participate in the 2025 March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24, 2025. (Credit: Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)