The alt-right is killing people
In the past four years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented a string of violent acts involving the racist “alt-right” which has resulted in 43 people dead and more than 60 injured.
We have counted over 100 people killed or injured by alleged perpetrators influenced by the so-called alt-right—a movement that continues to access the mainstream and reach young recruits.
Today the SPLC is releasing a new report chronicling the history of this movement, and their connection to violence.
The violence that left one dead at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer should not be understood as the high-water mark for the movement as some analysts have argued. The alt-right worldview, this rebranding of old hatreds, will remain compelling to disaffected white males and those who claim to speak for them for the foreseeable future. Worse, as this study suggests, punctuated violence will continue. For the same vision of society that the alt-right promulgates — its externalization of blame that lands on a host of enemies seen to be in the ascendancy — also aligns with the indicators of mass violence.
Meanwhile, the alt-right is redoubling its efforts at youth recruitment, intensifying its rhetoric and calling for radical, individual action.
