After Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd in late May 2020, the U.S. and the world were on the precipice of a cultural reckoning on racial injustice, marked by mass protests that swept the world. The day after the murder, as video of the violence hit the news and tensions were about to ignite, Bedford County, Virginia, passed a resolution in support of “the militia.” A similar resolution had passed in Campbell County, Virginia, earlier that year.

Anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is engaged in an ongoing crusade to force private businesses to adhere to conservative Christian theology, in part by spreading the false narrative that private sector banks have been dropping conservative religious clients since the Obama administration. The conspiratorial claim, which ADF calls “debanking,” has arisen out of an ongoing effort from ADF to ban or disrupt private sector investments in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental sustainability.

A Hatewatch investigation into leaked customer data of Sweden-based neo-Nazi hate music distributor Midgard revealed purchasers including a Wisconsin police officer and a known white nationalist whose name continued to show up in Midgard purchases months after his death.