SPLC Analysis Highlights Propaganda Effort Surrounding Chauvin Trial

Montgomery, Ala. – A new analysis published by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Hatewatch highlights the effort by white supremacists, far-right extremists and other pundits to spread racist conspiracy theories during and following the Derek Chauvin trial.  
 
“Given the historic nature of this trial and it’s outcome, we felt that it was important to report out and contextualize the lies that many Americans ingested over the last few weeks,” said Michael Edison Hayden, Senior Investigative Reporter for Hatewatch. “Imagine watching that grotesque video of Chauvin crushing George Floyd with his knee and seeking to portray the disgraced officer into some kind of victim. Right wing media did just that and they shouldn’t be allowed to forget it.” 
 
Ann Coulter, the most prominent of those spreading the propaganda, published Chauvin apologia through the white nationalist website VDARE. Coulter’s narratives seeped into extreme far-right circles across the web and into the mouths of Fox News pundits like Tucker Carlson. Coulter and others repeatedly portrayed Chauvin as being a victim of a culture which seeks to isolate and humiliate white men, rather than the perpetrator of a violent crime that millions of Americans witnessed with their own eyes.  
 
Read the full analysis here.