The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has reported 1,371 hate and anti-government extremist groups active across the United States in 2024, revealing a nationwide surge in coordinated efforts to divide communities and destabilize American democracy.
The SPLC’s Year in Hate & Extremism report outlines how hard-right movements continue to embed themselves into mainstream politics, using chaos, disinformation, and intimidation to push authoritarian ideology from local school boards to the highest levels of federal government.
“We cannot surrender to fear,” SPLC President Margaret Huang said in a statement. “This report offers data that is essential to understanding the landscape of hate and helping communities fight for the multiracial, inclusive democracy we deserve.”
The report identifies the sharp rise in threats and tactics targeting vulnerable communities, particularly in Southern states, where school boards and legislatures became battlegrounds for policies that harm Black and Brown communities, women, immigrants, Indigenous people, Jewish and Muslim Americans, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
Among the most dangerous developments in 2024 was the systematic assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. SPLC documents how anti-DEI efforts became a gateway for white supremacist rhetoric, with prominent figures and groups branding DEI as “white genocide.”
A former Reagan official called DEI programs “an anti-white, anti-heterosexual indoctrination program,” while others blamed equity policies for bridge collapses and hurricane mismanagement despite no factual basis.
SPLC also tracks how hard-right groups weaponized conspiracy theories, misinformation, and violence to intimidate communities and election officials. In September, a wave of 33 hoax bomb threats struck Springfield, Ohio, after former President Trump and Senator J.D. Vance made false claims about Haitian immigrants. On Election Day, 60 polling locations in Georgia received bomb threats traced to Russian email domains.
Planet Fitness and Jewish institutions were similarly targeted after anti-LGBTQ+ provocateurs highlighted them online.
Local militia groups also proliferated in 2024. While national networks like the Oath Keepers splintered, SPLC documented 50 militias operating with increased secrecy. These groups, often calling themselves “minutemen,” conducted paramilitary training while espousing antigovernment conspiracies and white supremacist ideologies. The Mid-Missouri Minutemen, for example, maintained ties to the white nationalist Heartland Active Club through Telegram chats.
Online platforms like Telegram remain a central hub for recruitment and radicalization. SPLC researchers analyzed Telegram’s “similar channels” feature and found extremist users cross-pollinating between neo-Nazi groups, QAnon influencers, and Proud Boys, forming large, interconnected ecosystems.
In January, the U.S. Department of State designated the Terrorgram Collective, a Telegram-based neo-Nazi network, as a global terrorist entity.
The report also documents the surge in male supremacist ideologies, particularly in digital spaces. The SPLC added seven new male supremacist hate groups to its map in 2024. The Fresh & Fit podcast, led by Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes, now appears on the hate group list for its misogynist content targeting Black women and its role in fueling gender-based hostility among young men.
Related manosphere influencers, including those in the Black manosphere, promote conspiracy theories blaming Black women for societal problems while profiting from coaching sessions and online engagement.
SPLC researchers also examined the decline of traditional neo-Confederate organizations. Once numbering over 120, only four such groups showed signs of activity in 2024.
The League of the South, once central to the movement, rebranded as the Southern Nationalist League after losing legal battles linked to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The rebrand appears to be an attempt to escape civil liability while continuing to promote a white ethnostate rooted in Christian theocracy.
One of the report’s case studies highlights the growing political power of Turning Point USA, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, has promoted white nationalist theories, including the “great replacement.”
TPUSA became a central organizing force for Trump’s 2024 campaign and participated in Project 2025, a blueprint to reshape the federal government. Through its Turning Point Faith arm, the group trains pastors to promote Christian nationalist values and has amplified figures like Candace Owens and Lara Trump.
At one 2024 event, Kirk told supporters, “We native born Americans are being replaced by foreigners,” and pledged Trump would “liberate” the country.
At the core of these ideologies is the myth of “white genocide,” which the SPLC says has moved from the fringes into mainstream conservative discourse. The Family Research Council published nearly 150 articles on immigration in 2024, many framing it as a plot to “breed out” white Americans. At the FRC’s Pray Vote Stand summit, speakers claimed immigrants and LGBTQ+ individuals threaten Christian culture and called on supporters to have more white children to “reclaim” the nation. These statements, according to the SPLC, are direct echoes of neo-Nazi and white nationalist rhetoric.
“This is a profound cultural and political transformation the right pushes to grasp political control,” SPLC researchers wrote. “The right’s colonization of the center never comes without violence, threat, and fear mongering speech.”
