Extremists, Groups, & Ideologies

Neo-Confederacy is a reactionary, revisionist branch of American white nationalism typified by its predilection for symbols of the Confederate States of America, typically paired with a strong belief in the validity of the failed doctrines of nullification and secession – in the specific context of the antebellum South – that rose to prominence in the…

Deniers of the Holocaust – the systematic murder of around 6 million Jewish people in World War II – either deny that such a genocide took place or minimize its extent. These groups and individuals often cloak themselves in the sober language of serious scholarship, call themselves “historical revisionists” instead of deniers and accuse their critics of trying to…

For “radical traditionalist” Catholics, antisemitism is an inextricable part of their theology. They subscribe to an ideology that is rejected by the Vatican and some 70 million mainstream American Catholics.

Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate nonwhite people, LGBTQ people and even sometimes Christians, they perceive “the Jew” as their cardinal enemy.

The Ku Klux Klan, with its long history of violence, is the oldest and most infamous of American hate groups. Although Black Americans have typically been the Klan’s primary target, adherents also attack Jewish people, persons who have immigrated to the United States, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Hate music groups are typically music labels that record, publish and distribute racist music of a variety of genres along with products that promote their hateful, often terroristic worldview.

Anti-Muslim hate groups broadly defame Islam and traffic in conspiracy theories of Muslims being a subversive threat to the nation. These groups largely appeared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and mix racism and anti-immigrant ideas. Their rise breeds a climate of fear, hate and intimidation directed toward Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim.

Anti-immigrant hate groups are the most extreme of the hundreds of nativist and vigilante groups that have proliferated since the late 1990s, when anti-immigrant xenophobia began to rise to levels not seen in the U.S. since the 1920s.

A central theme of anti-LGBTQ organizing and ideology is the opposition to LGBTQ rights or support of homophobia, heterosexism and/or cisnormativity often expressed through demonizing rhetoric and grounded in harmful pseudoscience that portrays LGBTQ people as threats to children, society and often public health.

Sovereign citizens believe they are not under the jurisdiction of the federal government and consider themselves exempt from U.S. law. They use a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal or violent. Their rejection of legal documentation such as Social Security Numbers, drivers’ licenses,…