May 2025 Intelligence Project Dispatch: Trends and incidents of the hard right

The Southern Poverty Law Center works to dismantle white supremacy in public forums and online, exposes hate and anti-democracy extremism and counters disinformation and conspiracy theories with research and community resources. The Intelligence Project monitors and exposes white supremacy and its impact on communities.

Attacks on education

• For a second time, the Florida Senate declined to confirm Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich to the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee. She must leave the committee at the end of the current session.
• The American Library Association’s The State of America’s Libraries report revealed they were made aware of 821 attempts to censor library books and materials in 2024. Parents were only responsible for 16% of book challenges, and less than 5% were brought by individual library users. The bulk (72%) of censorship demands in school and public libraries came from pressure groups, elected officials, board members and administrators.
• To comply with a 2023 law regulating digital resources that children have access to in public libraries — focusing on so-called “obscene materials” — the Mississippi Library Commission ordered the deletion of two research collections relating to “race relations” and “gender studies.” The database is used by schools, libraries, community colleges, universities and state agencies.
• As part of an antisemitism probe, the federal government has sent a questionnaire to dozens of Barnard College employees asking whether they are Jewish. The questionnaire, sent by text to personal cellphones, linked to a Microsoft form bearing the logo of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The questionnaire directed respondents to check a box indicating whether they were Jewish or Israeli, and whether they practiced Judaism.

White nationalist and neo-Nazi movement activity

• Federal authorities charged Regan Prater, a 27-year-old Tennessee man with alleged ties to white supremacist groups, with one count of arson in connection to a fire that destroyed the offices for the Highlander Research and Education Center, a storied civil rights organization outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. Court documents allege that Prater is responsible for setting the fire that destroyed the offices in 2019.
• During the weekend of April 20, members of the Riverland Active Club participated in a training hosted by the Mid Missouri Minutemen. The land navigation workshop focused on map reading, orienteering and terrain identification. They stated these skills “should be expected of men in the Nationalist sphere.” The training session illustrates how the militia and white nationalist movements overlap.
• On April 30, a woman in Rochester, Minnesota, used a racial slur against a Black child on a playground. A video of the incident went viral. The woman who used the slur set up a crowdfunding page to raise funds “to assist in protecting my family.” A number of hate groups, including Active Clubs and the Goyim Defense League, promoted the page, which eventually amassed more than $600,000 in donations. In comments, people donating to the campaign left their own racist messages and promoted other white supremacist hate groups.
• Patria Gloria, Patriot Front’s fight club led by Ian Michael Elliott, hosted an event on April 13 dubbed “Fires of the Spring” at its compound in Tellico Plains, Tennessee. A week after the event, an April 21 post to the Patria Gloria Telegram channel, which is administrated by Elliot, stated, “We hold such events every few months, as the Academies keep growing.” In the accompanying pictures and video taken at the event, it appears about 25-30 Patriot Front associates participated.
• National Organization for Vital Action held a private event in the Houston area and has started to post racist propaganda more frequently. In response to the racist woman in Rochester, Minnesota, NOVA posted racist propaganda in the park where the incident took place.

Confederate monuments

• In April, the SPLC’s Intelligence Project released the biennial Whose Heritage? Report examining ongoing impacts of Confederate symbols in the United States. The report came out as many states celebrated Confederate History Day and Month in April. The report advocates uncovering and honoring the legacy of Black and white Southern abolitionists, interracial labor struggles and Civil Rights Movement heroes. The new edition addresses challenges under the second Trump administration.

Militia and antigovernment movement activity

• The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) advocated for President Trump to pardon former Culpeper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott Jenkins. Jenkins received a 10-year prison sentence in March after taking bribes and campaign contributions from individuals in exchange for auxiliary deputy sheriff badges and credentials. CSPOA Chairman Richard Mack called Jenkins an “innocent man” and “one of our best constitutional sheriffs” during a podcast aired on Rumble. Mack said he had tried for months “to get this in front of Trump so we can get this man pardoned” and claimed that Michael Flynn and musician Ted Nugent had also been unsuccessful in appealing to President Trump for Jenkins’ pardon.
• An April 9 New York Times article titled “Americans Are Preparing for When All Hell Breaks Loose” uncritically reported on and attempted to whitewash antigovernment beliefs. The article features Christopher Eric Roscher, a retired Air Force veteran and co-owner of the Florida-based Barrel and Hatchet Training Group. Multiple militia accounts on Instagram have shared and tagged the training group on social media.
• David Guy, the mayor of Ruth, North Carolina, is a member of the antigovernment group Tactical Civics of Rutherford County, according to Tactical Civics’ main Facebook account, which he joined in April 2024. Tactical Civics supporters around the country often push for the county commission to pass resolutions to create a militia and establish so-called citizen grand juries. Guy also serves as a vice chair for the North Carolina Republican Party’s committee in the 14^th Congressional District.
• Margie Kathy Brown, a self-identified sovereign citizen, led North Charleston police in South Carolina on what turned into a deadly chase in late April. Officers attempted to pull her U-Haul truck over, and Brown fled the scene. Brown struck two pedestrians and a car, causing a collision with a motorcycle and an SUV. In all, six people were injured and a motorcyclist died at the scene. Brown and her passenger told officers they were sovereign citizens. Brown was charged with reckless homicide.

Christian supremacy

• On “The Steve Gruber Show,” Calley Means, a senior White House adviser for Make America Healthy Again, claimed that “evil” and “demonic forces” are attacking kids, seemingly implying that corporations were behind it because it’s “extremely profitable.”
• Jackson Lane, a special assistant to the president and deputy director of faith engagement for the White House Faith Office, was previously an assistant to Michael Flynn at America’s Future and worked with the American Renewal Project, a part of the extreme religious movement the New Apostolic Reformation.
• The Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect “Jews killed Jesus” narratives. Senate Republicans added the amendment, which is arguably a concession to Christian conservatives and Christian nationalists.

Anti-Muslim activity

• On April 29, longtime anti-Muslim hate figure David Horowitz died. Horowitz was a force in organized bigotry on his own and through the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which provides space to hard-right figures for events and funds other anti-Muslim endeavors like FrontPage Magazine and Jihad Watch. A cadre of hard-right figures took to social media to pay their respects to Horowitz, including mentees of his like Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA and Stephen Miller, the documented anti-immigrant zealot and White House deputy chief of staff. Horowitz was 89 years old.

Online extremism and overseas engagement

• Prior to the recent Canadian election, extensive far-right propaganda from U.S. sources flooded Canadian social media. On April 25, the Financial Times published an analysis of social media postings which determined that prior to their national elections, Canadians were “bombarded with misleading rightwing content on US social media platforms.” Financial Times found that a “network of coordinated accounts” had posted content intended to support Pierre Poilievre and attack his opponent, Mark Carney. Researchers indicated an “increasing volume of misinformation” had come “from the US, including from rightwing podcasters and influencers as well as bots on American social media platforms that have reduced content controls.”
• In a significant move, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has officially classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a “proven right-wing extremist organization.” The classification opens the door to deeper surveillance and increased oversight of the AfD, which has been accused of violating core constitutional principles such as human dignity and the rule of law and faced accusations of being a fascist organization. Members of AfD have trivialized Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s reign and said that Hitler was “forced” to invade Poland, the event that started World War II. AfD has support from far-right figures in the U.S. including Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In a notable virtual appearance at an AfD rally on Jan. 25, Musk told the crowd that Germany should move beyond “past guilt” related to its Nazi history.
• Jan. 6 participant and U.S. Senate candidate Jake Lang, in a late March post to X.com, accused a French court of banning Marine Le Pen from federal elections for five years because “every poll had her winning in 2027.” In a later interview, Lang called the ban a “warning” for the American people of what could happen without President Donald Trump.

Male supremacy

• President Trump’s first 100 days in office have validated far-right extremists’ optimism by entrenching male supremacy into his administration’s personnel and policy. As reported by Hatewatch, his appointments of those with serious allegations of violence against women, rollback of support for victims reporting sexual harassment and assault, and efforts to bring the Tate brothers to the United States reveal the Trump administration’s tolerance of violence against women.
• Myron Gaines, the co-host of the male supremacist podcast “Fresh & Fit,” partnered with Uncensored Americato speak at Penn State University on April 7 and the University of South Carolina on April 22. His speeches were dominated by male supremacy as well as racism, antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, and white nationalism.

Anti-LGBTQ+ movement

• In April, the SPLC reported on the efforts of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom to push laws that critics say skirt money-laundering regulations, open the door to cryptocurrency manipulation, undermine prohibitions against racial and LGBTQ+ discrimination and weaken corporate commitments to environmental sustainability by perpetuating a conspiracy theory called “debanking” through its Viewpoint Diversity Score program. One program adviser, David Bahnsen, is also an instructor for the group’s secretive Blackstone Legal Fellowship and a senior fellow at the Christian reconstructionist Center for Cultural Leadership.
• On May 1, the Department of Health and Human Services released a report that attempts to legitimize dangerous and discredited conversation therapy practices under the moniker of “exploratory therapy.” The since-debunked report cites two letters to the editor of medical journals written by members of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group American College of Pediatricians. Among the letters’ authors is Quentin Van Meter, an anti-trans doctor who “repeatedly misrepresented his credentials in court while providing expert testimony about research on gender-affirming health care for trans people,” as Hatewatch previously reported.

Preventing extremism

• The Trump administration’s recent avalanche of budget cuts has severely undermined federal efforts to combat gun violence and extremist and hate-related violence, needlessly endangering public safety and public health. The administration eliminated billions in key research programs studying gun violence and domestic terrorism, including the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships.