The Southern Poverty Law Center raises money by presenting itself as the expert on combating “hate,” and then exaggerating “hate” to scare donors into ponying up cash.
The problem? The SPLC’s inflated demand for “hate” has long outstripped the supply. Thousands of donors expect the SPLC to prove there’s enough “hate” to justify their donations, and that often leaves the center scrambling to keep up.
A jaw-dropping Justice Department indictment, filed Tuesday, appears to reveal yet another way the SPLC tried to meet this demand.
The SPLC has a clearinghouse for hate, a “hate map” that claims to reveal the “infrastructure of white supremacy.”
The SPLC map has included old shopkeepersopens in a new tab in the South who still support the Confederacy, but most Americans know people like that are irrelevant.
The center’s more cunning strategy involves branding mainstream conservatives and Christians as “hate groups” and “anti-government extremists,” putting them on the map for the sin of disagreeing with the SPLC’s agenda.
That has the added bonus of delegitimizing the SPLC’s opponents—but it seems the center is running out of new groups to add. First, it was conservative Christians like the Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom. Then, it was opponents of illegal immigration, like the Federation on American Immigration Reform. Now, it’s Moms for Liberty, PragerU, Focus on the Family, and Turning Point USA. They’re on the cusp of adding the entire conservative movement to the map.
So, what do you do if you can’t keep exaggerating hate? Well, you manufacture your own, of course!