Research & Analysis

August 10, 2021 July 2021: The statue of Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, a putative impetus for the Unite the Right Rally, was quietly removed from its pedestal in Charlottesville. Image credit: Rev Seth Wispelwey Four years ago, on August 12, 2017, hundreds of far-right extremists descended on Charlottesville to protest the planned removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from the city’s center. “Unite the Right” was the largest and most violent public assembly of white…

August 02, 2021 Photo credit: Walmart On August 3, 2019, white supremacist Patrick Crusius murdered 23 individuals and injured 23 more at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history. Two years later, animosity towards Latino-Americans and immigrants remains at dangerous levels. Crusius traveled roughly 10 hours to reach the El Paso Walmart, and posted a manifesto highlighting his premeditated and purposeful targeting of Latinos,…

July 27, 2021 On July 19, 2021, terror group Al Qaeda released a propaganda video entitled “America Burns.” The video, which reprises the content of an article by the same name published in April 2021 in Al Qaeda’s One Ummah magazine, runs just under 15 minutes and is available with both Arabic and English subtitles. This video was uploaded to Filelocker, an online filesharing service frequently utilized by extremists, and shared widely across Al Qaeda media platforms,…

July 27, 2021 New IFB pastors (left to right) Joe Jones, Steven Anderson, Roger Jimenez, Aaron Thompson, Bruce Mejia, and Jonathan Shelley at the 2021 Red Hot Preaching Conference in Sacramento, CA. (source: Facebook) The New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) movement held its sixth annual Red Hot Preaching Conference on July 15–18, 2021. The conference, hosted by Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, CA, showcased the vitriolic anti-LGBTQ+ and…

July 23, 2021 In recent months, Tucker Carlson introduced the “Great Replacement” theory into mainstream discourse. Once relegated to white supremacist forums and manifestos, the “Great Replacement” is a conspiracy theory that argues white citizens of Western countries are being replaced by non-white immigrants. Adherents believe this demographic shift will eventually result in the extinction of the white race. Discussions of the impact of the “Great…

July 18, 2021 By Sharon Nazarian This week marks yet another anniversary of what could accurately be described as the most significant violent antisemitic attack against a Jewish Community outside of the Middle East since the Holocaust — the 1994 bombing of the Argentina Jewish community’s main institutional structure, the AMIA building, which caused the deaths of 85 people and injured more than 300.   The fact that no individuals have been…

July 16, 2021 On July 15, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it had indicted two California men, Ian Benjamin Rogers and Jarrod Copeland, on charges related to an alleged plot to destroy the Democratic party headquarters in Sacramento with incendiary devices. According to communications between the two men, they were animated by grievance over Donald Trump’s loss of the 2020 election, and planned to conduct their attack after President Biden’s inauguration on…

July 09, 2021 By David Andrew Weinberg On June 30th, Egypt’s government launched the region’s largest book fair, under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and inaugurated by Egypt’s prime minister with seven of his cabinet ministers in attendance. Despite the issue being flagged in the past, it is disappointing that a broad array of antisemitic books continue to be exhibited among the materials hosted at Egypt’s state-run book fair this year, including…

July 08, 2021 Nicholas Fuentes hosting his weekly livestream "America First with Nicholas Fuentes"   1. Nicholas Fuentes is a white supremacist leader, organizer and podcaster who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the mainstream GOP. Nicholas Fuentes first gained widespread notoriety in 2017 when he left Boston University after he reported receiving “threats” tied to his attendance at the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in…

July 08, 2021 Screengrab from a booklet posted on website of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University From June 18-23, 2021, the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at the Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University held a conference entitled “Challenging Apartheid in Palestine: Reclaiming the Narrative, Formulating a Vision,” which featured dozens of prominent anti-Israel academics and activists from across the world. CIGA is…

July 06, 2021 Lil Nas X performs onstage at the BET Awards 2021 in Los Angeles on June 27, 2021. Photo credit: Getty Images   After the BET Awards—an annual awards ceremony which celebrates the achievements of Black artists and entertainers—aired on June 27, 2021, Nation of Islam (NOI) members were among those who voiced criticisms of the event, responding with their familiar anti-LGBTQ, antisemitic and conspiratorial rhetoric. Their accusations were directed at both the…

July 01, 2021 On January 6, 2021, a violent mob of right-wing extremists stormed our nation’s Capitol. Approximately 22 percent of the 500 people facing charges related to the insurrection had ties to extremist groups and movements including white supremacists, anti-government extremists, Proud Boys and QAnon conspiracy theorists. We know that some elements of the insurrection were pre-planned online, and more alarming facts have come to light as insurrections have been arrested and…

June 28, 2021 Ozone Wallace during a March 2021 YouTube podcast with the New Black Panther Party (NBPP)   ADL’s Center on Extremism has linked Othal Toreyanne Resheen Wallace (also known as: O-Zone Wallace), the man arrested and accused of fatally shooting Daytona Beach Officer Jason Raynor on June 23, to several extremist groups. On June 26, following a 56-hour manhunt, multiple law enforcement agencies were involved in the arrest of Wallace just outside of Atlanta,…

June 24, 2021 The cover image of Al Qaeda's article, "What is Behind the Normalization with Israel, the Mysteries of the Term and ِthe Dangers of its Machinations," shows a figure bearing the flags of Israel, the European Union, and the United States giving orders to bodies of news organizations, social media, finance, the United Nations, Hollywood and government. The notion that Israel and the West secretly control international organizations and the news media is a common antisemitic…

June 21, 2021 In June 2020, Facebook announced that it had taken down hundreds of groups and pages on its platform associated with the violent anti-government boogaloo movement, one of several major purges of extremist material by Facebook that year to address extremists’ use of its platform. Despite efforts by the boogaloo movement to camouflage itself to retain a Facebook  foothold, the social media company’s efforts were largely effective, and after the deplatforming, it…

June 15, 2021 Over the past two years, federal courts nationwide have encountered a rash of cases in which plaintiffs go to court to ask that suspicious arbitration awards be “confirmed” against the party that they claim owes the putative damages. These cases are related to a new tactic used by the sovereign citizen movement, the longstanding anti-government extremist movement whose adherents don’t believe in the legitimacy or authority of the U.S. government. This new tactic…