ADL Articles

January 06, 2021 On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, pro-Trump extremists, including a broad coalition of right-wing extremists, descended on Washington, D.C. and a number of state capitals. Ostensibly gathered to hear President Trump and his family speak, and to dispute the result of the 2020 presidential election, which is scheduled to be certified in Congress on Wednesday, protesters stoked violence against law enforcement officers before storming the U.S. Capitol in an extraordinary display of…

January 04, 2021 Several pro-Trump protests are being organized on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. to express rejection of the November 2020 election results and to pressure Congress to not certify President-Elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. These events—which are being timed to coincide with a joint session of Congress where Electoral College votes will be formally counted—have been encouraged by President Trump in multiple inflammatory tweets urging his…

December 29, 2020 Since first emerging in the spring of 2020, “The Great Reset” conspiracy has gained traction with the ongoing spread of COVID-19 in both mainstream and fringe circles alike. In its most common form, adherents warn that “global elites” will use the pandemic to advance their interests and push forward a globalist plot to destroy American sovereignty and prosperity. However, there are more outlandish and pernicious strains of the conspiracy, and the…

December 24, 2020 In mid-December an image started circulating on social media. The image was taken in Washington, D.C. and featured a man standing alongside a group of Proud Boys and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the cryptic text “6MWE.” This code for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough” is a not-so-veiled reference to the Holocaust. The man, who has not yet been identified, also wore a Proud Boys baseball hat and the skull face mask popular among -- but not…

December 17, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The website of a Jewish high school in suburban New York was hacked and defaced with swastikas and antisemitic slurs. A member of a Chabad in Lexington was severely injured when a driver shouting antisemitic slurs dragged and ran over him outside the Jewish Student Center near the University of Kentucky. And the Senate passed a bipartisan bill by unanimous consent upgrading the status of the State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat…

December 13, 2020 On December 12, 2020, multiple pro-Trump demonstrations took place in Washington, DC, including one that was organized by white supremacists and another that included extremist speakers on their dais. Later that evening over 100 members of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys roamed the streets of the city while chanting expletive-laced slogans against Black Lives Matter and Antifa.   The Jericho March The largest event of the day was a prayer…

December 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The only Anne Frank memorial in the United States was vandalized Tuesday, a distressing display of hate that has prompted a police investigation. A report into last year's Christchurch mosque attack found that New Zealand security agencies were "almost exclusively" focused on the threat from Islamist terrorism, and police failed to enforce proper checks on firearm licenses. Facebook is embarking on a major overhaul of its algorithms that detect hate…

December 11, 2020 Above: Screenshots of public officials targeted on the Enemies of the People website In the weeks since the 2020 presidential election, public officials and election workers nationwide have come under attack. Targets include officials who have verified and stood by their state’s election results and those who have implemented new pandemic-related restrictions. These officials have received death threats, as well as visits to their private residences and…

December 04, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Police in New Jersey are investigating an apparent hate crime after the carcass of a dead pig was left on the doorstep of a rabbi’s home in the town of Lakewood. Two online retailers briefly listed shirts for sale with the words “I survived the Holocough” emblazoned on them, referencing a white supremacist meme. A suspected member of the right-wing sovereign citizen movement was arrested at a Boston bus station carrying a gun and…

November 24, 2020 By Vegas Tenold, Investigative Researcher, ADL Center on Extremism President Trump’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election has presented the QAnon movement with a conundrum -- and a test of its ability to survive in the face of total cognitive dissonance. For many QAnon believers, who subscribed to a movement founded on the notion of President Trump’s utter infallibility, the idea of an electoral loss was simply…

November 24, 2020 UPDATE: In July 2021, during a investigative radio show and podcast, Alex Mann, an Australian journalist for ABC’s Background Briefing, identified CatboyKami (aka Philip Hedley) as Tor Gustafsson Brookes.   Extremists are constantly adapting and finding ways to reach new audiences, spread and spew their hate and create online content. Their latest tactic involves the use of Omegle, a free online chat service that randomly pairs anonymous users for…

November 18, 2020 By: Shaya Lerner The Holocaust will be forever remembered as one of the most horrific events of the 20th century. The murder of six million Jews and millions of others carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators was the largest recorded genocide in modern history. There is simply no equivalent event, historical or current, that compares with it.  Despite this, over the past few months, both prior to and after the Presidential election, there have been an…

November 17, 2020 Facebook has been vocal about its recent efforts to suspend and ban hateful, conspiratorial and violent content from its platform. And yet a great deal of extremist content remains. As of November 16, 2020, even a cursory search of Facebook brings up white supremacist, racist and antisemitic pages. The following is a sampling of extremist groups and individuals currently active on Facebook. Antisemites and Holocaust Deniers: TruNews is a fundamentalist…

November 15, 2020 Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, November 14, 2020 for the so-called Million MAGA March. Attendees and speakers, including a number of extremists, expressed support for President Trump, who continue to insist, without evidence, that he won re-election nearly two weeks ago. The rally was loosely organized, and speeches, some of which were impromptu, took place in both Freedom Plaza as well as in front of the Supreme Court. While the main rally was mostly…

November 13, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 U.S. Jewish groups, including ADL, and foreign leaders are congratulating President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their election win. New research from ADL’s Center on Extremism indicates that some extremists are planning to show up at this weekend’s “Million MAGA March” in D.C. A New York City man was arrested Tuesday and is facing federal charges after he allegedly made death threats against…

November 12, 2020 Federal agents with New York’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Brian Maiorana, 54, of Staten Island on November 10, 2020, charging him with making threatening interstate communications. According to the criminal complaint, Maiorana recently used social media accounts to threaten violence against Democratic politicians, law enforcement officers and social justice protestors. While Maiorana does not appear to have fully committed to an extremist ideology, and many…

November 12, 2020 The social media site Parler, which has become increasingly popular among conservatives, has also attracted a range of extremists. In recent weeks, the site has drawn millions of new users frustrated with what they perceive to be “anti-conservative” bias exhibited by mainstream social media platforms. While the site itself is not extremist, extremists have joined Parler in large numbers alongside millions of mainstream users, creating the potential for…