Even a year later, it’s hard to wrap your head around the upside-down world of the Biden administration: The White House celebrated transgender ideology on Easter Sunday, your tax dollars funded the settlement of immigrants who broke the law to come here, and authorities turned to an Antifa-linked group whose “hate map” inspired an act of terror for advice on combatting domestic terrorism.
I want to dwell on that last point, because I am testifying in Congress about it Tuesday, and I think it highlights the threats conservatives still face from an organization too many Democrats continue to trust.
Among the many left-wing NGOs that called the shots in the Biden administration, the Southern Poverty Law Center stands out.
This organization claims to monitor “hate” yet fosters animus against conservative Christians.
It claims to support “inclusive education,” but demonizes moms and dads who want a say in what their children learn.
It claims to oppose “extremism” yet refuses to condemn Antifa, even though agitators loosely connected with that movement caused the most destructive riots in U.S. history in 2020, riots that led to the deaths of at least 26 Americans.
The SPLC sued Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy but today, it puts mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on a “hate map” with Klan chapters, claiming to reveal the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”
The SPLC uses the “hate map” for two goals: to scare donors into ponying up cash and to demonize its political opponents, narrowing the parameters of socially acceptable debate. If you oppose the SPLC’s agenda, you might just find yourself on the map.
Do you support the enforcement of immigration law? You might be an “anti-immigrant hate group,” even if you have legal immigrants on your board.
Do you oppose the grotesque medical interventions euphemistically described as “gender-affirming care?” You might be an “anti-LGBTQ hate group,” even if your organization consists of doctors.
Do you oppose “drag queen story hour?” You might just be an “anti-LGBTQ hate group,” even if your membership is gay and lesbian.
Inspiring… Well, Terrorism
Of course, not everyone who sees the “hate map” knows it’s a fundraising ploy or a political weapon. In 2012, an LGBTQ activist saw the conservative Christian organization Family Research Council on the “hate map,” and decided he’d shoot everyone in the building. The building manager foiled his plan, and he’s now a convicted terrorist serving 25 years in prison.
Earlier this year, the SPLC added Turning Point USA—the largest conservative youth grassroots organization in the country—to the “hate map.” The assassination of TPUSA Founder Charlie Kirk followed months later.
The SPLC condemned both attacks—but has yet to remove either group from the “hate map.”
Antifa
While the SPLC’s former president condemned Antifa once in 2017, the group has repeatedly carried water for the violent movement.
The “hate map,” for instance, includes the parental rights group Moms For Liberty as an “antigovernment extremist group,” but fails to include Antifa agitators, who have hurled Molotov cocktails at government buildings. The SPLC has minimized Antifa violence as “skirmishes and property crimes.”
In 2023, authorities arrested an SPLC lawyer, charging him with domestic terrorism for his alleged role in an Antifa riot. The SPLC also hired a woman who had been described as “antifa’s secret weapon against far-right extremists.”
According to researcher Jennica Pounds, better known as Data Republican, an internal Antifa document praises the SPLC as a “great resource” for tracking “fascists.”
Domestic Terrorism Advice
Yet when President Joe Biden took office, federal agencies reached out to the SPLC “to solicit” expertise “to help shape the policies” to “counter the domestic terrorism threat,” then-SPLC President Margaret Huang said in a 2021 donor meeting.
The Biden White House hosted SPLC leaders and staff at least 18 times. The FBI cited the SPLC in its notorious memo on “radical-traditional Catholics.” Biden nominated SPLC attorney Nancy Abudu to a federal judgeship, and the White House touted the SPLC in its strategy to combat antisemitism.
SPLC leaders also had close ties with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, taking part in “quarterly meetings.” An SPLC staffer even spoke at a symposium for prosecutors, briefing them on the “anti-LGBTQ movement.”
An Abiding Threat
Conservatives often scoff at the SPLC, and a recent YouGov survey shows that the center has a negative 19% favorability rating among self-identified Republicans. Yet that same survey finds that 39% of Democrats view the group favorably, and the SPLC enjoys 8% favorability among U.S. adults.
In other words, Biden is no longer president, and the Trump administration is excising the SPLC’s influence, but that doesn’t mean a future left-leaning administration won’t go right back to using the SPLC.
The fact that our own government worked with a group that compares mainstream conservatives to the Klan just for the sin of disagreeing with the SPLC’s agenda, and that seems happy to look the other way on leftist street violence, should send a shiver down our spines.
This group is contributing to the distrust and polarization of America, and it should be radioactive to both conservatives and liberals alike.
