In so doing, they allowed self-appointed watchdog groups like the Anti-Defamation League and Klanwatch to contribute to the effort. In the 1970s, the ADL was foisted on FBI field offices as credible sources. This did not prevent the FBI from conducting its own undercover investigations. The fruits of some of these have been brought to light by FOIA requests and many are archived on archive.org. With the violence of the 1980s, the FBI and local police departments increased their covert surveillance considerably, resulting in such tragedies as befell the Randy Weaver family at Ruby Ridge in 1992 -- an action that ultimately made Randy Weaver both a martyr to the cause and more than $3 million richer after the civil suits that followed the deaths of his wife and son at the hands of the FBI.
Would a more active or confrontational approach have prevented the disaster that was the emergence of the alt-right or the national disaster that was the 2016 election? A question that will perhaps be pondered by historians and political scientists more eminent and far more wise than myself. I just don't know "
Michael: The notion of hate can be problematic to regulate because of its subjectivity. Furthermore, the push for penalizing hate crimes and hate speech is very advocacy-driven. Much of the enforcement of speech codes and hate crime laws depends upon the influence of various special interest groups.
The government's use of monitoring (watchdog) groups has arguably been very effective in neutralizing the white nationalist movement in America. However, there are some serious civil liberties implications. The vast majority of people in this movement are not violent. Therefore, the measures taken against them have curtailed their First Amendment rights. Moreover, in recent years, a number of groups that are really not white nationalist or extreme right in orientation -- for example, the Federation for American Immigration Reform -- have been classified as "hate" groups. This stigmatization of conservative groups would seem to have a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas.
Barkun: The question of how to deal with white supremacy is complex, because it involves not only the question of public and private responsibilities, but also the division of responsibilities among arms of the government. At the federal level, primary responsibility theoretically lies with the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. In DOJ, the FBI has been the principal vehicle for dealing with acts committed by white supremacists. It is important to bear in mind, however, that unlike many other developed countries the United States does not have "hate speech" laws. Indeed, the First Amendment, even as interpreted by the courts, offers great latitude in permitting speech acts that many regard as hateful and repugnant. Consequently, the obligations of the FBI insofar as white supremacists are concerned cover only behavior in violation of federal statutes. In that regard, the Bureau has been extremely successful, particularly in infiltrating violence-prone white supremacist organizations.
Traditionally, the Bureau's mandate was to catch perpetrators and collect evidence of crimes so that the DOJ's prosecutors could bring them to court. After 9/11, that role was changed by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to include preventing terrorist acts before they occurred. While Ashcroft's concern was terrorism by Islamic militants, in theory the role change would also apply to acts committed by white supremacists. However, it is unclear whether actual FBI behavior toward white supremacists changed as a result of the Ashcroft policy.
The role of the DHS is harder to establish. In theory, the Department of Homeland Security should be just as concerned with violence committed by white supremacists as it is with Islamic terrorism. However, whenever the DHS has publicly discussed its concerns with right-wing extremists, including white supremacists, that has generated significant political problems. Conservative Republicans have charged the Department with having an anti-conservative or pro-liberal bias, even when it was clear that the DHS' interest lay in groups and individuals far outside of conventional politics. Consequently, the Department no longer speaks publicly about any monitoring it may do of right-wing extremist activity.
There are a number of private "watchdog" organizations that systematically track white supremacist activity. The best-known are the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), both with significant and highly sophisticated research departments. (In the interests of honest labeling, I should say that I serve on the academic advisory board of the SPLC's Intelligence Project.) Much of the information on white supremacists known to the general public comes from these organizations' websites. It is too much to say that the government has outsourced intelligence-gathering to them, since we do not know what the government itself has collected. Given the success of FBI penetration of violence-prone groups and the evidence the government has presented at trials, it is reasonable to assume that the federal government has substantial additional intelligence gleaned from wiretaps, informants and other sources that goes well beyond what is available to the watchdog organizations. The SPLC, in addition to substantial information-gathering, also has an active program of civil litigation directed against white supremacist groups. These lawsuits have forced a number of white supremacist groups to dissolve as a result of heavy court judgments.
Discussion of white supremacists often revolves around the idea of "hate." While this has a certain validity for groups and individuals driven by an almost paranoiac hostility towards nonwhites and Jews, it is in some respects an unfortunate term. "Hate" is broad and consequently vague. One can hate all kinds of things, people and ideas that have nothing to do with race, prejudice, bigotry or any of the other matters connected with white supremacy. And of course there is the vexed issue of measurement. How does one measure hate? How much must a group hate to be a "hate group"? Unfortunately, however, hate has now been so thoroughly lodged in the vocabulary of the subject that it is unlikely to be removed, despite its weaknesses.
2. What do we get wrong about white supremacy?
What do people most misunderstand about white supremacy? Are there areas of culpability that the educated white middle or upper class is reluctant to admit? Do you think current fears of an organized worldwide neo-Nazi alliance are overblown or on target? Do you have some empathy for white supremacists, because of the structural organization of our society that might compel some of them to turn to racial prejudice? Which theoretical explanation of white supremacy do you find most convincing?
Kaplan: What people least understand about white supremacy is simply that they -- racists, bigots and white supremacists -- are but funhouse mirror reflections of the basest instincts that are inherent in us all. If the mind's eye evokes images of black single mothers peering fearfully at deserted streets from peepholes in doorways or between the slats of boarded-up windows when Donald Trump invokes images of urban wastelands in Chicago or Detroit, you might have a touch of the malady. If a feeling of atavistic dread follows the same orator's imagery of Mexican rapists and drug dealers pouring over the borders, of Muslims who harbor jihadi hatred in their hearts, you might have more than a touch of the disease. Does that make you a white supremacist?
In recent years I have come to live in Mitchell County, North Carolina, where black men were rounded up and placed on freight trains bound for anywhere outside the county in 1923 and where "n-word pines" ("trash wood that just ain't no good for nothing") are all but ubiquitous. It is a place where racism is theoretical as, save for a few Mexican workers and an execrable Chinese restaurant or two, most communities lack convenient targets for racist invective. The county in the most recent census in 2015 was recorded as 96.5 percent white, up 0.02 percent from 2010. In 2016, Donald Trump swept the county with 6,225 votes, or 78.3 percent of the vote. Are Mitchell County residents white supremacists?
It is sometimes too easy in the heat of rhetorical battle to overlook the difference between the denizens of the cultic milieu and those who people the mainstream shores. White supremacists, driven by racial animus and what are frankly rather dubious claims of racial superiority, given the experience of years of fieldwork among their number, are these days few and rather thin on the ground. White supremacy is not just a feeling or instinct, it is a lifestyle that governs every aspect of one's life -- associations and what few friends can be found, conversations with families who prefer you don't attend public functions in their company, reading material and, God help us all, blogs and internet postings. Few of us have the energy, drive or pure fanaticism to keep up the role. It is not for nothing that the white supremacist groups still surviving in America are more virtual than real.
Is there an organized neo-Nazi conspiracy out there somewhere? Organized? Years ago a good friend and longtime observer of the scene gifted me with a photograph of three robed Klansmen proudly displaying a purloined room-sized banner from the Anti-Defamation League between them. The one on the left turned out to be a paid informant for the ADL. The one on the right was a coerced informant for the FBI. The one in the middle was a genuine white supremacist who, faced with federal charges and betrayal on every side, made a messy exit from the scene via the barrel of his own shotgun. Such are organized conspiracies from this quarter in the United States.
All this said, I do have empathy for the white supremacists in our number. I published something about this and it was, to my surprise, quite well received in the field: "Far from monsters, these strange and isolated people seemed, if anything, to feel too much and understand too little. In their words and deeds they harmed mainly themselves and their families."
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