PolitiFact – March 20, 2019
Donald Trump doesn’t think white nationalism
is on the rise, data show otherwise
By Amy Sherman
It’s becoming a pattern with President Donald Trump: downplaying the seriousness of violence associated with white nationalism.
A reporter asked Trump if he saw a global rise in white nationalism following reports that the Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter was steeped in the ideology.
Trump responded: "I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s a case. I don’t know enough about it yet."
Documenting incidents of white nationalism can be challenging. Nevertheless, data from multiple sources suggest extremist attacks associated with white nationalism and far-right ideology is on the rise.
High-profile incidents in recent years include the mass shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and at a black church in Charleston, as well as pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats.
Trump’s statements about the "fine people" on both sides at the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., march, as well as his travel ban which lists several Muslim-majority nations, have all drawn more attention to reports about extremism.
What is white nationalism
The key question in determining whether an incident is driven by white nationalism is whether the perpetrator subscribed to the ideology as seen in organizational connections, social media or a personal manifesto.
That isn’t as clear as it sounds. There is no single definition of white nationalism, partly because of debatable overlap among white nationalists, the alt-right, the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.
Attempts to define these groups prompts more debate. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s growing list of hate groups, for example, has critics who say it maligns some conservative groups that are not extremists. The center says that the number of white nationalist groups surged from 100 to 148 in 2018, noting that the groups have largely retreated from activism following the rally in Charlottesville.
Reports on far-right extremism, hate crimes
New America has tracked a rise in deadly attacks by perpetrators with a far-right ideology over the past several years. The think tank’s far-right label includes a combination of people who are either white supremacist or nationalist, anti-government, or exhibit anti-abortion violence.
Overall, these types of deadly attacks do seem to have increased in recent years, Sterman of New America said.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, an institution focusing on international public policy issues, looked at cases of terrorism between 2007 and 2017 using the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. It found that right-wing extremism in the United States and Europe appears to be growing.
In the United States between 2007 and 2011, the number of such attacks was five or less per year. The number rose to 14 in 2012, continued at a similar level through 2016, and then jumped to 31 in 2017.
The perpetrators were mostly white supremacist or anti-government "sovereign citizens."
In Europe, meanwhile, the number of far-right attacks rose from zero in 2012 to 30 in 2017.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
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