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, Between 2016 and 2018, Americans witnessed a major upswing in street mobilization by far-right groups, making it one of the most active periods of on-the-ground extremist activity in decades. In a new report, we've documented 125 rallies, marches and protests organized and attended by far-right extremists including white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, the “alt-right,” and right-wing reactionaries during these three years. There were 74 of these events in 2017 alone. Those years represented a high point in the movement’s faith in the political process – a faith that has wavered as far-right extremists have increasingly lost confidence in President Donald Trump. Many have retreated from the streets entirely, joining more clandestine extremist cells that believe America’s multiracial democracy is headed for inevitable collapse. These so-called accelerationists call for violence to speed the process along. For example, while members of the far-right “boogaloo boys” took to the streets in 2020 during the nationwide protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, their aims are fundamentally different from radical right groups that did so during Trump’s candidacy and the early years of his presidency. The boogaloo boys do not plan their own rallies and do not intend to act as an insurgent political force seeking mainstream power. Instead, they hope to exacerbate larger political tensions and push the country toward a second civil war. For the boogaloo boys and similar groups, taking to the streets is not a return to the far-right politics of protests that the nation previously witnessed, but a shift toward more authoritarian, anti-democratic – and even violent – tendencies within the radical right. As our report demonstrates, there have been two distinct periods of far-right activism within recent years, with the latest period harboring an increased threat of violence. Before the Trump era, far-right public rallies were infrequent. Members of the radical right favored suit-and-tie conferences and used the internet to spread their message, hoping it would bleed into the mainstream. The rise of Trump, a political figure who relied on much of the same divisive rhetoric the far right has historically used to galvanize its followers transformed the political landscape. In solidarity, |
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