How the Southern Poverty Law Center drives demonization of its conservative foes

If you touch one of the Democrats’ sacred cow nonprofits, they’ll start whining about how you’re attacking “civil society.” 

But what if the sacred cow Democrats want to defend is actually a violent bull — one of the worst forces undermining civil society in America today?

Democrats and their allies portray criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center as a threat to civil society.

That’s rather ironic. 

You see, the SPLC is an engine of the very fear and suspicion that are driving Americans apart. Conservatives increasingly fear that our opponents don’t just disagree, but actively despise us.

The SPLC doesn’t just publish papers explaining why it thinks conservatives are wrong. No, this organization — which gained its reputation by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy — puts its political opponents on a “hate map” alongside Klan chapters, a map the SPLC says reveals the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”

Now, the SPLC faces criminal charges for allegedly funding the very hate it publicly opposes. According to a federal indictment, the SPLC directed more than $4 million to members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups. The SPLC claims it was paying “informants” to keep tabs on potential violent threats. The indictment, however, claims that the money in some cases actually facilitated white supremacist organizing. 

According to claims, the SPLC acts like an exterminator who plants rats in his neighbor’s house or a firefighter who moonlights as an arsonist. While asking donors to pony up cash to fight “hate,” it allegedly uses some of that very money to prop up the hate — so it has an excuse to ask donors for more.

The SPLC needs to justify its existence in an America that bears little resemblance to the true racism of the 1950s and 1960s, so it exaggerates hate. The supply of hate can’t keep up with the SPLC donors’ demand.

So, the SPLC pads the numbers on its “hate map.” It lists each organization’s chapter as a separate group and includes defunct organizations. In 2023, I analyzed the “hate map” and concluded that it exaggerates hate by at least 267%. 

The SPLC’s real threat to civil society doesn’t come from exaggerating barely existing groups, however. It comes from smearing the mainstream groups that very much do exist.

The SPLC maintains that it is monitoring and exposing “hate,” a potential terror threat echoing the worst chapters of America’s racist past. The SPLC’s rhetoric suggests violent elements have traded their white hoods for business suits.

The “hate map” includes public interest law firms, policy think tanks and grassroots groups.

Groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Immigration Studies and Moms for Liberty don’t plot violence in the manner of the Klan or preach the inherent superiority of one race over another. Rather, they oppose the SPLC’s increasingly leftist agenda on transgender ideology, open borders or critical race theory.

The SPLC has created an engine of defamation, which gives the Left an excuse to silence its opposition. 

That’s why many legacy media outlets have uncritically cited the SPLC. It’s why the Justice Department under President Joe Biden worked closely with the SPLC. It’s why leftist groups have urged banks, social media companies and others to blacklist conservative groups on the “hate map.” 

Back in 2007, SPLC spokesman Mark Potok said, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them.” He later clarified that the SPLC aimed to “so mortally embarrass these groups that they will be destroyed.”

Banks, tech companies and others have reportedly used the SPLC “hate map” to debank, censor and otherwise blacklist conservatives. While some of them have distanced themselves from the SPLC in recent years, hundreds of companies still use a charity services software company that allows them to screen out conservatives via the “hate map.”

The map has also directly inspired an act of terrorism.

In 2012, a man targeted the Family Research Council’s headquarters in Washington, DC, for an attempted mass shooting. While the building manager bravely foiled the attack, the assailant later confessed he had used the map to find his target, and he had planned to slaughter everyone in the building.

The SPLC condemned the attack, but kept the Family Research Council on the map.

Last year, the SPLC added Turning Point USA to the “hate map,” and Charlie Kirk died a few months later. While there is no evidence SPLC inspired the shooting and the SPLC later condemned it, prosecutors say the accused murderer aimed to silence Kirk’s “hate.” 

If we want to return to the robust civil society that Alexis de Tocqueville praised as America’s best defense against tyranny, we need to stop the nonprofit driving political demonization.

Democrats who are serious about defending America’s civic culture should join me in condemning the SPLC.

Tyler O’Neil is a senior investigative reporter at The Daily Signal and author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center” (published in 2020, updated in May). He has testified before Congress five times, twice about the SPLC’s bias and its influence in government.