Right-wing extremism is everywhere, including NC. How big of a problem is it?
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Right-wing extremism is everywhere, including NC. How big of a problem is it?
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On September 1, President Joe Biden held a nationally televised press conference to address the elephant in the room: the fascist problem in the Republican party. He quickly noted that he wasn’t talking about all Republicans, but “MAGA Republicans” — the ones that support the Big Lie, stormed the Capitol and continue to be a genuine threat to our democracy.
“(MAGA Republicans) promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country,” he said, standing in the same hall where the Constitution was written more than two centuries ago.
Since Donald Trump’s 2016 election, there has been a visible rise in right-wing extremism. The Institute for Economics and Peace recorded 133 deaths from right-wing extremist violence from 2002 to July 2020, omitting recent tragedies like the Atlanta shootings in March 2021 or the Buffalo shootings earlier this year.
North Carolina has 28 hate groups monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a relatively high number per capita, but not as striking as the disproportionate number in sparsely populated, largely rural states like Wyoming and New Hampshire.
“(North Carolina) definitely tracks with other states throughout the country,” Caleb Kieffer, a Senior Research Analyst at SPLC, told me. “But various ideologies that we look at are definitely represented.”
Some politicians in North Carolina are tied to extremism directly. Last year, an Oath Keepers internal roster listed state representatives Mike Clampitt and Keith Kidwell as members. U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd welcomed an endorsement from Gun Owners of America, despite their extreme views on gun ownership.
But not all extremists are affiliated with a particular group, and extremist rhetoric is creeping into the mainstream. In some ways, the recent uptick in right-wing extremism — and the failure of politicians to condemn the rhetoric and actions on their side — falls perfectly in line with previous reactions to progress.
Failure to condemn right-wing extremism in NC
The rightward extremist tilt of North Carolina’s political scope dates back decades. While the Klu Klux Klan lost momentum after the Civil Rights era, the group maintained a presence into the 1980s in North Carolina. In 1985, the National Anti-Klan Network said North Carolina had one of the most active Klans in the United States and suggested there were about 1,500 Klansmen in the state.
In recent years, Republican leaders often have failed to condemn right-wing extremism in North Carolina. In 2015, then-governor Pat McCrory and the General Assembly passed a law banning the removal of Confederate monuments. It was in response to protests surrounding Silent Sam, the memorial at UNC-Chapel Hill that was a source of controversy for the entirety of its time on campus. Naturally, this led to more protests from anti-fascist students, which then led to more neo-Confederate counter-protesters. The same groups were energized in response to the Black Lives Matter protests two years ago.
“(Neo-Confederates) were activated in the summer of 2020 because there were a lot of counties and counties taking down Confederate monuments, and then that folded into Trumpism during the election, and then has gotten again swept up into these other larger national trends,” Jordan Green, an extremism reporter for Raw Story and co-founder of the alt-weekly Triad City Beat, told me.
Some groups would prefer no government whatsoever. This sentiment is common among militias, from national organizations like the Oath Keepers to local groups like the Stokes County militia. While they have existed for decades, they have become more visible in the last two years. In 2021, a story from The Nation described how a Richmond County militia training ground was affecting residents in a nearby, majority-Black town.
In the south, Kieffer says, these groups try to integrate themselves into the community. The Stokes County militia, for example, “adopted a highway” in the county. The Constitution Party, a third party that was taken off the North Carolina ballot this year, is also considered anti-government by SPLC.
“We’ve seen them show up at natural disasters and try to provide aid, and almost sanitize their image and do some PR regarding that,” Kieffer says. “At the same time, you’re still holding these conspiratorial views.”
Some critics of protesters choose to condemn the violence “on both sides.” Conservatives particularly point to the 2020 protests as proof that the left is also full of extremists. SPLC also condemns violence, but Kieffer notes that the hate groups they track on the right have different end goals from leftist groups.
“What concerns me on the right would be the blurring of lines, to see ideas like the ‘Great Replacement,’ and migrants invading the nation,” he says, “whereas on the other side, pushing back on that might include more issues of health care and other issues.”
Not all extremists work within a group
The SPLC is not, however, tracking all forms of extremism, because not everyone works within a group. In recent years there has been an uptick in extremists who use the same rhetoric as the far right.
This was especially visible around the January 6 insurrection: U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who lost his re-election bid earlier this year, has taken talking points from conspiracy theorists and spoke at the January 6 rally. Lesser-known NC-01 candidate Sandy Smith and state representative Donnie Loftis both were present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. None of these people are publicly members of an extremist group, but they weren’t keeping their distance, either.
Green, who has spent his career writing about the alt-right, said he is surprised at how seldom he writes about North Carolina now. “There’s certain regions of the country that produce a lot more intense, far-right ideas,” he said, citing Orange County, California, central Florida, and other “battleground states” where right-wing extremists seem to be reacting to changing racial demographics.
This pattern plays out in North Carolina, too. In May, a self-described Proud Boy ran for the Johnston County school board. He received less than 3% of the vote but was still able to win the approval of 1,750 voters. In June, Proud Boys showed up at a library in Wilmington in an attempt to intimidate parents taking their children to a Pride storytime.
White supremacy and authoritarianism
By not standing up to people in hate groups or with far-right beliefs, we are letting white supremacy and authoritarianism become mainstream. A January analysis from Brennan Center writer Daniel Byman sums this up: “in 2021, political violence and the threat of violence appeared increasingly common — even if terrorist attacks, narrowly defined, were not.” It describes the fighting rhetoric we’ve seen from the right, like when Cawthorn riled up the Jan. 6 crowd by telling protesters that Democrats “are trying to silence your voice,” or Mark Robinson calling the United States a “Christian nation” in September 2021, imploring that those who aren’t Christian leave the country.
North Carolina Republicans don’t all agree with comments like these. The problem is that they don’t call them out, either. The party turned its back on Cawthorn because he was insulting other Republicans, not because he was involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection or fanned the flame that day. Most Republican members of Congress ultimately voted against certifying the election.
Republicans are the only ones who can take out right-wing extremism. The far right won’t listen to the left, so it is their duty to condemn their own people. If they fail to stand against authoritarianism — even if they personally disagree with the extremist beliefs — they show the rest of the state that extremism is acceptable.
