White supremacist propaganda “remained at a historic level in 2021,” according to an annual report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The report also revealed a dramatic increase in anti-semitic activities over the last year.
The ADL is a Jewish Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that seeks to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”
According to the report, ADL’s Center on Extremism tracked 4,851 cases of white supremacist propaganda in 2021. A total of 5,125 incidents were documented in 2020. Although the incident rate in 2021 dropped five percent from 2020, last year’s number is still extremely high compared to 2017 through 2019. Of the 4,851 cases in 2021, 232 were documented inside school campuses.
The Center on Extremism documented white supremacist propaganda that uses “antisemitic fliers, stickers, banners, and posters, as well as the use of stenciled graffiti.” All of the states in the U.S. have had white supremacist propaganda incidents, except for Hawaii.
The states with the highest level of activities included Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, and New York. The ADL has documented at least 38 white supremacists groups operating in different states and across geographical areas. The three main perpetrators are Patriot Front, New Jersey European Heritage Association, and Folkish Resistance Movement. These groups are responsible for 91% of the white supremacist incidents documented in 2021.
Despite incidents of white supremacist propaganda slightly going down, incidents of anti-semitic propaganda are increasing. In 2020, 277 incidents were documented; this number increased to 352 in 2021, a 27% increase.
Anti-semitic propaganda includes calling the “covid agenda” and Joe Biden, president of the U.S., Jewish.
The Goyim Defense League (GDL) takes on a bastardized identity of the ADL, using the latter’s logo and namesake. GLD replaced the Anti-Defamation with Goyim Defense, Goyim “being a disparaging Yiddish and Hebrew word for non-Jews.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPL Center), a nonprofit legal advocacy organization, antisemitism is the “theoretical core of the white nationalism movement.”
