Arizona scores high (or is it low?) for hate and extremism. That's not the shocking part (2024)

Opinion: Arizona has 38 extremist groups, and activists have issued a wake-up call to stop the growing amount of hate they see.

One of the most shocking aspects of some news stories is how the news story is not shocking. At all.

This is one of those.

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently released its “year in hate & extremism” report for 2023, a grim service the nonprofit organization has provided for decades.

This time around, the group says it tracked 1,430 extremist operations all over the U.S., including 38 — count ‘em, 38 — in Arizona.

Reporter Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, formerly of The Arizona Republic, wrote about the latest report for the Arizona Mirror. He’s tracked hate groups in Arizona for some time, doing ugly, necessary work.

Arizona's extremists are pervasive and varied

The CEO of the law center, Margaret Huang, said of the organization’s most recent report, “What we are seeing now should be a wake-up call to all of us.”

Yes, it should be. But somehow it never is.

Nothing about hate or extremism shocks us anymore.

Still, the report is well worth reading, given that our beautiful desert paradise finds its way into the discussion numerous times, ranging from efforts to demonize immigrants to the targeting of the LGBTQ+ community, racism, antisemitism and more.

If you have followed the news at all over the past several years you already know about some of this. But you may not have considered how pervasive or varied Arizona’s extremists have become.

What we need, given that, is a handy-dandy scorecard, which the center’s report provides.

That includes white nationalists and conspiracists

It breaks down Arizona’s 38 extremist operations into two categories — 18 hate groups and 20 antigovernment groups.

Of the 18 hate groups, the SLPC says that five are anti-LGBTQ+, four are “general” hate groups, one is a male supremacy group, two are neo-Nazi, two are neo-Völkisch and five are white nationalist.

Of the 20 antigovernment groups, it says that nine of them are “general” antigovernment groups, two are conspiracy propagandists, three involve the constitutional sheriff movement, five are militias and one is a sovereign citizen group.

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The report provides definitions for those of us unfamiliar with some of the intricacies of hate.

For example, it tells us that “at the heart of much neo-Völkisch ideology lies the unfounded fear of the purported replacement of white individuals.”

Arizona politicians regurgitate their views

We’ve heard a lot about white replacement in Arizona.

Failed governor candidate Kari Lake, now running for U.S. Senate, has regurgitated the ugly theory.

Republican U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs refused to sign a pledge denouncing “white supremacy,” as well as the “great replacement theory.”

Republican State Sen. Wendy Rogers also has boldly embraced and promoted replacement theory, which generally holds that nonwhite migrants are being used to “replace” white culture and political power.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with constitutional sheriff ideology, the report tells you that proponents believe “the county — not the state or federal governments — should control all land within its borders, and the county sheriff should be the ultimate law enforcement authority in the U.S.”

It goes on.

Hate is growing. Wonder who is stoking that?

The SPLC reports says that hate and extremist groups have been growing steadily in recent years.

(Gee, it’s almost like there is a national political figure encouraging such beliefs in vulnerable cult-like followers using grievance-based conspiracy theories and dangerously threatening rhetoric.)

And it’s not new to Arizona.

Back in 2015, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, participated in an event called “Liberty On Tap” at the Thirsty Lion Gastropub & Grill at Tempe Marketplace.

Rep. Biggs, who was then the Arizona Senate president, also participated in the event.

Rhodes, in his remarks to the gathering, called Sen. John McCain a traitor.

He said in part, “John Cain (yes, he dropped the Mc from the senator’s name) is a traitor to the Constitution. He should be tried for treason before a jury of his peers — which he would deny you …

“He would deny you the right for trial to jury, but we will give him a trial for jury, and then after we convict him, he should be hung by neck until dead.”

Earlier this year, Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

For those of you looking to maintain your hate and extremism scorecard, count Rhodes and many like him among those hoping for a presidential pardon should you-know-who get elected.

Reach Montini ated.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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