http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript ... =124906766
When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream
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The number of hate groups in the United States continues to rise, says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Potok discusses how the rhetoric of hate groups has increasingly entered the mainstream in the wake of the nation's changing demographics and the election of President Obama
some exceprts:
Let me quote a new Harris poll that says that two-thirds of Republicans think Obama is a socialist; 57 percent think he's a Muslim; 40 percent of Republicans agree with the birthers in their belief that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to be president; 38 percent of Republicans say President Obama is doing many of the things that Hitler did; 24 percent of Republicans say Obama may be the anti-Christ. What do you hear when you hear that?
Mr. MARK POTOK (Poverty Law Center): I hear a very scary situation developing. I mean, the idea that people really have swallowed these stories in such enormous numbers is something remarkable.
GROSS: You mentioned Congressman Steve King from Iowa. After the health care vote, he said to a group of anti-health care reform protestors: If I could start a country with a bunch of people, they'd be the folks who were standing with us the last few days. Let's hope we don't have to do that. Let's beat that other side to a pulp. Let's take them out. Let's chase them down. There's going to be a reckoning.
Now, I doubt he literally means let's punch them out, let's, you know, let's start violence here, yet it is violent rhetoric. Are you hearing that kind of rhetoric a lot from elected leaders who are using violent images in their speeches to protestors?
Mr. POTOK: Yeah, I think we've heard some of that. I think what has been most remarkable, though, is the willingness of politicians to say things that are completely false and have the object of really defaming a particular group of people or the government in general and perhaps the Democratic Party.
So, you know, when a Michelle Bachman, the congresswoman from Minnesota, comes out and starts to talk about how Obama in effect is secretly setting up political re-education camps, presumably to turn our children into small Marxist robots, you know, that goes essentially unchallenged.
You know, I suppose there are a few chuckles in the press about it, but there are probably hundreds of thousands of people who hear this woman speak and believe she is telling the truth. So I think that is the kind of thing that's driving a lot of this, and there's also very real reluctance on the part of politicians to make any kind of criticism of these remarks.
You know, some of the violent talk is definitely coming from the real fringes. I mean, a guy named Mike Vanderboegh, for instance, who was a long an Alabama militia leader, is the person who put up on his Web site over the last few days a whole screed calling on people to throw bricks through the glass windows of Democratic Party offices.
And as we now know, people complied. You know, and we don't hear a lot of condemning of that. We don't hear a lot of condemnation of the incredible remarks that were made towards several congressman over the weekend during the Tea Party affair, you know, being called all kinds of ethnic slurs and homophobic slurs and so on, being spit on.
GROSS: So the person you just mentioned is a former militia leader. So I guess I'm wondering if you think that the extremist groups like this militia leader have influence that is penetrating into the mainstream?
Mr. POTOK: I think they wouldn't have much influence were it not for the kind of aiding and abetting that they are getting from so many mainstream figures.
You know, we haven't mentioned Glenn Beck yet, but I mean, Glenn Beck, of Fox News of course, spent three shows speculating on whether or not it was so that FEMA had constructed a whole set of secret concentration camps.
Ultimately, in his fourth show, you know, he, Glenn Beck, decided it was not true and quote-unquote "debunked" it, but the real point was that for three entire shows he hawked this idea. You know, Glenn Beck has close to three million listeners, and a lot of those people follow him religiously, really believe that these things are true.
GROSS: Are some of these extremist groups less underground than they used to be and more comfortable being above ground, being visible, being out there?
Mr. POTOK: I think so. I think that many of them are kind of coming more out into the open. You know, there is still some trepidation. I know that many of the militia groups, for instance, are extremely loathe to let broadcast news reporters anywhere near them. They dont want to be on TV marching around in the woods with their guns and so on. On the other hand though, I think many of the groups are more and more willing to say really remarkable things.
We talked earlier in the show about Mike Vanderboegh, you know, openly suggesting on his Web site that bricks be thrown through the windows of Democratic Party offices and then celebrating that brick throwing. So there's been an awful lot of that.
You know, another case of people really coming out and saying things that weren't said much in the past are really two cases, the case of two neo-Nazi leaders: a man named Hal Turner and another name Bill White. These are both people who had shows - Internet radio shows or, well, no, Turner had an Internet radio show and White had a Web site.
But these are people who routinely did things like identify certainly enemies, say so-and-so should be killed, it would be patriotic to kill this person, and then providing that person's address. So that is a kind of in-your-face call for violence that we really hadn't seen much 10, 15 years ago. It's really quite different now.
