Hate as Backlash: A County-Level Analysis of White Supremacist Mobilization in Response to Racial and Gender “Threats”

Given the resurgence and mainstreaming of the American far-right in recent years, there is an urgent need to better understand the etiology of recent white supremacist mobilization. In the current study, we investigate white supremacist mobilization primarily as a backlash against two threats perceived by white supremacists: racial threat and gender threat. This study extends the defended neighborhoods and feminist perspectives – frameworks previously used to explain hate and extremist violence – to explain legal white supremacist mobilization. Using data from the Anti-Defamation League, we utilize a series of negative binomial regressions analyzing white supremacist mobilization – as measured by propaganda incidents – at the county level between 2017 and 2020. Findings indicate that white supremacist mobilization is a backlash response to 1) the influx of nonwhite, Black, and Hispanic residents into white areas; 2) the presence of Jewish visibility as a measure of ethnoreligious minority group threat; and 3) gender equality in income, occupational status, and the labor force. Gender equality in education however does appear to have an ameliorative effect on white supremacist mobilization. On balance, the current study finds support for backlash explanations of white supremacist mobilization and demonstrates the utility of applying perspectives used to explain violence, including hate and extremist violence, to explain white supremacist mobilization.