Surveying the Landscape of the American Far Right


August 1, 2019

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What is the extreme right in the United States? To many, terms such as “extreme right” and “far-right” are simply synonymous with white supremacy. References by the media, political leaders, and pundits may reinforce such views, painting a simplistic picture. The reality is the United States is a large, complicated country with ideological fringes equally complex. The American far right is not a monolith but a convoluted landscape encompassing an array of movements and causes. White supremacy is an important feature of that landscape, but hardly the only one. Indeed, when one examines right-wing terrorism in the United States, white supremacist attacks and plots makeup only a plurality (43%) of such incidents.