IREHR’s President, Devin Burghart, was cited and quoted in Prism;
Journalist Natasha Ishak writes, “A common misconception about white nationalists is that their hate-fueled actions are inflamed by economic insecurity, a myth that has been debunked by existing research, according to Devin Burghart, who has studied white hate groups for 30 years.”
“It is not based on economic circumstance or even appeals to that so much as it is an ideological construction,” said Burghart
“You hear that in a diluted form being promoted by [conservative Fox News host] Tucker Carlson and by a number of politicians on the right when it comes to U.S. immigration policy,” Burghart said. “In fact, from Stephen Miller on through to a number of elected officials, those kinds of ideas are used to push a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric today.”
“To hear things like the great replacement theory being parroted by politicians and on TV by folks like Tucker Carlson is something unfathomable, even a decade ago,” Burghart said. “So the terrain upon which we look at this stuff has shifted dramatically, which makes it far more challenging to try and figure out ways to build effective barriers against bigotry.”
IREHR’s report, Breaching the Mainstream, was cited by Prism;
Ishak writes, “In a recent report, the IREHR identified 875 state legislators—nearly 12% of state legislators in the U.S.—who joined far-right groups on Facebook.”
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