Axios: “Hate crimes have hit record levels in the past few years. Analysts say antisemitic crimes rose again in 2024. MAGA activists are going after two of the nation’s most storied civil rights watchdogs, accusing them of smearing conservatives as extremists. MAGA leaders, backed by the Trump administration and Elon Musk, are trying to undermine the longtime influence of the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] and Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC]. FBI Director Kash Patel severed ties this week between the bureau and both the ADL and SPLC, the government’s decades-long partners in tracking extremist networks, training FBI agents and consulting on hate-crime enforcement.

• The rupture followed MAGA outrage that both organizations had listed Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA in their online resources about hate groups.
• The ADL accused Kirk’s group of drawing “support from anti-Muslim bigots, alt-lite activists and some corners of the white supremacist alt-right,” while the SPLC included the group on its “hate map,” saying it has ties to “hard-right extremists.”

Both pages predated Kirk’s assassination, which MAGA activists argue was incited by the left’s use of charged labels such as “fascist” and “Nazi.” The ADL and SPLC both condemned the assassination. MAGA influencers have accused the groups of embodying the type of hate they were founded to combat. “They are both part of an ecosystem leveraged by radical left vigilantes to dehumanize conservatives and stoke political violence. They provide the sheen of legitimacy for the left’s violent foot soldiers,” Andrew Kolvet, Kirk’s spokesman and executive producer, wrote on X.”