As Americans nationwide are being squeezed by Trump’s destructive economic agenda, House Republicans this week homed in on a top priority: attacking a civil rights group for monitoring hate speech.
Republicans used Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing, “The SPLC’s Influence on Federal Civil Rights Policy,” to target the Southern Poverty Law Center. GOP representatives complained about the group’s past collaboration with the federal government and about its inclusion of organizations such as Turning Point USA but not pro-Palestinian groups in its hate-tracking efforts. (The Anti-Defamation League has faced similar backlash from conservatives for including Turning Point USA in its tracking of extremism.)
The Southern Poverty Law Center did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., used her time to point out the absurdity of Republicans attacking other groups for purportedly wielding undue influence over government policy while groups such as the Heritage Foundation, which authored Project 2025, appear to be driving most, if not all, of the administration’s agenda.
“Based on what I’m hearing, the criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center seems to boil down to three things,” she said. “One, that it has healthy finances and an endowment; two, that it collaborated with the Department of Justice during the Biden administration; and three, that it calls out white supremacy, including white Christian nationalism.”
There is no broad national appetite for the government to crusade against people who track hate speech and extremism. But the Trump administration and its allies in Congress have nonetheless been campaigning for years against people and groups who try to curb these scourges. The Trump administration, for example, has threatened the European Union over its efforts to stop the spread of hate speech, disinformation and child sex abuse materials online. And the administration is also planning to bar people who specialize in tracking hate speech and disinformation online from obtaining H1-B worker visas. Attacking people and organizations that track the spread of extremism is literally a priority of staunch Trump loyalists — and practically no one else.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
