The Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC, has published its annual Year in Hate & Extremism report, finding that far-right extremist groups established power across the federal government and private tech sector in 2025. According to SPLC’s findings, those institutions are now advancing the ideological agenda of the hard right, creating conditions for white supremacy to “thrive unfettered.”
“The hard right is attempting to radicalize generations of young people, predominantly men, by building a more expansive culture and media ecosystem,” said Bryan Fair, SPLC’s interim president and CEO. “Unfortunately, last year, they also found incredibly powerful allies — including high-ranking officials throughout our federal government — who were willing to help them transform their rhetoric into dangerous policies that have come at the direct expense of Black and Brown people, immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ communities.”
The report specifically details how Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office in 2025 “emboldened hard-right social media influencers to take more extreme positions on issues of race, antisemitism, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ issues” while providing them unprecedented access to real political power.
“Throughout 2025, the administration and its allies leaned on an increasingly extreme set of influencers to sell their reactionary, hierarchical vision of the world to a younger generation,” the report states. “From White House briefings and immigration enforcement raids to reshaping the Pentagon press pool, the administration graced this expansive network of activists, livestreamers and self-described ‘citizen journalists’ with exclusive access.”
According to the authors, this embrace of far-right ideology by the second Trump administration was also made tangible in the concrete actions the president and his allies took throughout 2025. The report points to Trump’s pardoning of violent offenders involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol, the administration’s mass-deportation agenda, and its downplaying of white supremacist and hard-right extremist violence as evidence of how Trump transformed the federal government to favor far-right interests and individuals in 2025.
“The federal government’s targeting of Black and Brown immigrant communities was meant to send a clear message: This administration is all in on the hard-right agenda,” said Rache
Additionally, the report examines how far-right influence has grown in other areas: including on college campuses and in the world of private tech and cryptocurrency. The authors detail how far-right white supremacist networks have turned to cryptocurrencies to fund and sustain harassment without fear of asset seizure while using college campuses as a forum for spreading extremist messaging and bigoted conspiracy theories.
In addition to these findings, the SPLC report also provides a list of policy recommendations for lawmakers and citizens alike. Those recommendations include: protecting civil rights; making hate crime reporting mandatory; teaching accurate history and critical thinking skills; supporting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, DEIA, programs; promoting inclusive responses to hate and extremism; preventing political violence; building community resilience and supporting targeted groups and individuals; promoting online safety and holding big tech and social media companies accountable; and holding lawmakers accountable.
“This report exists not just to document hard-right activity, but also to equip advocates and communities with tools they need to prevent radicalization and counter the myth of white supremacy,” said Fair. “The hard-right power grab can be rolled back, but it requires collective resistance built through the actions of every individual.”
“Communities are facing the harsh realities of this hard-right power grab,” added Erin Wilson, director of the Intelligence Project, SPLC. “From kitchen table conversations to mass-mobilizing marches, everyone has a role to play right now. There is power in civic engagement and everyday acts of solidarity, education and action.”
