Hate Report Card: San Diego and the Trump Effect

By JW August – Special to the OB Rag

The San Diego region, which has a history of birthing hate groups, most notably white supremacy organizations, has seen an increase in the number and the power of these groups locally – and there have been also increases seen across the country.

White nationalist groups aren’t just about the hatred of Black, Latino / Hispanic and Jews but they’re also about “remaking the country as an ethnostate, where citizenship is limited to whites,” Rachel Carroll Rivas of the Southern Poverty Law Center told Times of San Diego.

Rivas says the National Coalition For Men, now headquartered in San Diego, is “very much impacting young men who are joining this male supremacist movement with claims of what true masculinity is.” Researchers are finding that the anti-feminist appeal to young male voters, instrumental in Trump’s recent election, is helping recruit people to the male supremacist movement.

This recruitment and indoctrination of men by these types of extremist groups is expanding, not just locally but across the globe, Rivas says.

For more about these Men’s Rights Activists go to SPLC website .

The OB Rag also interviewed criminologist and civil rights attorney Brian Levin who provided  information on the hate trends from 2025, when President Donald Trump entered office. Levin is projecting we will be seeing a drop in reported hate crimes in San Diego and elsewhere.

Levin, described by the California Civil Rights Department as a pioneer in the research of hate and extremism, believes the drop is the result of a widespread fear of authority.

“We’re seeing this since there’s been enhanced federal action against various communities that would affect reporting like in the transgender community, immigrant community,” he said. “Groups targeted by hate groups in the past are now intimidated by the government. There might also be people who normally would consider committing a hate crime but feel that the kind of bigoted aggression that they want to see is occurring anyway.”

Levin, also a commissioner on California’s Commission on the State of Hate, spoke with the understanding he is speaking for himself, not the Commission he chairs.

Carroll Rivas’ research and investigative work for the Southern Poverty Law Center is targeted at “helping inform communities who were responding and dealing with hate activity, anti-government militia activity.”  The SPLC provides an interactive map that tracks hate and anti-government in San Diego and elsewhere

The San Diego contingent of the Proud Boys led rioters onto the US Capitol grounds for the January 6th  insurrection. It has fueled the rise in the profile of  this far-right extremist group as well as others.

Proud Boys first came to the attention of local media in 2019 when they disrupted a May Day celebration at Chicano Park.  The group’s appeal is its male-centric focus that espouses the idea that Western culture is being destroyed by socialists, immigrants, feminists and the LGBTQ+ community. It is a theme that Trump and his supporters often reference in speeches and postings.

Carroll Rivas says this can be seen in recent SPLC findings,  “We listed nine new male supremacist groups in the U.S. in the last year of the Biden Administration”

The anger of hate groups like the Proud Boys’ was directed at former President Biden’s administration policies, says Rivas. The momentum provided hate groups a focus for fundraising and recruiting, becoming a convenient “bogey man to talk about” and target, she added. History shows that the President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations saw much the same vitriol from conservative right-wing hate groups.

There are other San Diego groups with different agendas defined as hate groups by the SPLC.  One example is the anti-government group Sovereign Citizens and its Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry. The roles they play and their ability to attract funding and new adherents has been evolving through the Trump administration, experts say.

This long running anti-government effort has continued to grow by appealing to anti-vaxers, MAGA supporters and QAnon believers. The movement has spread extensively in prisons and jails, with both a “traditional” white model and one appealing to Black extremists, says the Poverty Law Center.

Members can be seen on the internet attempting to bypass traffic laws by redefining legal terms. “Not a driver but a traveler” is the phrase often used when they are stopped by law enforcement. No government license is needed, they claim.

The group also employs “paper terrorism” driven by conspiracy theories and the belief they are not subject to U.S. federal, state, or local laws. They believe the current government and legal system are illegitimate and operate outside their jurisdiction. In 2021, federal prosecutors in San Diego charged two members of the group with filing fraudulent liens against 11 federal judges and law enforcement officers involved in a drug case.

Other smaller groups are popping up across the county — as well as in Orange and Imperial Counties, while the presence of other extremist groups has dissipated for various reasons.

For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that while the anti-public education group Moms for Liberty is still active in San Diego, its ability to raise funds and attract new members is shrinking. One possible reason is the current administration’s effort to downsize the U.S. Department of Education, an important target for the group’s anger.

When it launched, Moms for Liberty grew quickly, propelled by the spread of pseudo-scientific ideas and conspiracy theories about COVID and vaccines.

“It has been at the forefront of efforts for book banning, countering inclusive student organizations, inclusive curriculum, the teaching of accurate history about slavery, colonialism, and the impacts on indigenous people,” says Rivas. With no bogeyman, the organization has lost momentum, she says.

Not so with another anti-public education group, Turning Point.  Its founding focus was on faith-based education but along with that goal were MAGA-inspired positions on everything from immigration to  the Second Amendment. The Washington Post called it  “the fastest growing organization on campus with chapters in America.”

Its founder, Charlie Kirk, was murdered, but it remains a force as demonstrated by the Turning Point convention appearance by Vice President J.D.Vance.  Both SDSU and UCSD have Turning Point memberships, and social media provides some details on the local groups but exact membership is unknown.

“Hate groups today are organic,” says Professor Levin,  “like a variant of a weed popping up as opposed to what we saw more than 50 years ago, with the Klan that had nationwide networks.”

The new entries are just “promoting harmful stereotypes online, which are legal, or clickbait and click rage” in San Diego and elsewhere, he explained.

“Loners and small groups can really be affected by this new landscape and be quite violent,”  he said. “And what we’re seeing is that it’s increasingly existing across the ideological spectrum,” including both on the extreme left and right.

New, unpublished preliminary data for 2025 shows extremist-motivated fatalities have been increasing. The study, authored by Levin, shows these deaths have increased across the country and stems from a mix of homicides and attention-generating suicides by various extremists. Between  2018 and 2024, it was the white supremacists who were responsible for the fatalities, now it’s the lone wolf and smaller organizations who are replacing the supremacists in this category according to the study.

Levin’s prediction of growing extremism on both sides of the political spectrum has a current example developing in Los Angeles.  A far left group was charged by the government with a terror bomb plot that was alleged to have targeted several unknown or unnamed Southern California businesses. The four suspects were identified as members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Instagram page for what appears to be the group’s founding chapter in Los Angeles has posts dating back to July and has about 900 followers. The L.A.Times also notes that there may be a connection between Turtle Island Liberation Front and other groups.

The importance of reporting a hate incident or hate crime remains the priority of local anti-hate groups. The San Diego Anti-Hate Coalition encompasses “non-governmental organizations, community-based groups, and public servants that stand against hate in San Diego.”  The goal is to encourage the public to report any hate activity they may see or encounter. It can be a lower level incident or a more serious crime.

Their website urges “Report all hate crimes and hate incidents. If you don’t know the difference, don’t worry; law enforcement will determine whether an incident rises to the level of a hate crime.”

What’s Needed Now

What can be done to better combat hate?  According to Levin, one shortcoming in the fight against hate is that not all local law enforcement tracks and reports on hate events in the same manner. Some “barely report” such incidents, he says.

This law enforcement data on hate crimes that is collected is sent to the California Attorney General’s Office and is the basis of research for the commission and other interested groups. The current figures for California  show a total of 2,000 cases charged by law enforcement and sent to the Department of Justice. Only crimes charged by police agencies are considered valid for research. So while the DOJ data provides some insights into the crime, it is just not enough information, says Levin.

A recent UCLA study, with oversight by the California Civil Rights Department and the Commission On Hate, underscores the prevalence of hate-motivated incidents. The research included contacting 20,000 California residents about any possible victimization. Levin was involved in the study and says the study extrapolates that  “probably over a half a million Californians likely have been victimized — at least self-reported — by hate crimes.”

To report a hate crime incident, call the DOJ’s confidential phone line to report what you have discovered. Your name stays private, the agency says. Phone for DOJ: (833) 866-4283 or 833-8-NO-HATE

Rivas says that for the anti-hate effort to be effective, it “has to be at the cutting-edge, digitally and technologically.” The reason is “unfortunately, white supremacists and militia movement activists utilize technology extensively — from the way they message and the tools they use to the more media outlets they have, like streaming platforms,” she said.

Reporter J W August attends and is a volunteer member of the San Diego Anti-Hate Coalition, covering hate issues in the community. “A coalition of NGOs, community-based groups, and public servants that stand against hate in San Diego.”