How many Nazis are there in the United States?

December 3, 2018 6:04 PM

I've been trying to get a rough number about the number of Nazis in the US, but have not succeeded. The Southern Poverty Law Center and the ADL do track American neoNazis, but don't publish estimates of their total population, or even of most of their subgroups and splinter parties.

I shared some more details, including published estimates of various factions, in this comment on a hate crimes thread earlier today.

Seamus pointed out that there are other right wing fringe groups whose membership overlaps with various self-declared neoNazi groups, and I take the point. Still, I think we'd be well served to get a handle on just how large this movement has become in late 2018.

posted by doctornemo to Law & Government (3 answers total)

Best answer: You might consider straight up calling SPLC or ADL and asking a person. In organizations like that there's too much collective knowledge to put everything into a publication and post it online.
posted by Stewriffic at 7:29 AM on December 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Whatever number you come up with is going to be highly suspect. I would look at a bunch of Nazi forums and see how many members they have. That would at least tell you how many people are committed enough to sign up and participate online in a group whose only function is to promote white supremacy.
posted by xammerboy at 9:44 AM on December 4, 2018

"signed up for an online forum" /= "participates in that online forum". Number of active posters would be more revealing but I don't know an easy way to get that.
posted by shiny blue object at 9:51 AM on December 4, 2018 [1 favorite]