The Republicans finally take on the SPLC

A largely unsung, but truly momentous action took place at the Republican National Convention as the Republican National Committee formally approved a resolution condemning the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a radical organization which deliberately mislabels organizations as “hate groups.”

The resolution cites the attack on the Family Research Council by Floyd Lee Corkins, who admitted to attacking the organization and seeking to kill its employees because the SPLC had smeared the FRC as a hate group. Corkins shot and injured the FRC’s building manager before being disarmed.

The resolution also calls on the federal government not to rely on the SPLC as a legitimate organization, and notes that the Obama Administration encouraged federal law enforcement to rely on the SPLC and designated SPLC-listed organizations as “hate groups.”

The approved resolution is a good start, although it leaves significant room for improvement. Notably the resolution does not mention the SPLC’s own sordid history of racial and sexual discrimination. The group has also been accused by former employees of being corrupted by a constant question for millions in donor funds, despite little evidence that the groups targeted by the SPLC are a significant threat. As Tyler O’Neil, Author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center during a Center panel,

SPLC employees came forward and said that they had been part of the con. That they were complicit in bilking their donors, and exaggerating hate. This coming from the very liberal former employees from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Southern Poverty Law Center has for decades used its hate group accusation, to smear conservative and Christian organizations.

The RNC Resolution also neglects to call for the government to take action in response to Big Tech companies consorting with the SPLC to eliminate free speech online, as conservative law makers have previously urged. The SPLC has received millions of dollars in money from Tech companies who Republicans argue are engage in censorship against conservative voices.

The resolution also doesn’t address the role of the media in mainstreaming the Southern Poverty Law Center. The same media outlets who routinely cite the SPLC rushed to call it a “civil rights group” in innumerable headlines in response to the GOP’s resolution.

Despite the resolution’s gap, it remains a significant effort in finally breaking the SPLC’s corrupting influence on political discourse and politicization of domestic threats. That one of the two major political parties has formally condemned the SPLC itself as radical group whose rhetoric has led to violent attacks should help to permanently dampen their influence.