he US is facing a surge in anti-government extremist groups and armed militias, driven by deepening hostility on the right to Barack Obama, anger over the economy, and the increasing propagation of conspiracy theories by parts of the mass media such as Fox News. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, the US’s most prominent civil rights group focused on hate organisations, said in a report that extremist ‘patriot’ groups ‘came roaring back to life’ last year as their number jumped nearly 250% to more than 500 with deepening ties to conservative mainstream politics. The SPLC report, called Rage on the Right, said the rise in extremist groups was ‘a cause for grave concern’ given their propensity to use violence during their heyday in the 90s, most notably with the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. It added that the issues driving support for such groups were increasingly populist and that ‘signs of growing radicalisation are everywhere’. ‘Patriot groups have been fuelled by anger over the changing demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded ‘socialist’ or even ‘fascist’ by his political opponents,’ […]