Ohio Is Home to About 50 White Extremist Groups, but the State’s Social and Political Landscape Is Undergoing Rapid Racial Change

Similar demographic shifts are occurring throughout the state. Between 2010 and 2022, the percentage of the white population dropped from 81.2% to 77.3%, a loss of about 250,000, putting the state’s white population at about 9.1 million. During the same time, the Hispanic population, for instance, grew from about 357,000 in 2010 to nearly 525,000.

For some of these white extremists, these population changes will lead to an inevitable race war between white people and nonwhite people. We have found that the attraction of belonging to a group that promises strength, protection and a source of identity can be particularly compelling.

The Ohio Connection
In recent years, white extremism in Ohio has received attention as a result of the extremist rhetoric of and often violent crimes committed by white men who call the state home. Consider just a few examples:

Born and raised in Ohio, Andrew Anglin founded the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website, in 2016.

James Alex Fields Jr., a white nationalist from the Toledo area, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields was convicted of driving his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during the white nationalist Unite the Right Rally in August 2017.

Prior to the attack, Fields frequently posted the hashtag #Hitlerwasright on his social media accounts and called for violence against nonwhites and Jews.

In the summer of 2022, Ohio law enforcement officers shot and killed Ricky Shiffer after the armed Navy veteran fired a nail gun at the FBI field office in Cincinnati. On his social media accounts, Shiffer had called for violence against federal law enforcement officials after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago as part of the federal probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Tres Genco, a self-described incel – short for “involuntary celibate” – who hated women and believed he was owed sex from them, was from the Cincinnati area and pled guilty in 2022 to plotting a mass shooting of women at Ohio State University. Law enforcement officials in Ohio stopped the planned attack before it happened.

On April 21, 2023, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio, and others were sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for his plan to attack power grids across the U.S. Cook and his accomplices believed that they were starting a race war and used neo-Nazi propaganda and white supremacist ideology to recruit young people to join their group.

Online Recruitment Tactics
Leaders of white supremacist and militia groups often use both traditional outreach and digital platforms to recruit people to their groups. Traditional outreach includes recruitment in conversations, attending events, and sharing books, pamphlets, flyers and posters.

At the same time, social media has become a critical tool for extremist groups to spread their message, recruit members and organize events.

These online platforms create echo chambers that reinforce extremist beliefs in debunked conspiracy theories, such as the assumption that the federal government is part of a plot to eliminate the white race.

In addition to the increased traffic on social media, we have seen a rise of extremist groups in Ohio known as active clubs, where members engage in physical fitness, combat training and emotional support that encourages the development of a warrior mentality in preparation for what followers believe is an inevitable race war.

Countering Extremism in Ohio
Though the emergence of white extremist groups goes far beyond the borders of Ohio, we have found that community-based, educational initiatives are effective in understanding and ultimately eradicating the root causes of racial and ethnic hatred on the local level.

In our view, community engagement that emphasizes dialogue and understanding across different racial groups is crucial for demonstrating the dangers of intolerance – and the benefits of diversity.

Paul J. Becker is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton. Art Jipson is Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.