The Daily Signal By Tyler O’Neil
Democrats can celebrate the migrants pouring into America as a hopeful new generation, but the moment a Republican suggests his political opponents see illegal immigrants as a potential new voting bloc, he’s a racist conspiracy theorist.
Just ask the Southern Poverty Law Center, which acknowledged Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., winning election to become speaker of the House by attacking what it called “hate groups” that celebrated his elevation. Toward the top of this screed, the SPLC slammed the new speaker’s “xenophobic rhetoric and policies” and faulted Johnson for echoing a “racist conspiracy theory.”
The “hate group” attack comes as no surprise.
As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC weaponized its track record of suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy by branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and putting them on a “hate map” alongside Klan chapters. A former employee called the hate accusations a “highly profitable scam,” and the “hate map” inspired a 2012 terrorist attack at a Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C…
