The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently documented 34 militia groups in Michigan – a staggering number when one considers that a year earlier the SPLC found only 42 militias in the entire country.

As citizen militias formed across the country during the 1990s, few states were closer to the heart of the antigovernment extremist movement than Michigan.
Intense fears of a federal government trampling civil liberties, disarming citizens and imposing martial law turned the state into a hotbed of militia activity. Citizens armed themselves, joined the movement and prepared for the worst.

It was a phenomenon that would rage across the country until 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing took the lives of 168 men, women and children. This stunning act of mass murder – along with beefed-up federal investigations – helped to extinguish interest in the movement, but not before the state received another major round of media attention. That came after reports surfaced that the bombing conspirators had attended militia meetings in the state.

It’s a history worth noting, because after more than a decade out of the spotlight the militias have come roaring back to life across the country. Michigan, once again, is a hotbed of militia activity.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) recently documented 34 militia groups in the state – a staggering number when one considers that a year earlier the SPLC found only 42 militias in the entire country.

As of 2009, there were 127 militias in the United States – an increase of more than 200 percent.

This nationwide growth has been fueled by anger over the changing racial demographics of the country, the soaring public debt, the troubled economy and an array of initiatives by President Obama that have been branded as “socialist” or even “fascist” by his political opponents.

A key difference between the militia movement today and in the 1990s is that the federal government is now headed by a black man. That fact, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration, has helped infuse much of the movement with a strong element of racial animus, which was not the primary motivation in the past.

The resurgence of these groups remarkably parallels the origins of the movement in the 1990s. The modern militia movement was partly shaped at a meeting of radical leaders in Estes Park, Colo., in 1992. At this gathering, known as the “Rocky Mountain Rendezvous,” a cross section of extremist leaders put aside doctrinal differences to focus on a common enemy: the federal government, which, in their minds, overtaxed, wrongfully imprisoned and even murdered its citizens.

Today’s militias have eerily similar roots, right down to a summit that helped midwife a shared ideology. In May 2009, about 30 self-described “freedom keepers” met at Georgia’s Jekyll Island, where they mapped out “action plans” for a larger movement – one that would confront not only taxes but an array of issues that threaten to “collapse the Republic.”

What followed was their “Continental Congress” in Illinois – an 11-day gathering that aligned a broad section of the radical right. Next month, on the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, thousands of the newly united will march in Washington, D.C., in support of gun rights.

But it’s not just the militias making a comeback. Other antigovernment “Patriot” groups – extremist organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy – are on the rise. Patriot groups include organizations that engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, are opposed to the “New World Order” and advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines, such as the belief that income taxes are illegal and that individuals can pronounce themselves “sovereign citizens,” thus becoming exempt from taxes and a whole array of laws.

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups, which include militias, in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 in 2008 to 512 in last year.

What’s truly remarkable is that the Patriot movement’s central ideas are not being promoted solely from the fringe. Unlike the 1990s, people with large public megaphones, such as FOX News’ Glenn Beck and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) are providing a voice to the movement. Beck, for instance, revived a key Patriot conspiracy theory – the charge that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is secretly running concentration camps – before finally “debunking” it.

Bachmann proposed that Congress be investigated for anti-Americanism, suggested that Obama is trying to create mandatory political re-education camps for youths and accused her enemies of harboring a “socialist, globalist worldview.”

As the rhetoric has heated up, so has the violence. Right-wing extremists – men who were not tied to militias but nevertheless absorbed the endless harangues, hyperbole and hate of antigovernment voices – have murdered six law enforcement officers since Obama’s inauguration. Most recently, a number of individuals with antigovernment, survivalist or racist views have been arrested in a series of bomb cases.

The recent Pentagon shooter, IRS plane bomber and others are prime examples of people who were undoubtedly mentally ill, but picked up on the movement’s rhetoric and followed it to a violent end.

We cannot write off the vitriol that is being spewed across the country. The anger sweeping a segment of the population has helped the radical right catch fire and has revitalized a movement that produced an enormous amount of criminal violence and terrorism in the past.

We ignore it at our own peril.

Mark Potok is director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which monitors hate and extremist organizations across the United States. Heidi Beirich is research director for the SPLC.