PORTLAND, Maine — Editor's note: The video above aired Jan. 5, 2022.
High-profile hate groups, militia and general antigovernment organizations continue to have a presence in Maine, according to an annual report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Among them are the Proud Boys, whose members have been charged with participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
On Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual report on hate and extremism in the country, concluding that "hate and antigovernment extremism have gone mainstream, infecting the national and political dialogue."
"The Year in Hate & Extremism 2021" identifies 733 hate groups and 488 antigovernmental groups active in the United States last year.
"What we're seeing is actually the opposite, that extremist groups are declining because the ideas that mobilize them now operate so openly in the political mainstream," Miller said. "And so, far-right organizing doesn't need to take place in hate groups when those extremist ideas are already part of the larger political conversation, when there are so many places online, across so many different platforms, where extremists can organize, propagandize, and recruit without ever having to join a formal group."
The Proud Boys and the Patriot Front are two of the most concerning groups tracked by the SPLC, Miller told NEWS CENTER Maine on Thursday.
Miller said that in previous years, when law enforcement has cracked down on specific hate groups, the groups fracture and fall apart. But as federal officials prosecute dozens of Proud Boys members allegedly connected with the riots at the U.S. Capitol, the groups are attempting to "flip the narrative" about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
"They're portraying themselves as the real patriots who are standing up for the real America, and are therefore saying they're martyrs and political prisoners," Miller said.
The tactic has gained the group respect among far right extremists and increased membership.
Miller said that in more rural area such as Maine, members are attending city council and school board meetings in order to intimidate local officials.
Other hate groups tracked in Maine include the neo-Nazi Nationalist Social Club (NSC-131) and the Machias-based white nationalist group The Colchester Collection.
Miller said The Colchester Collection was included because they sell white nationalist and anti-Semitic literature and "profit off of the white nationalist ideology."
Also included are two militia groups and four general antigovernment groups:
Militia
- Belfast-based Maine Militia
- Sovereign Citizens: The American States Assembly
General antigovernment groups
- Constitution Party (Kennebunk)
- Maine Volunteer Responders (West Gardiner)
- American Patriots Three Percent
- National Constitutional Coalition of Patriotic Americans
One group tracked in 2020, New Albion, led by ousted Jackman town manager Tom Kawczynski, was not active in 2021, Miller said. Kawczynski previously led the alt-right Facebook group Maine for Mainers.
The most recent high-profile activity by a hate group in Maine took place in January, when members of the National Social Club (NSC-131), clad in all back with black masks covering their faces, marched from Kittery to downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where they gave Nazi salutes in opposition to a drag show at a theater.
In July 2021, members of the group Rise of the Moors, a sovereign citizen movement, were arrested by state police in Massachusetts as they headed to Maine for what they said was training. State troopers allegedly seized AR-15 rifles, pistols and other guns following a standoff on Interstate 95 in Wakefield.