From campaign rallies and assassination attempts to a historic presidential nomination amid anti-war protest, it’s been a tumultuous summer for U.S. politics. To some extent, these events have staged an essential question facing the country: Will the U.S. move in the direction of becoming a truly multiracial democracy—or will its leaders and the powerful shore up a White-dominant polity?
At this decisive juncture, The Public Eye’s latest issue examines the growing phenomenon of a multiracial Far Right in the U.S. and its relationship to White supremacy.
Many political strategists presume that as the U.S. becomes more racially diverse, its politics will become more liberal or progressive by default. But as our first feature, “Understanding the Rise of the Multiracial Right” by scholar Daniel Martinez Hosang, makes clear, the emergence of a multiracial Right belies this claim. Hosang provides a thoughtful framework for understanding this new political development instead of dismissing it. As he writes, “To understand its rise means taking seriously the many reasons why minoritized people and groups are increasingly drawn to right-wing projects aimed at them. It also requires an examination of the changing set of political conditions that are leading many conservative activists and groups to adopt a form of right-wing multiculturalism.”
After 2020’s racial justice uprisings, far-right operatives honed their latest playbook in so-called culture wars against CRT and “gender ideology.” Our next feature, “The Anti-DEI Movement and the Jewish Right”, examines how the Right mobilizes right-leaning pro-Israel Jews using this playbook—with a twist. As PRA researcher Ben Lorber observes, “Over the last few years, Jewish and non-Jewish conservatives have developed and circulated a new anti-DEI talking point that would gain significant traction after October 7: DEI, they claimed, was antisemitic.” Lorber probes how the Right weaponizes this claim to oppose progressive movements organizing for justice and bolster White supremacy.
Our last feature, “Hindu Supremacy and the Multiracial U.S. Far Right” by PRA partner, Savera, analyzes the complex racial logics underlying the U.S. Hindu Right’s efforts to further their supremacist agenda. In organizing around a "Hindu American" identity, Savera writes, a network of Hindu supremacists known as the American Sangh first positioned its leaders as representatives of a U.S. religious minority while concealing their exclusionary politics. In recent years, Hindu supremacists’ alignment with White supremacy has become more apparent, as they openly build relationships with the broader Far Right and borrow from it—for instance, by attacking campaigns seeking to end caste discrimination in the U.S. as “Critical Caste Theory.”
Supremacist movements share strategies that are rooted in anti-Blackness and Islamophobia. But this issue also offers a visionary counterpoint to the politics of multiracial White supremacy.We conclude with an excerpt from a roundtable on the book, Fire Dreams: Making Black Feminist Liberation in the South, which tells the story of how New Orleans-based Women With A Vision (WWAV) has fought for their communities’ liberation by refusing the logics of racial capitalism. Deon Haywood, Laura McTighe, and Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson discuss the book alongside their experiences of surviving and rebuilding after White supremacist arson attacks. Rich with insights about how we might “build the world otherwise," the full discussion will be available online.
Our cover features original artwork by illustrator Gabi Hawkins. In The Art of Activism, Hawkins speaks with PRA about how she interpreted this issue’s theme, art’s role in movement building, and the artists who inspire her.
Between print issues of The Public Eye, visit us at politicalresearch.org and religiondispatches.org for more of our research and reporting on the Right.
