In Scooby-Doo episodes, there’s a classic moment where the gang unmasks the criminal they caught, only to discover that it’s the least likely person it could be. As if, for example, someone ripped off the white hood of a Klan member, only to find the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) underneath.
In this case, cartoon art really imitates real life.
For nearly a decade, conservatives have been outraged by the 2017 “Charlottesville hoax,” in which the news media parlayed President Donald Trump’s rather lame declaration that there were “fine people on both sides” of the Confederate Statue debate into support for white supremacy.
It turns out that Trump never praised the racists behind the specifically odious Unite the Right rally. However, the SPLC allegedly paid thousands of dollars to the organization to supposedly investigate this.
SPLC Interim President and CEO Bryan Fair speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 5, 2026. (Jake Crandall/Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
CHRISTOPHER RUFO: THE CAMPAIGN FOR COLOR BLIND EQUALITY JUST REACHED ITS BIGGEST VICTORY TODAY
Thus the hoax was born.
The word “hoax,” which appeared in the English language in the late 18th century, is almost certainly a portmanteau of the earlier term “hocus,” as in “hocus pocus,” which is a good way to think about the SPLC’s malicious deception.
It’s really been a magic show over the decades, because every time it feels like America has turned the corner on racism, the SPLC “experts” shout “hocus pocus” and pull some neo-Nazis out of their hats.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel at the Department of Justice on April 21, 2026 in Washington, DC, following the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
DAN GAINOR: ONE CHILD, ONE ICE PHOTO – AND A MEDIA RAID BUILT ON DISTORTION
The problem, as we learn from the Justice Department’s grand jury indictment against the civil rights organization, is that SPLC leaders paid these bigots to appear. Now that the blunder has been exposed, you cannot undo it.
At best, the SPLC has stacked the deck so that every time the American media draws a card, it is the ever-present “Ace of Racism.” At worst, this funding of bigotry could have gotten one of their own killed.
Heather Heyer, 32, was killed that day in Charlottesville when a fanatic crashed his car into a counter-protest. Today we have to wonder if she could still be alive if the SPLC did not fund her killer’s organization.
DAVID MARCUS: INSANE DEMS’ DANCING PET FROGS ARE ANTIFA THUGS
The problem here isn’t just that the SPLC’s money perpetuates racist outfits, as bad as that is. The bigger problem is that a financial incentive has been created for their “informants” not just to report criminal activity, but to fuel it.
Just as foreign influence operations can secretly fund anti-American podcasters by flooding their platforms with bot farm clicks, the SPLC would secretly fill the coffers of the ever-dwindling number of racist groups in the US.
According to the indictment, an “informant” who helped organize the Unite the Right rally received an astonishing $270,000 between 2015 and 2023, meaning the payments continued even after Heyer’s tragic death.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) building seen in March 2020 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)
TRUMP ACCUSES MAJOR MEDIA OF ‘ILLEGAL’ REPORTING, VIRTUALLY STOPS AMERICA’S VOICE
Think of the perverse incentives the SPLC may have created here: a quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money, and these informants knew the only way to keep the money tap open was to keep discovering or inventing more alleged racism.
Trump was right when he said there are “very fine people” of good faith who disagree about Confederate statues. But in 2017, there also turned out to be some really bad people in Charlottesville, namely the tiki-torch fanatics and the SPLC. Only now do we know that they may have been in cahoots.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS ADVICE
Today would be a good day for the liberal news media to admit once and for all that they lied about Trump’s “very fine people” comment. But that won’t happen. It’s too central to the anti-Trump mythology. After all, it’s why Joe Biden says he ran for president.
A statue of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson is removed on July 10, 2021, in Charlottesville, Virginia, after years of legal disputes over the monument. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
RIFT IN MAGA MOTION ON FULL DISPLAY AT TPUSA’S AMERICAFEST AS BEN SHAPIRO AND TUCKER CARLSON FIGHT
Sometimes it takes a hoax to expose a hoax, a hocus pocus of its own to combat the magic trick. With the revelations of the SPLC funding its prey, the entire show has fallen apart before our eyes.
It wasn’t just “very fine people” that was a hoax, it was the whole damn thing.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
You have to hand it to the SPLC, the apparent scam has been working for years. It still works in some circles, but the mask is now finally off and the financing of radical racism must certainly stop now.
The SPLC and its support of bigotry had a good run. The leaders would have gotten away with it even if it had not been for the meddling Justice Department.
CLICK HERE TO DAVID MARCUS
