THE THING ABOUT IT IS.
Investigations · Religion

Most of it was aimed at Jews. The worst of it was aimed at Muslims. The heaviest of it came from institutions.

Hand-drawn cartoon of three arched doorways side by side with one long shadow across them
What's happening

Between January 1 and July 20, 2026 we read 925 tracked accounts for hate aimed at Jewish, Muslim, and Christian people, and scored the legislatures, courts, and agencies moving alongside them. Fifty-nine items crossed the line. Sixteen institutional actions scored as well.

Our read

Thirty-nine of the 59 target Jewish people, and 26 of those run one story: a hidden coordinated Jewish hand behind an event with an ordinary cause. Fuentes runs it for a million followers, Jones three times in three months, Owens for six million, and a candidate ran it inside a voter guide the state of California mailed to every household. None of them cite each other, which is what makes it a script rather than a campaign.

The most severe material went the other way. Every story that reached our top severity tier targets Muslims, and the largest cluster isn't on the internet at all. Between February and June the claim that Sharia law is an active governing threat moved through a House hearing, a Senate bill, a Texas primary proposition that passed with 94.8 percent, two attorney general actions, and a signed Florida law.

The third lane came back nearly empty. We ran 38 accounts specifically for anti-Christian hate and they produced nothing for six months. The one account-level item came from the Islamic State's own spokesman. What we could document instead was physical: nine attacks and threats, most of them in Nigeria. Advocacy that argues hard against Christian political influence stayed inside protected speech every time, and we counted it that way.

How we know

Every account read against one standard: language that collectivizes, dehumanizes, or calls for the exclusion of a group defined by religion, as distinct from criticizing a government, an institution, or a person's own conduct. Institutional actions are scored on their own track and never added to the account totals.

59 confirmed items from 925 accounts, plus 16 institutional actions
Go deeper

Religious hate across 925 accounts

The full six-month pass across three lanes, with per-narrative scoring and the roster hit rates. This page is the plain-language cut; that one is the whole thing, including the hate methodology that defines every score here.

Nine of the fifty-nine

9 confirmed

Picked on a rule, not by feel: every item where someone called for violence or celebrated it, the two most severe anti-Muslim items, the widest-reach antisemitism item, the one that arrived in an official state mailing, the sitting office-holder who said it plainest, and the institutional run that produced the half-year’s most severe material. The other fifty are in the full report, with the scoring for each.

Calls for violenceProtected groups
What was said

The Islamic State's spokesman told followers to keep attacking Jewish and Christian targets, and pointed at the dead as proof it works.

Who it targets

Jewish people and Christians

Calls for violenceProtected groups
What was said

He filmed himself on a New York street leading a chant about a massacre of Jews.

Who it targets

Jewish people

Calls for violenceProtected groups
What was said

A streamer with a million followers told them to identify every American Jew and plan to arrest them.

Who it targets

American Jews

ThreateningProtected groups
What was said

A single post recast every Muslim on earth as under orders to kill Jews and Christians.

Who it targets

Muslims as a whole

ThreateningProtected groups
What was said

In front of a crowd estimated at 60,000, he said he would stop Islam and that it was time for many Muslims to leave.

Who it targets

Muslims in Britain

HatefulProtected groups
What was said

For an audience of six million, she said today's Jews are impostors wearing the religion as a costume.

Who it targets

Jewish people

HatefulProtected groups
What was said

The claim that Sharia is taking over America moved through Congress, two state houses, two attorneys general, and a primary ballot in five months.

Who it targets

Muslims in the United States

HatefulProtected groups
What was said

A state government mailed every California voter a pamphlet describing non-Jews as livestock to be enslaved.

Who it targets

Jewish people

HatefulProtected groups
What was said

A sitting lieutenant governor said he hates Islam and called on others to hate it too.

Who it targets

Muslims in Indiana and beyond