Fern, As for the SPLC, it's easier to smear opponents than to wrestle with their ideas. And that's what SPLC is doing.

Here's an LTE I wrote to a small western massachusetts paper about such an effort http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/20170602/setting-record-straight-on-numbersusa

Fern, this NYer article will give you a good idea of the character of SPLC, at least before this event happened https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-morris-dees-and-the-southern-poverty-law-center