The American radical right grew “explosively” in 2011 according to a report issued Thursday by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The rise of hate groups is believed to be fueled by antagonism toward President Obama, resentment toward changing racial demographics and the slumped economy.

“The dramatic expansion of the radical right is the result of our country’s changing racial demographics, the increased pace of globalization, and our economic woes,” Mark Potok, senior fellow at the SPLC and editor of the new report, said in a statement.

“For many extremists, President Obama is the new symbol of all that’s wrong with the country - the Kenyan president, the secret Muslim who is causing our country’s decline,” Potok said. “The election season’s overheated political rhetoric is adding fuel to the fire. The more polarized the political scene, the more people at the extremes,” Potok went on to say.

The SPLC report details the growth of hate groups to a record 1,018 in 2011, up from 1,002 the year before and the latest in a series of increases going back more than a decade. But the dramatic growth came in the Patriot movement, which is composed of armed militias and other conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy. These groups saw their numbers skyrocket for the third straight year in 2011, this time by 55 percent - from 824 in 2010 to 1,274 groups last year. In 2008, just before the Patriot movement took off, there were 149 Patriot groups, a number that metastasized to 512 in 2009.

The report also points out that for some, the prospect of four more years under the country’s first black president also is an infuriating reminder that non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority in this country by 2050.

The number of anti-Muslim groups also tripled in 2011, jumping from 10 groups in 2010 to 30 last year. “That rapid growth in Islamophobia, marked by the vilification of Muslims by opportunistic politicians and anti-Muslim activists, began in August 2010, when controversy over a planned Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan reached a fever pitch,” according to the report. “Things got worse later in the year, when Oklahoma residents voted to amend the state constitution to forbid the use of Islamic Shariah law in state courts — a completely unnecessary change, given that the U.S. Constitution rules that out.”

Among the states with the most active hate groups were California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York.