Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights

He who closes his eyes sees nothing, even in the full light of day. Leopold Trepper.

Where are we Leonard, in this moment in time?

“We are at the end of the beginning. “

Before I met Leonard, I knew of him through his written work and role organizing against the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations in the US South. The year was 1990 and here in so-called Canada, we were in the midst of the Kanesatake Resistance, commonly known as the Oka Crisis, in which the Canadian military turned its weapons against the Mohawk people of Kanesatake and Kahnawake. The 78-day military siege brought with it attacks by organized white supremacists. Rodney Bobiwash, an Anishinaabe activist had taken the lead on pushing back against the surge in organized white supremacists – Ku Klux Klan, Aryans and assorted neo Nazis that were attacking Indigenous resisters. Leonard reached out when he recognized the potential flash point beyond Quebec and Ontario, into and from the Pacific Northwest.

What I was expecting was not the man I met. The man I was expecting was larger than life, a master of wielding research and intelligence against some of the most dangerous humans of the 20th century. Who I met was a kind and gentle person who took a genuine interest first in who and how I was. That became a consistent thread over the next 35 years.

While history speaks of the ‘grunge era’ that marked Seattle and Portland in the ‘90s, there was another movement – the call to create an all White homeland in the region that brought increasing numbers of white supremacists and with them, violence throughout the Northwest and extending into Canada. Though it began much earlier, it was growing rapidly. There was a group in Portland, Oregon, called the Coalition for Human Dignity that, along with Anti-Racist Action and others, was confronting white supremacists and the Christian Right, building fierce community defenses along the way. Leonard would send me packages of their materials, along with encouraging me to reach out. He was convinced that what is now known as the Northwest Imperative extended beyond the border and into Western Canada. And with that, international cooperation amongst resistance to it should grow to meet that threat.  Leonard made an official visit to Vancouver, BC, in November 1992 as a keynote speaker at an International Hate Crimes conference. He brought with him Jonathan Mozzochi of the Coalition for Human Dignity, and in so doing, the trajectory of history altered course. By way of that introduction, I found lifelong comrades and the love of chosen family. And with that, the work of resisting white supremacy and assorted bigotries grew to encompass the Pacific Northwest, Idaho, Montana, California, and Western Canada.

Over the years, our paths would cross in person in the oddest of places. Atlanta, Spokane, Great Falls, along with Portland and Seattle. I always felt out of place, a little star struck, as a Canadian – the events that brought us together also brought giants of antifascist resistance and human rights struggles. The moments that come to mind with Leonard aren’t the dramatic ones, though there were many of those. It was listening to CT Vivian preach one Sunday in Atlanta and learning from Leonard the meaning behind “Go Down Moses”.  His choosing to sit with me and the women of the Mississippi Delta Catfish Workers Union when there was a whole room wanting his ear.

I recall a moment in November 1995. The Oklahoma bombing happened earlier that spring, and the exhaustion of those like Leonard, at the forefront of helping make sense of that and what led to it, was omnipresent. We were driving North through Portland — Leonard, Graeme Atkinson (International Editor of Searchlight Magazine), Jonathan Mozzochi, and I when Leonard insisted on stopping at Tower Records. A minor skirmish ensued as we were running late, but Leonard prevailed, Jonathan stayed with the car, and I went with Leonard and Graeme to search for the new Bruce Springsteen release, The Ghost of Tom Joad. It was one of many moments when I wondered how I possibly ended up in such fine company, and the amusement of knowing those in the record shop had no idea who these two were. Fearsome anti – fascists but also real everyday people.

And so it was, in July 2023, that I found myself with Jonathan and Chuck in long conversations with a new generation, that would lead back through time and to Devin and Leonard. We had to sort out a presentation he was to give. I tasked myself with asking him one question. Leonard had encyclopedic knowledge of white nationalism, not just American, across the Global North. He was well into being an expert by the time I met him, and he enhanced his understanding and body of work exponentially in the decades that followed.

One question. There was weight to the task of choosing just one. I knew I could ask Leonard plenty of questions after, but this moment in time, to choose one question that may help others, it felt important to choose wisely. As I thought about it, I kept returning to Leonard himself. For all his written work, there is the organizer side of Leonard. The one who would sit and talk with ordinary people facing extraordinary horror and hate. He had a grounded sensibility that gave folks space to believe they could endure, they could resist, they weren’t alone, and that collectively, they would find their way through. His written works are the details and road maps.

The question became obvious.

“Where are we, on the historical timeline?”

“At the End of the Beginning”

The beginning of what?

“War”

Weeks later Gaza, and the Trump election that followed. And with it a spectre of fascism larger in scope and scale that any of us had ever witnessed. Leonard had dedicated his life to documenting the trajectory that brought us to this moment. He leaves us with a treasure trove of written work and a pathway forward made solid by generations of international comrades. For me, his gift is family, we walk together.

O partigiano

Bella ciao, ciao, ciao

The Canadian.

 

The post A Canadian Antifascist Remembers Leonard Zeskind appeared first on IREHR.

I talked to Leonard Zeskind for the first time on the phone in 1991. My path to meeting Leonard began in 1990 when I met Jonathan Mozzochi of the Coalition for Human Dignity (CHD), who showed me, but didn’t give me a copy, of a report CHD had just published on Organized White Supremacy in Oregon. The report was on the cutting edge of this work, updating the history of racist groups in the region to its current forms; and it jumped me into the world of still-existing Klan groups, neo-Nazis skinheads and, things I had never heard of, Christian Patriots and Christian Identity adherents.

I was curious and began reading, including The Monitor, the publication of the Center for Democratic Renewal, where Leonard was research director. I worked on hate crimes hearings in Seattle, events spurred by an increase in racist skinhead activity in the city’s University District. There, I worked alongside CDRs Deni Yamauchi and the late Dr. Rudolph C. Ryser of the Center for World Indigenous Studies. I would learn from both, as generally happened when you met the people in Leonard Zeskind’s circles. A lot of good, smart people.

In the summer of 1991, while trying to earn a living as a house painter, my co-painter and I caught wind of an Aryan Nations member active in another crew. In setting out to track them down and pester them, I reached out to Deni Yamauchi. Deni put me in touch with Leonard Zeskind.

Then everything changed.

Suddenly, I was doing volunteer field investigations in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, working with Leonard, tumbling head first into researching a netherworld of Christian Identity churches and “Bible camps,” sieg-heiling neo-Nazi skinheads, robed Klansmen lighting big crosses, and kindly-grandmother-types who threw Hitler birthday parties – not to mention more than a few how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here moments.

Working with Leonard Zeskind on these efforts changed how I looked at the world of racism and politics. And though not my most important lesson from Leonard, it is worth repeating again, and again…We need to know this stuff.

Leonard Zeskind’s insights into the far right and organized white supremacy stood out – in part because he combined them with thinking from political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy… – and that mattered – but mainly because he studied them from the inside-out, diving into the meetings, networks, writings, painfully dull and frightening recordings and distorted minds of white supremacists and their bigoted kin in other movements.

Long before the term “white nationalism” was bandied in the national press, or among activists, Leonard talked about the transformation across the 1980s and 1990s of a system-defending white supremacy and into a system-overturning white nationalism – racist movement leaders re-casting whites as a people “dispossessed,” and holding the overturn of the existing government necessary to “save” them from “oppression” and “genocide.”

Leonard drew this insight from studying the rise of neo-Nazi David Duke alongside the development of the white supremacist underground, exemplified by William Pierce’s National Alliance – both dedicated to re-fashioning a state for their whit-ist project – one through garnering a mass base and mainstreaming the cause, the other by building a violent vanguard to overthrow the government by force. And Leonard delineated the distinct nature of white nationalist antisemitism in creating a racialized “ruling class” behind the fantasized white plight. You can dive deeply into this in Leonard’s 2009 book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream.

Leonard broke ground on the study of white nationalism, but he always stressed that it developed in tension, overlap and cross-pollination with other far right and anti-democratic tendencies – e.g., the Christian Right, libertarianism, anti-Indian activists and paleoconservatism, etc.

Influenced by this approach, that necessitated understanding how fascists and their kin understood the world, at CHD we agonized over the best way to characterize the far rights’ various factions; and we were among the most persisting at saying, “The Christian Right is not the same as the white supremacist movement, is not libertarianism, is not the Wise Use Movement…but here are things they share in common…And here’s a meeting where they both showed up.”

And Leonard saw, and taught us, how the collapse of the Soviet Union remade the American political landscape, how the decline of anti-communism as a pan-U.S. ideological glue created space for, but did not determine, the growing prominence of various racialized and religiously-constructed nationalisms – something reflected in the rise of anti-immigrant politics across the far right and the transformation of Reagan-style reactionary attacks on affirmative action into fodder for white nationalist revolution in the hands of Duke-style mainstreamers and violent vanguardists.

Leonard never talked about these phenomenon as disconnected social artifacts. Rather, building on what had come before (something else he stressed), he took the insights of Donald Warren’s book, The Radical Center, to highlight the development of a middle American nationalism that spanned the far right. Warren had documented a distinct ideology in the American public, middle American radicalism, behind support for George Wallace’s 1968 campaign – a mostly white segment of the public who deemed themselves squeezed between elites above them and people of the color and poor people below them.

From this, Leonard delineated a middle American nationalism that could be seen across the spectrum of organized far right; it also provided a terrain for connecting the movement to a mass base in the American public – again, a key link Leonard also stressed.  While still confused in some academic circles as the “weak ideology” of “populism,” Leonard demonstrated that this framework undergirded common far right themes as the oft-spewed, and simultaneous, attack on “globalists” on the one hand, and immigrants on the other.

Middle American nationalism’s contours are today seen among white and Christian nationalists; so-called “constitutionalists” and paramilitary groups; paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians; Proud Boys; anti-Indian, anti-Muslim, antisemitic, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ groups; and even in the world of techno-fascists and their national conservative kin.

And, something I will always appreciate, Leonard was one among few anti-fascist and fight-the-right leaders whose understanding of the far right encompassed that branch specifically dedicated to overturning the treaty rights and political sovereignty of Indigenous Nations. His work in the Northwest brought this issue front and center to groups like the Coalition for Human Dignity, the Montana Human Rights Network, the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment and Borderlands Research and Education, a project started by Leah Henry-Tanner and myself.

Leonard Zeskind was thanked for his “substantive contributions” to Dr. Rudolph C Ryser’s The Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier, the seminal work on this movement. CDR’s 1992 how-to-fight-back book, When Hate Groups Come to Town included a section on “Indian Issues and Anti-Indian Organizing” and contributions from Zoltan Grossman, who with Debi McNutt was leading efforts to counter anti-Indian groups through the Midwest Treaty Network. Attacks on the unique nature of tribal nationhood have to be included in the struggle for justice.

And Leonard always stressed that, though rooted in various brands of nationalism, these phenomena were international in nature and had to be fought as such. Ideas of whiteness and the “defense” of a supposedly-being-dispossessed “Western Civilization” jumped the pond, connecting homegrown American racists to the progeny of interwar European fascisms. Through decades of work with the British anti-fascist publication Searchlight, Leonard built an alliance dedicated to fighting this, tracking Europe’s fascists when they appeared stateside and finding comrades who tracked American fascists when they landed in Europe.

My most important lesson from Leonard Zeskind and this work, however, isn’t this knowledge. It was the lesson that Leonard always had your back. And he stressed that we all have to do that. He was a fundamentally decent person who would do all in his power to protect those involved with him in the struggle against white supremacy and fascism. He looked out for us, his kids, on a personal level – a sometimes pushy uncle wanting to know if we were really alright.

This decency shaped his commitment to translating the realities of organized racism to the community level – not “down to” the community level, just “to” the community level. To people in the direct path of racism, bigotry, and violence, and to those being targeted for recruitment into the white supremacist movement.

Leonard could talk over my head on many matters philosophical and historical, but what mattered to him was helping workers, community members, young people, and all decent people understand the threats posed by this movement, and the importance of standing up to turn back its attack on human decency. His years working on auto assembly lines and defending workers were his training ground, teaching him, I think, that an injury to one really is an injury to all.

I didn’t want to write this. I don’t want to finish it, as it is one more step in never seeing Leonard again. I will carry his love, wisdom, and commitment to making a better world with me for the rest of my days.

The post Remembering Leonard Zeskind appeared first on IREHR.

While many white nationalists believe they have allies in the White House, early indications are that the general direction of white nationalist mainstreamers will be to attempt to push the Trump administration and its base in a more fascist direction – much as the white nationalist “Groyper” movement during the first Trump administration.

Make American Renaissance Again

One of those allies inside the White House is Stephen Miller, a senior advisor in the first Trump administration, who is expected to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy in the second term. Miller is the architect of Trump’s militarized mass deportation plans.

Previously, Miller drew national attention for having promoted white nationalist and racist material, including the white nationalist VDARE and crassly racist fiction book Camp of the Saints. Alongside praising the racist Immigration Act of 1924, Miller suggested to a Breitbart reporter that she utilize information from white nationalist Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance.[1]

American Renaissance [8,166 Telegram subscribers, 1,056 Twitter (X) followers] hosted the first major white nationalist gathering in the post-election period – an annual event held at Montgomery Bell State Park near Nashville, Tennessee, on November 19-20. (We will be examining this conference in the coming weeks.)

In the lead-up to the event, longtime American Renaissance writers Kevin DeAnna, aka Gregory Hood, and Paul Kersey dedicated an episode of Hood’s View From The Right broadcast to a likely central issue at the conference – an assessment of the future of “white identity politics,” aka white nationalism, under the coming Trump regime.

Kersey kicked off the show white nationalist-style, declaring,

“We’ve said all along this year, we, the American People, white America, deserves a country of their ancestors for our posterity, and I think that on November 5th, remember, remember the 5th of November, Mr. Hood, I think something very, very big happened. And I think it’s only getting more obvious how big that victory really is, with Mr. Trump’s first few appointments.”[2]

Hood lauded,

“What are Donald Trump’s first two actions in regard to personnel in the White House? Tom Homan is going to be the border czar, who has said, you know, ‘What do you say to the idea of breaking apart families with deportation?’ he said ‘Hey, we can…deport families together.’ He is now the border czar and Steve Miller is the Chief of Staff. Exactly what I, literally the two things that I wanted.”[3]

Kersey corrected that Miller has actually been announced as a Deputy Chief of Staff, claiming that the Trump advisor is now “more powerful than ever,” having established a base of support independent from Trump through such projects as this litigious America First Legal. Gleefully stating that the racist “great replacement theory” was a core theme of the Trump campaign, Kersey asserted it was now “clearly a time for mainstreaming as opposed to taking an independent position, and saying, you know, white homeland now, and forever. That would have been a very easy thing to say if Trump had lost.”[4]

This claim comes from Kersey’s view that “President Trump, in many ways, and this is one of the things, sort of a sneak preview of what I’m going to say at AmRen [American Renaissance], he’s moved the ball forward on white identity politics in a lot of ways,” even as Trump moderated his positions on abortion and social security.

In the context of such mainstreaming opportunities, Kersey argues that white nationalists do need to re-frame their politics in a more publicly palatable manner. Arguing that the term “white nationalism” is “political poison” and “would be the wrong frame,” he applauds the increasing attention given to opposing “explicit anti-white discrimination,” concluding that,

“It’s time for white identity politics to be a real-world political movement, but it’s going to take a bit of subtlety, it’s going to take a bit tact, and its [sic] going to be very different than the kinds of things that we are expressing online.”

Per usual, the event will feature American Renaissance regulars Sam Dickson and Kevin DeAnna. Dickson, who has “addressed every American Renaissance conference,” is a close ally of the deeply antisemitic, white nationalist and secessionist League of the South. A one-time fixture at events held by the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review, Dickson once admitted that the German Nazis persecuted Jews but stated that “to the extent to which six million of them were killed, is something I do not know.”

The event will also host academic racists, long a feature of a group that aims to shroud its racism behind a veneer of “science.” This includes Penn Carey Law Professor Amy Wax, fresh off receiving a one-year suspension from the University of Pennsylvania for “a history of making sweeping and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status; breaching the requirement that student grades be kept private by publicly speaking about the grades of law students by race and continuing to do so even after cautioned by the dean that it was a violation of University policy; and, on numerous occasions in and out of the classroom and in public, making discriminatory and disparaging statements targeting specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify.”[5]

Another announced speaker, former professor and dean at Tulane University, Richard Marksbury, will discuss “Why the Big Deal About Ethno-Nationalism?”[6]

The American Renaissance event will also feature the group’s international connections, long a feature of organized white nationalism, announcing appearances by Austrian Identitarian leader Martin Sellner and Guido Taietti of the Italian neo-fascist group CasaPound. Radio personality Anthony Cumia of the “Opie and Anthony Show” and a “mystery guest” are also slated to appear – the latter hinted at by the phrase “Everything is Fake and Gay,” indicating that it could be Nick Fuentes.

Friendly Opposition

A look across the white nationalist movement echoes themes in the American Renaissance assessment – that while the Trump administration may open opportunities, particularly in the realm of the potential mass deportation of immigrants and opening up political space for white nationalism, the aged MAGA leader will need to be pushed to advance the cause.

As during the rise of the “Groypers,” white nationalist and neo-fascist mainstreamer Nick Fuentes [65,292 Telegram subscribers, 444,721 Twitter (X) followers] is staking out a position critical of the Trump administration – but in the love-hate (or at least dislike) relationship Fuentes’ has long exhibited toward Trump.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, Nick Fuentes went viral by tweeting a message declaring, “Your body, my choice. Forever.” – a mocking attack on women and reproductive rights and assertion of the far-right Catholicism that accompanies his brand of fascism. In a rejoinder to the national attention garnered by this display of misogyny, Fuentes mocked women in crass misogynist terms and declared that women supporting the upbeat temperament of Kamala Harris’ campaign, alongside advocating abortion rights, is “one among many reasons that women should not have the right to vote.”[7]

On the one hand, Fuentes dubbed Trump and Elon Musk’s victory “a blessing for this country” because “everything that you see was built by men, invented by men…Yes men should be running the country. God bless Trump for winning and for starting this whole movement…They talk about women’s rights, I’m sorry, what rights are you talking about, what rights do women not have…I don’t apologize for what I said.”[8]

Boasting that he “did not vote at all this time” and “did not support Trump this time,” Fuentes praised Trump, Musk, and Joe Rogan for pushing back against women, though he noted, “these guys are imperfect, I have my criticisms of them, but…They represent the white man coming home, and good.”

Fuentes, who had dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, criticized the snake-oily reality TV personality for, among other things, backing down when his first administration’s vicious family separation policies drew controversy and, more recently, when the orange-tinged racist publicly distanced himself from both the draconian Project 2025 [despite a slew of connection to the project’ authors] and a national abortion ban in the face of criticism.

Fuentes continued that Trump is an “aging president” who is “not energetic…not a good operator…and doesn’t have a vision.” And, he predicted that if Trump “tries to do anything extreme,” his funders will push back against him, Fuentes arguing that they are not “for mass deportations,” but instead working to get the Department of Defense contracts for Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

“Are there some exciting opportunities,” he continued. “I think so. I think certainly there are. But this is not going to be a successful administration running on auto pilot. There’s no guaranteed victory here. If anything, the odds are that it’s going to be a generic Republican presidency, and it’s going to lead to even worse things when the heir-apparent takes over in four years…We have to be thinking in the long term.”[9]

Fuentes attacked several announced Trump appointments. He referred to expected Trump DoD transition team member Brian Hook as a “lunatic neocon.” He called expected appointments as Elise Stefanik (UN Ambassador), Marco Rubio (Secretary of State), and Kristi Noem (Homeland Security) as “absolutely horrible picks. Each worse than the last.”[10]

White Nationalist Parties Respond

In a November 6 press release, the white nationalist American Freedom Party [2,491 Telegram subscribers] signaled its aims to press the Trump Administration in a more white-ist and antisemitic direction. “With Trump appearing to have secured the presidency,” AFP Executive Director John Fassbinder [602 Telegram subscribers] wrote, “we must recognize a sobering truth: no matter which of the two candidates won, America has lost.”  The AFP mini-fuehrer continued,

“Trump is not the solution to our challenges, and his win does not signify salvation for Our Nation or Our People…These figures will never prioritize the future we envision so long as they place the interests of foreign lands such as Israel first…[T]he Dissident Right must focus forward…The path to Victory lies in only one resolute course of action: the full rejection of the Zionist Occupation.”[11]

The group is continuing its alliance with the Patriot Front [26,606 Telegram subscribers], announcing that the group’s Texas-based leader, Thomas Rousseau, will be a featured speaker at the AFP’s March 2025 conference.[12]

In a May 2023 interview with the South Dakota-based Amerikaner, AFP’s Fassbinder made clear that one basis of the group’s alliance is that they are both fascist:

“Patriot Front frames themselves as the same thing that they are, and it’s what we are, which is ultimately, a sort of American fascist political party organization, you know, we do use the fasces and the torch for a reason.”

Other announced speakers include antisemite and AFP Director Kevin MacDonald, League of the South leader Michael Hill, and announced American Renaissance speaker Sam Dickson.[13]

While the AFP has made moves to step up its ground game since the rise of former Identity Evropa activist John Fassbinder to the helm, it will likely continue to lag behind even a weakened Patriot Front on that front. We can expect such groups to target immigrants in propaganda as the Trump administration moves to roll out its planned deportations.

The national socialist National Justice Party [7,562 Telegram subscribers], still hobbling from recent in-fighting, is also signaling an opposition position vis-à-vis Trump. Assessing the place of racism in the election of Donald Trump, NJP leader Warren Balogh [3,156 Telegram subscribers] wrote on Telegram that,

“Even though I’m against Trump, I’m actually one of his most enthusiastic students. Lessons I’ve learned from him…The masses of White Americans are ready for National Socialism. Trump offered them a watered down, bastardized form of Jewish pseudo-NS, and they grasped for it like a drowning man. The fact that they haven’t expressed this up to now is not because they don’t want it, but because they haven’t been presented with the choice.”[14]

Balogh lists his other “lessons” from Trump include using “oratory and mass meetings,” [an NJP weakness], using “simple, direct language” because the “great masses of Whites (sic) are not intellectuals,” being “brash” and “rude” to “ruthlessly push your own agenda and shove competition out of the way,” and using leverage to achieve your goals (e.g., by not voting for Trump automatically). Balogh continued that,

“You win not by following the rules, but by breaking the rules. Catering to conservatives, chasing after the approval of the establishment, trying to present as fake and polished, worrying about what people will say and think, gets you nowhere fast. Our people want authenticity, guts and passion. Respecting the conventions of American politics means we lose every time.”[15]

At white nationalist Identity Dixie, in the lead-up to the election, “Kaiser” offered that “Trump and Kamala are both horrid, disgraceful options,” declaring he would not vote in the presidential race because “I am not sure that a Trump presidency will be less damaging than a Kamala one.”[16]

“Kaiser” walked through his possible scenarios in the event of a Trump victory, writing, “There is not a scenario where Trump is suddenly a rogue dissident warrior. Because that is not going to happen. Listen to his speeches. He’s the same man as before, whether anyone wants to admit that or not. At best, we get a repeat of half-alright 2016 Trump. At worst, we get limp-wristed 2020 Trump.” [17]

In his first scenario, “Trump wins, and nothing happens (we get a repeat of half-okay 2016 Trump) [italics in original].” He laments that “this option still is not great for a dissident. If this repeat happens, the 2020 fraud gets completely swept under the rug…Trump 2016 did nothing to stem the tide of our pathway to annihilation; Trump 2024 won’t be any different.”[18]

In scenario 2: “Trump wins, and nothing happens (we get a repeat of complete-failure 2020 Trump) [italics in original].” In “This option,” Kaiser writes,

“[I]nstead of being the old 2016 Trump, we get the 2020 Trump. You know, the Trump that brought us Operation Warp Speed, the COVID lockdowns, started the massive inflation with free money checks, created the greatest peacetime disaster of all time, and the guy that was hiding in the White House as the blacks destroyed everything…Arguably, the only two good things Trump could do is 1) reduce the border crossings, and 2) help our guys out that are getting reamed in the criminal justice system. This 2020 Trump would deny to resolve either of them. Just like he did nothing to help in 2020, when he had the power to do so. Some people assume Trump can stop the inflation wave (“save muh economy!”) but people forget he is the one that started it with the stimulus payments.”[19]

Following the election and Trump’s victory, Identity Dixie’s Kaiser offered that the election was a “short-term win,’ but that white nationalists must think “long-term.”

“If we go into these next four years knowing that Trump is not going to save us,” he writes, “but is going to give us the time to build and potentially slow down the demographic change, then we are going in with a long-term winning mindset.” Kaiser fears that “everyone will become complacent once again,” and “So we risk everyone falling asleep like what happened in 2016 once again.” Stressing that “more than ever, we need to be activated, he concludes that,

“A Trump win very well could be a gift from God to give us these extra few days during the downfall of the American empire. To give us enough time to get ready…Granted, I do realize all of this relies on if Cataclysm X does not happen. But hey, if that happens, we won’t have the time anyway no matter who won…The election of Trump solves nothing by itself.”[20]

For Kaiser, Cataclysm X refers to a “catalyst for the major disaster that we all feel is coming—something leading to geopolitical strife like a Middle East War, World War, a major financial crash, etc.).”[21] He explains, “I think they are planning something big. Some type of major worldwide destabilization. Why? Well, to acquire more hegemony, and secondarily to reduce the population. Also, simply because they are being led by Satan and he wants to destroy.”[22]

These dynamics will continue to play out as the Trump Administration rolls out its announced draconian policies. IREHR will have more to say in the coming months about the white nationalist movement, including both mainstreamers and the vanguardist wing.

NOTES [1] Michael Edison Hayden. Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails. Southern Poverty Law Center. November 12, 2019. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails#link

[2] Gregory Hood. View From the Right. The Return of the King. American Renaissance. November 12, 2024. https://www.amren.com/podcasts/2024/11/the-return-of-the-king/

[3] Gregory Hood. View From the Right. The Return of the King. American Renaissance. November 12, 2024. https://www.amren.com/podcasts/2024/11/the-return-of-the-king/

[4] Gregory Hood. View From the Right. The Return of the King. American Renaissance. November 12, 2024. https://www.amren.com/podcasts/2024/11/the-return-of-the-king/

[5] University of Pennsylvania. Final Determination of Complaint Against Professor Amy Wax. University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Vol 71, Issue 7. September 24, 2024. https://almanac.upenn.edu/articles/final-determination-of-complaint-against-professor-amy-wax; Emily Change and Abby Cruz. Penn imposes major sanctions against controversial law professor Amy Wax, including a 1-year suspension. ABC News. September 24, 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/penn-imposes-major-sanctions-controversial-law-professor-amy/story?id=113955753

[6] Tulane professor tied to pro-Confederate groups. The Tulane Hullabaloo. April 29, 2021. https://tulanehullabaloo.com/56703/news/tulane-professor-tied-to-pro-confederate-groups/; Tulane University. SoPA’s History. https://sopa.tulane.edu/about-sopa/why-sopa/history. Accessed November 12, 2024; American Renaissance. 2024 American Renaissance Conference. https://www.amren.com/2024-american-renaissance-conference/. Accessed November 18, 2024.

[7] Nicholas J. Fuentes. Your Body, My Choice. Rumble. November 8, 2024. https://rumble.com/v5na9cq-your-body-my-choice.html

[8] Nicholas J. Fuentes. Your Body, My Choice. Rumble. November 8, 2024. https://rumble.com/v5na9cq-your-body-my-choice.html

[9] Nicholas J. Fuentes. Your Body, My Choice. Rumble. November 8, 2024. https://rumble.com/v5na9cq-your-body-my-choice.html

[10] Nicholas J. Fuentes. Telegram. November 10, 2024.  https://t.me/nickjfuentes/13752; Nicholas J. Fuentes. Telegram. November 12, 2024. https://t.me/nickjfuentes/13756

[11] American Freedom Party. Telegram. November 6, 2024. https://t.me/AmericanFreedomParty

[12] American Freedom Party. Telegram. November 12, 2024. https://t.me/AmericanFreedomParty/822

[13] American Freedom Party. Telegram. November 12, 2024. https://t.me/AmericanFreedomParty/822

[14] Warren Balogh NJP. Telegram. November 5, 2025. https://t.me/ahab88/16992

[15] Warren Balogh NJP. Telegram. November 5, 2025. https://t.me/ahab88/16992

[16] Kaiser. The 2024 Election: Final Thoughts And Six Scenarios. November 1, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/the-2024-election-final-thoughts-and-six-scenarios/

[17] Kaiser. The 2024 Election: Final Thoughts And Six Scenarios. November 1, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/the-2024-election-final-thoughts-and-six-scenarios/

[18] Kaiser. The 2024 Election: Final Thoughts And Six Scenarios. November 1, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/the-2024-election-final-thoughts-and-six-scenarios/

[19] Kaiser. The 2024 Election: Final Thoughts And Six Scenarios. November 1, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/the-2024-election-final-thoughts-and-six-scenarios/

[20] Kaiser. Identity Dixie. The 2024 Election Results: First Thoughts. November 8, 2024. https://identitydixie.com/2024/11/08/the-2024-election-results-first-thoughts/

[21] Kaiser. Cataclysm X. Identity Dixie. October 9, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/cataclysm-x/

[22] Kaiser. Cataclysm X. Identity Dixie. October 9, 2024. https://www.hiddendominion.com/cataclysm-x/. In Kaiser’s conspiracism-addled mind, ‘The action could include, he writes, a “cyber attack from Russia. Maybe it is a false flag attack from Iran. Or maybe it is a disease being unleashed. Heck, it could be major assassinations… A disease that allows for actual harsh lockdowns. A world war that allows for silencing all opposition internally. Even a market crash that demands us all surrender to the state to get food.”

The post “A Time for Mainstreaming” – White Nationalists Respond to Trump Victory appeared first on IREHR.

Since Ammon Bundy officially launched the far-right People’s Rights Network (PRN) website in early 2020, the site has been an important indicator of the group’s size and scope. To members, the site highlights the local leaders and the total number of members in each of the 470 self-defined “areas” across the country.

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) has tracked this membership data regularly since the site launch. Data collected by the IREHR research team in October indicates the People’s Rights Network has collapsed in the wake of the July 2023 $52.5 million defamation and harassment verdict against Ammon Bundy, Diego Rodriguez, and the organization.

People’s Rights Network membership remains at 44,925 as of October 7, 2024. Washington has the most members (7,595), followed by (Oregon (6,425), Idaho (4,548), California (2,955), Utah (2,767), and Florida (2,272).

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StateMembers - Oct 2024 Washington7595 Oregon6425 Idaho4548 California2955 Utah2767 Florida2272 Colorado1938 Texas1820 Arizona1277 Montana1124 Michigan878 Nevada758 Pennsylvania724 Missouri632 North Carolina609 Georgia575 New York539 Indiana513 Illinois487 Ohio451 Tennessee417 New Jersey387 Kentucky370 Oklahoma343 Nebraska329 Kansas312 Wisconsin307 Virginia276 Minnesota265 Arkansas248 Maryland230 Massachusetts226 South Carolina218 New Mexico217 Iowa185 Louisiana167 North Dakota165 Hawaii151 Wyoming148 Maine148 Mississippi143 Alaska126 Alabama124 Connecticut121 New Hampshire109 West Virginia105 South Dakota84 Delaware61 Rhode Island60 Vermont33 District of Columbia10

Due to the website’s structure, it appears few people have gone through the trouble of removing themselves from the system. As a result, membership growth is a more useful indicator of activity than the overall membership number. An examination of membership data indicates two divergent periods of membership growth: before the St. Luke’s defamation trial and after the trial verdict.

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From the initial People’s Rights network gatherings in April 2020 to March 2023, the group identified 40,682 members in 470 different areas across the country. Membership growth was not uniform, often spiking with related on-the-ground activity.

While real-time tracking data is unavailable, in the pre-trial period (April 2020 to March 2023), the group added an average of 1,769.7 new members each month.

Post-Verdict

After the trial verdict in July 2023, the PRN website showed 43,925 US members. As of October 7, 2024, the PRN website identifies 44,982 members.

Membership growth has plummeted since the defamation trial verdict. The post-verdict monthly new member growth average has dropped to just 75.5, a decline of 95.73% from the pre-trial period. In fact, in the most recent period tracked (March-October 2024), the monthly new member average is down to 52.5, a decline of 97% from the pre-trial period.

A precipitous decline in online activity on the organization’s website matches the lack of membership activity. Posted events, articles, and comments have virtually dried up.

The membership site played an important role in real-world mobilizations through the use of its unique text-message rapid response system. The lack of activity on the site mirrors a lack of on-the-ground activity outside notable pockets in Oregon and Southern California.

In recent documents filed by Ammon Bundy in his bankruptcy case, Bundy again raised the specter of violence, “Mr. Bundy believes that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property infringed, but he believes that all men are justified in defending themselves, their families, their friends, and property, from the unlawful acts and encroachments of all persons, including those who act in the color of law.” Though it was in a document related to his personal finances, Bundy went so far as to suggest that secession might be a necessary remedy.

People’s Rights Network membership data suggests the number of people willing to take up arms alongside Ammon Bundy is diminishing. IREHR will continue to monitor the situation for changes or developments in the future.

The post The Status of People’s Rights Network Membership – October 2024 appeared first on IREHR.

With the far-right pro-paramilitary group CSPOA holding its “large scale event” in Orlando later this week, IREHR has alerted law enforcement across the state of Florida about the CSPOA “Plan.”

 

Dear Sheriff:

It has come to our attention that a notorious group with ties to insurrectionists and white nationalists is attempting to recruit law enforcement in Florida, potentially including you and your deputies.

We are reaching out to your department with a sense of urgency and concern regarding the upcoming plans by the so-called Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) for a two-day event in Orlando, Florida on September 6-7, 2024. For details about the event, see the IREHR special report, The Plan: A New Far-Right Blueprint for the Next Insurrection is Taking Place in Florida. We have also alerted Florida media and the venue about this event.

In addition to the concerns of our organization, it is important to note that both the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center categorize CSPOA as an “anti-government extremist” group. This classification should raise serious concerns and prompt a cautious approach towards any involvement with the CSPOA.

The far-right pro-paramilitary group promotes the long-discredited idea derived from the violently racist and antisemitic Posse Comitatus that sheriffs can usurp the judicial branch’s role in interpreting the Constitution and unilaterally override federal, state, and local laws. The sheriff’s job is challenging enough without being saddled with these unconstitutional burdens.

Here are some facts about the group’s founder, the current CEO, the advisory board, and members for you to consider.

CSPOA Founder Richard Mack

The CSPOA was founded by former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack—a longtime militia movement figure and founding board member of the insurrectionist paramilitary group, the Oath Keepers. Six Oath Keepers leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy for their part in the January 6th insurrection. According to the Department of Justice, the “manners and means” used by defendants convicted in two separate Oath Keepers trials included “using force against law enforcement officers while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”

While Mack told Reuters that he left the Oath Keepers’ board around 2016 because the group became too militant, he and other CSPOA leaders maintained a relationship with the insurrectionist group. In fact, on January 5, 2021, CSPOA CEO Sam Bushman had Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes on his radio program the day before the insurrection to encourage others to join his insurrectionary plans. Bushman continues to defend Rhodes on his program.

Mack has also made clear that he would support using private militias against government officials, writing, “People get all upset when they hear about militias, but what’s wrong with it? I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to call out my posse against the federal government if it gets out of hand.”

Before returning to efforts to infiltrate law enforcement, in 2021, Mack toured the country with an antisemitic conspiracy theorist spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

While Mack spends considerable time stressing his devotion to Constitutional rights, his record and that of other law officers affiliated with CSPOA has too often been wanting in this regard.

Richard Mack’s history in law enforcement is also worthy of consideration. In 1985, while serving in the Provo, Utah, police department, Mack’s apparent misconduct landed a man on death row and in prison for nearly 30 years. As described in a 116-page federal court ruling, during the investigation into a high-profile murder case, Mack arranged to pay the rent, heat, and phone bills of two key witnesses and give them cash – totaling some $4,000 across several months. As a result, a Fourth District Court Judge overturned the conviction and death sentence of the man based on the misconduct of Mack, other officers, and the prosecutor. One witness also “testified that Officer Mack threatened her and [her husband] with arrest, deportation, and loss of their son, and that this occurred three times.” In addition, witnesses testified that they were coached to lie about having received gifts and about the defendant planning to rape the murder victim. The judge wrote, “Officer Mack’s inconsistent statements—all aimed at painting the police and his own conduct in a more favorable light— seriously undermined his credibility.”

CSPOA CEO Sam Bushman

When Richard Mack took a $20,000-a-month position on the board of a group spreading COVID misinformation, Sam Bushman was promoted to CEO of CSPOA. Sam Bushman never served in law enforcement. He has, however, been involved with promoting troubling white nationalist organizations, including groups advocating secession and killing law enforcement.

Already facing growing pressure for ties to white nationalists, last October, Bushman appeared on the podcast of a Hitler-loving white nationalist. On that program, Bushman confessed that he’d been a longtime reader of and remains a supporter of the white nationalist publications Spotlight and American Free Press.

CSPOA CEO Sam Bushman has used his radio show to promote and build a relationship with the white nationalist, antisemitic, and secessionist League of the South. In 1990, League of the South Chief of Statt Michael Tubbs pleaded guilty to stealing M-16 rifles from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, serving four years in prison. In 2017, Tubbs was named commander of the League of the South’s paramilitary branch, the Southern Defense Force.

Identity Dixie leader Jim O’Brien, aka Padraig Martin, a guest on Bushman’s radio show, League of the South ally, and co-editor of a pro-secessionist book promoted by Bushman, wrote this troubling passage about murdering law enforcement:

“The lesson of the egregious Stewart Rhodes prison sentence – as well as every other J6 Protester languishing in a prison, – is the following: if you are going to start a revolution of any kind, even if your purpose had legal or Constitutional merit, you better not stop at the gates. You better go all in. Do not leave a single police officer, Congressman, judge, or any other functionary of government alive…[T]he next time you take part in a rightwing protest be prepared to kill them all. Half measures are no longer an option.”

Bushman also recently announced on his radio show that he is a member of fugitive paramilitary figure Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights network. While the group is most well-known for threatening hospitals and public health officials, one People’s Rights network member is serving an 18-year sentence for a northern Idaho shootout with law enforcement. Another is awaiting trial in Nevada for threatening law enforcement.

CSPOA Advisory Board

Mack and Bushman aren’t the only CSPOA figures of concern. The group’s advisory board includes a former member of a white nationalist secessionist group and a sheriff involved in an attempt to seize voting machines.

Michael Peroutka was a national board member of the white nationalist secessionist group, the League of the South, a group that seeks a whites-only ethnostate in the U.S. South, promotes vicious antisemitism, and has forged alliances with neo-Nazis. Peroutka has denounced the Union’s victory in what he calls the “War Between the States.” Peroutka even led the League of the South convention in singing what he called the “national anthem” – “Dixie.” While Peroutka later backed away when his ties were exposed, he stated, “I don’t have any problem with the organization.”

Peroutka currently leads the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC). This group promotes anti-Muslim bigotry and state nullification. It has distributed material stating that “We see no reason why men should not discriminate on grounds of religion, race, or nationality if they wish.” Peroutka even pledged to use the Institute on the Constitution to aid the League of the South and advance the cause of imposing biblical law.

CSPOA Advisory Board member Barry County, Michigan, Sheriff Dar Leaf was an unindicted co-conspirator in a Michigan voting machine tampering case. Emails obtained by Bridge Michigan show that Sheriff Leaf tried to enlist fellow “constitutional sheriffs” to seize Dominion voting machines at the heart of the election conspiracy promoted by then-President Donald Trump.

In May 2020, Sheriff Leaf shared the stage with members of the Michigan Liberty Militia, including one of the men arrested in the plot to kidnap the governor.

Other CSPOA-Affiliated Sheriffs

CSPOA ranks are filled with members who have tarnished the image of law enforcement and harmed communities. Multiple CSPOA-affiliated law officers have engaged in intimidation and illegal and potentially illegal practices.

• Former Edwards County (TX) Sheriff Pam Elliot, a CSPOA member featured on the cover of Mack’s book, Are You a David?, and her department engaged in activity that intimidated political opponents and voters, including Edwards County deputies appearing at polling stations. Election attorney Buck Wood described the latter as “pure and simple intimidation.”
• In 2022 Real County (TX) Sheriff Nathan Johnson, who attended a Texas CSPOA training, was put under criminal investigation for repeatedly seizing money from undocumented immigrants, even if they were not charged with a state crime – actions to which he admitted.
• Culpepper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott Jenkins, a featured speaker at CSPOA’s 2020 conference, was indicted in June on a slew of corruption charges related to a scheme that offered police badges and gun permits in exchange for payments or political contributions.
• CSPOA member Frederick County, Maryland Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Austin Jenkins was indicted in April by a federal grand jury for breaking federal gun laws. Jenkins is alleged to have defrauded the United States by interfering with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by making false statements and representations in paperwork submitted to the ATF to obtain machine guns that were used by campaign supporter Robert Justin Krop’s firearms business, The Machine Gun Nest.
• Riverside County, California Sheriff Chad Bianco, is not only a prominent CSPOA member, he’s also been a member of the insurrectionist group, the Oath Keepers.
• Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff who received a 2012 CSPOA award, was convicted of criminal contempt in 2017 after refusing to end his department’s racial profiling practices. As of 2015, taxpayers had paid $8.2 million for the case.
• In 2019, CSPOA presented former Republic, Washington Police Chief Loren Culp with its “Police Chief of the Decade” award. On April 3, 2024, the Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs issued Loren Culp a “notice of…proposed expulsion” from the Association because of “numerous offensive public social media posts and comments” deemed to be “unbecoming of a WASPC member.”

We could go on, but I think you get the idea. At a time when law enforcement and community relations are already strained, efforts of a far-right group to infiltrate law enforcement pose a grave and growing threat to both officers and department credibility. I think we can all agree that groups like CSPOA have no place in law enforcement. We urge you to speak out to make it clear that CSPOA has no place in American law enforcement. As this issue is time-sensitive, we would appreciate a rapid response. If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Devin Burghart
Executive Director
IREHR

 

The post IREHR’s Letter to Florida Sheriffs appeared first on IREHR.