This Is America

“I’ll be honest with you, we don’t have as many members as they do down in North Carolina or South Carolina,” said the Grand Dragon of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (in green), here in his home in suburban New Jersey on October 5. Since first joining the Klan in the 1970s, he has been a member of Aryan Nations, the National Alliance, and the Imperial Klans of America. One state over, the grand dragon of the Loyal White Nights of the KKK (in white) is seen near his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Both men were photographed in the months following Homeland Security named white supremacy a primary security threat.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, KKK membership has declined in America even while the industry of hate has thrived, fueled by the next generation of white supremacists who have aligned with newer alt-right and white-nationalist organizations (the kind whose members carry tiki torches and wear khakis instead of hoods). White supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis overlap with self-described “identitarians” like the American Identity Movement, fascists like the Patriot Front, ethno-survivalists like the Shield Wall Network, white-power fight clubs like the Rise Above Movement, and “anti–white guilt” provocateurs like the Proud Boys. Sometimes even they have a hard time describing how their ideologies differ. —Reporting by James D. Walsh

This rally in Portland, Oregon on August 17 — one of at least eight such far-right events in major cities this year — was organized by the Proud Boys, which claimed its goal was to drain Portland of its law-enforcement resources until the city condemned antifa. Critics, led by Fox News, often compare antifa with violent far-right groups, calling it the radical left’s violent mob. But statistically the equivalency is unsubstantiated. “We counted a representative sample of antifa attacks and threats on MAGA supporters,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino. “The bottom line is we haven’t seen any hard-left or antifa homicides.”

On June 8, about 15 members of the National Socialist Movement — the largest neo-Nazi group in the country, with 30 to 40 core members — protested Detroit’s Motor City Pride parade, captured in these two photographs. “We were legally armed,” said leader Burt Colucci. The Detroit Police Department was criticized for providing an escort for the protesters, a measure Police Chief James Craig defended as an attempt to prevent “a Charlottesville No. 2.” No one was arrested, but a GoPro video Colucci shot of himself shoving a counterprotester to the ground was later released.

Public events like this one led to tensions ratcheting up among law enforcement, far-right groups, and the public. It didn’t help that, also this year, hate was regularly exposed in the ranks of those charged with fighting it: In April, two Virginia police officers were fired because of their links to white nationalists. Two months later, Reveal reported on nearly 400 current and former law enforcement officers who were members of, or engaged with, extremist Facebook groups, including anti-Islam groups and anti-government militias like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. In St. Louis, 22 police officers were added to an “exclusion list,” prohibiting them from bringing cases to prosecutors after the Plain View Project found racist and anti-Muslim comments they had made on social media. Earlier this month, a photo surfaced of 37 West Virginia corrections officers performing a Nazi salute at their graduation ceremony.

Fractured as it may be, the far right is now connected by public figures arguing for some form of ethno-nationalism. One such figure is Jared Taylor, founder of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference, which brings together far-right leaders from various strands of neo-Nazism, the KKK, and the alt-right. Not long ago, Taylor’s pseudo-intellectual ideas were widely considered fringe. Now, they have a powerful advocate in the White House: Before becoming a top Trump adviser, Stephen Miller cited Taylor’s American Renaissance work to a Breitbart News reporter, suggesting that she aggregate a recent “AmRen” story on the (specious) link between immigration numbers and crime rates.

Taylor has also counseled Patrick Casey and Richard Spencer, members of the alt-right involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Nate Snyder, a former counterterrorism official in the Department of Homeland Security, says activity on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront jumped after the rally. “But when it really hit a spiking point was directly after the president’s comments, his infamous words about ‘very fine people on both sides.’ You saw activity on this thing exponentially spike,” he explains. “It was a validation point. You started seeing posts like ‘We now have an ally in the White House. I’m setting up a similar rally in my town. Let’s take this online action and move it offline and supply it with money and supply it with people.’ It was a mass mobilization.” — James D. Walsh

Billy Roper, leader of the Shield Wall Network (pictured below holding the letter from Roof and wearing a white shirt), says their protests are intended to polarize: to “force normal white Americans to choose between us and them.” This year, Members of the Shield Wall Network celebrated Hitler’s birthday on April 20 on Lake Dardanelle (photographed above) and protested a Holocaust Remembrance Day march on May 5 in Russellville, Arkansas (pictured preparing and marching, below).

In June, Calfy, 24 (on the far right of the boat, above, and seated next to the Confederate flag, below), Nicholas Holloway, 20 (seated far left in the boat), and John Carollo, 29 (standing at left of boat, with neck tattoo), created a Grindr account for a fictitious 15-year-old, used it to lure a man to Calfy’s home (which they called the Hate House), and assaulted him, leaving a scar across his chest and a welt the size of a golf ball on his head. Calfy called 911 and claimed they had apprehended their victim as part of a vigilante “To Catch a Predator” scheme. All three were arrested and, earlier this month, took plea agreements and were sentenced to probation, including Calfy, who previously served five years in prison for possession of explosives and threatening to carry out a mass shooting at his high school.

“Loyal White Knights” of the KKK chaplain Douglas Munker is pictured on September 8 in Yanceyville, North Carolina, with the head of the group, Chris Barker, Barker’s wife, Amanda, and another member at a gathering at the Barkers’ home (photos above). In 2017, when Munker lived on Long Island, he was found distributing KKK literature near East Hampton Middle School. Flyering is a way for hate groups to recruit and stir up fear with little risk. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white-supremacist propaganda surged 182 percent in 2018. In a review of news items from this past year, New York found at least 300 incidents of vandalism involving a swastika: at a Queens elementary school and a California synagogue, at Yale Law School and a Missouri park, on a baby crib at a hotel in Florida, and in dozens of other states.

Neo-Nazi Jovi Val, pictured above on Fifth Avenue on September 18, was disowned by the Proud Boys a year ago after he organized a rally in support of members of the far right facing charges for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, including James Fields, who would be convicted of murdering Heather Heyer. The Proud Boys sought to distance themselves from Charlottesville. Many of the subjects in these photos were eager to condemn violence when interviewed, but their actions this year suggest otherwise: Many were training for a race war, or carrying shotguns at a Pride parade, or bragging about beating up anti-fascist protesters. In October, two Proud Boys were sentenced to four years in prison for attacking protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan.