Journalist Amanda Moore went undercover for 11 months and demonstrated her point that the extremism that's playing out currently in our country is more dangerous than the press has fully grasped. That said, in days of late, I am hearing more mainstream news media specifically using the word "fascism" to describe Donald Trump and his followers. Yes, long overdue.
For example, Joe Scarborough in Morning Joe recently said, "It's way too late to call this fascism." Absolutely. It's a good thing to call this out as it's leading to the rise of violence in our country, against Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and U.S. minorities.
Amanda's story is riveting and illuminating of not only the expansiveness of this far-right ecosystem, but also an animated youth movement within doing all they can to infiltrate, and ultimately take over, the GOP.
I appreciate Amanda's work in Texas where she identifies a link between anti-Semitic white supremacist holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and an anti-immigrant group, Texans for Strong Borders, that as previously posted to this blog. is entangled with Texas Republican Party leadership and GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi himself. These dynamics have fostered a serious divide within the Texas Republican Party that you can learn about in this October 9th Texas Tribune piece by Robert Downen titled, Conservative PAC leader’s meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes leads to condemnations, escalates GOP infighting.
These are troubling times in our state and nation, no less.
-Angela Valenzuela
Going to a Proud Boys riot with a neo-Nazi is not something I ever expected to do. But in August 2021, I found myself driving through downtown Portland, Ore., with an avowed white supremacist named Alex Nelson. We were on our way to the abandoned K-Mart parking lot that the Proud Boys had commandeered for their “Summer of Love” rally. The event marked the one-year anniversary of a “Back the Blue” demonstration that had become a brawl between the Proud Boys and militias on one side and anti-fascist counterprotesters on the other.
Earlier that week, Nelson, a man in his late 20s who was fond of discussing his “Anglo heritage,” had invited me to join him to watch what he assumed would be violent clashes. “Portland has canceled all parades and markets for the past year and a half. This is the only culture in Portland now. There will probably be a thousand spectators or more lining the bridges and sidewalks,” he assured me.
By then, I had been undercover with the far right for nine months, motivated by my belief that the fascist threat to the country was misunderstood by much of the press and far more dangerous than what was being reported. At first, I had planned only to sell the audio from “Stop the Steal” rallies to a podcast and write a couple of blog posts. But I found myself wanting to get a behind-the-scenes look at the far-right movement—to go to events from which the press was barred and observe extremists when they felt they were in their “safe space”—so the project grew into something far bigger: a long-term infiltration of the network of young white nationalists in America.As we cruised the city, Nelson said, “The people who go to that parking lot, they’re highly violent, unhinged, very angry older Gen X or boomers. You can’t just show up—they have to know you. And they don’t know anyone under the age of 35.”
By contrast, he added, last night he had been to an Oregon Young Republicans meeting that was “full of normal, healthy, attractive young people.” As we pulled up to a red light, Nelson looked over at me and smirked. “But none of those people are going to be in the K-Mart parking lot.”
People in the political center and on the left tend to have a monolithic view of the far right. In reality, it is an expansive ecosystem that includes neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists, conspiracy theorists, anti-government militias, and white nationalists. These groups have some beliefs that conflict, but they are generally willing to overlook their differences. Still, not every group uses the same tactics to try to gain power.







