The normally idyllic Whitefish will soon be inundated with neo-Nazis for their ‘March on Jews,’ planned for Jan. 15.
Two weeks ago, the IJN published an editorial about a disturbing uptick in white supremacy in Montana.
Montana is an absolutely stunning state, with friendly people who tend to love nature and have an independent streak.
Unfortunately it’s also home to a strong community of white supremacists, and has been for quite some time. Why it’s resurging right now cannot be attributed to one specific cause, but there are a few possibilities:
The founder of the alternative right movement, Richard Spencer, lives part time in Whitefish, Mont. (His mother lives there too.)
Spencer doesn’t call himself a supremacist, but he does call for a white ethno state. He also had no problem being greeted by Sieg Heils and quoting Nazi propaganda at his conference in August.
The alt-right movement gained popularity toward the end of Donald Trump’s campaign, when he hired Stephen Bannon, a media commentator who once said his news site, Breitbart, could be a platform for the movement.
In the immediate weeks after Donald Trump’s election, much attention turned to this “alt-right,” and its leader, Spencer, received a significant amount of media coverage.
Taken together, it seems these factors have emboldened existing white supremacist groups and individuals.
And it’s all come to the fore in Whitefish. A white supremacist site published the names and addresses of the town’s Jewish residents, urging harassment. A march for Jan. 15 — Martin Luther King, Jr. Day —is planned. In true perverse fashion, they are naming the parade after James Earl Ray, the white supremacist who assassinated the civil rights leader.
When we published our editorial, we almost immediately received two hateful comments — neither of which we published. Both implied they were written by Jews, using the royal we, but both called Whitefish’s Jews “scum,” and both included multiple links to Daily Stormer articles that spun conspiracy theories about the town’s Jewish residents.
It was repugnant — but par for the course when dealing with white supremacist anti-Semites.
The ugliness in ascendancy is frightening. But if such people think that by posting such messages — on our site, or theirs, or in spray paint on Jewish buildings — will make us cower in fright, they are dead wrong. The response of Montana’s Jews, its government, and the vast majority of its citizens demonstrates just that.
