The New York Times Editorial Staff - White Nationalists: Who Are They and What Do They Believe?

White supremacists march toward Lafayette Square for the Unite the Right rally in Washington, Aug. 12, 2018, to mark the anniversary of their Charlottesville, Va. rally the previous year.

In recent years, white nationalists have made headlines following horrifyingly violent hate crimes. Dylann Roof, the young man who murdered nine parishioners at a historically black church in Charleston, S.C., was influenced by white nationalist rhetoric he encountered on online forums. Robert Bowers, the man who opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., taking the lives of nine, shared his views on Gab, a website that hosts forums for many fringe groups. White nationalism has become the greatest force of domestic terrorism today.

The leaders of the white nationalist movement represent the different strains of white supremacy present in American culture. There is Richard B. Spencer, the director of the National Policy Institute, who famously led an audience in a Hail Trump! salute following the 2016 election. There is David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who has made his own forays into politics. And then there is Don Black, the operator of the white nationalist website Stormfront.org, whose son, Derek Black, once his acolyte, made headlines by sharing his own conversion against white nationalism.

Part of the recent surge in white nationalism comes from the candidacy and election of Donald Trump. Throughout his campaign, Trump invoked the language of white nationalism, giving followers hope that his beliefs echoed theirs. He surrounded himself with advisers such as Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart News website gives a platform to the alt-right, an association of extreme right-wing groups, including many white nationalists.

Those concerned about the spread of white nationalism found cause to worry after Charlottesville, when the president refrained from criticizing the alt-right groups, instead choosing to condemn the violence that took place on both sides. Since then, the president has been slow to criticize racially motivated hate crimes and has put forward policy positions that echo the demands of white nationalists.

The articles in this book trace the origins of the white nationalist movement, examining its beliefs as well as its growing base of adherents. Reporters embedded themselves in white nationalist communities, scrutinized their means of operation and analyzed the foundations of their beliefs. What results is a portrait of how white nationalism has spread through national politics and how this has led to outbreaks of violence.

In 2018, protesters organized a second Unite the Right rally. Officials prepared themselves for a repeat of the previous years violence, but the day passed peacefully, with counterprotesters greatly outnumbering the marching white nationalists. Whether this was a momentary setback or a sign of a shifting tide, only time will tell.

CHAPTER 1

White Nationalists and Their Beliefs

Who counts as a white nationalist, and what do they believe? White nationalism is a belief that sees whiteness as an ethnicity and seeks to create a white ethnostate in order to advance a white national identity. Built upon white supremacy and racism, white nationalists attempt to spread their beliefs through rallies, public talks and Internet platforms. As demographics shift and whites become a minority, white nationalists see the need to position themselves on the defensive, preparing for a race war.

White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites

BY MICHAEL WINES AND STEPHANIE SAUL | JULY 5, 2015

IN LATE JUNE, as much of the nation mourned the killing of nine parishioners in a Charleston, S.C., church, The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website, was busy posting articles on a different issue: black crime against white people. Adolescent Ape Jailed for Murdering White Man Out of Boredom, one headline blared.