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In the last weeks and months, the US has been rocked by a wave of anti-Semitic attacks, vandalism and arson against Mosques, white supremacist killings, school shootings and attempted mass murder sprees, a string of bomb threats against various places of worship, and acts of terror against African-American churches. Feeling empowered by the Trump regime, far-Right and white supremacist groups are flexing their power, especially in the face of an administration that is keen to look the other way. Meanwhile, the intellectual leaders of the racist far-Right and Alt-Right gathered this weekend in Sweden in order to consolidate their movements and form alliances with fascist and Neo-Nazi groups in Europe. For those in the US, we should take note of this development, as it signals yet another reason for us to organize within our communities against the growing danger of far-Right violence.

Identitarian Ideas IX, white supremacist v-blogger Millennial Woes in center.

Meanwhile, Trump and his staff implied in the press that the various racist attacks were being organized and carried out by Trump’s political opposition in an attempt to make him look bad. Trump even went so far as to imply that these acts were being carried out by the victims themselves, a claim that echoed “false flag” sentiments coming from racist Alt-Right websites like Breitbart.

As one commentator on Breitbart wrote:

This smells like the manufactured hate crimes that left has been pushing lately to stir up the fake news MSM and also add fuel to the fire for the stereotype alt right.

Others went farther, and claimed that the ‘coordinated’ racist attacks had to be coming from “paid protesters” on the Left, a buzzword that Trump and others have been promoting in the last month to downplay anyone actively opposing the administration. As another Breitbart troll wrote:

Destroying ten or twenty gravestones, or even spray painting something vile on a wall might be the work of teenagers, or a local group of drunk Jew hating racists. But destroying FIVE hundred gravestones only a week after 200 gravestones were damaged in St Louis; that sounds like professional work aimed at getting the attention of the national news networks. This looks more and more like paid professionals working in coordination across the country. That means money, coordination, and someone at the top giving orders.

It seems the far-Right culture that celebrates everything from gas chamber memes to Pinochet dropping dissidents from helicopters can’t fathom the idea that people are putting their fascist ideas into action – or more realistically, they don’t want to admit publically that this is happening. Instead, it’s easier for them to pretend that such acts are the work of “paid protesters” or anyone else they oppose, in order to make themselves look bad. Trump of course is eager to eat these conspiracy theories up and blame the victims of racist and fascist violence for their own misfortune.

Matt Forney and Milo Yiannopoulos

Meanwhile, in Sweden, members of the Alt-Right, which has attempted to mainstream white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and fascist ideas in the Trump era, gathered to build their movement outside of the US, and link up with established white supremacist groups. Attendees at the ‘Identitarian Ideas XI‘ conference from the US included Matt Forney, who has evolved from being simply a pro-rape Men’s Rights Activist to a full on white nationalist, and Al Stankard, also known as “Harlem Venison.” Stankard was featured in several media spreads along with Richard Spencer last winter after Al attended the National Policy Institute Conference where people threw up Nazi salutes to “Hail Trump.”

Al Stankard

As one report on the conference stressed how the Alt-Right was uniting with more open Neo-Nazi elements:

A new international ‘Alt-Right’ movement has been formed, bringing together far-right groups from across the US and Europe. Simply called Altright, it merges the three main alt-right operations in the world and will have a major influence on the far right across North America and Europe. They were joined by members of Swedish far-right groups including Nordic Youth, Motgift and the Nordic Resistance Movement. Also present was leading “counter-jihadist” Ingrid Carlqvist, who co-runs Dispatch International and until recently was a prolific writer for the US-based Gatestone Institute, which has close links to Donald Trump’s administration. Her presence, in a room full on unrepentant nazis, will severely embarrass and damage claims by the international counter-jihad networks that it is not extreme. Speakers at the event included Henrik Palmgren from the alt-right platform Red Ice, Magnus Söderman, the former chief ideologue of the openly Nazi Swedish Resistance Movement and Rueben Kaalep who leads the youth movement of the Estonian Blue Awakening. Jason Reza Jorjani, the editor-in-chief of Arktos books, an alt-right publishing house founded by the Swedish ex-skinhead Daniel Friberg and the American John B. Morgan in November 2009, and now based in Budapest, opened the event by outlining the recent merger of three of the movement’s leading organisations; Arktos Books, Red Ice and the infamous National Policy Institute (NPI) led by Richard Spencer. The new group, Altright, has a single board and an office in downtown Washington D.C. Also speaking at the event was the Scottish blogger Millennial Woes, recently identified as Colin Robertson from Linlithgow. His short but extreme speech left the audience under no illusions about his belief in racial nationalism. He even quoted the infamous ”14 Words”, a popular white supremacist slogan that states: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.

For those watching the Alt-Right this means two things. First, it signals a merger between various groups in the US, including Red Ice Radio, which livestreamed the event and has a growing media, podcast, and video platform, and the National Policy Institute, headed by Richard Spencer. Second, there were also other alliances forming, not only along various ideological lines, but also across a wide variety of groups. Remember that several years ago, people like Richard Spencer would have gone to great lengths to distance himself from Neo-Nazis, but now he is appearing on podcasts along with Andrew Anglin, the fake news neo-Nazi kingpin of The Daily Stormer. As we can see by the wide variety of far-Right groups coming together at the conference, these kind of alliances are growing and are bringing together former factions into a united front.

A member of Identity Evropa gives a Nazi salute in Minneapolis.

In the US, we are already seeing this reality, as members of Identity Evropa and The Daily Stormer openly throw up Nazi salutes in Minneapolis and Matthew Heimbach pushes to work with the National Socialist Movement, one of the oldest neo-Nazi groups in the US. Also, with a series of ‘March 4 Trump‘ actions coming up on March 4th, various far-Right and neo-Nazi groups are gearing up to come out to the demonstrations and attempt to recruit average Trump supporters.

It seems that one Identitarian Ideas conference goer had a change of heart, however. After an article appeared on IGD that discussed Stankard position in the white nationalist movement and his support for Richard Spencer, (Al filmed the person who punched Spencer and attempted to expose them), Al began to feel the heat as the article was shared and read thousands of times.

https://twitter.com/draknats/status/836832754021064704

Soon after, Al Stankard emailed IGD asking for us to remove his personal information from the post. Knowing that Stankard was soon on his way to the Identitarian Ideas IX Conference in Sweden alongside Matt Forney, we told Al that we would consider his request in exchange for information relating to the conference. Al excepted and wrote back:

Okay, took down the video. You must understand that the greater movement of which you are a part has a bad reputation for baseless hatred, violence and political terror. For this reason, I can’t tell you the location of the Swedish conference or feed you names to add to a register of people to stalk/terrorize. Importantly, me facilitating such bias would do nothing to combat fascism—it would only make it an even bigger possibility. That said, I would be happy to explain the discussions/content/etc of either conference. Hell, I would even be open to being, like, an open reporter (or even secret informant) for you guys at the conference in Sweden. Yes, lots of the people at these conferences hold a lot of terrible beliefs and are hoping for a fascist, authoritarian takeover.

Thanks Al!

Jokes aside, we obviously have much work to do. The far-Right is emboldened, but also is keen to distance itself from anything that would make it appear violent, terrorist, or even outwardly racist. Trump feeds off of these positions while also signaling new targets. We need to push for community self-defense and come together in ways that create both autonomy from the State and the power to protect ourselves from our enemies.