Vegas Tenold, author of Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, tells of his reporting on the far right

The Norwegian journalist Vegas Tenold started reporting on neo-Nazi and KKK rallies in 2011, six years before the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, that made the resurgence of white supremacist groups into an international news story.

Tenold’s new book, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, excerpted here, chronicles the experience of those six years.

How did you introduce yourself while doing the reporting? How did you explain who you were, beyond just saying: ‘I’m a reporter?’

I always make a point of saying that I’m their enemy, in the sense that I’m a Norwegian socialist. In Norway, you can still vote socialist and it might still have some kind of impact. I tried to be disarming about it. That allowed me to fight with them, argue with them and push back because they know that I disagreed. I told them I was really interested in finding out what draws you guys to this scene. What makes you want to subscribe to this ideology and carry the vast social costs of being an out-and-out Nazi.

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One of the criticisms of recent reporting on white nationalism has been that too many of the stories are told through a white lens, specifically a white male lens. Jamelle Bouie at Slate argued that the overwhelming whiteness of American political reporting has been a real impediment to understanding how dangerous these groups are. What do you think of that?

I think that’s absolutely true. I see the challenges for anyone else to get that kind of access [that I got]. I have a huge leg up by being white, Norwegian, and bald. In Charlottesville, I brought my photographer friend to see Matthew [Heimbach, the white nationalist leader] and his guys at the house they were renting. As we got there, there had already started these rumors circulating that she was Jewish. When we got there, there was a level of hostility that completely took me by surprise. They gave her, as a test, a pizza with bacon on it and sort of made her eat it.

It really drove home the challenges for anyone who’s not white and male to cover these things. I’m not the traditional victim of far-right nationalism. I’m not a victim of racism. This beat would benefit from having someone who is the victim of it, who feels that daily.

How did the time you were spending with Nazis affect your experience of everyday life?

It’s not normalizing it. It’s trying to provide a sense of understanding

It gave me the ability to recognize a lot of white nationalist dog-whistling. I recognize a lot of the rhetoric you see in politics today as something I’ve heard before. Congressman Steve King of Iowa has a tendency to tweet out wildly crazy racist stuff, and I’m like, OK, someone told me that at a rally seven years ago. One of my first interactions was with a guy from Arizona. He traveled up to New Jersey and he said: “Well, we’re in New Jersey, and I just saw a Mexican, that’s proof we need the wall.” And this was in 2011.

I’ve seen and heard all of this stuff before, which makes it more horrifying. It’s not just racist. It comes directly from neo-Nazis and Klanspeople. The stuff we’re talking about – in Congress almost – is directly from the far, far, far right. That’s the danger they represent.

Is this a movement that journalists should be taking seriously or not?

Of course we should – we should cover these people, because it informs so much of our current president’s way of thinking. But we need to put it into context. The Klan will put some flyers on some cars in a parking lot in Raleigh, North Carolina, and all of a sudden, all the journalists go there to cover the Klan. And, you know, that’s well and good. But we need to talk about, you know, the bigger issue, about how what they say and what they believe has made its way into the mainstream. We can’t just sort of fearmonger that “Oh the Klan is marching again.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matthew Heimbach, a white nationalist speaker and leader, in Kentucky. Photograph: Pat Jarrett/The Guardian

Why don’t you like the term ‘normalizing’ or ‘normalization’?

I feel like at times it’s become a cudgel to use against people who report on things you don’t like. To me, it’s important to report on things even though they’re gross and abhorrent. It’s not normalizing it. It’s just trying to provide a sense of understanding. I don’t like the way that word has been thrown around as almost an accusation.

People have asked me: “How do you go reporting on these people who are so awful and who you disagree with?” and my response is always: “Why wouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t we seek to to understand what we find awful and abhorrent?”

The neo-Nazi leader you followed most closely in your book, Matthew Heimbach, said he’s been accused of secretly working for Russia. He’s also faced questions about who might be funding him, how he affords to travel to Europe to meet with far-right groups there, even as he says he has been fired from multiple jobs for his racist views. Do you know where he’s getting his money?

I think all the various Nazis and nationalists in America right now are sort of vying for the affection of Russia, and I think they believe there’s a big pot of money there, and there might very well be, but I don’t think we’ve so far seen so much evidence of actual monetary aid. They’ve certainly helped eastern European parties. I know the Hungarian Jobbik party is pretty closely linked to Russians. Russia is the beacon of white nationalism in the world now. I think Matthew would very much like to get his hands on some delicious roubles. I don’t think there’s been anything forthcoming.

All of a sudden the cops are gone, and the antifa and the Nazis are kind of like: can we start punching each other?

Most of the money – there’s membership dues coming in. I don’t think it’s much. I know he saves up money. He has his activism season and then he has his work season. He might very well have a sugar daddy. I don’t know. I’ve been traveling with him enough to see how shitty he travels. There’s always six or seven people to a hotel room. If he does have a benefactor, it’s a frugal one.

You spent almost six years attending National Socialist and Klan and other white nationalist rallies across the country. The intensity of the violence in Charlottesville last summer – did you see that coming?

No. Before rallies, you always you always have this back and forth online between antifa [anti-fascists] and the far right. There’s a lot of bravado on both sides. The far right loves to imagine themselves as the valiant warriors who go off to fight antifa. But these rallies have had, traditionally, this very clear choreography. There’s two fronts. In the middle is the cops, and they create this barrier. So you get to shout at the opposition and you get to say stuff like: “Well if it weren’t for these cops, you know, I would take you.” So there’s always this bravado.

[Before Charlottesville] Matthew Heimbach told me that communication with local law enforcement hadn’t been as good as he had hoped. He was a bit skittish, everyone thought that this would be just another rally. Then we started walking from the parking garage. And I remember walking up the street and I see antifa counter-protesters in the street, and I thought … that’s bizarre, I don’t see a police cordon or anything. Everything went wrong after that. You know, the cops left at some point, and it was just completely avoidable debacle.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest White nationalists clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP

What happened?

It was a very weird, bizarre moment. You know in the old cartoons where the road runner runs off a cliff, there’s that moment where he realizes there’s no ground underneath him and then he falls? All of a sudden, the cops are gone, and the antis and the Nazis are kind of just looking at each other, like: is there really nothing separating us now? Can we start punching each other? There is this moment of bizarre disbelief.

Things kind of really went off the rails and there was fighting in the streets. And I remember a lot of people were going around shouting: “Where are the cops? Why aren’t the cops stopping this?”

I went down a block south. I heard there were cops down there and I came down and there were riot police fully decked out in gear. Maybe a dozen or so, not doing a thing. I went up to one of the guys and said: “There’s nothing happening here, but people are being beaten bloody up in the square. Why aren’t you doing anything?” And he just said: “Leave.”



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You write in your book: “The far right in America, at least the incarnation I spent years covering, is destined to fail … [but] white supremacy is doing just fine without the far right.” What did you mean by that?

You just have to look at the world we live in. Look at the prison system, look at the rate we’re incarcerating people of color. The system is perfectly rigged to benefit white people. So that’s why I think this very open form of nationalism and white supremacy isn’t going to work, because there is no need for it.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity



Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America is published by Nation Books on 20 February

