Tag: white supremacy
Christopher Rufo’s Theory of Change
Christopher F. Rufo is what is sometimes known as a shit-stirrer—a particular type of troublemaker whose game is to find something stinky, then waft its fumes toward the noses of those mostly likely to be outraged by it. In the past several years, controversies over race, gender, and campus leftism have ripened in part due to his publicity. Often the so-called antiracists, trans activists, and tenured radicals at the center of the controversies are self-discrediting. All Rufo has to do
The Western Media Is Whitewashing the Azov Battalion
Another Side of W.E.B. Du Bois
One of the most significant American political thinkers of the 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois is perhaps best known for his books The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and Black Reconstruction in America (1935). The former is considered a classic sociological study of the Black experience in the United States, while the latter is a landmark history of the Reconstruction era. Du Bois was also one of the founders
The far right’s victory is not assured
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Most Americans who have heard of the John Birch Society associate it with the political fringe—and rightly so. Founded in 1958 by a small band of anti–New Deal businessmen, the society rejected virtually the entire post–World War II, U.S.-led international order. Birchers urged the United States to
The Cult of J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover, we’ve always assumed, became the most powerful unelected American of his time because he had the goods on everybody: the mistresses, financial shenanigans, and underworld connections of presidents who might fire him and legislators who might investigate him. Two new books about the longtime FBI chief make you realize that there was something else as well. Hoover’s half-century of immense influence rested
Why There Was No Racial Reckoning
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—If the summer of 2020 was, for many Americans, a breaking point, then the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd presented the nation’s leadership class with a crossroads. Would they radically rethink American policing, or would they retreat to the safety of piecemeal reform, earnestly applying Band-Aids over bullet wounds? Two and a half years later, Tyre Nichols is dead, and the choice they made is clear.
It’s not that nothing was done. Some departments vowed
Inside The Online Community Where Home-Schoolers Learn How To Turn Their Kids Into ‘Wonderful Nazis’
On Nov. 5, 2021, a married couple calling themselves “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon” appeared on the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung Amerikaner” to plug a new project: a social media channel dedicated to helping American parents home-school their children.
“We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” Mrs. Saxon told the podcast’s host. “And by home-schooling, we’re going to get that done.”
The Saxons said they launched the “Dissident Homeschool” channel on Telegram after years
What Lies Beyond the L.A. City Council Debacle
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
A child born today will turn 18 in 2040. What attitudes and actions toward race and ethnicity would we adopt today if we had the best interests of that rising generation in mind?
Send your responses
The Climate Movement Wanted More Than the IRA. Now What?
Since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August, the first major climate legislation in U.S. history has been smothered with praise: Journalists and climate experts have suggested that the IRA will “save civilization” and herald “an unstoppable transition.” Rather than punishing companies for their emissions, the law creates numerous financial incentives to encourage the growth of green industries and subsidize eco-friendly consumer purchases such as heat pumps and electric vehicles.
The roughly $370 billion that
Two January 6th Defendants and the Consolidation of Right-Wing Extremism
In the first days of the new year, according to prosecutors, Watkins was one of a number of Oath Keepers who coördinated the transport of weapons and ammunition to sites outside Washington, to be used by “quick reaction force” teams in support of a plot to block Biden from taking office. On January 6th, federal prosecutors say, Watkins and about a dozen others, all wearing camouflage and tactical gear, approached the Capitol on foot. “Y’all, we’re one block away from