{"id":118939,"date":"2017-11-25T17:52:53","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T01:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=118939"},"modified":"2023-08-20T15:59:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T23:59:15","slug":"nyt-a-voice-of-hate-in-americas-heartland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=118939","title":{"rendered":"NYT: ‘A Voice of Hate in America\u2019s Heartland’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Fausset writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nMr. Hovater, 29, is a welder by trade. He is not a star among the resurgent radical American right so much as a committed foot soldier \u2014 an organizer, an occasional podcast guest on a website called Radio Aryan, and a self-described \u201csocial media villain,\u201d although, in person, his Midwestern manners would please anyone\u2019s mother. In 2015, he helped start the Traditionalist Worker Party, one of the extreme right-wing groups that marched in Charlottesville, Va., in August, and again at a \u201cWhite Lives Matter\u201d rally last month in Tennessee. The group\u2019s stated mission is to \u201cfight for the interests of White Americans.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Its leaders claim to oppose racism, though the Anti-Defamation League says the group \u201chas participated in white supremacist events all over the country.\u201d On its website, a swastika armband goes for $20.<\/p>\n

If the Charlottesville rally came as a shock, with hundreds of white Americans marching in support of ideologies many have long considered too vile, dangerous or stupid to enter the political mainstream, it obscured the fact that some in the small, loosely defined alt-right movement are hoping to make those ideas seem less than shocking for the \u201cnormies,\u201d or normal people, that its sympathizers have tended to mock online.<\/p>\n

And to go from mocking to wooing, the movement will be looking to make use of people like the Hovaters and their trappings of normie life \u2014 their fondness for National Public Radio, their four cats, their bridal registry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to have more families. We need to be able to just be normal,\u201d said Matthew Heimbach, the leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party, in a podcast conversation with Mr. Hovater. Why, he asked self-mockingly, were so many followers \u201cabnormal\u201d?<\/p>\n

Mr. Hovater replied: \u201cI mean honestly, it takes people with, like, sort of an odd view of life, at first, to come this way. Because most people are pacified really easy, you know. Like, here\u2019s some money, here\u2019s a nice TV, go watch your sports, you know?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

New York Times, 2017: "George Zimmerman, the white man who shot the black teenager"<\/p>\n

Quote. Unquote.https:\/\/t.co\/vVcgiWpq2r<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/3CG7Dy7HL1<\/a><\/p>\n

— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) November 25, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n