Spencer’s Social Media & Patreon

If you would like to follow me on social media for article announcements and snarky and commentary, I’m on twitter @transform6789, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and YouTube.

In case I get kicked off these platforms, or if you just want to see the highlights, i have a quarterly-ish newsletter, the Sonnenschein Update, that has article announcements and the such. You can sign up for it at Tiny Letter.

Screen Shot 2019-07-23 at 9.39.26 AM.pngLast, being a Far Right monitor is hard, dirty, and dangerous work. I receive no support from any think tanks, non-profits, universities, or anything else. So if you like my work, please consider supporting me at Patreon for as little as $2 a month, which includes access to new exclusive work!

New Book in French: “Des rouges, des bruns et des rouges-bruns: L’antisémitisme aux Etats-Unis au XXie siècle”

Thanks to Ni patrie ni frontières in France, a new anthology of my writings about antisemitism has just been released: Des rouges, des bruns et des rouges-bruns: L’antisémitisme aux Etats-Unis au XXie siècle (Reds, Browns, and Red/Browns: Antisemitism in the United States in the 21st Century). Ordering information is here.

In addition to this French edition, a revised version of this in English will be released in 2024 on No Pasaran in Britain.

Five Questions with Heidi Beirich

Now open access!

As part of my ongoing series, I ask Heidi Beirich about the Far Right’s changes since the 1990s, including how the difference between the margins and mainstream has collapsed, why it has become increasingly transnational, and what’s needed to combat it today.

Beirich co-founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism to monitor transnational hate movements, was solicited to submit written testimony to the 1/6 Committee & is the former head of the SPLC Intelligence Project.

Read the interview here

Red/Brown Warnings: A Review of Peter Staudenmaier, “Ecology Contested: Environmental Politics Between Left and Right”

The increasing embrace by White Supremacists of environmentalism, which they use to justify their racist ideologies—dubbed “ecofascism”—is on the lips of many today. This has been driven by its mention in the manifestos connected to White Supremacist massacres in El Paso, Texas and Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019; between the two, 74 were murdered. Additionally, the new interest paid by fascists in Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, also shows rising interest in this trend.

Because of this, historian and anarchist Peter Staudenmaier’s book is a timely reminder that ecofascism is not just not a new problem, but also one that provides a bridge between the far-Right and the Left and anarchists. His book is a call, in the best radical environmental style, to blockade that bridge and stop fascists from entering radical circles.

Read the whole review at It’s Going Down

New interview with ‘It’s Going Down’


I know i’ve been significantly more quiet than normal, but it looks like 2023 is going to be a big year for me. Right now my writings are largely limited to my Patreon, which starts at $2/month—although I will send anyone essays for free which they are interested in reading if they can’t quite afford to support me right now.

In the meantime, I do have an interview with It’s Going Down—recently banned by both Musk and Zuckerberg from their respective platforms!—who are special hosts of this edition of the podcast It Could Happen Here. My interview appears in the last third of the show.
https://omny.fm/shows/it-could-happen-here/stories-of-armed-community-defense

2022 Wrap up: “While Trump Floundered in 2022, His Far Right Acolytes Built a Movement”

My annual wrap-up of the U.S. Far Right is out. It looks at the increasingly autonomous MAGA movement; the 1/6 committee and arrests; Trump & Musk’s shenanigans; Far Right massacres and other violence; antisemitic incidents; and new neo-Nazi groups.

“As in past years, the U.S. far right has continued to have a political impact far in excess of anything seen before Donald Trump’s presidential term. What was new in 2022 was that activists who emerged from his base have also achieved a level of autonomy from their leader which they had not seen before. However, this year’s most visible spotlight on the far right was the January 6 committee, which culminated in the recommendation that Trump be charged with federal crimes. Additionally, there have also been numerous arrests, trials and sentences related to the Capitol breach. While what’s now called the “MAGA Movement” has outlived its leader’s fall from power, it remains to be seen what effect his 2024 presidential campaign will have on it — especially after the disappointing midterms. The year has also been marked by the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. Alongside the boost to Christian nationalism this provided, far right groups have targeted LGBTQ+ events this year, focusing on drag shows. And extreme violence also reared its head again as two significant far right massacres marked the year.”

Read the full article at Truthout

Kyle Rittenhouse – Posterboy rechter Milizen

king of the scumbags, racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse

For German readers, I have a new piece in Antifa Infoblatt #134 which has just been put online.

“2014, nachdem die Polizei einen schwarzen Teenager in Ferguson, Missouri ermordete, begann die erste Protestwelle der BLM Bewegung, die nach ein paar Jahren aber wieder abebbte. Die zweite Welle, die bis heute anhält, begann im Mai 2020, nachdem gefilmt wurde, wie der schwarze George Floyd von einem weißen Polizeibeamten zu Tode gewürgt wurde. Eine spontane, landesweite Protestwelle – die anfangs so heftig war, dass sie einer revolutionären Situation glich – brach aus und gewann eine breite Unterstützung in der Bevölkerung.

Drei Monate nach Floyds Tod entstanden Filmaufnahmen, die zeigten, wie dem schwarze Jacob Blake in der Kleinstadt Kenosha, Wisconsin von einem weißen Polizisten mehrfach in den Rücken geschossen wurde. Es folgten neuerliche BLM-Proteste. Von da an begannen bewaffnete rechte Gruppen zu den Demonstration zu kommen, um die Protestierenden einzuschüchtern (in einigen Situationen waren die BLM-Aktivisten ebenfalls bewaffnet). In Kenosha rief eine rechte Miliz dazu auf, sie bei ihrem Vorgehen gegen eine BLM Demo zu unterstützen. Zu jenen, die dem Aufruf folgten, gehörte der 17-jährige Kyle Ritten­house.”

Read the whole piece here: Kyle Rittenhouse – Posterboy rechter Milizen

5 Years After Charlottesville, We Can See Its Legacy in January 6 Violence

“On August 12, 2017, the largest fascist-led rally in the United States in many decades was held in Charlottesville, Virginia. What happened shocked the country out of its complacency about how right-wing politics were unfolding under then-President Donald Trump, and foretold the years of far right violence to come. Charlottesville’s effects still reverberate today, both on those who were present and in local and national politics. And there is a direct line from that rally to the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Tactically, there is obviously no shortage of examples of the kind of violence seen at Unite the Right in the country’s history. But militant movements don’t arise out of thin air, and they almost always build on previous actions as they motivate themselves and get everything into alignment. Charlottesville stood out because, for the first time since the turn of the century, this kind of violence was seen so brazenly at a large, far right public demonstration. What the SPLC’s Hannah Gais called “a disavowal of traditional politics and the democratic process, combined with decentralized violence” was the door that Charlottesville opened at the beginning of Trump’s administration. January 6 was what walked through at the end.”

Read the full article at Truthout (A Spanish-language version is available here as well.)

(For those interested, the article I wrote directly after Charlottesville can be found here.)

White Supremacist Massacre in Buffalo Shows “Alt-Right” Ideology Leads to Murder

On Saturday, a white supremacist walked into a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire. He killed ten people and wounded three others; eleven of his victims were Black. The horrific attack showed the influence of other massacres by the terrorist wing of the “alt-right” that took place during the Trump presidency. The conspiratorial ideology of these attacks, once fringe, now can be found in the mainstream right wing. They also fit within the much longer history of anti-Black lynchings and white supremacist violence that have been occurring for centuries.

Six similar far right attacks killed 86 people in 2018 and 2019. Their intended targets were Muslims (51 killed in Christchurch, New Zealand), Latino immigrants (23 in El Paso) and Jews (including 11 in Pittsburgh). The Christchurch massacre set up a template that other white supremacists have followed: writing a lengthy manifesto and placing it on an online platform associated with the alt-right before the violence, and then livestreaming the attack.

read the complete article at Truthout

From the Archives: “Dark Days Ahead” (2016)

I wrote this on the morning after the 2016 election, November 9. I had just finished a 10+ city speaking tour of Germany, got on a plane to London on election day, landed and took a train to Brighton, and then fell asleep as results were coming in—figuring that finding out in the late evening or the next morning was all the same. It was not a good morning. The German paper Jungle World asked me for my reflections, and I quickly dashed this off over coffee.

At some point it disappeared from the interwebs, but i was always curious if it held up, and I finally found the original in my Sent folder. In retrospect, it’s just creepy.

Dark Days Ahead

The election of racist demagogue Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency—in the face of  all of pre-election polls—has sent a shock wave through the left-leaning parts of the country. Coupled with what looks like A Republican domination of the Congress, which will allow Trump to appoint the empty Supreme Court seat , dark days are indeed ahead for the U.S. Left.

Trump was able to channel the social anxieties of his largely white base by deploying techniques of demonization and scapegoating against a number of minority groups (especially Muslims and undocumented immigrants), coupled with his support for protectionist trade policies and vague promises to revive industrial production and national glory. The fact that he may lose the total national popular vote—possible because of the U.S. electoral system’s state-by-state, winner-take-all structure—is a poor consolation. Trump has shown that, in these uncertain times, a rich man with a gift for improvisation, a certain kind of charisma, and a complete lack of ethics can indeed talk his way into leading a global superpower. Lacking a coherent political outlook and with a poor grasp of international politics, Trump will undoubtedly appoint conservative advisors, some of whom may be tied to the white nationalist movement, to craft his administration.

The U.S. Left, from militant anti-fascists to Democrats, has made no plans for this outcome. Whether Trump attempts  to implement his more outlandish promises—to register Muslims and build a wall on the Mexican border—will probably be seen in his first 100 days. With a Republican federal government, it also remains to be seen if the judiciary will be able to uphold the rule of law in the face of a president who has called to jail his opponent and has expressed only contempt for civil rights, democracy, and common decency. If that fails, we see shortly if Trump will merely be a figurehead for an especially racist conservative government, or if he truly will make moves towards establishing authoritarian state power, as many on the Left have claimed is his intention.

Amazon’s Still Selling Lots of Nazi Books

Amazon will bring almost anything to your door in a day. Despite numerous exposés, that still includes Nazi books running the gauntlet from “classic” tomes of Hitler-era Germany to standard post-war white supremacist texts up through alt-right writers. … Many classics of Nazi Germany are available, not from scholarly presses with appropriate framing but from racist publishers. Neo-Nazis can enjoy A New Nobility of Blood and Soil by Walther Darré, the Nazi regime’s agriculture minister, or the works of the Nazi economist Gottfried Feder. Those who prefer what’s described as “one of the most highly prized books of the Aryan home” can order The Yearly Celebrations and Life in the SS Family. It has a five-star rating and free shipping with Prime.

Read the fill article at the Daily Beast