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French commentator Eric Zemmour has risen to political notoriety off the back of anti-Muslim hatred and anti-migrant incitement before even officially announcing his candidacy in the 2022 French presidential elections.

One recent poll placed Zemmour at 16% which would translate into a second-round run off between him and current president Emmanuel Macron, knocking out far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

Zemmour sits firmly to the right of his rival Le Pen. He has convictions for inciting racial hatred and is an open proponent of the great replacement conspiracy theory. This suggests white people are being ethnically cleansed by Muslim migrants and Jewish puppet-masters, and has emerged as the ideological underpinning for attacks including the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting in 2018 and the Christchurch Mosques shooting in 2019.

Zemmour has made various ahistorical comments, including that Vichy France, the regime that collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war, actually protected French Jews. He has also questioned the innocence of Alfred Dreyfus, who was falsely convicted for treason in a notorious example of 20th century antisemitism. His stock in trade has become to give oxygen to antisemitic conspiracy theorists.

It may therefore seem surprising that Zemmour is himself of Jewish heritage. He is the descendent of Algerian Berber Jewish immigrants.

Yonathan Arfi, vice president of the Representative Council of French Jews, describes it all as a double punishment. First, French Jews have to hear the false narratives Zemmour espouses, then they have to deal with the fact that these words have come from someone who is identified as coming from Jewish heritage himself which adds a false air of legitimacy to the claims.

There are questions over how much Zemmour actually engages with his Jewish identity but, as philosopher Bernard-Henri Lvy argues, that has become irrelevant. Despite rigorous criticism from the Jewish community, "what Mr Zemmour does, whether he likes it or not, [is] in the Jewish name.

Zemmour is not the first Jewish person to engage with far-right politics, or to run for election. In federal elections in Germany this year, for example Marcel Goldhammer, vice-chairman of Jews in the Alternative for Germany - an organisation aligned with the far-right party - stood as a candidate representing a tiny but vocal collection of radical-right German Jews.

Jewish people sign up to far-right parties for many of the same reasons as the wider population. They might oppose immigration or be ultra-nationalist in their thinking. But the fact that these movements so often thrive off the back of antisemitism and Holocaust revisionism makes Jewish involvement a puzzling hypocrisy.

Collective identity theory helps explain this puzzle. Sociologist David Snow notes that everyone carries multiple collective identities, some of which are prioritised over others. This is what is termed an identity salience hierarchy. In this case, some Jews appear to have constructed collective identities which include the far right and prioritise political ideology over other aspects of Jewish identity.

Some buy into deliberately skewed assertions that Muslim or migrant communities are the sole cause of rising antisemitism. Instead of combating far-right antisemites, they they are espousing their ani-Islamic message.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, backing Zemmour over his own daughter, reflected that the only difference between Eric and me is that he is Jewish. It is difficult to call him a Nazi or fascist. This gives him more freedom. Whether it is Zemmours intention or not, he is being presented by the French extreme right as a champion of their cause. They are absolutely clear that his Jewish identity is a helpful tool to deflect accusations of racism.

In the course of my research, I came across multiple illustrative comments on right-wing forums on 4chans politics boards, where Zemmour was described as 100% /ourjew/. One user praised Zemmour, who despite being Jewish, seems to truly love France. Another added that he recognises his Jewish identity but he doesnt let that stop him from speaking out again [sic] Jewish influence and mass immigration.

However, other extreme-right figures view Zemmour as a trojan horse for Jewish control. To them, he is living confirmation of great replacement conspiracy theories. Eric Striker a US-based alt-right propagandist (who is widely believed to be a persona) posted to his large Telegram following that Zemmour is hostile to French racial and Catholic-centred nationalism, is an open Jewish supremacist, and is using throwing out some red meat about ethnic decline to mask his actual policy proposals, which are liberal, globalist, and Zionist neo-conservativism. Despite attempts to cosy up to the far right, Zemmour will still only be seen by some as an immigrant and a Jew.

Overt Nazism is often still seen as the only indicator of far-right sentiment. But a careful public relations transformation is underway. Extremists such as Zemmour have the capacity to attract votes from portions of the electorate who support his policies, but do not consider themselves to be fascists or racists. His identity reassures them of this belief.

He has helped high-profile far-right figures in their quest to move the Overton window, making it politically acceptable to espouse hateful views in mainstream politics. Whether Zemmour ever does really end up making an electoral impact, the precedent is already being set. The strategic use of far-right philosemitism (a suspicious love of Jews based on stereotypes) remains an urgent threat for Muslim and Jewish communities alike.

Link:
Eric Zemmour: Jewish heritage is a useful tool for the French far right - The Conversation UK

Spencer and other Unite the Right organizers talked about war and violence multiple times before their event turned deadly, according to evidence presented in their civil trial Thursday.

Posted on November 4, 2021, at 7:13 p.m. ET

White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police officers after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was declared an unlawful gathering on Aug. 12, 2017.

Richard Spencer, the one-time national leader of the alt-right movement who headed a Washington, DC, think tank promoting his racist ideology, strode confidently to the witness stand in the Charlottesville federal court Thursday morning.

By lunchtime, Spencer would become frazzled and irritated as an attorney attempted to undress his suit-and-tie brand of white nationalism and expose him as a violent racist who behind closed doors worshipped Adolf Hitler, launched into antisemitic tirades, and was bent on sparking a bloody and terrible race war to create an all-white ethnostate.

He was the latest person to testify in the high-profile civil trial that will decide whether a conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence existed among 24 white supremacists including Spencer who organized the deadly Unite the Right rally on Aug. 1112, 2017. They are being sued under the 150-year-old Ku Klux Klan Act by nine plaintiffs, who are seeking not only damages for their personal injuries but to bankrupt and dismantle the white supremacists organizations.

Over the course of hours of direct examination, Michael Bloch, the plaintiffs attorney, stripped away the polished veneer that Spencer, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a kind of professional racist in khakis, typically presents. Under questioning, Spencer, who was once punched in the face in a viral video that sparked widespread conversation on the ethics of punching Nazis, discussed a report he authored that focused on the bogus claim that Black people are intellectually inferior to white people. Spencer also admitted to using hate speech in private while at his apartment, which other white supremacists had dubbed the fash loft; he confirmed that fash in that context meant fascist.

White nationalist Richard Spencer speaks at the University of Florida on Oct. 19, 2017.

Bloch played a significant portion of a leaked recording of Spencer from Aug. 13, 2017, the day after a neo-Nazi rammed his car into Unite the Right counterprotesters in Charlottesville, killing activist Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of other people. In the recording, originally published by alt-right figure Milo Yiannopoulos in 2019, Spencer is heard addressing fellow white nationalists and current codefendants Nathan Damigo, Jason Kessler, and Elliott Kline. Spencer can also be heard shouting racist and antisemitic phrases.

Little fucking kikes. They get ruled by people like me. Little fucking octoroons... I fucking... My ancestors fucking enslaved those little pieces of fucking shit. I rule the fucking world, Spencer is heard saying. Those pieces of fucking shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. Thats how the fucking world works. We are going to destroy this fucking town [of Charlottesville].

Questioned by Bloch on Thursday about the recording, Spencer owned up to the remarks but claimed they didnt represent who he is.

That is me at my absolute worst. I wont dispute that thats me, because at the end of the day I have to live with that, he testified. My animal brain. Thats me as a 7-year-old. Its a 7-year-old that is probably still inside me. Im ashamed of it. That is a childish, awful version of myself.

Spencer said he doesnt believe in demeaning people to their face. But he admitted he privately used slurs to describe Jews and Black people.

Bloch showed another video of Spencer delivering a speech at a booze-soaked afterparty for a torchlight event in Charlottesville in May 2017. In that footage, Spencer is heard saying, I was born too late for the Crusades. I was born too early for the conquest of Mars. But I was born at the right time for the race war.

In yet another video from the party that was played for the court, Spencer is seen giving a Nazi salute and chanting, Sieg heil! The footage was reminiscent of the 2016 video of the white nationalist leader addressing a crowd after Donald Trumps election victory in Washington, DC, where he shouted, Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!

Spencer testified that his alt-right movement had been growing and gaining momentum at the time he began helping to organize the Unite the Right rally. But he denied that the violence at the event was planned.

A white supremacist and a counterprotester are seen fighting on Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

That issue is at the heart of the lawsuit, brought by civil rights nonprofit Integrity First for America on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Bloch, however, presented evidence that he said showed that Spencer and his codefendants had methodically planned for racist, antisemitic violence there. He showed text messages between Spencer and other alt-right figures in which they discussed how they would dominate the streets and that 2016 was the meme war, 2017 is the IRL war.

He tried to dismiss the dominate the streets remark as merely a metaphor for having a presence and engaging in [a] demonstration.

Bloch also showed that Spencer had difficulty telling the truth when it came to his communications with other white nationalists and alt-right figures in the run-up to the Unite the Right rally.

Presented with evidence of dozens of text message exchanges between himself and neo-Nazi and codefendant Christopher Cantwell after claiming they had communicated a handful of times and ate lunch once, Spencer stumbled.

Between July and August you exchanged 88 text messages with Mr. Cantwell, Bloch told him, referring to evidence submitted to the court. But you said, We shared a few text messages, seven in total. Isnt that what you told the jury?

Spencer fell silent. After a long pause, he said, I think I was referring to instances.

Originally posted here:
White Nationalist Richard Spencer Was Confronted With His Own Violent Rhetoric On The Witness Stand At The Charlottesville Trial - BuzzFeed News

A group that believes the COVID-19 pandemic is part of a plot for elites to seize global power is bringing a host of conspiracy theorists to speak this weekend at the Cajundome Convention Center.

The Red Pill Expo 2021, a creation of author and conspiracy theorist G. Edward Griffin, will meet in Lafayette Saturday and Sunday and is expected to draw 750 visitors. The event, which includes discussions on topics such as Follow the patents and you will understand COVID and Vaccine resistance, a global movement, is billed on its website as helping truth seekers understand how the world really works.

Admission ranges from nearly $400 for VIP tickets to $215 for both days, $125 for one day or $45 to live stream.

The event has been held in other cities around the country in recent years with a mission to bring people together to discuss fake narratives, fake history and fake news, according to its website.

It showcases many of the alt-right theories, a Southern Poverty Law Center spokesman said prior to the 2018 event in Washington.

The event is a marketplace for conspiracy theories, said Ryan Lenz with the SPLC.

The red-pill reference can be traced back to the film "The Matrix" in which the main character is encouraged to "take the red pill," which will open his eyes to the truth.

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Griffin, according to published reports, believes cancer is a nutritional deficiency that can be cured by taking a certain compound, and that HIV does not cause AIDS. He is a longtime member of the conservative John Birch Society.

A notable speaker planned is Dr. Lee Merritt of Nebraska, who made the claims that getting vaccinated increases your risk of death from COVID, something data does not support. Published reports indicated she claimed the pandemic is a global conspiracy aimed to exerting social control.

The presentations at the event will be based on documented information, said event director Dan Happel.

One of the things we work on very diligently is we do not provide false information, Happel said. We only provide verifiable, documented information.

The event landed in Lafayette, he noted, due to the efforts of local businessman John Cambre, who attended two previous Red Pill Expo events. Cambre is owner of one of the Ground Pati Grill and Bar, which is listed on the expos website as an exhibitor.

In a prepared statement, Cajundome officials said they do not discriminate on the basis of political agenda, music genre or artist. The event had been booked within the last six months, director Pam Deville said.

We are merely a venue, the statement read.

Read the original here:
Red Pill Expo at Cajundome this weekend to discuss COVID-19 conspiracy theories - The Advocate

All the signage and branding is forest green, decorated with a leaf emblem, for the Heartland Institutes International Conference on Climate Change. Its being held in an event room at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and attendees most of them white-haired, older gentlemen chat animatedly as they saunter past the Roman columns and statues at the famed hotel, talking about science and climate and energy.

There are retired teachers, scientists, engineers, members of ultra-conservative think tanks and lobby groups. The books being handed out for free look a little fringe or inflammatory with covers featuring war scenes and explosions but its not until the speeches begin at the opening dinner that it becomes abundantly clear that science and climate are not the primary focus of this conference.

Within about an hour, booming, charismatic speakers both at the podium and through video rope in rants about everything from critical race theory and the media to mask mandates and Marxism.

It feels like a low-level, alt-right rally which reaches its peak with a video appearance by Naomi Seibt, the young, blonde, German rock star of the climate-denial movement. Shes often referred to as the anti-Greta, as she is known for pushing views diametrically opposed to those of Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Research published last week revealed that 99.9 per cent of studies now show that the climate crisis is human-driven, on a par with scientific certainty about evolution. The world is on track for temperature rises in excess of 3C this century despite a safe limit of 1.5C set by the Paris Agreement. At 3C, the world will see more hurricanes, fires, ice-cap melting and other extreme weather conditions.

This years UN climate summit, Cop26, is widely seen as the moment when countries must raise their ambitions and goals to avert climate disaster by reducing global carbon emission by roughly half by 2030.

Books, pamphlets and other literature at the Heartland Institutes October climate-change conference in Las Vegas sought to deconstruct mainstream arguments and established research

(Sheila Flynn)

It is a goal that the oil and gas industry is not taking lying down, despite its overtures to transitioning to a greener future. Since the Paris Agreement, the five largest publicly traded oil and gas majors ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP and Total have invested more than $1bn of shareholder funds on misleading climate-related branding and lobbying, according to InfluenceMap.

And then theres Vegas.

The Heartland Institute was traditionally funded by fossil fuels but says most financing now comes from private donations.

Dr John Cook, professor at the Centre for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University and founder of the Skeptical Science website, told The Independent last year that Heartland was one of the particularly prolific producers of climate science misinformation, whereas a lot of others tend to focus on policy.

The Chicago-based right-wing think tank bills itself as playing an essential role in the national (and increasingly international) movement for personal liberty and limited government, saying it has been the subject of unfair criticism and even libel by various liberal advocacy groups, elected officials and even Wikipedia.

At the keynote breakfast speech on the closing morning of the three-day conference, Ms Seibt, a Heartland favourite, echoes this position.

The climate debate has been driving a narrative of fear and delusion for years but now we find ourselves in a cluster of fear porn, not only from a climate crisis but also from a global health apocalypse, allegedly, Ms Seibt tells the conference, her long hair flowing over a silver jacket, her glamorous eye make-up flawless.

I find myself in a community of heroes who will not succumb to the pressures of defamation, because they know how important the truth is, she continues. We dont believe in instant gratification. We know that we need to go through a dark and dangerous tunnel to get our true freedoms back, because whats the alternative? Lying to ourselves? Putting on a mask and living the same meaningless matrix, pretentious, Marxist lives like everybody else?

The tone of Heartland literature and many presentations is persecuted but defiant and provocative. The Vegas weekend involves the presentation of the combatively-named Dauntless Purveyor of Climate Truth award, for example.

Try as they might, governments couldnt keep us locked down forever, Heartland president James Taylor proclaims in the institutes quarterly performance report being distributed at the conference.

The branding at the Heartland Institutes International Climate on Conference Change gave no hint as to the events diametrically-opposed views to mainstream climate science

(Sheila Flynn)

Now that we are regaining some of our freedoms, Heartland is sticking it to the environmental left ... The worst of the lockdowns are over, and freedom is rising again.

With Heartlands powerful impact on the global warming debate, its no wonder the Big Government left fears returning to a free and open society!

The overarching messages during the conference at least the ones related to climate posit that the Earth has always undergone extreme weather cycles. Speakers claim that climate changes are happening so gradually that a catastrophe lies only far in the future and shouldnt be cause for alarmism right now.

They argue that the cause has been hijacked by the media and the left, among other influences, to enforce an agenda of misinformation that will lead to worldwide tyranny.

I spent the past 18 months compiling iron-clad evidence about the Great Reset and about those behind it, says Justin Haskins, Heartlands editorial director, in a recorded video message.

Leaning into the camera, the bookcase behind him featuring items including an American flag, a Glenn Beck book, and a black-and-white pendant proclaiming Liberty or Death (both the colours and the phrase are associated with the alt-right movement), Mr Haskins looks every inch the zealot.

Is it a conspiracy theory? he asks of the climate crisis and left ideology. Well, there is a conspiracy. At this point, I dont think its a conspiracy theory; I think its a conspiracy fact.

Ms Seibt builds upon these ideas, proclaiming in her recorded message that social justice is a euphemism.

We believe in true, individual social connections hugging each other, being there for each other, not this cold-blooded second-hand welfare slave system, she says.

Eco-fascism is a prime example of that. We win, because we are greater than our grudges, more adamant than our adversaries, more truthful than our tormentors, and more compassionate than the cowards who want to control us with their ... censorship.

Truth is uncontrollable. The scientific method will prevail, because politicised science is not science at all. It is stagnation, and stagnation is the death of science.

Ms Seibt and other speakers call for open scientific discourse and demand their voices be heard while slamming the media repeatedly. One panellist shows to applause a photo of himself throwing a journalist out of an event. Another exhibits a political cartoon declaring the death of capitalism.

Heartland Institutes Justin Haskins delivered an impassioned video message that spoke less about climate than it did about combatting socialism, Marxism and misinformation from the left'

(Sheila Flynn)

On Saturday, one speaker and filmmaker showcasing his own documentary Climate Hustle 2 doesnt help the causes arguments for open discourse as he lambasts a reporter in the hallway outside the booked conference rooms.

Youre just an uneducated reporter, he shouts at a British television journalist querying him on scientific points, his voice rising.

Mr Morano runs a climate-change denial website in addition to directing and starring in Climate Hustle 2, narrated by Hercules: The Legendary Journeys actor Kevin Sorbo, which mocks celebrities who speak about climate.

The filmmaker himself has no scientific credentials. He does, however, have a demeanour reminiscent of Anthony Scaramucci.

Now whos the one spreading misinformation? he shouts at the journalist when she tries to delve into statistics from research. He drowns her out: You obviously have no source. Youre just repeating [yourself].

Heartland Institutes vice-president and director of communications, Jim Lakely, looks vaguely stricken by the exchange as it escalates though he later tries damage control by telling The Independent that he kind of likes a bit of argey-bargey, and the more animation the better.

Not everyone at the conference is antagonistic, though. One attendee is an investment manager from Connecticut who, while sceptical of certain climate-crisis claims, says he came to the event because climate and energy are so intertwined with financial markets.

Another, George Taylor, tells The Independent he has PhDs in both mathematics and computer science and is more interested in exploring energy sources than listening to diatribes unsupported by facts.

The whole point is to get your message to the other person and have them actually understand something they could walk away with, Mr Taylor, based in Reno, tells The Independent describing the previous nights volatile scene between filmmaker Mr Morano and the journalist as unproductive.

Rather than yelling and screaming and making it political, lets get down to some numbers and some facts, he tells The Independent, after detailing how a Nevada friend gave him grief about attending the conference. (She only reads liberal sources like The Washington Post, he adds.)

There may be a significant amount that we dont know, so were actually taking a guess and deciding to what degree are we going to take preventative action to ward off what may be a problem ... sometimes, you have to act in the absence of perfect knowledge.

Amidst that uncertainty, however, Mr Taylor concedes that it would be more beneficial to impart the facts without yelling and screaming and ranting.

The Heartland Institutes October Climate Conference in Las Vegas seemed more focused on political aims than environmental concerns

(Sheila Flynn)

Regardless of what some consider the fringe element of climate science, however, many of the attendees the ones less concerned with politics and more interested in research do seem to have their hearts in the right place. They feel they genuinely are environmental activists but on a whole different plane from the mainstream.

Everyone here is smart and everyone is sincere, the wife of one panellist tells The Independent.

What that sincerity might lead to, however after the weekends near-palpable undercurrent of right-wing ideology remains in doubt.

Heartlands Mr Haskins says: Beneath the glowing stars-and-stripes veneer is a terminally ill superpower teetering on the edge and the worst part is our most disruptive, dangerous days still lie ahead.

At lavish cocktail parties in European resort towns and in the boardrooms of the worlds largest corporations, powerful and influential leaders are putting the finishing touches on the vast infrastructure need to alter our communities forever.

The calls to action over the weekend are repeatedly spelled out: Run for office. Push back.

Resist.

Our open, free minds are untouchable in the end therefore panic will persist until we resist, Ms Seibt tells rapt listeners.

And we resist now.

View post:
Welcome to anti-Cop26: The climate-change denial expo in Vegas where attendees talk anything but science - The Independent

The Daily Stormer website advocates for the purity of the white race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated killings.

It also made founder Andrew Anglin a millionaire.

Anglin has tapped a worldwide network of supporters to take in at least 112 Bitcoin since January 2017 today worth $4.8 million according to data shared with The Associated Press. Hes likely raised even more.

Anglin is one very public example of how radical right provocateurs are raising big money through cryptocurrencies. Banned by traditional financial institutions, theyve turned to digital currencies, which theyre using in ever more secretive ways to avoid the oversight of banks, regulators and courts, an AP investigation has found, based on legal documents, Telegram channels and blockchain data from Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm.

Anglin owes more than $18 million in legal judgments in the United States to people he and his followers harassed and threatened.

Among them, he owes Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah $4 million. And hes supposed to pay Taylor Dumpson, the first Black student body president of American University, $725,000 all the results of litigation over libel, invasion of privacy, inflicting emotional distress and intimidation via the Daily Stormer.

His victims have tried and failed to find him to collect. He has no obvious bank accounts or U.S. real estate holdings.

Online, hes highly visible most days, dozens of stories on the Daily Stormer homepage carry his name. In the real world, though, Anglins a ghost.

We were able to sue the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization, in essence out of existence, said Beth Littrell, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center whos helping represent one of Anglins victims.

But its harder, Littrell says, to use the legal system to stamp out hate groups today because theyre operating via online networks and virtual money.

In August 2017, a week after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Anglin received 14.88 Bitcoins, an amount chosen for its oblique references to a 14-word white supremacist slogan and the phrase Heil Hitler. Worth about $60,000 then, it was his biggest Bitcoin donation ever and is worth over $641,000 at todays exchange rate.

The source remains a mystery.

Anglin now faces federal charges for conspiring to plan and promote the deadly march.

By the time of Charlottesville, Anglin had been cut off by credit-card processors and banned by PayPal. Bitcoin was his main source of funding.

Ive got money to pay for the site for the foreseeable future, he wrote last December as Bitcoins price surged.

Bitcoin was developed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It doesnt depend on banks. Transactions are validated and recorded on a decentralized digital ledger called the blockchain, which derives its authority from crowdsourcing rather than bankers.

As one white nationalist cryptocurrency guide circulating on Telegram puts it: We all know the Jews and their minions control the global financial system. When you are caught having the wrong opinion, they will take it upon themselves to shut you out of this system making your life very difficult. One alternative to this system is cryptocurrency.

Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, has dubbed Bitcoin the currency of the alt-right.

Its hard to tell how large a role cryptocurrency plays in financing the far right. Merchandise sales, membership fees, donations in fiat currencies, concerts, fight clubs and other events, as well as criminal activity, are also sources of revenue, government and academic research has shown.

Early adopters of Bitcoin, like Anglin, have profited handsomely from its increase in value. Bitcoin prices are notoriously volatile, though. Since April, the currency has shed a third of its value against the dollar, then took a further drubbing recently when China declared cryptocurrency transactions illegal.

Chainalysis collected data for a sample of 12 far-right entities in the United States and Europe that publicly called for Bitcoin donations and showed significant activity. Together, they took in 213 Bitcoin worth more than $9 million at todays value between January 2017 and April 2021.

These groups embrace a range of ideologies and include white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and self-described free-speech advocates, united by a shared desire to fight the perceived progressive takeover of culture and government.

These people have real assets. People with access to hundreds of thousands of dollars can start doing real damage, said John Bambenek, a cybersecurity expert who has been tracking the use of cryptocurrency by far-right players since 2017.

Andrew Weev Auernheimer, Anglins webmaster for the Daily Stormer, has taken in Bitcoin worth $2.2 million at todays values. The Nordic Resistance Movement, a Scandinavian neo-Nazi movement thats banned in Finland, Counter-Currents, a U.S. white nationalist publishing house and the recently banned French group Gnration Identitaire have each received Bitcoin now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Chainalysis data show.

Two social media platforms that have been embraced by the far right Gab and Bitchute saw Bitcoin funding surge ahead of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.

Since 2017, Bitchute has gotten Bitcoin worth nearly $500,000 today. About a fifth of that rolled in last December.

Gab has gotten more than $173,000. Nearly 40% came in during December 2020 and January 2021, Chainalysis data show.

On Aug. 1, Gab announced it was stepping up its fight against financial censorship and creating its own alternative to PayPal to fight against the tyranny of the global elites.

While cryptocurrencies have a reputation for secrecy, Bitcoin was built for transparency. Every transaction is indelibly and publicly recorded on the blockchain, which enables companies like Chainalysis to monitor activity.

Individuals can obscure their identities by not publicly linking them to their cryptocurrency accounts, but, with Bitcoin, they cannot hide the transactions themselves.

Because of that, Anglin abandoned Bitcoin n November 2020 just as Donald Trump lost the presidential election and asked supporters to send him money only in Monero, a privacy coin designed to enhance anonymity by hiding data about users and transactions. He published a new guide in February on how to use Monero, with instructions for non-U.S. donors.

Every Bitcoin transfer is visible publicly. Generally, your name is not attached to the address in a direct way, but spies from the various woke anti-freedom organizations have unlimited resources to try to link these transactions to real names. With Monero, the transactions are all hidden. Anglin wrote.

Monero, Anglin wrote, is really easy. Most importantly, it is safe.

Others have reached the same conclusion.

Thomas Sewell, an Australian neo-Nazi facing criminal charges, is soliciting donations in Monero for his legal defense.

Jaz Searby, a martial arts instructor who headed an Australian chapter of the Proud Boys, is seeking donations Monero only to help spread our message to a generation of young Aryan men that may feel alone or fail to understand the forces that are working against us.

The Nordic Resistance Movement and Counter-Currents also solicit donations in cryptocurrencies including Monero, and NRM has experimented with letting supporters mine Monero directly on their behalf.

Do you really think how we operate our economy is any of your business? Martin Saxlind, the editor of NRMs magazine Nordfront, said in an email to AP reporters. Swedish banks have abused their control of the economy to deny us and others regular banking accounts for political reasons. Thats why we use cryptocurrency ... You should investigate the corrupt banks . . .

The Global Minority Initiative, which calls itself a prison relief charity for American white nationalists, also takes donations only in Monero or by postal money order.

And Frances Democratie Participative, a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ website banned by French courts in 2018, solicits donations in Monero only.

Money is the sinew of war, the site says. Thanks to your support we can continue to prevent Jews and their allies from sleeping soundly.

The AP sought out each of the groups and individuals named in this story. Most didnt reply to requests for comment. A few were unreachable. Others replied anonymously, sending anti-Semitic and pornographic content.

Shortly before his suicide, in December 2020, a French computer programmer named Laurent Bachelier sent 28.15 Bitcoins then worth over $520,000 to 22 far-right entities.

The bulk went to Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer who graduated from Lyons Township High School and was banned from YouTube for hate speech. Fuentes would spend the coming weeks encouraging his tens of thousands of followers to lay siege to the Capitol. One bitcoin went to a Daily Stormer account.

I care about what happens after my death, Bachelier wrote in his suicide note. Thats why I decided to leave my modest wealth to certain causes and people. I think and hope that they will make a better use of it.

Since getting Bacheliers money, Fuentes ramped up recruiting for his America First livestream and expanded the reach of his America First Foundation, which says in corporate registration documents it advocates for conservative values based on principles of American Nationalism, Christianity, and Traditionalism.

The transactions became public only because of a tip to Yahoo News and the fact that Bachelier left digital traces that linked his Bitcoin address with his email. The money trail offered clear evidence that domestic extremism isnt purely domestic and showed how wealthy donors can use cryptocurrency to fund extremists around the world with little scrutiny.

Bacheliers money slipped into the United States without triggering alerts it might have had it landed via traditional banking. Thats because much of it notably the Bitcoin donation to Fuentes, then worth $250,000 passed through accounts that werent hosted by regulated cryptocurrency exchanges, according to Chainalysis.

Those exchanges, which can convert Bitcoin into dollars and other currencies, generally are regulated like banks, allowing authorities to get access to information or funds.

But cryptocurrency wallets can be unhosted, which means users control access. Unhosted wallets like Fuentes are akin to cash. They dont have to go through banks or exchanges that could flag suspicious transactions, verify a users identity or hand over money to satisfy a court judgment.

he Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based organization that sets global guidelines to protect against money laundering and terrorism financing, in June released its first report on far-right fundraising. It highlighted the groups use of cryptocurrencies and warned that transnational links among such actors are growing.

Similar to their jihadist counterparts, many of these groups have used the internet and social media to share propaganda and recruit ideologically-aligned supporters from around the world, the report said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic sealed borders, white nationalists continued to gather in virtual communities that allowed them to connect with people from around the world.

On Telegram, posts tagged with different flags stream together. Theres a burly White Boys Club in Kyiv, nationalists in Minnesota and men with pixelated faces in Greece, each posing around White Lives Matter banners. Images of people stomping on or burning colorful LGBTQ buttons and flags roll in from Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Croatia. Men with skull masks and rifles pose after tactical training in the woods in Poland. A person with a fascist flag stands in the rain in France. A man draped with a swastika banner looks out from a hill somewhere in the woods of America.

The transnational links make people feel they are part of a much larger community, said Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism. They can inspire each other and network.

Blockchain data show Anglins donors are part of a global community of believers who sent money to entities in multiple countries. Since 2017, donors to Anglin also have given Bitcoin to 32 other far-right groups and people in at least five countries, according to Chainalysis data.

The data also show money flowed into the sample of 12 far-right groups from cryptocurrency exchanges that serve customers all over the world, with Western and Eastern European-focused exchanges playing a growing role. Chainalysis uses web traffic data and economic activity patterns to estimate where the customers who use a given exchange are located.

European groups like the Nordic Resistance Movement and Gnration Identitaire also received donations from North America-focused exchanges. Similarly, U.S. entities like American Renaissance, Daily Stormer and WeAreChange got money via exchanges that serve customers in Western and Eastern Europe.

Kimberly Grauer, director of research for Chainalysis, said the shift to global exchanges certainly could be in order to obfuscate detection, but it could also be a sign that increasingly donations are coming in from all over the world.

While Anglin remains hidden, his money virtually untouchable, his debt grows. Each day that ticks by, he owes Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in Montana, another $760.88 interest on a $14 million judgment he has failed to pay.

After Gersh got in a dispute with the mother of white supremacist Spencer in 2016, Anglin published her contact information and used his website to whip up trolls against her.

She got death threats, threats against her as a Jew and threats against her child. Shed sometimes pick up the phone and hear a gunshot. Gershs hair started falling out. She had panic attacks, sought counseling and considered fleeing.

The balm for all that came in 2019, when a federal court made clear that targeted anti-Semitic hate speech isnt protected by the First Amendment. But since that fleeting moment of victory, nothing has happened. Gersh has yet to see a penny of her $14 million.

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Cryptocurrency has become currency of the alt-right, white supremacists, hate groups - Chicago Sun-Times