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The gesture is not the only symbol to have been appropriated and swiftly weaponized by alt-right internet trolls. The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified memes featuring the hoax religion of Kek and the cartoon character Pepe the Frog, among others, as being at the forefront of white nationalists efforts to distract and infuriate liberals.

A number of high-profile figures on the far right have helped spread the gestures racist connotation by flashing it conspicuously in public, including Milo Yiannopolous, an outspoken former Breitbart editor, and Richard B. Spencer, one of the promoters of the white power rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that resulted in the death of a 32-year-old woman.

The gesture was in the headlines again after Roger Stone, a longtime political adviser to President Trump, met with a group of white nationalists known as the Proud Boys in Salem, Ore., in 2018 and was photographed displaying it with them.

Critics expressed outrage when a former White House aide, Zina Bash, appeared to be flashing the sign as she sat behind Brett M. Kavanaugh during his televised Senate confirmation hearings for his appointment to the Supreme Court. Defenders of Ms. Bash insisted that she had not intended any racist connotation and was merely signaling O.K. to someone.

That the gesture has migrated beyond ironic trolling culture to become a sincere expression of white supremacy, according to the Anti-Defamation League, could be seen in March 2019 when Brenton Tarrant, the white supremacist accused of killing 50 people in back-to-back mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, smiled and flashed the sign to reporters at a court hearing on his case.

Some people who have used the gesture publicly in a way that seemed to suggest support for racist views have faced consequences. In 2018, the United States Coast Guard suspended an officer who appeared to use the sign on camera during an MSNBC broadcast. Later that year, four police officers in Jasper, Ala., were suspended after a photo was published showing them flashing the sign below the waist. And over the summer, a baseball fan was barred indefinitely from Wrigley Field in Chicago after making the gesture behind the NBC sports commentator Doug Glanville during a broadcast of a Cubs game.

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When the O.K. Sign Is No Longer O.K. - The New York Times

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDSGetty Images

At Saturdays Army-Navy football game, Army cadets and midshipmen appeared to flash a hand sign that has been adopted by white supremacistsand now officials say theyre investigating the incident.

During the game, which was attended by President Trump and held at Philadelphias Lincoln Financial Field, ESPNs Rece Davis reported live surrounded by students from the United States Military Academy and the Naval Academy. According to The New York Times, on at least five occasions, some of the cadets and midshipmen appeared to be making the sign.

The gesture, formed with one hand by touching the thumb to the index finger while leaving the other three fingers splayed, began being associated with the far right in the wake of a 2017 4chan hoax that attempted to spread the idea that the hand sign formed the letters "WP," standing for "white power." Aside from being well-known as the OK sign, the hand gesture has also been deployed as a part as the schoolyard circle game. But while its white supremacists associations may have begun a hoax, the symbol has since been adopted by real-life members of the alt-right and hate groups.

The Anti-Defamation League counts the gesture in its database of hate symbols, noting that "at least some white supremacists seem to have abandoned the ironic or satiric intent behind the original trolling campaign and used the symbol as a sincere expression of white supremacy." White nationalist Richard Spencer has been photographed using it, as has alt-right agitator Milo Yiannopolous. Most horrifying of all, after 50 worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand mosques were murdered, the alleged shooter flashed the sign during a court appearance.

Military officials told The Washington Post that they were investigating whether or not the cadets intended to signal support for white supremacist ideologies with the gesture. Last year, a member of the Coast Guard appeared to make the gesture in the background of a news broadcast. The Coast Guards official Twitter account subsequently tweeted that the organization had "identified the member and removed him from the response," writing that his "actions do not reflect those of the United States Coast Guard."

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Military Officials Are Investigating Possible White Power Signs Flashed During the Army-Navy Game - Esquire.com

Donald Trump is no Richard Nixon.

Nixon was a bully, a cynic, and a crook who did all kinds of damage to American politics and society, not to mention to Cambodia and Vietnam, too. And yet he had a sense of obligation to his officeand to the Republican Party, a venerable institution that got its start in the 1850s by opposing the spread of slavery.

And so in August 1974, after the congressional leadership of the Republican Party told him that they wouldnt stand for the Watergate cover-up, Nixon got on a helicopter and flew out of history.

This is not how the Trump era will end.

The year 1977 marks a watershed in the modern history of the American right, a moment of departure from the kind of Republican Party that eventually rejected Nixon.

That year, the Cato Institution was formed in Washington to peddle free-market fundamentalism as the answer to Americas ills. Also that year, a group of fundamentalist Christians built Focus on the Family to uphold traditional patriarchy as Gods command. And a fringe group within the National Rifle Association turned what had been an apolitical hunters organization into a hyper-aggressive lobbying group for arms manufacturers and their most angry customers.

These groups shared a grand narrative of America, in which rugged individualists and virtuous families built the country with Bibles in one hand and guns in the other. The protagonists in this story were of course white, just like the great majority of the people in these movements.

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan drew these forces into an upbeat nationalism. Americas mission, he told the faithful, was to defeat godless Communism at home and abroad.

The subsequent collapse of the Soviet empire vindicated his take-no-prisoners approachand the more extreme voices on the right, whose think tanks and pressure groups now formed a vast echo chamber impervious to political debate.

When Bill Clinton came to office in 1992, he hoped to appeal to centrist Republicans as a pro-business New Democrat from a southern state. Instead, a new wave of right-wing figures in Congress and beyond accused the Democrats of all kinds of perversions and impeached Clinton over his unseemly sex life, resulting in some bizarre political theater.

Although these tactics narrowed the Republicans appeal, the party returned to the White House when George W. Bush squeaked out an electoral victory in early 2001. This kept the extremists within the party, for the moment.

In the wake of terrorist attacks later that year, Bush briefly rose to Reaganesque stature with the economic and religious right, even though he scolded and disappointed white nationalists.

But while Reagans crusade against Communism had ended in global victory, Bushs war in Iraq ground to a bloody stalemate. And as the recession of 2008 cast a dreary pall over America, Barack Obama rose to power by promising hope and change.

Although he, too, was a New Democrat in economic termshis signature health-care law stemmed in part from another conservative think tankObama embodied the liberal vision of a multi-racial nation within a complicated world.

As president, he described his views on touchstone issues such as gay marriage as evolving and sought middle grounds with old enemies like Cuba and Iran.

In response, the far right took over the Republican Party, using not only think tanks and radio shows but also alt-right websites and chat rooms that became safe spaces for virulent racism.

Extremists in the so-called Tea Party movement, which paved the way for todays Make America Great Again supporters, targeted moderate Republicans while Fox News hosts and shock jocks called Obama a Marxist and terrorist sympathizer.

When Obama cruised to a second term against Mitt Romney, millions of Republicans turned to a helter-skelter politics of rage and paranoiaand into the arms of Trump, a vulgar demagogue of huge appetites and thin scruples.

Once again, this shrank the Republican Partys field of voters to older, whiter, and more conservative audiences. Against the uninspired campaign of Hillary Clinton, however, Trump stumbled into the White House with 46.1% of the popular vote.

Although most Americans dont like him, Trump has an 80% approval rating among Republicans. He uses this popularity, along with his Twitter feed, to bully Republican dissidents into silence.

In any case, the Republicans now have little choice but to double down on their far-right vision of America, using voter suppression to eke out more wins in the Electoral College. Having alienated almost every other demographic, they must stick with their Trump-loving base. They have no one else.

Indeed, the contemporary Republican Party has many elements of a cult of personality. Rick Perry, the former energy secretary, even recently likened Trump to the patriarchs of the Old Testament. The party does not even try to control its fringe elements; it is a fringe element, an anti-democratic force of recent history that threatens to consume the worlds oldest democracy.

This means that Trump will survive the impeachment process in early 2020, no matter what malfeasance comes to light. The Republicans will protect their man at all costs. And Trump will do everything he can to win in November, unburdened by any sense of propriety, fairness, or facts. Its not even clear if he would accept defeat.

Against such a foe, the Democrats best chance is to lose their fear of itand then call on their growing majority to demand a broader, more decent definition of government of, by, and for the people.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Why Donald Trump will survive impeachment - Quartz

This story contains spoilers for "Knives Out."

One of the season's hit movies has racked up a ton of praise and it's also spurred some vigorous debate.

"Knives Out, a murder mystery with an all-star cast, shows the tensions around Americans views of immigrants and the immigration process.

The movie, which has spurred Oscar buzz and recently nabbed three leading Golden Globe nominations, is on Top 10 film lists and has inspired heated questions about how to tell immigration narratives ethically and effectively.

Following the movie's release, many praised its depiction of undocumented immigrants in the United States, as told through Golden Globe-nominated Ana de Armas' character, Marta, the nurse and caregiver of family patriarch Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).

As the murder investigation of Harlans death unfolds, so does some of Martas backstory. Her mother is undocumented, having come to the U.S. from an unspecified Latin American country, and this fact consumes Marta daily. Worried about her familys precarious legal situation, she tries to melt into the background, but the murder investigation led by the whimsical Benoit Blanc (Craig) launches her into a glaring spotlight.

Marta's employers are a family that includes both progressive, "New Yorker"-reading types, as well as alt-right conservatives who call Marta the pejorative term, anchor baby." They've tolerated Marta for coming to the U.S. the right way. But when they discover their inheritances from Harlans will are threatened and that Marta has undocumented family members, they direct their animosity toward her going so far as to frame her for Harlans murder and lord her mothers status over her head.

Marta may well have the last laugh in what many call a triumphant final scene.

On Twitter, author Daniel Jos Older posted, Knives Out didn't just open a wound for kicks and leave it open. It didn't make it melodramatic or shove in our faces the horror of deportation, and it didn't ignore it altogether, which most movies do.

"It acknowledged it as a reality and vulnerability of one of its characters, and an unfair advantage of others, and dealt with that, and kept it moving. That's what I want from art: honesty without berating, preaching, or manipulating. And a good time, which this was too of course, he wrote.

Not everyone thought the social commentary in the film was effective, however. Some Latino viewers criticized the film's handling of an issue that was perhaps a bit too close to home.

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Unfortunately Mr. Johnsons ambitions on this front reminded me that sometimes, well-intentioned art can backfire and offend (and even hurt) those its intended to champion, film critic (and NBC Latino contributor) Monica Castillo wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed. Through the character of Marta, Knives Out has a tendency to exploit its storys immigration angle, which left me feeling uneasy as strangers at the screening I attended laughed at real-life issues Im genuinely frightened of.

Luis Paez-Pumar, a freelance culture writer, echoed Castillos analysis.

Knives Out was a really fun movie that I almost entirely enjoyed, and yet I cant help but feel like the whole immigration stuff was a well-intentioned mistake of whiteness. Oh, well, Paez-Pumar tweeted.

Knives Out wasnt marketed as a movie dripping with social commentary; the trailer leads viewers to believe that the film is simply a comedic whodunit murder mystery drawing on Clue and Agatha Christies detective novels with an ensemble powerhouse cast.

But the differing perspectives are part of a larger debate on the ethical and effective ways to tell immigration narratives, experts say.

Media narratives about immigration must center around the people directly affected and they must show people are fully dimensional human beings, Ryan Eller, executive director of Define American, a nonprofit media organization whose mission is to shift the conversation about immigrants, told NBC News. Id love to see more filmmakers collaborate with people who have lived experience when taking on stories about immigration. Its so important for immigrants and people who come from mixed status families to not only be consultants on these projects, but creators of them.

Though Knives Out was directed, produced and written by Rian Johnson and does not appear to have much Latino representation in its crew, other experts thought that the film met the criteria of examining Martas immigration story with nuance.

Rian Johnson takes a familiar formula and revises it in a really progressive way, Charles Ramrez Berg, a professor in media studies at the University of Texas at Austin, told NBC News. He took an established genre, the whodunit form, and put a twist in it, by casting a Latina whos a professional, intelligent and not the murderer.

Anglos are people in movies and they can run the range of the complete spectrum of humanity. They can be good, they can be bad, they can be smart, they can be not so smart, Berg added. They can be everything. But when it comes to Latinos theyre not presented as people; theyre ignorant or illegal or immoral ... Theyre stereotypes.

Kristian Ramos, communications director of Define American, similarly praised the nuance of Martas character.

You have this Latina nurse who inherits all the money because of her hard work and her genuine relationship with her patient, Ramos said. She wasnt a caricature; she showed the difficulty of being undocumented. Her being there and being intelligent and kind, but also having a backbone and learning how to stand up for herself was subversive.

According to a study conducted by the University of Southern Californias Norman Lear Center and Define American, immigrant characters on television remain underrepresented and stereotypical. Of the more than 140 episodes of television the groups analyzed from 2017 and 2018, 11 percent of characters were immigrants and almost half of these characters had fewer than 10 speaking lines. While numerous studies have shown that immigrants dont commit any more crime than U.S.-born citizens, 34 percent of these television characters were connected to a past or current crime.

Once someone sees a stereotypical immigration storyline, it enables them to see them as second class citizens, Eller said. It impacts their abilities to see immigrants with dignity and respect and has real consequences, like the children kept in cages and the El Paso and Gilroy shooters who embraced a false narrative of invasion.

Theres been a long tradition of using documentary as a form to tell immigrant stories, according to Mauricio Espinoza, assistant of Spanish and Latin American Literature at the University of Cincinnati. The form, he says, takes advantage of emotional connections to present a story of a real person affected by a real issue. But while documentaries have long been an effective method of storytelling, fictionalized immigrant stories like Knives Out may be able to reach new demographics, he said.

Whether an immigrant narrative is told through a fictionalized or documentary form, however, Espinoza said its important to probe the motivations behind telling a certain story.

One of the dangers of having so much access to video technology everywhere it that it doesnt take long for stories with unfiltered, disturbing images to go viral, Espinoza said. We need to address these difficult situations, but we also cant dehumanize them. We need to question if sharing the gory details will help pave the way for change in policies or if theyre just sensationalism that will perpetuate the trauma immigrants have gone through.

The conversation about the Knives Out immigration plotline has been occurring as a video of Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a Guatemalan teenager who died in Customs and Border Protection custody has circulated online. The video, which was published by ProPublica earlier this month, shows Hernandez collapsing to the floor and has also stirred controversy about when to use graphic imagery in immigration narratives. After ProPublica posted the video, the late teenagers family released a statement to the Texas Civil Rights Project saying it was painful to have people watching him die on the Internet.

Stephen Engelberg, ProPublicas editor-in-chief, told NBC News that the publication believed the American people need to see this video in order to understand the actions of their government and what really happened to Carlos.

Espinoza suggested adding content warnings or additional steps before accessing violent or potentially disturbing imagery could help ensure immigrant narratives are shown in a respective and human way.

Berg added that were on the verge of breaking through to a new kind of narrative. The problem is its very hard to get anybody to watch. Its easier to dismiss it or look the other way, but we need to find a way to look at those hard and harsh realities.

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'Touching and Triggering': 'Knives Out' sparks question of how to tell immigration stories - NBC News

Members of the Shield Wall Network celebrating Hitlers birthday on April 20. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

When Dylann Storm Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he joined the Bible-study class before gunning down nine African-Americans as they prayed.

Roof still communicates with his admirers on the outside. In jail, he began exchanging letters with a man in Arkansas named Billy Roper. A former schoolteacher and the son and grandson of Klansmen, Roper leads the Shield Wall Network, a group of several dozen white nationalists who organize rallies and conferences often collaborating with neighboring hate groups with the goal of building a white ethno-state. I have a lot of empathy for him. Im 47, and hes young enough to be my son, Roper said of Roof when interviewed recently for this project. These millennials and now, I guess, Gen-Zers that are coming up, they are not stupid about the demographic trends and what they portend for the future. That angst, that anxiety that plagues them, drives them to do rash things whether its that rash or not I can empathize with. I would humbly suggest we believe that Roper is being sincere, and that he speaks for many.

Roper and Roof are only two of those affiliated with the 148 white-nationalist hate groups in this country. Though it is impossible to calculate their exact membership numbers (as individual groups either conceal or inflate them), their violence is indisputable. White supremacists were responsible for the deaths of at least 39 people in 2018 alone. And the activity has not slowed this year: not in January, as neo-Nazis plastered flyers outside newspaper offices and homes in Washington State and the Carolinas and an army veteran pleaded guilty to killing a black man in New York to ignite a racial war; in February, as Vermont synagogues and LGBT centers were vandalized and a self-described white-nationalist Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested for plotting a domestic terror attack; in March, as WELCOME TO GERMANY and GAS THE JEWS were spray-painted outside Oklahoma City Democratic Party and Chickasaw Nation offices and, on the Upper East Side, classmates handed their schools only black ninth-grader a note reading ns dont have rights; in April, as a shooting at a synagogue left one dead and three injured and FBI Director Christopher Wray called white supremacy a persistent, pervasive threat to the country; in May, as swastikas fell from the sky on flyers dropped by drones outside an Ariana Grande concert and were scrawled on public spaces in at least three states; in June, as far-right groups rallied in Portland, Oregon, for the first time that summer; in July, as a man promoted a white-power manifesto on Instagram before killing three and wounding 17 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California; in August, as another angry young man this one 1,000 miles away in El Paso, Texas posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online then committed this years most deadly mass shooting, killing 22 and injuring 24 at a Walmart; in September, as the Department of Homeland Security added white-supremacist extremism to its list of priority threats, the same month a swastika appeared on its walls; in October, as swastikas also appeared on Cape Cod and invitations to a white-supremacist gathering were mailed to Maine residents; in November, as a white-supremacist group filmed a video outside Mississippis Emmett Till Memorial; nor this month, as students flashed possible white-power signs at an Army-Navy football game.

The photojournalist Mark Peterson has documented this year, traveling the country to surface the extent of the activity and catalogue the most dangerous ideologies. His quotidian look at contemporary American Confederacy and white nationalism shows us our neighbors in other robes. The people portrayed are living among us in every region of the country, in our workplaces, in our government, on social media, and, for some, in our homes. Their culture is made up of both public rallies and private rituals. We see their homes and their streets and their schools, and that these are also our streets and our schools and our neighbors. These pictures werent just taken in the South, says Peterson, who covers the right wing and began documenting the rise of white nationalism after the 2016 election. They were taken in New York, in New Jersey, in California, in Portland. The idea of quarantining it or ignoring it: That didnt work in the past when they tried to do that, and it wont now.

The barrage of daily headlines makes it easy to see this years incidents as isolated, as white noise in the background of our relentless political moment. But as disturbing as they are, these images portray the American story. It is our inheritance, institutionalized since the Civil War by a government that only recently, and tentatively, began to address domestic terrorism for what it is. White nationalism, legitimized by our presidents support of very fine people, has flourished in part because of this refusal to look it squarely in its face and acknowledge it as homegrown. Without a full accounting of the reality, there can be no remedy. To look away is a form of collaboration. Claudia Rankine

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Ill be honest with you, we dont have as many members as they do down in North Carolina or South Carolina, said the Grand Dragon of the Loyal White Knights of the KKK for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut (in green),here in his home in suburban New Jersey on October 5. Since first joining the Klan in the 1970s, he has been a member of Aryan Nations, the National Alliance, and the Imperial Klans of America. One state over, the grand dragon of the Loyal White Nights of the KKK (in white) is seen near his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Both men were photographed in the months following Homeland Security named white supremacy a primary security threat.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, KKK membership has declined in America even while the industry of hate has thrived, fueled by the next generation of white supremacists who have aligned with newer alt-right and white-nationalist organizations (the kind whose members carry tiki torches and wear khakis instead of hoods). White supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazis overlap with self-described identitarians like the American Identity Movement, fascists like the Patriot Front, ethno-survivalists like the Shield Wall Network, white-power fight clubs like the Rise Above Movement, and antiwhite guilt provocateurs like the Proud Boys. Sometimes even they have a hard time describing how their ideologies differ. Reporting by James D. Walsh

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

This rally in Portland, Oregon on August 17 one of at least eight such far-right events in major cities this year was organized by the Proud Boys, which claimed its goal was to drain Portland of its law-enforcement resources until the city condemned antifa. Critics, led by Fox News, often compare antifa with violent far-right groups, calling it the radical lefts violent mob. But statistically the equivalency is unsubstantiated. We counted a representative sample of antifa attacks and threats on MAGA supporters, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino. The bottom line is we havent seen any hard-left or antifa homicides.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

On June 8, about 15 members of the National Socialist Movement the largest neo-Nazi group in the country, with 30 to 40 core members protested Detroits Motor City Pride parade, captured in these two photographs. We were legally armed, said leader Burt Colucci. The Detroit Police Department was criticized for providing an escort for the protesters, a measure Police Chief James Craig defended as an attempt to prevent a Charlottesville No. 2. No one was arrested, but a GoPro video Colucci shot of himself shoving a counterprotester to the ground was later released.

Public events like this one led to tensions ratcheting up among law enforcement, far-right groups, and the public. It didnt help that, also this year, hate was regularly exposed in the ranks of those charged with fighting it: In April, two Virginia police officers were fired because of their links to white nationalists. Two months later, Reveal reported on nearly 400 current and former law enforcement officers who were members of, or engaged with, extremist Facebook groups, including anti-Islam groups and anti-government militias like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters. In St. Louis, 22 police officers were added to an exclusion list, prohibiting them from bringing cases to prosecutors after the Plain View Project found racist and anti-Muslim comments they had made on social media. Earlier this month, a photo surfaced of 37 West Virginia corrections officers performing a Nazi salute at their graduation ceremony.

After a white supremacist killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in March, President Trump was asked if he thought the threat of white nationalism was on the rise. I dont, really, he responded. I think its a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.

Hate-crime statistics are notoriously difficult to calculate. Local and state law-enforcement agencies are not required to submit numbers to the FBI, laws defining hate crimes vary from state to state, and experts estimate that more than half of all hate crimes go unreported. According to the FBI, hate-crime violence hit a 16-year high in 2018 with the black, Jewish, Latino, and transgender communities being targeted more than ever and the nations largest cities seeing the most activity. The FBIs 2019 numbers wont be available until next November, but indications suggest they will continue to trend upward. The most deadly mass shooting of 2019 was committed by a xenophobic extremist in El Paso, Texas. Lone wolf killers have found their pack.

Fractured as it may be, the far right is now connected by public figures arguing for some form of ethno-nationalism. One such figure is Jared Taylor, founder of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference, which brings together far-right leaders from various strands of neo-Nazism, the KKK, and the alt-right. Not long ago, Taylors pseudo-intellectual ideas were widely considered fringe. Now, they have a powerful advocate in the White House: Before becoming a top Trump adviser, Stephen Miller cited Taylors American Renaissance work to a Breitbart News reporter, suggesting that she aggregate a recent AmRen story on the (specious) link between immigration numbers and crime rates.

Taylor has also counseled Patrick Casey and Richard Spencer, members of the alt-right involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Nate Snyder, a former counterterrorism official in the Department of Homeland Security, says activity on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront jumped after the rally. But when it really hit a spiking point was directly after the presidents comments, his infamous words about very fine people on both sides. You saw activity on this thing exponentially spike, he explains. It was a validation point. You started seeing posts like We now have an ally in the White House. Im setting up a similar rally in my town. Lets take this online action and move it offline and supply it with money and supply it with people. It was a mass mobilization. James D. Walsh

JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-generation KKK member, at a pro-Trump rally he organized in Dahlonega, GA. Counterprotesters, police, and media outnumbered Doless allies. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-g... more JANUARY: Jared Taylor, head of the New Century Foundation and the American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Chester Doles, a self-described fourth-generation KKK member, at a pro-Trump rally he organized in Dahlonega, GA. Counterprotesters, police, and media outnumbered Doless allies. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September. MAY: A Proud Boy covers his face at San Franciscos Demand Free Speech rally. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September... more SEPTEMBER: Anthony Petruccelli, member of the National Socialist Movement, is surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia in his Lynn, MA, apartment in September. MAY: A Proud Boy covers his face at San Franciscos Demand Free Speech rally. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Network celebrating the birthday of George Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Ne... more MAY: Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement, at Tennessees American Renaissance Conference. SEPTEMBER: Arkansass Shield Wall Network celebrating the birthday of George Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Billy Roper, leader of the Shield Wall Network (pictured below holding the letter from Roof and wearing a white shirt), says their protests are intended to polarize: to force normal white Americans to choose between us and them. This year, Members of the Shield Wall Network celebrated Hitlers birthday on April 20 on Lake Dardanelle (photographed above) and protested a Holocaust Remembrance Day march on May 5in Russellville, Arkansas (pictured preparing and marching, below).

In June, Calfy, 24 (on the far right of the boat, above, and seated next to the Confederate flag, below), Nicholas Holloway, 20 (seated far left in the boat), and John Carollo, 29 (standing at left of boat, with neck tattoo), created a Grindr account for a fictitious 15-year-old, used it to lure a man to Calfys home (which they called the Hate House), and assaulted him, leaving a scar across his chest and a welt the size of a golf ball on his head. Calfy called 911 and claimed they had apprehended their victim as part of a vigilante To Catch a Predator scheme. All three were arrested and, earlier this month, took plea agreements and were sentenced to probation, including Calfy, who previously served five years in prison for possession of explosives and threatening to carry out a mass shooting at his high school.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Loyal White Knights of the KKK chaplain Douglas Munker is pictured on September 8 in Yanceyville, North Carolina, with the head of the group, Chris Barker, Barkers wife, Amanda, and another member at a gathering at the Barkers home (photos above). In 2017, when Munker lived on Long Island, he was found distributing KKK literature near East Hampton Middle School. Flyering is a way for hate groups to recruit and stir up fear with little risk. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white-supremacist propaganda surged 182 percent in 2018. In a review of news items from this past year, New York found at least 300 incidents of vandalism involving a swastika: at a Queens elementary school and a California synagogue, at Yale Law School and a Missouri park, on a baby crib at a hotel in Florida, and in dozens of other states.

Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux Images

Neo-Nazi Jovi Val, pictured above on Fifth Avenue on September 18, was disowned by the Proud Boys a year ago after he organized a rally in support of members of the far right facing charges for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, including James Fields, who would be convicted of murdering Heather Heyer. The Proud Boys sought to distance themselves from Charlottesville. Many of the subjects in these photos were eager to condemn violence when interviewed, but their actions this year suggest otherwise: Many were training for a race war, or carrying shotguns at a Pride parade, or bragging about beating up anti-fascist protesters. In October, two Proud Boys were sentenced to four years in prison for attacking protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan.

*A version of this article appears in the December 23, 2019, issue ofNew York Magazine. Subscribe Now! To read more about the reporting process behind this story, click here.

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Inside the White Nationalist Terrorist Movement in America - New York Magazine