America’s neo-Nazis don’t look to Germany for inspiration. They look to Russia.

[Livnthedream]

America’s neo-Nazis don’t look to Germany for inspiration. They look to Russia.

America’s white nationalists may bear swastikas, raise Nazi salutes and cheer for the protection of “Blut und Boden” (blood and soil) for all to see. They may say “Heil Trump!” and laud the legacy of American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell.

But for these American white supremacists, it’s not Nazi Germany to which they look.

It’s Russia.

It doesn’t take much to gather white nationalists’ affections for modern Moscow — a regime whose model they want to bring to bear in the United States. For David Duke, who has seen his books sold in the Russian Duma, Moscow remains the “key to white survival.” For Richard Spencer, a founding member of the alt-right’s rogues’ gallery — and someone married to the translator of Alexander Dugin, Russia’s illiberal polemicist extraordinaire — the Kremlin stands as the “most powerful white power in the world.” For Matthew Heimbach, who has said he would like to see the United States fracture on ethnic lines, Vladimir Putin has transformed into the “leader of the free world.”

Ignore the multi-confessional, multiethnic nature of the Russian state. Ignore the fact that Moscow maintains the largest mosque in Europe, or that Putin’s Russia contains one of the largest swaths of immigrants outside of the United States. These alt-right actors have proved to be more than capable of disregarding these base realities. For the white supremacists who brought bloodshed to Charlottesville, Russia remains the last, best hope for the world they would wish in Washington.

And Russia has proved to be only too willing to cater to these groups. While Moscow’s relations with neo-fascist contingents across Europe — in France, in Hungary — are well-known, less has been said about its extensive efforts to cultivate like-minded actors in the United States.

In 2015, for instance, St. Petersburg hosted one of the most outspoken gatherings of far-right ideologues Europe has seen in years. With speakers rotating across the dais, a pair of Americans — Jared Taylor and Sam Dickson — railed against Washington’s turn toward civil rights and racial equality. Taylor, a man Spencer himself has cited as inspiration for his political baptism into white nationalism, and a man who recorded robocalls on behalf of Trump during the campaign, joined Dickson, erstwhile lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan, as the latter praised Putin for encouraging high birthrates among white Russians. The organization pulling the Americans to the conference was itself an outgrowth of a Russian party founded by Dmitry Rogozin, Moscow’s deputy prime minister.

And Moscow’s government mouthpieces have enthusiastically promoted the views of American neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Not only have Spencer and his wife been welcomed as geopolitical analysts on Kremlin-funded outposts such as RT and Sputnik, but these outlets have also proved eager to flame far-right fringe theory. During the 2015 Jade Helm controversy — when armed, hard-right U.S. militias became convinced that President Barack Obama was set to “invade” Texas, among other states — one of RT’s hosts wailed that there was little doubt Jade Helm’s planning had “started some kind of war … between America and itself.”

This screeching came as the FBI picked up a trio of North Carolinians who were planning a series of bomb attacks in apparent retaliation for Jade Helm’s supposed plans. One of the people behind the attempted car-bombings in Kansas last year, which would have slaughtered dozens of members of a local refugee population, had also posted material both from RT and praising Putin. And, to be sure, Russia doesn’t just back far-right fringe voices in the United States: RT even hosted the U.S. Green Party’s 2016 debate — and went above and beyond any other media outlet in pushing the candidacy of Jill Stein, catering equally to far-left cohorts.

None of this, of course, is to say that the recent carnage in Charlottesville is directly attributable to Moscow, or that James Alex Fields Jr., the alleged domestic terrorist behind the attack, worked as some part of a broader slate of Russian active measures. We have not yet learned of evidence that Fields espoused pro-Putin, pro-Kremlin views.

But you can’t separate Fields’s presence in Virginia from the faces, the figures and the fascists running the “Unite the Right” rally, including Spencer, Heimbach and Duke. After all, the purpose of the Kremlin’s campaign of interference in the recent presidential election wasn’t solely to stack the White House with friendly faces. It wasn’t simply to lift a raft of oil and gas sanctions, or to regain access to Western credit markets.

It was, instead, a campaign predicated on turning the United States against itself. Of cultivating, encouraging and goading groups that would create internal disruption and prevent the United States from promoting a liberal, international order.

An America rending itself apart is a fervent dream for those cloaked in power in Moscow. After Charlottesville — and after Trump revealed that he has little capacity for condemning white nationalists — the United States is one step closer to granting the Kremlin’s wish.

Little surprise, then, that over the past year Russia has also cultivated American secessionists from Texas, Puerto Rico and California. These are, after all, the ideological descendants of the Confederates whose vestiges continue to bring wrack and ruin upon the country. And they are, like the white nationalists currently leading a campaign of domestic terrorism, witting agents in Moscow’s efforts to implode Trump’s America.

Quick everyone, how do we tie Nazi's and Russia together?!

What a joke.

[Deleted]

"we wanna hate, but we need someone to teach is what to hate"

[Independent voter]

Meh, white supremacists are always talking about South Africa too. They like to watch that movie "Zulu".

[Bakis]

Russia got the most neo-nazis if we go by numbers.

[Deleted]

We are talking about a nation that has state sponsored nationalistic youth groups. I mean, Nazis loved their youth groups

[Livnthedream]

Meh, white supremacists are always talking about South Africa too. They like to watch that movie "Zulu".

Our heros are really going downhill.

[Kujako]

Well... no one said they where smart.

[Theodarzna]

America’s neo-Nazis don’t look to Germany for inspiration. They look to Russia.



Quick everyone, how do we tie Nazi's and Russia together?!

What a joke.

We need a Grand Unified Theory for the Ultimate Cold War 2: Electric Boogaloo.

[Deleted]

Russia? eh...they should prefer the other East European countries who are anti-immigration, anti-islam, conservative..

Russia is one of the top countries with immigration, Putin built a huge mosque in moscow...but because Russia is so big it easier gets attention it doesn't deserve to have. Nazis are fools (and scumbags), Russia is absolutely not the role model for nationalism, I'd take someone like Orban over Putin any day. Scratch the surface of MSM bs and you will see Russia is closer to west than many other countries in eastern Europe. Nationalism is stronger in V4, Balkans etc. than in Russia with its empire mentality that like the west enacts foolish policies that will cost dearly in the long run..even if Russia didn't have caucasus, it would still like the west be plagued by terrorism because of its naive welcoming attitude..I'd feel a gazillion times safer living in Warsaw than Moscow, London or Paris...

Russia the rolemodel? Well, Nazis have always been delusional failures...

As for ur article, what a load of crap! Trying to link RT to Nazism..guess what, RT interviews ALL viewpoints, left right nationalism, communism liberalism environmentalism. You know the stuff journalism is supposed to be doing and not like western MSM atm that draws an ideological line?...Watching CNN is like reading Pravda of the old days...

[Grimbold21]

Quick everyone, how do we tie Nazi's and Russia together?!

What a joke.

Both killed millions of people?

[Livnthedream]

Both killed millions of people?

Current is implied by context.

L2hottake

[unbound]

Quick everyone, how do we tie Nazi's and Russia together?!

Are you trying to be serious about this?

Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian state. - http://remember.org/guide/facts-root-nazi

Fascism is a form of right-wing totalitarianism which emphasizes the subordination of the individual to advance the interests of the state. Nazi fascism’s ideology included a racial theory which denigrated “non-Aryans,” extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-speaking peoples, the use of private paramilitary organizations to stifle dissent and terrorize opposition, and the centralization of decision-making by, and loyalty to, a single leader.

Putin has been pushing Russia from an authoritarian state into a totalitarian state as rapidly as he can. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikka...-totalitarian/

It isn't even a challenge to link the two together. They are related by default of the form of government that Nazi Germany was, and what Russia has largely become under Putin.

[Livnthedream]

Are you trying to be serious about this?.

Obviously more serious than you. Given this is just a shitty clickbait article trying to revive the "Russia did it!" narrative. Try looking through the authors catalogue.

[Deleted]

Our heros are really going downhill.

Is that Daniel Radcliff?

I am the only one who sees that?

[Livnthedream]

Is that Daniel Radcliff?

I am the only one who sees that?

It is Radcliff.

From his movie Imperium, where he plays an FBI agent who goes undercover in white nationalist groups. Movie is rather fantastic. Saw people making hay about it on Twitter though and thought it was hilarious.

[syar]

Well I don't know. Real nazism had a lot of intelligent but misguided people. These american "nazis" are mostly imbeciles who could not even organize their own lives ,let alone world domination. So its quite meaningless for me who they look up to , they probably could not even pass a test on nazi ideology.

[Deleted]

It is Radcliff.

From his movie Imperium, where he plays an FBI agent who goes undercover in white nationalist groups. Movie is rather fantastic. Saw people making hay about it on Twitter though and thought it was hilarious.

Ah didn't know about that film, sounds awesome! Thanks I'll have a look for it.

I was really REALLY confused for a while!

[Deleted]

Russia got the most neo-nazis if we go by numbers.

How is that relevant? Fringe group is still a fringe group.

[tuesday the paladin]

It is Radcliff.

From his movie Imperium, where he plays an FBI agent who goes undercover in white nationalist groups. Movie is rather fantastic. Saw people making hay about it on Twitter though and thought it was hilarious.

Another +1 chiming in, it was a pretty good movie. With Imperium, Harry Potter, Swiss Army Man, Radcliff isn't getting stuck with a single type of movie.

[Livnthedream]

Another +1 chiming in, it was a pretty good movie. With Imperium, Harry Potter, Swiss Army Man, Radcliff isn't getting stuck with a single type of movie.

I would have preferred if you had said Horns instead of Swiss Army Man cause the former was good while the latter was a pile of bantha poodoo.