Far-right extremism is thriving in rural areas. Here's what it looks like in Upstate NY
Far-right extremism is thriving in rural areas. Here's what it looks like in Upstate NY
When we set out to look at far-right extremism in Upstate New York, we had a few basic questions. What do people believe in? What groups and militias have been active? We found that all kinds of extremist groups have tried to recruit people across the...
There’s a little wine shop in downtown Ballston Spa, New York with rainbow-colored bottles lining the shop’s front window. The village is small, about 5,000 people, and attracts tourists from all around the world.
Last summer, the owner of the wine shop, Jes Rich, noticed a group of masked men in the street. “As soon as I saw them I ran out the door,” said Rich, who is openly queer and sees her shop as a safe and welcoming space for other queer people.
The men in the street were wearing black and yellow face coverings and T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Proud Boys, a violent, far-right extremist group. A yellow truck drove alongside the group, blasting the provocative country song “Try That in a Small Town.”
A home in Glens Falls displaying three confederate flags
confederate flags
Glens Falls
New York
44Permanently Deleted
24Or "states rights".
11I don't think this proves that it wasn't or isn't that for anyone else
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Uncle Billy's gonna need a lot more matches this time
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“When you really, truly have the back of the people, the people will literally give the shirts off their backs for you. You need to know that. I pledge my militia,” Mizrahi said as the crowd applauded. “We will forever stand by your side, for someone who stands by ours.”
So there's one thing that jumps out at me about all these types of movements: People want something to believe in. People want close allies, people they can march with, neighbors they know personally who they've been through some real shit with. Human beings need a "tribe" or a tight-knit village to be a part of. I think that's basically nonexistent in modern American society, and I think a lot of the draw of these movements is that finally, I'll have some people standing by my side that I can trust and depend on and do some real shit with.
I think some of the people in these movements just want to do violent things or are inherently drawn to the fascist ideology. But I think a much larger percentage just want something to be part of. I think if they had a real community to be part of day to day, the attractiveness of the dangerous community for them to be part of would be much less.
30The lack of in-person community in modern American life has a profound and far reaching impact that I think many people fail to appreciate.
21It's alienation in its worst form. But it gets repackaged as "rugged individualism" and people end up finding an "other" to blame
3
I don't know about small town social norms but I would guess you really don't want to stand out, and being liberal or even questioning conservative leaders and talking points is a great way to become the black sheep.
9I'm convinced that Jan 6th wouldn't have happened if pro sports hadn't gone on hiatus during covid. Before covid a lot of people found their tribes via sports (or NASCAR). When the events stopped or got lame, the people needed something Trump and Fox News jumped on that. If you watch Trump rallies they're basically tailgaters with a new sport.
5panem et circenses
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No need to apologize for them. Anyone can go on meetup.com or volunteer.org and access literally thousands of groups to be a part of this afternoon. People join fascist groups because they like long walks on the beach and fascism.
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Shoaff said he didn’t know at the time that McEachin was Black, but he still stands by his statement. “I said we should take him out in the middle of the street and hang him,” said Shoaff. “I said what I said because he advocated for using force against citizens,” he said. “Is that not treason?”
... is that not advocating using force against citizens?
27Lol, what a bunch of pussies.
26Go far enough north, and you end up in the south.
Rednecks, Rednecks everywhere. Trump signs as far as the eye can see.
17This is going to get worse all over as most liberals move away and concentrate in specific places. They're making it easy for the Republicans to trap them in cities.
11Lol. Trapped in cities? Do you know what a fortress is? Know what combat the military fears more than any other? Urban. Having a highly concentrated force in a highly defensible place is the bees knees.
4I hope you're right, actually I hope we never have to learn if you're right.
4
Not to mention that because land is what gets votes, all the city dwellers will have less representation than the country folk.
It would be great to move a few million leftists into rural areas and fix this, but every time I mention it they’re like “but there’s nothing to do there!”
3And we'll lose everything due to our unwillingness to sacrifice a bit.
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"Does anyone know of any local gyms not flooded with NAZIs" &
"NAZIs are marching today; avoid downtown."
... are common posts in the town closest to me represented on reddit.
NAZIs are now part of American life. Now when people in the future talk about what the NAZIs they will have to ask, "The ones in Germany or in America ?"
10NAZI
Is this supposed to be an acronym for something? Why are you capitalizing it like that.
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It's weird that self-defense has this time limit on it's validity. Like if someone tries to kill you and you kill them while they're in the action of stabbing you it's self-defense, but if a few minutes have passed it's murder.
If someone has made their intention to kill you clear, self-defense is a valid response, no time limit, no need to wait for triggers to be pulled. This is a group of people making their intentions clear walking down the street.
-3I really don't want to live in a world where feeling threatened grants a person all the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Do you want lynch mobs? Because that's how you get lynch mobs. And minority groups, however much more justified they are in feeling threatened, have historically not been nor will they ever be the ones doing them.
8I really don’t want to live in a world where feeling threatened grants a person all the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Do you want lynch mobs?
We have this now but worse because it's organized against specific groups.
- The state is nothing but an organized group of people who feel entitled to use lethal force to make you comply with their will.
- Police are a huge organized hierarchical gang with a license to kill
We are simply propagandized to think this is the right way and every other way is wrong. Humans have been around for 2-300,000 years, 99% of that time with no state and it was sustainable. Now we have state and shit is being destroyed in a few generations. The state is the problem, not a few lynch mobs.
EDIT: I want to add, if you don't defend yourself from fascists, you end up in their world. This world of fascists will certainly grant effective judge, jury, and executioner status (i.e. they won't get in trouble) to any privileged person over any unprivileged person. Choose your future.
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