Culture Warlords

Far-right forums and media outlets spread racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism.

When Talia Lavin, under a pseudonym, visited a far-right chat group – “The Bunkhouse” – on the social media app Telegram, she encountered white supremacists chatting about her, using her real name, calling her an anti-white supremacist, and Jewish journalist, and agreeing she was too ugly to rape.

These supremacists followed the neo-Nazi leader James Mason, author of the book Siege, who advocates terrorism to destroy American society. Mason’s followers, who call themselves “Siegeheads,” praise neo-Nazi mass murderers, including Dylann Roof, who prayed with and then murdered nine African Americans in a Charleston, SC church in 2015.

The internet makes it easy for false conspiracy theories – such as the belief that a diabolical Jewish cartel is oppressing the white masses – to spread, and for conspiracists to get to know one another and to build racist networks. White supremacists may begin by trying to shock others with brutally racist or anti-Semitic language, but their “ideological journey” leads them, ultimately, to embrace...