And that circle, I would guess, is even more populous, because it's very easy to consume this content online now without being directly tied into the movement. Outside of that is a more diffuse circle of people who don't themselves give money and might not go to a rally, but who regularly consume ideas and materials. So those are people who might go to a Klan rally or regularly read Klan newspapers and who make financial contributions. They have extended family and marital relationships within the movement, et cetera.Īnd then outside of that is a bigger circle of people who are still very active but less politicized. Those are the people who educate their children at home using curricula written by white power activists. In the center are people who are violent, radical actors and people whose lives are entirely contained within this movement. If you think about membership in the white power movement, it's helpful to think about a set of concentric circles.

That interchange between fringe and mainstream is something that is not very well understood, and it's something that will be really important to what happens next. What the relationship is between the people who were there simply to protest and exercise their First Amendment rights and the people who were to cause violence is going to be a matter of very, very critical work over the next weeks and months. How should we be thinking about the relationship between Trump supporters who are not white power types, but who were nonetheless at the Capitol alongside people who self-identify as such? This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Belew spoke to us about the rise of the white power movement and the ways they affect the politics of the mainstream right. She finds a surprising genesis for the movement in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when disaffected white veterans returned home to little celebration and a country being transformed by the civil rights movement. Kathleen Belew, a historian at the University of Chicago, studied the rise of the modern far right for her book, Bring The War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

Code Switch From The Fringe To The Capitolīut there were symbols and signs that branded many of the rioters as part of more fringe cohorts: the orange hats of the 'Western chauvinist' Proud Boys the banner of the Three Percenter Movement, a far-right militia group that sprouted up in response to Barack Obama's presidency the Kek flag, popular among alt-right types on sites like 4chan and meant to invoke the Nazi war flag the Gadsden flag, which has been repurposed by a slew of different neo-Nazi and militia groups.

Bring the War Home by Kathleen Belew