Between staging a rally sympathetic to Muslims after the London terror attack and acting as James Comey’s secret spy handler – not to mention all those Russiagate retractions – The New York Times is having a troubling year at best. A smart person would think that they would think – and thoroughly vet a story as controversial as their après Turkey Day expose: A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland.
But alas, no one person at the Times was manning the minions, and the article hit the airwaves to the shock and dismay of, well, everybody. Outrage on social media from across the country was directed at the “normalization” of hate. The subject of the article is a young Ohio man, Tony Hovater, who is a self-proclaimed white supremacist living and working like a normal person. I concur with Quartz Media’s assessment:
“What’s problematic about the story, ultimately, is not that it humanizes a man with repugnant views—he is, of course, a human. It’s the lack of any explanation to the reader of why exactly this story exists, and what the writer expects the reader to glean from it. Without that, we have, essentially, a puff piece about a Nazi sympathizer. ”
And the Twitterverse was alight with similar comments ranging from “Above and beyond anything else about this NYT thing: We already know that Nazis are people,” to the real head-scratcher, “why did the NYT actually link to the page where you can buy a swastika armband?” Can you say, oops? There needs to be an editor on the chopping block for that lapse of scrutiny. Of course, that link is now long gone, but everyone is still reeling from NYT’s assist in easy access to Nazi paraphernalia.
Why the Hate for the Midwest?
The wrath towards the NYT also comes from those in the flyover states – the Heartland, if you will. “Why can’t they find a Nazi-sympathizer to profile in Wyoming or Boston,” is the question on the lips of many Midwesterners.
My thoughts expressed exactly. Why is middle America the only possible place to find a Nazi to interview? Granted, Richard Fausset, the author under fire, sought out a specific person who attended the Charlottesville rally for white nationalism. But one person is hardly the face of a movement, and with a bit of digging around, Fausset would have a plethora of sources, right in his backyard, to thoroughly profile the Nazi next door.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery Alabama has done their due diligence, unlike Mr. Faussett and his employer. The SPLC follows hate across the country, keeping tabs on organizations, with a goal of ending inequality for all. Yes, all – even white males – and they have a map.
In a nutshell, here is what the map tells us; there are 917 hate groups in America today:
663 anti-government patriots – Generally, such groups define themselves as opposed to the “New World Order,” engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.
193 Black Separatist groups – Black separatists typically oppose integration and racial intermarriage, and they want separate institutions — or even a separate nation — for blacks. Most forms of black separatism are strongly anti-white and anti-Semitic, and a number of religious versions assert that blacks are the Biblical “chosen people” of God.
130 Ku Klux Klan chapters—The KKK is the oldest American hate organization, and they hate pretty much everyone, including other competing Klan chapters.
Why did Fausset stop short of crafting an article that speaks of today’s white supremacists? There are 23 white supremacist groups in New York, and only 13 in Ohio.
If Fausset wants to interview subjects in the American Nazi Party (ANP), he should hop on the Amtrak and ride down to Arlington Virginia – to its headquarters. George Lincoln Rockwell founded the organization, World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, but renamed it in 1960. Perhaps the name was too unwieldy, or the use of Socialist wasn’t attractive. Who knows? What we do know is that the Leftists media blames middle America for President Donald Trump and the serendipitous downfall of the Obama and Clinton era. The NYT will continue to lump all in flyover states as Obama did with this statement, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” His elitist comments could not be further from the truth, and thank God for that.
