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.”

  • PugJesus
    44•10 months ago

    A home in Glens Falls displaying three confederate flags

    confederate flags

    Glens Falls

    New York

  • mozz
    30•10 months ago

    “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.

    • Argongas
      21•10 months ago

      The lack of in-person community in modern American life has a profound and far reaching impact that I think many people fail to appreciate.

      • @[email protected]
        3•10 months ago

        It’s alienation in its worst form. But it gets repackaged as “rugged individualism” and people end up finding an “other” to blame

    • @BrianTheeBiscuiteer
      9•10 months ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
      5•10 months ago

      I’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.

  • PugJesus
    28•10 months ago

    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?

  • @[email protected]
    17•10 months ago

    Go far enough north, and you end up in the south.

    Rednecks, Rednecks everywhere. Trump signs as far as the eye can see.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
      3•10 months ago

      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!”

  • @[email protected]English
    10•10 months ago

    “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 ?”

    • @[email protected]
      8•10 months ago

      I 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.

        • @kautau
          3•10 months ago

          I’m curious what you define as “the state.” Government? Government essentially evolved with writing, in Sumer (that we know of historically)

        • @[email protected]
          2•10 months ago

          I don’t disagree with a lot of that, but that doesn’t make it right to murder people just because you felt threatened by them. This isn’t a kill or be killed society, there are alternative means to deal with threatening. If those means are insufficient for you, then you should want to create better ones long before you want the state to start sanctioning vigilante executions without any form of trial. You also seem to have missed this part of my comment

          minority groups, however much more justified they are in feeling threatened, have historically not been nor will they ever be the ones doing them.

          That’s just the nature of being part of a minority. It’s a lot more difficult to organize a mob, and even if you manage to do it you’re just going to be met with a bigger mob on the other side cause you decided to go and kick the hornet’s nest of bigotry.

            • @[email protected]
              1•10 months ago

              Also, your quotation is not from me.

              lma fuckin o. No. No, its not. It’s from me. Two comments ago. In reference to lynch mobs.

              Now I KNOW you don’t read my comments very thoroughly.

              And no, when you usurp due process and leave it to individuals to decide when a crime worthy of execution has been committed against them, you are inherently throwing any and all nuance out the window. Nuance in these situations is quite literally the reason we have due process in the first place. Punishment in general, but especially the punishment of death, is just not something that any one person or private group should be allowed to enact at their sole discretion.