Making Certain It Goes On
I spent my entire youth wanting to escape my hometown of Missoula, Montana. When I did leave, I spent my entire adulthood wanting to get back. While I was gone, I served my country as a Jewish soldier in the Middle East and I proudly worked on important national security issues but I spent most of my time missing the mountains and streams that made me feel whole. When I finally got the chance to return home, I came back without a job or any chance of getting one. It was just that important to my inner being to be here.
There is something about Montana that people who do not live here do not understand and we prefer they stay away. The danger though is that we also attract a good number of oddballs who can find a nice corner of the state to settle in then make trouble. This has stirred up again with a transplant to our state named Richard Spencer, who came to a ski town called Whitefish with his family years ago. (Disclosure: I am also a Montana transplant from northern Michigan, having moved here in the 1980s. Spencer got into a Twitter “argument” with me and called me a “Montanan” in late December 2016 then his followers both “doxxed” me — published my home address — and sent along Nazi propaganda materials for two days.)
Spencer started a simple sounding “non-profit” in town called the National Policy Institute that has a purpose much more foul than its bland name suggests — it promotes the same sort of white nationalism as the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. Spencer has a much different name for it: the alt-right. Or, as we know it more recently, the Trump presidency.
If the Trump election was like a gut punch or a death in the family that many of us are still recovering from, then the return of Spencer to Whitefish is like an additional punch in the groin or an unwelcome guest crashing the funeral. What makes it worse, though he denies any connection, is that he has brought his Neo Nazi friends along with him. The Daily Stormer has promised to bring along 200 plus armed members of their online community from around the nation and even the world to Whitefish in a march against the Jewish community in Whitefish (population around 7,000, Jewish population of around maybe several). Why? Because Spencer’s mother had a real estate dispute with a local agent that was no different than any of us have ever had with any business person in town. When do they plan to march, you ask? Well, because they are MOTHERFUCKERS (there is no other description) they are marching on Martin Luther King Day. I’m going to put that in a sentence so it just sticks out.
Neo Nazis from across America, maybe the world, are coming to Whitefish, Montana on Martin Luther King Day 2017 to march with weapons against its minority Jewish community.
How does that make you feel?
The 2017 is what sticks out most to me. It’s 2017 and we are still dealing with this.
It is 2017 and my hometown newspaper just published a massive column inch story about Spencer and it read as if the reporter was awestruck by him. You could understand why she was, he is a magnetic figure for sure. He is intended to be so. He is a con man pretty boy whose entire purpose is to recruit people to the cause. He sells snake oil and lies. He tells the faithful one thing and reporters another. He agreed with KKK grand wizard David Duke that it was time for the white race to rise up again and take back America by all means necessary to include guerilla warfare. He agreed that Jews are a problem in the media and agrees with Duke as he makes other subtle nods to anti-Semitic references. Then they do a riff on Daily Stormer Andrew Anglin (unnamed but obviously the person being referenced and gladly talked about) as a problem but seem to agree with him on the issues and his outlook. And I mean really, if Anglin and Spencer don’t get along then why is Anglin sending his soldiers into a key battle for Spencer over a real estate dispute with his mother?
So then Spencer returned to Montana and told the Whitefish local press a different story two days later than what he had told Duke on the radio two days earlier. Really, check both of those links out because the difference is stark. The David Duke show is a fascinating journey into Spencer’s worldview and how plays the extremists just as his interview with the local press shows how he plays reporters. I highly recommend both.
So which Spencer is in Montana? Is he the is the one that David Duke loves so much because he wants to fight guerrilla war with the Daily Stormer crowd and bring it to the Jews and other minorities? I hope so, because if he is the phony guy that Keila Szpaller fell for then I am just going to feel let down.
The Missoulian should be ashamed what it called “sunshine” ever made it into the newspaper or online to readers in my beloved Missoula. They did not “shine a light on hate.” They put a spotlight on a flim-flam man who spreads bile then called it a service to a community to make themselves feel better. It’s not true. This article and subsequent apologetic editorial caused harm to the place I used to call home. But rather than think about it, the editors doubled down on holding the corporate line and undercutting the values of the peaceful town they work for.
It is no surprise this happened today given the takeover of the Montana media by businesses outside of the state. They are more concerned about clicks and getting flooded by the Spencer trolls if they gave him a “bad” story (whatever that means). By all means, Szpaller can have coffee with him. But hey, maybe report what he told David Duke. Maybe include the truly noxious garbage he has spewed beyond “Hail Trump.” Or let him get off the hook by calling it “cheeky.” Maybe don’t make him look affable and cute because, hey, you know, his awful worldview and KNOWN ASSOCIATIONS with NEO NAZIS. A decent editor would see Spencer cannot limit it to discussions about white privilege or identity because what he is really talking about is white pride and white supremacy… not hip hop, yo!
When I was a cub newspaper reporter in the late 1990s, I learned from great journalists who liked to do crazy things like investigate and question authority. There was a saying they passed down to the younger hands: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That is a mantra to live by. I keep it on my work computer to this day.
So hey Missoulian, maybe come listen to the Jewish and Native American combat veterans who are beyond upset Spencer and his Neo Nazi allies are allowed to get away with this. Because we are coming to Whitefish just like we went to Standing Rock, unarmed and ready to face off against injustice. We are going there to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Montana is the last best place because it is our last best place. We will stand up to keep it that way and we will stand up for anyone else who joins us.
Ending note… for those who are tired of the Montana media I highly suggest adding some Montana blogs to your diet: intelligentdiscontent.com and mtcowgirl.com. I write for the latter but both are an excellent daily stop. They have been writing about this sort of stuff for months. Months.
