A White Supremacy Reader
Some personal bibliography and research resources
From time to time, I consider whether to attempt an anthology, collecting my thematically similar works into book form. So far, I have resisted the temptation, mainly because this project would involve a lot of emailing people for permissions and then a lot of tedious formatting of texts, charts and footnotes.
I might still do it, but until that day comes, I’m going to repackage some themed collections of research here. It’s not quite as convenient as paging through a unified volume, but almost all of my academic work is open-access, so you can freely read a lot of material at the links below.
This first outing follows my research on White supremacy. As many of you know, I have always worked on domestic and/or White nationalist extremism side by side with jihadist extremism. For the first half or so of my career, jihadism was the only thing anyone wanted to talk about. For reasons that are probably obvious, the scales have reversed in recent years. Many of the works listed below will help explain why. They are presented in rough order of publication.
2012
This paper examined the FBI’s undercover investigation of militia and White supremacist movements during the 1990s, using declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI essentially invented a White supremacist group, which it used to infiltrate other such movements around the country, until FBI headquarters shut the investigation down in 1993, saying that the agents were gathering intelligence on arguably protected speech rather than investigating a crime. Two years later, many people and organizations identified in the PATCON investigation became involved in the Oklahoma City bombing. I also made the primary source documents available.
Patriot Games: How the FBI spent a decade hunting white supremacists and missed Timothy McVeigh
This article for Foreign Policy magazine tells essentially the same story as the PATCON paper above, but in less academic language and with more focus on Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing.
Unplaying the Race Card in the Patriot Movement
A Patriot movement dystopian novel highlights the complexity of racial rhetoric and attitudes in the movement at the time it was written.
2013
Who Matters Online: Metrics for Monitoring Extremism Online
This 2012 study of white nationalist use of Twitter introduced new methods for measuring influence and in-groupness online. This was my first major paper focused on social media, and it demonstrated how such analysis could produce unexpected results—in this case uncovering a fairly consistent campaign by White supremacists to influence and infiltrate the more mainstream part of the Republican Party. Sadly, this effort would yield substantial results by 2016. Written and researched with Bill Strathearn, who really helped me understand and codify the core ideas.
I gave the SPLC’s Hate List a close look and a critical evaluation, questioning the value of its methodology for counting groups. I will note that the SPLC has turned over almost everyone who was working there since this was written, and it does great work these days, but I am not sure this specific product has improved meaningfully.
2016
The Turner Legacy: The Storied Origins and Enduring Impact of White Nationalism’s Deadly Bible
The Turner Diaries, the infamous racist dystopian novel by neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, has inspired more than 200 murders since its publication in 1978. This paper documents the early dystopian novels that directly and indirectly inspired Turner and examines the extensive violence that the novel has inspired.
For The Atlantic, I wrote a companion piece to the paper cited above, which used less academic language to explore and contextualize some of the ideological and strategic innovations introduced by The Turner Diaries.
Without Prejudice: What Sovereign Citizens Believe
This paper dissects and describes in simple language some of the key elements of the sovereign citizen movement, including its roots in White supremacy, as well as other, more esoteric influences. While the movement is diverse, the concepts explained herein can (kinda) help make sense of this confusing ideology.
Nazis vs. ISIS on Twitter
Following up on both Who Matters Online (above) and 2015’s The ISIS Twitter Census, this 2016 paper found White nationalists were thriving on Twitter and outperforming the Islamic State, which was then more notorious for its success using social media in both recruitment and messaging. A comparative study of metrics and messaging shows similarities and differences, and the more lax moderation environment enjoyed by White supremacists. With Heather Perez.
How White Nationalists Learned to Love Donald Trump
Donald Trump wasn't an obvious choice to champion White supremacy in national politics. This Politico article showed how Trump convinced skeptical racists that he was their candidate for president, using both dog-whistles and overt messaging over a long period of time. I am forever grateful to the late Blake Hounshell for helping me get this in print before the election (for all the good it did).
2017
I consider this paper one of the most significant works in my portfolio, in large part because it formed the concrete, granular research bedrock to support the structure of my first major step toward theorizing about extremism. The paper traces how an eccentric but seemingly harmless 19th century philo-Semitic movement known as British Israelism slowly morphed over several decades into the extremely virulent, anti-Semitic, White supremacist ideology known as Christian Identity. Much of my more recent work is based on the data and methods used in this paper, which owe much to the work of Haroro Ingram and the editorial guidance and support of Alastair Reed.
2018
The Difference Between a Killer and a Terrorist
For The Atlantic: Two mass murders within a 48 hour period reveal how complicated—and important—it is to correctly identify terrorism when it occurs, and to distinguish ideologically motivated killings from other sorts of violence.
A big data survey of so-called Alt-Right adherents on Twitter illustrates how far social media White nationalism progressed in the five years after Who Matters Online. The paper found that the Alt-Right was overwhelmingly White supremacist in orientation, settling a question that had been the subject of some debate. The Alt-Right branding was simply that—branding.
Trump Is the Glue That Binds the Far Right
I wrote for The Atlantic about the other major finding in The Alt-Right Twitter Census—that Donald Trump was the diverse movement’s center of gravity. As discussed in Alt-History (above), the Alt-Right label provided an umbrella for many factionalized American White supremacist groups and movements that had failed to work together in the past. Donald Trump was the common thread that helped synchronize an otherwise fractious collection of organized racists.
2019
For The Atlantic: You might be forgiven for thinking “leaderless resistance” was a brilliant and lethal idea; certainly, many security analysts and policy makers believed as much. But the truth is leaderless resistance was a bad strategy, based on overly optimistic assumptions. Reports of its success were greatly exaggerated, usually because of a false perception that most individual actors were not receiving direction. But novel social dynamics powered by the Internet have given the idea new life.
The Dangerous Spread of Extremist Manifestos
Another way that the Internet has changed extremism derives from the distribution of extremist manifestos. These increasingly formulaic works provide a template for those who seek to use violence to spread a message or ideology, thanks in large part to the success of Anders Breivik’s lethal lone wolf attack in 2011. This article for The Atlantic led to one of the best days in my life as an author—getting to talk to Terry Gross.
2020
There and Back Again: How White Nationalist Ephemera Travels Between Online and Offline Spaces
A study of racist poster and flyer drops in the United States, focusing on how these activities are organized online, deployed in the real world, and then exploited for additional propaganda purposes online. Based on an ADL dataset, and co-authored with Kateira Aryaeinejad and Seán Looney.
2021
A Paler Shade of White: Identity & In-group Critique in James Mason’s Siege
Discussions of extremist ideologies naturally focus on how in-groups criticize and attack out-groups. But many important extremist ideological texts are disproportionately focused on criticizing their own in-group. This research report examines Siege, a White nationalist tract that has played an important role in shaping modern neo-Nazi movements, including such violent organizations as Atomwaffen Division and The Base. This paper includes some key comparative insights that will be further developed in a paper I am aiming to publish later this year.
2023
Agency in Extremist Narratives (three parts)
Writing here, I looked at how extremist groups with power offer different narrative justifications than those that do no have power. I will be publishing a lot more on this subject in the months to come.
Dystopia and the mainstreaming of anti-Asian racism (three parts)
I looked at the under-reported influence of dystopian fiction on the rise of anti-Asian racism in America and beyond, as well as the circular effect—how popular anti-Asian sentiment drove the growth of dystopian fiction as a major genre.
I analyzed how a court battle over naturalization helped define what it meant to be White in America. Expect more work in this space from me as the year goes on.
The First American Dystopian Novel / The First “Race War” Novel
Two novels that will live in infamy, further illustrating the close relationship between racism and dystopian fiction as a genre.
Late 2023, 2024
Stay tuned! I should have one major paper on White supremacy this year, which I expect will be a bit controversial, another paper coming soon on Twitter, with possibly a bit more in 2023 and definitely quite a bit more in 2024.
Got anything on Diagolon? I’m doing research for a novel…