A New Chapter: 'Hate Comes to Main Street' Becomes 'Confront the Hate, Find the Hope'
Six months in, your feedback made one thing clear: exposing the problem isn't enough—we need a path forward. Let me explain how you can join the fight.
Have you noticed anything different about my website in the last few days?
If you’ve been following this project for the past six months, you know I haven’t shied away from hard truths.
I’ve documented how extremist ideologies—from white supremacists and neo-Nazis to Christian nationalists and QAnon true believers—have moved off the fringes and right into our local town halls, school board meetings, and elections.
That’s the reality that first led me to launch this project under the name “Hate Comes to Main Street.” It captured the urgency of the moment and reflected the kind of investigations that have defined this stage of my career, including two George Foster Peabody Awards. It named the problem head-on.
You can read more of my personal journey here.
But language matters—and after six months of delivering this work, I’ve heard your feedback loud and clear.
In a time when there is already so much to feel heavy about, a title focused solely on the arrival of hate can feel like just another downer.
Documenting the problem isn’t enough. We need a path forward. Confronting this challenge requires that we equip people to act rather than wallow in despair.
That’s why this work is evolving.
Welcome to ConfrontTheHate.com.
Guided by a simple mission—Confront the Hate, Find the Hope—this site will continue to face tough realities head-on with clear, independent journalism, while placing a stronger focus on what matters most: finding practical ways forward together.
My goal is to continue to offer deep, reflective analysis on how extremism impacts everyday life, highlight essential reporting from around the country, and shine a spotlight on ordinary people showing extraordinary courage.
It’s about women, too
As part of this shift, I’m also expanding my scope to explicitly cover attacks on the role of women in America and other forms of misogyny. As we’ve seen, extremist ideologies rarely exist in a vacuum—they almost always intertwine hatred based on race, gender, religion, ethnicity, and personal identity.
As I’ve previously reported, Christian nationalists who want to sideline people based on their skin color or ethnicity are also setting their sights on the role of women—for example, calling for an authoritarian leader who will one day take away the rights of their mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters to vote.
As Maya Angelou suggested, when people show us who they are, we need to believe them the first time.
Confront the hate
While my lens is widening and my title is changing, the core reporting remains the same rigorous, uncompromising work that you’ve already seen from me:
Exposing the Young Republican group behind a racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, Christian nationalist X account appealing to other young men.
Revealing how white nationalist groups in America studied the race riots in Belfast for lessons on avoiding detection by law enforcement.
Confronting a Christian nationalist candidate for governor who wants to outlaw Islam and Hinduism, and deny the morning-after pill to rape victims.
Uncovering associations between KKK-loving figures and forces who are trying to push the Southern Baptist Convention farther to the right.
Critiquing a 60 Minutes segment that unintentionally amplified a fascist group’s rebranding efforts.
Challenging provably false claims by the Trump administration about its indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In this first six months, I published more than 80 individual reports—all while being fully committed to my main job for Nashville’s NewsChannel 5.
That’s how passionate I am about this mission! If you don’t know about the problem, you can’t fight it.
Find the hope
What difference would it make if we all took time to get to know someone who looks, loves, and lives differently from us?
That question, posed by the sign outside a progressive Christian church in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood, goes to the heart of the redefined mission.
As critical as it is to confront the hate, we cannot stop there. Together, we have to look for paths forward.
That is why essays like Hate in a Hallmark Town, my recommended books, conversations with influential thinkers, and a persistent focus on community resilience will stay at the heart of this publication.
The shift to Confront the Hate, Find the Hope isn’t a retreat from hard truths.
It’s an invitation to become part of the solution—staying informed without feeling overwhelmed, seeing how national movements play out locally, and discovering real reasons for hope through stories of resilience and progress.
Below is just one example:
Hate in a Hallmark Town, Part 4: 'We Were Not Afraid to Stand Up to Hate'
This post is part of a continuing series that explains how I began this unexpected journey into the world of hate. One of the people I met early in that journey was Peggy Kingsbury. This is her story. — Phil Williams
If you have other suggestions of stories about hope triumphing over hate, please drop them into the comments or the paid subscriber chat.
Become part of the solution
If you’re a free subscriber, my goal remains clear: you’ll continue receiving thoughtful, reliable journalism with no ads and no algorithms.
If you believe in this project and its renewed focus, I hope you’ll consider joining me as a paid supporter. (If you are already a paid subscriber, you can increase your level of support by becoming a Founding Member. Here’s how.)
This independent project isn’t underwritten by a newsroom budget; I launched it with money out of my own pocket.
By helping to sustain work that requires research, tools, and legal protections, you become an active partner in a community committed to understanding what’s happening in our cities and towns—and finding real reasons for hope.
Other action steps you can take:
Share this post and all my posts on your own social media!
Subscribe to my YouTube page, as well as watching, liking and sharing the videos.
Send me your ideas!
We’re in this together!
Confront the Hate. Find the Hope.
Proud to be a subscriber. Thank you for expanding the mission to include confronting and exposing misogyny.