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As economic pressures gut local newsrooms across the country, white nationalist figures see an untapped opening: stepping into media deserts where there are few journalists left to sound the alarm.
“Local media has been dying all over America, which means that there’s essentially no real way to hold local governments accountable—and they can do whatever they want,” Kevin DeAnna told an invitation-only gathering of approximately 50 white nationalists in Rome.
Breaking into a broad smile, he excitedly added: “You should be fantasizing about this. This is a good thing.”
DeAnna, a prolific propagandist who has operated under a variety of pseudonyms and who has called for turning the country into a White ethnostate, celebrated the decline of local media earlier this year during an annual retreat hosted by the white nationalist Counter Currents publishing house.
“So, if you wanna get the most bang for your buck, activate rural America—‘cause that’s where White people are,” DeAnna argued in a video that was just recently posted online.
“And these are White people that are not voting. These are White people who are angry and who are radical and have no one talking to them.”
According to the most recent report from the Northwestern University’s Medill School, the “steady, unrelenting decline of local newspapers … is leading to an ever-rising number of news deserts, now 213 counties.”
That collapse of local press coverage in rural America creates a dangerous vacuum—one that allows extremist networks to operate without accountability.
Filling that void is precisely why I launched ConfrontTheHate.com.
‘Pitch to a Billionaire’
DeAnna’s remarks were part of a “Pitch to a Billionaire” panel during the Rome retreat that focused on how white nationalists could solicit funding from the world’s wealthiest people.
Ironically, the white nationalist figure met with tech billionaire Peter Thiel in 2016, according to reporting by BuzzFeed and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“DeAnna’s work under the pseudonym ‘Gregory Hood’ drew upon foundational white nationalist and neo-Nazi texts that have inspired numerous acts of domestic terrorism,” SPLC senior researcher Hannah Gais wrote.
For the panel discussion, DeAnna proposed that “the single most effective way to build political power with the least investment would be to start a political action committee and get-out-the-vote effort for White rural voters.”
Rural areas have an outsized political influence in America, he asserted, and “it requires very little money and very little turnout to win a lot of these elections.”
Embracing the widely discredited “constitutional sheriffs” notion that county sheriffs have enormous power to nullify federal and state laws, DeAnna pushed for a focus on electing sheriffs who would take the law into their own hands.
He argued:
“I think you could take over a whole county with ten people. It would not take much…. Ten people who have some idea how to campaign, and we’re talking unlocking tens of millions of dollars, jobs for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty people, real state authority, real law enforcement power, setting up a fortress that leftists can’t even go into without losing everything.”
Other billionaire pitches
Among those joining DeAnna for the discussion was Jared Taylor, who publishes the American Renaissance website and hosts an annual gathering of white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and other extremists at a Tennessee state park.
Taylor suggested approaching a far-right billionaire with a plea to become “the George Soros for our side,” funding white nationalist groups around the world.
“I’m not asking you to fund yet another media company or another think tank. I’m asking you to endow an entire movement,” Taylor’s pitch continued.
“Campaigns for mayor, state house, city council can be swayed with twenty thousand dollars, thirty thousand dollars.”
Another white nationalist activist, attorney and former neo-Nazi David Zsutty, made the case for a billionaire to fund lawsuits to target their enemies.
“If you are the defendant, whether it be in a civil or criminal case, you have already lost—the only question is how much,” Zsutty said.
“Even if you recover attorney fees, which are usually quite substantial, you will never recover the lost time, stress, and effort.”
Counter Currents editor Greg Johnson has described the annual gathering as “private, invitation-only retreats for our writers, donors, and friends” to “foster real-world fellowships and collaborations.”
This year’s retreat took place inside the Rome headquarters of CasaPound, a prominent Italian neo-fascist group that Johnson himself characterized as a “militant organization.”
It is not clear who funds these gatherings.
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Confront the Hate. Find the Hope.
As a journalist, this breaks my heart! It is up to our communities to recognize the challenge and begin working to find solutions. Thoughts?
If George Soros only funded as much advocacy work as these loons think he does. Luckily these people are getting really high on their own supply and showing their true intentions. Makes it much easier to fight back than when they all still wore hoods and hid in the dark.