Revenge of the White Supremacists
In solidarity with Heidi Beirich
This week, on the anniversary of the Unite the Right Hate Riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump’s Department of Justice announced the arrest of Heidi Beirich — former head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. She tracked hate groups and founded the Global Project Against Hate & Extremism. Beirich is accused of defrauding SPLC’s donors to fund white supremacist groups, part of DOJ’s broader effort to destroy and discredit SPLC
If you don’t know Heidi Beirich’s name, you’re certainly familiar with her work and expertise. Beirich’s entire career has been spent investigating and exposing hate groups. Anyone who covers far-right extremism and related topics or works in anti-hate spaces owes Beirich a debt of gratitude. Much of what we know about hate in the US, and the way it’s covered and investigated, comes from Beirich’s work. Here’s what you need to know:
This indictment is designed to isolate and alienate Beirich. There’s a lot to unpack here, but this is the most important thing. The indictment contains some salacious details, which reporter Phil Williams covers in his newsletter if you want to know more. We obviously don’t know the entire story, but I don’t trust the indictment for a minute, and neither should you. The DOJ couldn’t even be bothered to get Beirich’s job title correct, falsely naming her as SPLC’s former CFO. Whether because the DOJ is being strategic, incompetent, or its usual combination of both, there’s no reason to assume that the indictment is correct or even close to the whole story until proven otherwise.
The isolation is the point. A tried and true strategy of the MAGA Right is to make their targets toxic so that allies back off and don’t stand in solidarity with MAGA’s enemy of the moment. Cutting targets off from key emotional, institutional, and financial support and making allies terrified to stand in solidarity, lest they be next. I often refer to this as the ACORN strategy. The MAGA Right keeps doing this because it works -- with help from the institutional left and reactionary centrists.
Too many groups in Civil Society, even so-called allies, are more than happy to play along. Just this week, the centrist think tank Third Way put out a job notice for a Director of Anti-Extremism. Lest you think Third Way is actually doing something useful and researching hate groups, the job is for leading opposition research against members of the Democratic Socialists of America and the candidates they’re running, which apparently Third Way considers a bigger threat than the Trump Regime. Good to know, I guess, but also a perfect illustration of just how much water some are willing to carry for the fascists and why isolation often works.
The attacks against experts in far-right extremism and disinformation is so vast it’s difficult to quantify. I’m living this, and I cover it regularly, but it’s still difficult to describe the scale of what’s happened since 2021 in the anti-hate/anti-disinformation spaces. From Jim Jordan’s witch hunt investigations, to Big Tech rolling back anti-hate and disinformation policies while laying off trust and safety teams, to the #TwitterFiles bullshit from Elon Musk, and the targeting and harassment of researchers like Nina Jankowicz, the list is endless.
As someone who does this work, I can tell you it’s taken a real toll on us all. I don’t know one researcher, journalist, or advocate whose mental health and finances haven’t taken a hit over the past few years. But that doesn’t even begin to cover the impact on American politics and discourse as the MAGA Right has discredited our work and effectively isolated us from institutions and funders. So much of the research, advocacy, and brainpower has been lost—to America’s detriment.
Meanwhile, the Trump Regime’s weaponization efforts have expanded well beyond our space. This week we learned that DHS spent months spying on civil society in Minnesota, including churches, libraries, and union halls, by sending undercover agents to infiltrate local groups. You know, the kind of activity they’re mad at SPLC (which shared intel with law enforcement regularly) over. Eventually they will come for everyone who they consider an enemy.
The Trump Regime is a white supremacist group, and they’re out for revenge. Let’s be real for a minute. Making this arrest on the anniversary of Unite the Right is a choice, intended to send a message. Heidi Beirich and her team at SPLC were instrumental in covering the hate groups that organized the terror in Charlottesville and exposing them. The MAGA Right has never forgiven SPLC for its role in exposing and bringing the organizations and people responsible to justice. This is about revenge and retribution, plain and simple. Which is true of most of what the DOJ seems to do these days: abuse its power to punish political opponents.
Or as neoreactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin put it a few months ago:
“What’s cool is that I don’t really see a strong legal case that the SPLC shouldn’t be able to run these kinds of wacky black ops. That means DOJ is prosecuting the SPLC just because it (kind of) can. If so, this would be an unusual sign of “finally getting it.””
Solidarity is the only way forward. I stand with Heidi Beirich, and I encourage everyone to do the same. She has denied any wrongdoing through her lawyers, and I see no reason to believe the DOJ’s version is true or even grounded in reality. Even if you didn’t know Beirich or her work, you owe her a debt of gratitude. As her friend and colleague Eric K. Ward put it:
“Heidi was taking on organized bigotry long before “multiracial democracy,” “white nationalism,” “political violence” and “authoritarianism” became language people tossed into grant proposals. Long before most of progressive America, the racial justice field and liberal civil society were even willing to admit just how organized the threat had become…
…Her work exposed dangerous organizations, warned communities and protected people.”
The MAGA Right’s power comes from brute force. Ours can and should come from collective force. We can only win when we stand together. When we stop saying Please don’t let me be next and say Alright, try and make us. Heidi Beirich isn’t the Trump Regime’s first target, and she won’t be the last. If you’re as sick of this as I am, the best way to put a stop to it is to fight the urge to hide and instead stand strong and speak out.
ICYMI
Does AI Fight or Fuel Election Disinformation? (Brennan Center for Justice)
One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention (The Nation)
Separating AI’s Technological Problems From its Capitalism Problems (Tech Policy Press)
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Coda
I want to thank everyone, again, for your support and contributions, your love and solidarity, over the last week. Telling the internet you have cancer will trigger the world’s biggest vulnerability hangover, but I’m glad that I did. Y’all are the best people. Truly. My family and I appreciate you so much.
Talk to you again next week!
Thanks Melissa. Sharing this with friends who should be able to publish widely.