Morning Briefing: Trial Continues of Alleged Atomwaffen Division Propagandists 'Dark Foreigner'
On the third day of the trial of Patrick Gordon Macdonald, prosecutors played propaganda videos allegedly created by Macdonald that 'asked viewers to join Atomwaffen Division.'
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Morning Briefing: In Ottawa, Canada, government prosecutors played three videos which were allegedly “created in part by Patrick Gordon Macdonald, an alleged neo-Nazi terror propagandist who lives in the capital with his parents,” and the video reportedly “depicted people in skull masks and combat fatigues carrying firearms and flags, their faces covered and blurred.”
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), nonprofit organization that counters, monitors, and exposes far-right hate movements, groups, and figures, has been providing daily coverage of the trial. Follow CAHN’s coverage of the trial on Bluesky.
In Henrico County, Virginia, stickers promoting Patriot Front, the neo-fascist White Nationalist group, were reportedly “discovered posted on light poles outside the North Park Branch of the Henrico County Public Library,” and the “placement of the stickers, situated on the four light poles closest to the library’s entrance, seemed deliberate, though the exact timing of their installation remains unclear.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was appointed to the court in 2019 by then President Donald Trump, reportedly expressed his criticism during a hearing at “which he agreed to postpone a Capitol riot defendant's trial until after Trump returns to the White House in January,” and said “blanket pardons for all January 6 defendants or anything close would be beyond frustrating and disappointing.”
There are several Capitol Riot defendants that have asked “the courts to delay their cases until after Trump’s inauguration, expecting the incoming president to follow through on promises to pardon them,” and these include the 222 defendants that “have military backgrounds.”
An attorney representing Capitol Riot defendant Thomas Osborne, who allegedly “harbored a member of the Proud Boys extremist group while they were on the run,” reportedly failed to convince a judge to “postpone his federal trial after claiming a ‘high member’ of the future president’s administration had promised him a pardon.”
Must Reads
Tess Owen writes that “militias operating along the US–Mexico border plan to continue their vigilante operations once president-elect Donald Trump takes office, and some see themselves as acting in concert with military and federal agents to execute mass deportation plans. It’s unclear how this would work in practice, but Tim Foley, head of Arizona Border Recon, a “civilian patrol group” based out of Altar Valley that claims to disrupt smuggling and trafficking routes, tells WIRED he has been in contact with the incoming Trump administration and that he expects to be a valuable resource to them… Over the past two decades, vigilantes armed with guns and nativist rhetoric—and increasingly, with drones and high-tech trail cams—have acted with impunity, positioning themselves as authorities in borderlands in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, muddying the line between civilian and official, hunting down asylum seekers, and even taking groups of migrants “into custody” before handing them over to the feds. Earlier this month, two leaders of a militia were convicted on federal charges for plotting to hunt and kill migrants and federal border agents. And now, as Trump prepares to take office in January, Foley isn’t the only one in this space who sees a place for vigilantes on the border. Other paramilitary groups and civilians also hope that they’ll be welcome to assist in the enforcement of Trump’s hardline immigration policies.” [Wired]
Scott Coley writes that “in response to the election, a significant number of people on social media and elsewhere have expressed some form of this sentiment: a lot of voters are going to get what they asked for and learn some hard lessons about their own interests. While one can always hope, recent history shows that these lessons are likely to go unlearned. In fact, not only are these lessons unlikely to be learned, but without significant interventions, the myopathy of many middle- and working-class voters is only likely to grow more pronounced as we descend into what I call the fascist death spiral of right wing populism. Here’s how it works. Conservative politicians in the US perform a delicate balancing act favoring tax policies that benefit a few voters at the top of the economic scale, and opposing social programs that benefit the vast majority of voters in the middle- and working-class. Of course, in order to implement those policies conservatives must win elections. Political scientist Daniel Ziblatt calls this the ‘conservative dilemma’: how do conservatives recruit enough popular support to win elections while enacting policies that undermine the interests of most voters?” [Religion Dispatches]
James Factora writes that “the epidemic of fatal violence against transgender people in America continues apace, with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) recording at least 36 killings in the last 12 months in the United States. Half of those victims, including Honee Daniels, Kassim Omar, Redd, Vanity Williams, and more, were Black trans women. The organization, which has been tracking the murders of trans people since 2013, released its 2024 report on The Epidemic of Violence Against the Transgender & Gender-Expansive Community in the U.S. on Tuesday. The report accounts for deaths that occurred between the day after Trans Day of Remembrance 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023) and November 20, 2024. As HRC noted, an ‘overwhelming’ number of the victims in the past year were young people of color — more specifically, 75% of all victims were people of color and 54.3% were under the age of 35. The latter includes 14-year-old Pauly Likens, a trans girl who was killed and dismembered in her Pennsylvania hometown in June, and whom HRC says is the youngest person whose death the organization has recorded. Other young trans people who were killed include 18-year-old Jazzlyn Johnson and 17-year-old Tayy Dior Thomas.” [Them]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
