'It's not a story that's over': inside the battle against hatred in America

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/28/secret-war-against-hate-book-nazi-groups-us

‘It’s not a story that’s over’: inside the battle against hatred in America

In The Secret War Against Hate, Pulitzer-prize finalist Steven J Ross looks back at those who infiltrated and prevented hate groups in the US

Martin Pengelly
Tue 28 Apr 2026 07.00 EDT

Steven J Ross’s new book, The Secret War Against Hate, is a sequel of sorts to Hitler in Los Angeles, his bestselling Pulitzer-prize finalist from 2018. That book told the story of Leon Lewis, a Jewish attorney, and others in the 1930s who foiled Nazi attempts to cause havoc in the City of Dreams. Now Ross looks south and east, to Atlanta and New York after the second world war, where activists and agents worked to infiltrate and defeat new Nazi groups.

…

“There are two levels. There’s the actual physical threat. Jesse Stoner is the most important [Nazi leader] in terms of violence, in terms of bombing churches, synagogues. But the other thing people don’t understand is that fear is enough. To make you afraid to go into your church or synagogue, to a Jewish community center, to a Catholic school, because somebody might bomb it. If somebody calls you the N-word, that might be the last thing you hear in your life. Living a life in fear is an assault on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the far right have won on that front, because over the years they have made people scared shitless.” Ross worked on his book amid a resurgence of that far right, Donald Trump propelled into power, out of it and back again with extremist support. Some historians are reluctant to draw parallels between their work and the present, to answer the age-old question: what does your work tell us about today? Not Ross.

…

“There’s a continuity I was able to trace from the Nazi groups of the 1940s and 50s into the militia movement,” he said. “Once they realize they can’t change American politics in one fell swoop they isolate themselves. If they can’t isolate Blacks and Jews, they go up to Lake Hayden [in Idaho] and create the Aryan Nations, and then those people go on and create other militias, and those militias in turn create other militias till we get to the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers. As I write, my subjects are the grandparents, the parents of those people. The people who began the fight, and they’re now continuing it. That’s probably the most critical part of the story. It’s not a story that’s over.”

To such groups, Ross contends, Trump is a “führer of convenience”, a vehicle for power, the same quality that allows evangelical Christians and establishment Republicans to back him. Trump “represents the interests” of the far right, Ross said. “They know he’s not a true believer but he talks as though they’re the great ones. So if this is who helps unite you and everyone can rally around a single figure who’s now in the White House, all the better.”

… more …

(Obvious why fbi going after splc)

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-secret-war-against-hate-american-resistance-to-antisemitism-and-white-supremacy-steven-j-ross/17c5352793609847

The Secret War Against Hate
American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Steven J. Ross
(Author)

[multigraincracker]

1. Too bad everyone isn't blind.

[txwhitedove]

2. Wow. Trump is a "fuhrer of convenience". Many books now showing

similarities in lead up to WWII. This one is definitely on my list now. Thanks.