Inside the Hate Groups That Rallied in Charlottesville - Part I: Christopher Cantwell

Photo: Evelyn Hockstein, Washington Post

Elle Reeve, Vice News Tonight correspondent, went behind the scenes with figures in the rising Nazi movement as they staged a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that left one woman dead and 19 people injured.

The harrowing footage shows the Friday evening rally at which participants chanted “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil,” explicitly reminiscent of Nazi slogans shouted in support of the Third Reich in 1930’s Germany.

One leader of a group of attendees, Christopher Cantwell, stated that he became a racial activist as a result of the deaths of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center lists him as an “unapologetic fascist” who hosts a live-streamed Internet show and advocates the formation of a white state.

Since the rally Cantwell, who lives in New Hampshire and is a former drug dealer, has been charged with unspecified crimes in Charlottesville. The Washington Post reports that he has obtained a lawyer, and planned to turn himself in as of Thursday, August 17.
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Reeve, in an interview with WBUR Boston’s radio show Here and Now,  points out that the men she spoke with are preoccupied with sex:

"I think something people are reluctant to point out is how focused this movement is on sex, particularly white women, who gets to have sex with white women. They think that the media inundates people with messages that women should sleep with minorities instead of white men, that white men are goofy, are doofuses. There's this sitcom dad stereotype of the hapless white male. And so, they're very focused on reproduction and creating more Aryan babies."

She explains that the leaders of the white supremacy movement want to appear mainstream:

“[It’s] an intentional strategy, they want to look like successful, good-looking, fit people, they have told me that explicitly. I think it's really important to show exactly what they believe, that this is not just being anti-[politically correct], or angering the scolding, liberal, feminist teachers. They believe really terrible things, and in order to fight their arguments, we have to know what they are."

After the weekend in Charlottesville, Cantwell posted a video of himself tearfully explaining that he had heard there was a warrant out for his arrest. The video is included in the Washington Post article. 

The Here and Now interview with Elle Reeve, the journalist who followed Christopher Cantwell’s group as they attended the Charlottesville rally, can be found here.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/08/17/vice-reporter-charlottesville-rally

The Vice video, “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” can be found here.
https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror

The Washington Post article about the aftermath of Cantwell’s participation in the events at Charlottesville can be found here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/08/18/the-rise-and-humiliating-fall-of-charlottesvilles-starring-fascist/?utm_term=.154349b9e1d1

The profile of Christopher Cantwell from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which provides additional background about Cantwell’s violent history, can be found here.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/christopher-cantwell