Vegas Tenold

“Ultimately, I believe that the far right in America, at least the incarnation I spent years covering, is destined to fail. Not because America is inherently good and that the forces of justice and progress are always stronger than those of intolerance and hatred, but because white supremacy is doing just fine without the far right. The country has spent decades perfecting an ostensibly nonracial form of white supremacy, and it is serving with remarkable efficiency. Private prisons, mandatory sentencing, seemingly unchecked police power, gerrymandering, increasingly limited access to healthcare and abortion—these are all tendrils in an ingenious web designed to keep people poor and powerless. Yes, white people were caught in that web too, but when it comes to those experiencing poverty, African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos vastly outnumber whites. The people Matthew was ostensibly fighting for—the broken, beaten, and forgotten whites of Appalachia and the Rust Belt—weren’t victims in a war against white people but rather collateral damage in a war against poor people and minorities. I believe Matthew was right when he said that the elites and politicians hate his people, but they don’t hate them because they’re white; they hate them because they’re poor.”
― Vegas Tenold, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America

“More than any political issue, the alt-right treasured their right to be infinitely offensive, preferably toward women or minorities, always under the banner of free speech, and with Trump as their candidate, the malcontents of the world had someone championing their right to be abusive.”
― Vegas Tenold, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America