It is a long drive from Seattle to Whitefish, Montana. Rise early in the short days of winter, squint through the windshield as the sun crests the ragged Cascade Mountains, check the rearview mirror as the sun sets behind Idaho’s arching Bitterroot Range, and still hours to go. Icy peaks. Snow-covered farmland. Freezing rivers. Frosted canyons. Repeat. Repeat again. By the most direct route—Interstate 90 plus a couple state highways—the distance is more than 530 miles. If you are headed into a problem, as I was, there is plenty of time to consider its nature.
The problem seemed to radiate outward from one man, Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who has admitted he takes “a sadistic pleasure” in getting under the skin of liberals. In late December, Spencer’s name became adhered in national news reports to Whitefish, the small, left-leaning ski town I was driving toward, a place where I have family and where Spencer lives part-time. As the snow tires rumbled on the highway beneath us, a neo-Nazi “troll army” was several days into attacking the Jewish people of Whitefish on Spencer’s behalf, based on a belief that some Whitefish Jews had recently tried to run Spencer and his mother out of town. Details about what actually happened between the town and the Spencers were in short supply, and, among the neo-Nazi troll brigades, anti-Semitism was in abundance.
