For many Americans, the emergence of white nationalism on the national stage has been shocking. But for people who have been paying attention to such matters for decades, what has happened in Charlottesville and beyond is not only unsurprising, it’s something that could easily happen here in the Pacific Northwest—the site of some of the most organized white nationalist movements in US history.
Beginning in the late 1970s, an idea known as the Northwest Territorial Imperative encouraged members of white-supremacist groups nationwide to move to a five-state area (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and Western Montana) in the hopes of one day declaring this region an Aryan homeland.