Remember this guy?
Among the litany of militias, alt-right cosplayers and outright neo-Nazis we detailed in our call for Chief Meidl to denounce White Supremacy, we sorta played this racist twerp for comic relief.
And can you blame us? What a goofball.
But with right-wing terror on the rise and the brutal murder of a federal agent in Oakland to their name, it’s time to take a deeper look at the dudes in the Hawaiian shirts, the gun-loving, cop-hating Boogaloo Bois.
Extremism takes a lot of forms, and the Boogaloo is no exception. There’s seemingly room for a lot of different viewpoints on things like race — from genocidal white supremacy to ostensible anti-racism — underneath the Big Igloo, so long as you A) love guns and B) hate cops. Bonus points if you C) want to actively foment a second civil as a means of toppling society.
To help us wrap our heads around the movement, RANGE went out and snagged our biggest interview yet. How big? I’m just going to quote her bio in the New York frickin Times:
Leah Sottile is a writer based in Oregon whose work focuses on extremist ideologies, the anti-government movement and fringe cultures. She is the host and reporter for the podcast “Bundyville,” which has been nominated twice for a National Magazine Award.
While she’s back in Oregon now, Leah lived in Spokane on and off for a good chunk of her life, so not only does she have a holistic sense of the sweep of right-wing terror, she can talk with precision about what’s happening here in the Inland Northwest.
I can’t think of anyone better to help look at the Boogaloo specifically and extremism more generally, both taking the national view and pulling some of the local threads.
I should have outlined it better in my episode intro, but I’ll do it now: Bundyville is an absolutely essential look at extremism in the West and season two drills down specifically into our little nook of the Inland Northwest.
Excited for you to hear this interview and grateful to Leah for carving two hours out of her busy schedule to hang out.
SUPPLEMENTS
- Inside the Boogaloo — Leah’s story for NYT Mag
- Bundyville seasons 1 & 2 — absolute required listening
GOOFS
