From left liberal to vicious troll, the making of an American Nazi

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Published: 28 December 2017

Last updated: 4 March 2024

IN 2016, TANYA GERSH answered her phone and heard a man’s voice: “This is how we can keep the Holocaust alive. We can bury you without touching you.”

When Gersh put down the phone, her hands were shaking. She was one of only about 100 Jews in Whitefish and the surrounding Flathead Valley, and she knew there were white nationalists and “sovereign citizens” in the area.

But Gersh had lived in Whitefish for more than 20 years, since just after college, and had always considered the scenic ski town an idyllic place. She didn’t even have a key to her house—she’d never felt the need to lock her door. Now that sense of security was about to be shattered.

The calls marked the start of a months-long campaign of harassment orchestrated by Andrew Anglin, the publisher of the world’s biggest neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer. He claimed that Gersh was trying to “extort” a property sale from Sherry Spencer, whose son, Richard Spencer, was another prominent white nationalist and the face of the so-called alt-right movement.

FULL STORY The Making of an American Nazi (The Atlantic)

Illustration: Tom Dilly Littleson