Montana Ski Town Roiled by White Supremacist ‘troll Army’

The email to a group that promotes diversity in northwestern Montana warned that white supremacists would encircle the advocacy organization's office and end with someone "swinging by a rope from the nearest lamp post.""Those days are not far off Jew," wrote the author, identified only as Rudolf, to the group Love Lives Here in the Flathead Valley. "It's best you leave now while you can."The ski resort town of Whitefish, 6,600 people strong in a valley just west of Glacier National Park about 60 miles from the Canadian border, is an unlikely flashpoint between white supremacist groups and residents trying to preserve the town's reputation as a welcoming vacation destination.But white supremacists have also been drawn or actively recruited over the years to the libertarian-leaning Flathead Valley in their search of a haven where they can preach and practice their views unmolested. Richard Spencer, one of the leaders of the so-called "alt-right" movement, an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism, is a part-time resident and his National Policy Institute is headquartered there.  Continue reading...