The mourning people for the murder of Charlie Kirk carried American candles and flags in a solemn monument last week at the Huntington Beach dock, for a long time a destination for conservative meetings that go from protests on locks of the pandemic era to demonstrations in support of President Trump.
But on tonight, things took a dark turn when dozens of men joined the crowd, singing, “White men defend themselves.”
Then, on Saturday, a white nationalist organization, identified by experts as Patriot Front, appeared in another monument to the beach for Kirk. The men, with caquis, navy blue shirts and white poles that hid their faces, marched down the main street towards the beach holding a photo of Kirk. “Say your name!” They shouted. “Recover our world! Recover our land!”
For Sunday, key political leaders in the conservative city of Orange County known as a seedbed for the Maga Movement were fighting to contain the situation, issuing a statement denouncing violence. Kirk's murder, the City Council said: “It serves as a marked reminder of the devastating results that can result from vitriol and violent rhetoric.”
“The contempt,” said Councilor Butch Twining on the White Nationalists who interrupted the vigil. “There is no place for them here, and they dislike.”
Huntington Beach is one of the many communities that deal with the sequels of Kirk's shooting, a beloved activist in the conservative movement and the nearby ally of President Trump.
Since their murder, conservatives have demanded the dismissal of people who published online comments about Kirk who considered offensive. There have been debates about lowering the flags to the personal average. An American congressman is asking his colleagues to force social media platforms to start users who celebrated the murder. Vice President JD Vance encouraged people to take another step: “They call them and demons, call his employer.”
Huntington Beach is in a unique position due to its history of marginal white supremacist activity that dates back to decades.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Skinheads converged in Main Street throwing Nazis and intimidating greetings of the people of color. In 1995, a pair of white supremacists triggered a black man fatally after facing him outside a McDonald's restaurant in Beach Boulevard.
Huntington Beach leaders have fought to free the city of that image and tried to make it clear that hatred is not welcome in Surf City. But the events of the last week have made these efforts more difficult.
“Usually, when there is an opportunity like this, white supremacists and the people of the extreme right in general are very good to insert themselves and see it as an opportunity to attract things in their direction and change the narrative,” said Pete Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University in Orange County, who studies extremist groups.
This is happening since Huntington Beach has become a west lighthouse for Trump and Maga. The city has reached the headlines in recent years to eliminate the flag of the pride of the properties of the city, rewrite a resolution of human dignity of decades, eliminating any mention of intolerance to the crimes of hate, and dating the struggles with state officials on issues such as the privacy of transgender students.
Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and Professor Emeritus in Cal State of San Bernardino, said that the United States is witnessing not only the polarization between the left and the right, but an splinter both inside the left and to the right. And that polarization, he said, is being exploited by extremist groups that seek to advance in a certain message.
“The notion that these camps are unified teams are simply not true,” said Levin. “I think what is happening is that we are seeing the exploitation of the civic discourse of people who try to overcome others as more authentic and how they do is be more eliminating and more aggressive. The aggression and being an edgelord is considered currency. “
Barbara Richardson, who has lived in the city since the early 1970s, criticized the city leaders for extending the period of mourning for Kirk, the flying flags at the height of September 21, the day of their commemorative service, saying that it will only contribute to the ascending tensions in the city.
During the weekend, Richardson saw the videos of the white supremacists who sang in the center with horror. The moment was an unpleasant reminder of which residents dealt decades ago.
“It's discouraging,” Richardson said. “I think what happened in the demonstrations of Charlie Kirk was a real black eye for Huntington Beach and tourism hurts. He did not want to go to the center. I remember the city in the 1980s and scared. I didn't want to be close to Skinheads so I don't do it yet.”
The memorials last week were for Kirk and Iryna Zarustka, the woman killed while traveling on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a brutal attack captured in video.
Twining attended the event on Wednesday and was disturbed by what he heard from white supremacists. He said he left quickly after they arrived and began to sing.
“They ruined a perfectly pleasant vigil where we recognized two people: Iryna [Zarustka] And Charlie, and prayed for them and sang an incredible grace and had our own conversations about how much they meant for us, ”he said.
He and others have emphasized that the vast majority of those who attended the vigils were simply there to cry.
Twining said that he and his wife have been approached in a restaurant and in the grocery store for their presence in vigil and the incorrect assumption that supports white nationalists. There have been called to resign and even received death threats that have justified police protection, he said.
“I reject the presence of hate groups aloud and unequivocal,” Twining said. “Their attempts to corrupt our democratic spaces will not succeed. As a leader in this community, I will not allow my voice to twist for extremism. I remain committed to preserving inclusive, respectful and peaceful spaces where dialogue and memory can flourish without delaying hate.”
Videos of the Saturday meetings program Some attendees agitate flags associated with Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the deadly rally “join the right” in Charlottesville, Va.
“They were intentionally generated to try to distance themselves from that violence and present themselves as Pro -American,” Simi said. However, Simi said, the group has also been accused of racial violence. In 2022, the Patriot Front was sued for a racist attack against a black musician in Boston and ordered to pay $ 2.75 million in damages.
On Saturday in Huntington Beach, resident Jerry Geyer rode his bicycle in the city center watching while the group marched to the spring singing and decided to go back. He placed his bicycle on the sidewalk in front of them in an effort to block their way. He rode beside him, shouting expletives.
“I can't allow that to run through the streets of Huntington Beach,” he said in an interview with Kcal News. “That is not what we are. That is not who is Huntington Beach.”
