White nationalism on rise in California as Bay Area girds for rallies next weekend

OAKDALE — As the Central Valley’s flatlands give way to the rolling hills of California horse country, this quiet city that calls itself “the Cowboy Capital of the World” and features weekly rodeos seems but a blip on Highway 120, halfway between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.

But Oakdale, a city of about 22,000 people in Stanislaus County, is facing a new and frightening renown: A few miles from downtown, Nathan Damigo, one of the most prominent new white nationalist leaders in America, runs a group that helped organize last weekend’s bloody rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

From a five-acre compound on a winding road along the Stanislaus River, Damigo, a 31-year-old former Marine and ex-con, has launched Identity Evropa, which experts say is a growing hate group recruiting young people and college students. He also attends California State University, Stanislaus, in nearby Turlock, where students say he’s agitated on racial issues.

Ultra-blue California may seem to be the last place you’d find right-wing extremist group’s like Damigo’s. But experts say the Golden State is becoming a center of white nationalist activism, with more active hate groups than any other state.

“This is not getting better. It is getting worse,” said Brian Levin, a San Bernardino State University professor who studies extremist groups. “So many people are amped up. They are now emboldened.”

Oakdale residents interviewed this past week said they knew little about Damigo, who attended Liberty Baptist High School in San Jose, but they didn’t express surprise that the white nationalist movement had a presence in Oakdale, where Donald Trump won all five of the city’s precincts in November.


http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/19/white-nationalism-on-rise-in-california-as-bay-area-girds-for-rallies-next-weekend/