Far-Right Extremists Gaining Momentum in Upstate New York

Article by Computer Curry, TPT Staff Writer

In the last few years, right-wing extremists have recruited more and distributed more propaganda
posters in Upstate New York. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of the Polarization & Extremism Research
& Innovation Lab, said there’s been an increase in harassment and violence by extremists. In the North
Country Region, local, state, and even federal positions are being occupied by more Republicans.
These extremists have called for their supporters to “get involved” with the militia movement.
The Constitutional Sheriffs are a movement which teaches sheriffs not to observe laws which they
themselves deem as “unconstitutional” . They claim that local police should make the final decision in
enacting laws, not the federal government. Critics say this interpretation has “no grounding in any
legitimate reading of constitutional history.”

John Finn, a constitutional theory teacher at Wesleyan university, said that "In extreme right circles, the
Constitution is a deeply conservative document" that "serves as kind of a mirror to their own political
ideologies. It's a Constitution that enshrines a particular notion of who ‘We the People’ are — one that's
deeply Christian, deeply nationalist, deeply white."
Charles Pellien, the leader of a New York militia called the New York Watchmen, said that his
organization recruits "the military guys and former police officers, and we've got special forces
veterans. We've got several black belts in our group. We've got [mixed martial arts] fighters. We've got
championship boxers. So we're not just some ragtag bunch of guys out there that don't know what we're
doing.”

Experts say these far-right groups recruit people who feel that they had something “stolen from them”
and exploit rising tensions from wealth inequality. Joe Henderson, a professor who studies the far-
right, said that “people are correctly angry” at the disappearence of well-paying middle class jobs in
rural areas such as North Country. “What happens often when you have social disruption, cultural
disruption, economic disruption, is there's groups of people who look around for kind of some
authority. And they want someone to kind of ‘make it great again,’” said Henderson.

SOURCES:
Hirsch, Zach, and Emily Russell (2024, January 15). “Far-Right Extremism Is Thriving in Rural Areas.
Here’s What It Looks like in Upstate NY.” NCPR, 15 Jan. 2024,
www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/49046/20240115/far-right-extremism-is-thriving-in-
rural-areas-here-s-what-it-looks-like-in-upstate-ny.
Raleigh. (2020, October 22). Standing By: Right-Wing Militia Groups and the United States Election.
ACLED. https://acleddata.com/2020/10/21/standing-by-militias-election/