White nationalist leaders gathered in Rome, Italy, this year to map out how they could exploit America’s collapsing local news industry, openly celebrating the death of community journalism as a golden opportunity to organize unchecked in rural areas.
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Phil Williams, a legendary local reporter from Nashville, reported the development for the Confront the Hate Substack.
At an invitation-only retreat hosted by white nationalist publisher Counter Currents inside the Rome headquarters of an Italian neo-fascist group, propagandist Kevin DeAnna told roughly 50 attendees that vanishing local newsrooms mean there’s essentially no one left to hold local governments accountable.
“You should be fantasizing about this. This is a good thing,” DeAnna said.
For years, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups have been trying to recruit around the country, often hobbled as local news puts a spotlight on their efforts.
DeAnna, who has previously written under pseudonyms promoting a white ethnostate, argued rural voters offer the best return on minimal investment, framing them as angry, radical, and politically neglected. He pushed attendees to target county sheriff races specifically, embracing the widely debunked “constitutional sheriffs” theory that county sheriffs can override federal and state law, and claiming a small, organized team could flip entire counties with real law enforcement power behind them.
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“If you want to get the most bang for your buck, activate Rural America, because that’s where the white people are,” said DeAnna in footage that recently became available online.
The gathering doubled as a fundraising pitch session aimed at wealthy donors. Jared Taylor, who runs the American Renaissance website, proposed recruiting a sympathetic billionaire to bankroll the broader movement the way George Soros funds progressive causes. Attorney and former neo-Nazi David Zsutty separately pitched funding lawsuits designed to financially exhaust ideological opponents regardless of the case’s merits.
According to Northwestern University’s Medill School, the ongoing collapse of local newspapers has created 213 “news deserts” nationwide, a vacuum watchdog groups warn extremist networks are increasingly exploiting to organize without scrutiny.
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It remains unclear who financially backed the Rome retreat itself.
