Alexander Reid Ross

Ross published the book Against the Fascist Creep in 2017.[2] In it, Ross defines the phenomenon and term "fascist creep", "the crossover space between right and left" through which "at least in its early stages, fascists often utilize 'broad front' strategies...to gain access to mainstream political audiences." This can take the appearance of individuals who attempt to position themselves as outside of political divides.[3] In practice, this takes the form of rightwing movements appropriating the language of the left,[4] such as attempts by the right to infiltrate the radical environmentalist factions of the left.[5] The book also describes how the right weaponizes detached irony to break taboos against far-right politics.[6]

Ross began collecting cases in which far-right actors and vigilantes appeared at demonstrations and similar events starting on May 27, 2020.[9] Using this data, he developed an interactive map of the United States describing events and metadata such as involved groups. By early September, Ross had accumulated over 500 such incidents.[10] By mid-October, he had accumulated over 800 incidents. Approximately 90% of the data is sourced from social media and news outlets. The remainder comes from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a non-partisan, international political violence tracking group. Ross categorizes over 400 of the events as beyond harassment or intimidation. Ross found that, though vigilante-style attacks and threats had fallen since summer, the proportion of gun violence and vehicular attacks increased. Though demonstrations and violence at demonstrations were both decreasing, the severity of attacks was increasing, Ross found. The project has been praised by the research director at ACLED, and Heidi Beirich.[9]

In 2018, Ross published an article title "The Multipolar Spin: how fascists operationalize left-wing resentment" in the Southern Poverty Law Center's blog Hatewatch. The article was retracted the next day and the SPLC issued an apology to some of those named in the article.[11] Reasons for its removal remain unclear. The article described links from members and media of the far-right and the Russian sphere of influence to those the left. A major figure discussed was Max Blumenthal, a former AlterNet editor whom Ross argues used the guise of anti-imperialism to align with Russian and Syrian interests. Blumenthal strenuously opposed these statements.[12]

The article was the third in a series. The first two titles were "The Internet Research Agency: behind the shadowy network that meddled in the 2016 Elections" and "The far-right influence in pro-Kremlin media and political networks". After the retraction of the third entry, the first two were also removed.[13]

• Protest incident map