Neo-Nazi Blogger Raises Staggering Sum After Launching Harassment Campaign Against Jewish Woman

More than $150,000 has been raised to cover the legal costs of the internet's most infamous neo-Nazi blogger, currently being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center for instigating a "harassment campaign” against a Jewish woman.

The money was contributed by supporters of Andrew Anglin, the man behind the Daily Stormer, a site dedicated to all things white power. Donors made their contributions via a right-wing crowdfunding platform called WeSearchr, which is sort of like a pro-hate-speech version of GoFundMe or Kickstarter.

According to the SPLC, Anglin encouraged readers to harass Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent in Whitefish, Montana. In a post on the Daily Stormer site, Anglin reportedly accused Gersh of trying to extort money from Sherry Spencer, who is the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer. The headline of the blog post, "Jews Targeting Richard Spencer’s Mother for Harassment and Extortion – TAKE ACTION!" was reportedly followed by a message from Anglin reading, “Let’s Hit Em Up. Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm? Because AYO—it’s time, fam.”  

Buzzfeed details some of the vitriol directed at Gersh in more than 700 individual attacks that followed. According to court papers, the abusive messages included emails stating, “Merry Christmas, you Christ killing Jew” and another that included the words “Death to Tanya” 100 times. “You should have died in the Holocaust with the rest of your people” a caller to Gersh’s home told her. A tweet directed at her 12-year-old son included a picture of an oven alongside the message, “psst kid, there’s a free Xbox One inside the oven.”

Aside from the court battle that awaits, the SPLC faces an additional challenge with its lawsuit: actually finding Anglin. The organization describes Anglin as currently being “in hiding,” making it impossible to serve him with court papers. SPLC president Richard Cohen told Buzzfeed that a process server has been dispatched “multiple times to multiple locations” to find Anglin, but hasn’t yet come across him.  

“In at least one place in Ohio [our process server] heard voices inside,” Cohen told Buzzfeed, “but when he knocked nobody came to the door.”

A post on the Daily Stormer site links to the WeSearchr fundraising campaign. The headline on the entry reads, “SPLC is Suing Anglin! Donate Now to Stop These Kikes.”

WeSearchr is brought to you by Chuck C. Johnson, a right-wing blogger who Jezebel notes has previously “claimed that both President Obama and Emmanuel Macron are gay," wrongly identified the woman he thought was ‘Jackie’ of the UVA scandal, and has demonstrated what Forbes called an overall "disregard for facts." Johnson is perhaps best known for getting banned from Twitter for collecting funds to “take out” Black Lives Matter activist Deray McKesson.

In January, Forbes reported that Johnson was helping Donald Trump’s transition team “recommend, vet and give something of a seal of approval to potential [cabinet] nominees.”