Redneck Revolt says it aims to protect minorities, promote social justice -- with guns

In a membership recruitment letter the group sends to potential members, it urges working-class white people to consider the minorities who work beside them and reflect on their shared interests.

The letter urges working-class white people to “look around” and wonder: “Who lives in the houses or trailers in the same neighborhoods as us? Who works next to us in the factories, or cooks alongside us at the restaurants?”

“It sure as hell isn’t rich white people,” the letter continues. “It’s Brown people, Black people, and other working-class white people. They are the ones that are in similar situations to us, living paycheck to paycheck, stretching to feed their families like we do. So why then would we view them as so different from us that we literally view them as our enemies?”

“Redneck Revolt believes that real working-class solidarity will come from working alongside each other in person and in our everyday lives, not in the sterile conversations of privilege in college classrooms, or in the phony hand-wringing of politicians,” the recruitment letter says.

Recruiters who work for Redneck Revolt show up at events and venues which may attract white working-class people, but which are typically associated with populist, white nationalist movements and causes: gun shows, firing ranges, state fairs, Nascar races, and cattle shows.

“We focus on counter-recruitment of other working-class people against white supremacist and white nationalist organizations, through direct outreach in places where working-class folks are already being targeted,” the group told Newsweek.

The Suffolk County branch
The Independent has just published a lengthy story on the Suffolk County, New York, branch of Redneck Revolt.

The Suffolk County branch was founded this April, as an offshoot of a leftist reading group at Stony Brook University. Many of the reading group members were Bernie Sanders supporters.

The first act of the branch was to start the community food garden, the yields of which they donated to a local school and the anti-violence organization Food Not Bombs. In an early-December meeting, the group planned how they would give back during the holiday season. They had already started organizing a drive to collect winter coats for the homeless. At this meeting, they decided to hand out the coats themselves, rather than giving them to a charity to distribute.

“Take the charity party out and put the solidarity in!” one member declared.

Members of Redneck Revolt also came to Charlottesville – and they came armed. Their presence at the rally made national news, including a Fox News headline warning: “The Left has gun-toting militias of its own.”

But Redneck Revolt claims it did not come to Charlottesville seeking confrontation. According to a blog post on the group’s website, Redneck Revolt members came to offer protection for the community and show opposition to white supremacy.

Redneck Revolt insists that the group should not be compared to another leftist militant group — the Anti-fa group. Members of Redneck Revolt explain the difference as mainly one of tactics: Anti-fa are willing to engage in property destruction, cover their faces in “black bloc,” and occasionally punch Nazis on the street.

“We don’t do that,” a member of Redneck Revolt said firmly. “We do everything within the law.”