Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town

In February 2020, white nationalist group VDARE purchased a $1.4 million castle in the historic West Virginia town of Berkeley Springs, touching off a dramatic fracturing of the community’s social fabric that journalist Hayden explores in his resonant and troubling debut investigation. The author first arrived in town as a reporter specializing in far-right hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Drawing on four years of on-the-ground reporting, he details the residents’ responses to VDARE. While some quietly embraced its presence, others came to see it as an almost mythic antagonist. This divergence pitted neighbor against neighbor, culminating in the creation of an anonymous website, Berkeley Springs Castle Watchers, that maintains a list of “collaborators.” Hayden juxtaposes the rupture of Berkeley Springs with the deterioration of his own mental health, brought on by the stress of death threats and doxxing by the far right, as well as upheaval within the SPLC. He also shows how VDARE’s presence seemed to inflame issues it didn’t directly touch—such as the “fissure... that deepened over time” between two business-owning families over a Pride flag—and how easily these gripes escalated into violence, as in the case of a man arrested for threatening to kill BLM protestors in response to rumors that “antifa soldiers” were coming to town. It’s a captivating, unsettling up-close look at America’s increasingly vicious partisan split. (Apr.)