“If you’re not anti-fascist, you’re either fascist or you’re just ok with fascists. I’d prefer to follow in the footsteps of my forefathers who fought fascism.”
That statement defines Kristofer Goldsmith’s current mission in life.
An Iraq War veteran, Kris founded Task Force Butler, an organization that “trains veterans in research and operations to counter extremism, teaching the skills and context necessary to keep veterans and their communities safe as they gather intelligence on dangerous individuals and organizations.”
And he is unequivocal in his insistence that fascist groups like Patriot Front, the Active Club movement and other far-right extremists cannot be ignored.
“People who believe that if you ignore them, then they’ll go away, should look at history and look at what unbridled and unopposed hate can do—because it’s not just Germany in the 1930s,” he told me.
“This has happened several times throughout human history where othering people has enabled not just the extremes like genocide, but things like Jim Crow laws in our own country, right?”
Kris continued, “Hate and dehumanization of the other can cause mass human suffering, and it has happened here. That is part of the history of the United States, and we have not as a nation come to terms with it.”
His goal—and the goal of Task Force Butler—is to expose such extremists and make it more difficult for them to harm others.
“People who get involved in white supremacy always, always, always get cocky—they always do,” Kris insisted. “They always do something that will lead to evidence existing in the public domain that allows us to track them down, to figure out who they are and hold them accountable.”
