Dave Davies

He argues that America is seeing a nationwide surge in violent bigotry and white supremacy unlike anything since the bloodiest days of the civil rights movement, often spurred on by incendiary racial rhetoric from Donald Trump.

Lischblau writes about young men who follow neo-Nazi organizations and in some cases commit horrendous crimes, including the brutal murder of a young gay Jewish man in Orange County, a central focus of his book.

Eric Lischblau is a Washington-based journalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who spent years working for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.

He's written three previous books, including the bestseller The Nazis Next Door.

His latest book is American Reich, a murder in Orange County, neo-Nazis, and a new age of hate.

Well, Eric Lischblau, welcome back to Fresh Air.

You know, a lot of the troubling incidents of white supremacist violence that you recount in this book were reported at the time.

What made you decide there was a broader story here you wanted to tell?

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, you know, a lot of people would assume that people in the January 6th assault on the Capitol would have come from Trump's bases of support.

But there was the study that showed actually it was places often where Biden had won, where whites were shrinking in number, one of them Orange County, California.

Tell us about it, what it was traditionally known for, how it's changed.

One of the interesting things that you write about is the white power music scene.

Tell us about that and how it fed this movement.

Wade was the bass player.

Not the police officer.

You know, it was striking as I read through the book.

I began to keep a list of nationally known hate crimes which had an Orange County connection.

You mentioned the attack at the Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee.

Yes.

Another one was the horrific attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.