Nazi from p 19 Gulett did not respond to multiple interview requests, however. Long a formidable neo-Nazi group, the Aryan Nations Knights were “homeless, split, accused of blackmail, and in jeopardy of irrelevance” in 2019, before relocating to Arizona, the U.S. Department of Justice said. While the KKK and Nazis are not synonymous, those ideologies overlap with the Aryan Nations Knights. The group praises Adolf Hitler’s ideas and politics, leading it to “throw off several traditional Klan symbols,” according to its recruitment website. The Nazi flag replaces the traditional Klan insignia, for instance. Love of Nazism distinguishes Aryan Nations members from other Klansmen. The Klan has been ousted from its home again and again over the decades, crippled by lawsuits, internal tumult, and the evolving nature of alt-right extremism. The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI have called Aryan Nations a domestic terrorism group. The Aryan Nations Knights set up their latest global headquarters in 2020, using a modest Glendale apartment to sell hateful CDs. Long after abandoning an amply funded, militarized compound in the Idaho Panhandle, leaders thought Arizona would be an ideal place to recruit new members. “I used to live in Glendale, and a lot of our kindred are here,” Miner said. He added that he now leads the national group after Gulett retired, and that it relocated to Arizona ealier. Neither claim could be independently confirmed. Experts are not surprised the group came here. “There are states that emerge as havens for hate crime by the kind of hot button issues that can be exploited,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino. “Arizona is the perfect place.” Riding the U.S.-Mexico border, and controlled by Republicans — many of whom peddle extremist conspiracy theories themselves — Arizona was an attractive destination for the Aryan Nations Knights, Levin said. The group’s mission is as ambitious as it is vicious: to resegregate America and exterminate non-Aryans, primarily Jewish people, along the way. “It is sad that radicalized individuals feel the need to join small extremist groups like this,” said Paul Rockower, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix. “Hate is a powerful drug,” he added. The trappings of the KKK, the flowing white robes, pointed hoods, and the Blood Drop Cross, are vestiges of the past. They no longer represent the new face of alt-right extremism. Other groups, with overlapping messages, are in the ascendancy. But the Aryan Nations Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are evolving with the times. So You Want to Be a Klansman? If you dial the Nazi group’s West Valley phone number, you may think you reached a record store. It’s really the living room of that What are your feelinga about Jews? The Klan’s membership application questionnaire. Glendale apartment on 80th Avenue — the new world headquarters for the group that once staked claim to an Idaho fortress on 20 acres of alpine forest. The residential address is also listed on the website of Black Metal Cult Records, a National Socialist “hate music” group associated with Aryan Nations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group might be short on >> p 23 21 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES APRIL 7TH– APRIL 13TH, 2022
