"In the Pacific Northwest, the group has defaced civil rights and Pride murals, and monuments and signs that promote equality, a tactic it employs nationally, according to the Counter Extremism Project, The Seattle Times reported."

"Others include Christopher Pohlhaus, who served four years in the Marine Corps before moving to Maine with the dream of somehow turning it into an all-white ethnostate. Pohlhaus accompanied NSC-131 at an October 2022 protest in Lewiston aimed at the city’s sizable Somali community. In one video, published by Pohlhaus on Telegram and captured by the New York-based Counter Extremism Project, the veteran — who had moved to Maine less than a year earlier — demands the East African immigrants — who have lived in Maine for decades — leave 'my state.'"

"'If their message is "white people are superior," the pool is smaller. So, they look for on-ramps to recruitment,' said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project....

Rural areas are seen as fertile ground for white nationalism. They tend to be more conservative, less trusting of government and white, said Fisher-Birch with the Counter Extremism Project.

'Maine is attractive for a number of different reasons. It has the largest percentage of people who identify only as white. That’s a big point for these groups,” he said. “But because it has many parts that are so rural, they see opportunity in building community, living off the land and off the grid.'"