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The summer of 2017 was a hot one.

The weather was hot, I'm sure.

I can barely remember now.

In May, the editor of the Nazi website, The Daily

Stormer, declared that it would be the summer of hate. A month later, another article on the site

ended with a triumphant prediction. Expect a hot summer, and I'm not talking about the

thermometer.

The political temperature was rising rapidly.

It was the first summer of Donald Trump's first term as president, and all over the country,

right-wing extremists of all stripes were feeling bold.

The summer of hate culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer here in Charlottesville on August 12th, 2017. Perhaps because that day ended in a hate crime murder, the Unite the Right rally is often the only one of the dozens of violent hate-filled rallies that summer that most people still remember.

But they were happening all over the country in the months leading up to unite the right.

In Portland and Seattle, Patriot Prayer rallied for Trump for free speech and against communism.

In Berkeley, repeated rallies ostensibly for Trump or the concept of free speech,

became a training ground for a Nazi street fighting gang.

In cities all over the country, protests for or against Confederate monuments

were just a thin excuse for fascists spoiling for a fight.

Almost any given weekend that summer, somewhere in the country there was a contingent of

armed militiamen ambling around a public park, acting as self-appointed protest security.

Some of these rallies drew crowds of thousands and made the national news.

...