GRIID end of the year in Review: Part II – Monitoring the far right in West Michigan

The function of journalism should be to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable!

It’s time for our annual year in review, where we look at GRIID reporting on the far right in West Michigan, the Grand Rapids Power Structure, and our reporting on social movements in Grand Rapids. On Monday, we posted Part I of GRIID end of the year in Review: Monitoring the Local News Media. Today, we’ll take a look at the Far Right in West Michigan. 

The Far Right in West Michigan

The Far Right in West Michigan can be individuals, organizations and movements that seek to impose their ideological views on the rest of the public, often through propaganda, but sometimes using violence. The Far Right often has a relationship with the Grand Rapids Power Structure and sometimes these two groups overlap. GRIID has been monitoring the Far Right since 2009, but I have also been monitoring them since the 1990 in print media, on cable TV and in other online platforms.

GRIID has posted a few stories about police-apologist groups in Grand Rapids, with one being in January and a second post about the same pro-cop group that was promoting an anti-trans message.

In February, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was getting lots of coverage in the Grand Rapids news media around his criticism of Critical Race Theory in public schools, but none of these news agencies had reported on the Grand Rapids-based entities that are promoting the same reactionary nonsense about the same issue. GRIID made a post about several far right entities in GR that were using the same tired White Supremacist talking points against Critical Race Theory.

In July, GRIID posted a piece reminding people about the KKK marched with thousands in downtown Grand Rapids, with crowds cheering along the route.

In October, GRIID posted a piece after Ryan Kelley was sentenced to jail time for his involvement in the January 6th attempted insurrection in Washington, DC. However, the local coverage of Kelley’s sentencing pretty much ignored the fact that he was the founder of the far right group the American Patriot Council, the role that group played in opposing the stay at home policy in Michigan in 2020, the rallies they organized in Grand Rapids and Allendale, both of which featured area members of militia groups, some of which were connected to the plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer. 

However, the far right group that GRIID wrote about the most was the Acton Institute. I wrote 6 separate pieces about the far right think tank, all of which are listed below. In fact, I have been monitoring and writing about the Acton Institute pretty much since their founding in the early 1990s. The Acton Institute is one of those far right groups that is connected to and overlaps with the local Grand Rapids Power Structure, making them even more influential with the ideological propaganda. 

Acton Institute writer, who has no experience with tenants, landlords or property management companies believes that Christian landlords would be the best kind of landlords

Acton Institute writer claims that the Reagan Administration was the embodiment of the Sermon on the Mount phrase, Blessed are the Peacemakers, in new book review

Police collaborators and apologists: The Acton Institute provides a platform for iCI Nation to promote their agenda

The Acton Institute justifies the defeat of Affirmative Action and provides a platform for more anti-Black Lives Matter pontificating

3 white dudes with no labor organizing experience talk shit about the UAW strike: Acton Institute podcast and the celebration of greed

Henry Kissinger was not a war criminal, says the Acton Institute, and other far right claims