![THE INFILTRATORS](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1724049536/articles/LFyVB9Wcd1724155206120/THE-INFILTRATORS.jpg)
Colton Brown, who lived with his father and stepmother in a single-story house outside Seattle, earned about fifty thousand dollars a year as an assistant electrician—but his real passion was fascism. In recordings of his private conversations, he argued that an “international cabal” of “hook-nosed bankers” was conspiring to replace white Americans like him with people of non-European descent, and he expressed alarm that the U.S. population would soon be less than half “ethnic American.” This so-called “great replacement” may have felt personal: his stepmother was Vietnamese. Brown, who has blue eyes and short, wavy blond hair, wore clothing with Nazi iconography, believed that white people deserved their own ethnostate, and told his dad that other races could “go to hell.”
In 2021, when Brown was twenty-two, he became a regional director of Patriot Front—one of the most active of the white-nationalist, neo-fascist, and anti-government organizations that academic researchers collectively characterize as the modern far right. (Such groups lie beyond even the fringes of the Republican Party.) Patriot Front’s leaders routinely summoned members to travel across the country, on short notice, for demonstrations: hundreds of young white men marched in identical uniforms, with protective helmets disguised as baseball caps, and neck gaiters pulled over their faces. At some rallies, Brown shouldered one of the tall metal shields that Patriot Front members were trained to use in street battles. The members frequently marched through racially diverse neighborhoods, almost baiting residents into fights (while maintaining that marchers would never throw a first punch).
This story is from the August 26, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the August 26, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
![Drug of Choice - The natural world contains many billions of potential medications. The question is how to find the ones that work.](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/4g3NsKO7n1725344270057/crp_medicine-AI-antibiotics-medicines-drugs-origins-drugs-from-Dirt-aloe-vera-morphine-codeine-Ozempic-sources-of-medicine-microbes-medicine-history-Jan-Burian-technology-bacterias-DNA-Robert-Boer-chemical-hardware.jpg)
Drug of Choice - The natural world contains many billions of potential medications. The question is how to find the ones that work.
AI. is transforming the way medicines are made. Bacteria produce numerous molecules that could become medicines, but most of them aren’t easily identified or synthesized with the technology that exists today. A small percentage of them, however, can be constructed by following instructions in the bacteria’s DNA. Burian helped me search the sequence for genes that looked familiar enough to be understandable but unfamiliar enough to produce novel compounds. We settled on a string of DNA that coded for seven linked amino acids, the same number found in vancomycin. Then Burian introduced me to Robert Boer, a synthetic chemist who would help me conjure our drug candidate.
![Screams from a Marriage](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/3zRgYYnN-1725881148238/SCREAMS-FROM-A-MARRIAGE.jpg)
Screams from a Marriage
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
![Fly with Me](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/dYeQQzK6j1725880676447/FLY-WITH-ME.jpg)
Fly with Me
The children’s books of Katherine Rundell.
![The Mystery of Pain](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/e8e1WRybK1725879059454/THE-MYSTERY-OF-PAIN.jpg)
The Mystery of Pain
Garth Greenwell’s novel of extreme affliction and ordinary happiness.
![The Show Must Go On](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/8Ifks8k251725878208364/THE-SHOW-MUST-GO-ON.jpg)
The Show Must Go On
What if Ronald Reagan’ Presidency never really ended?
![LAST COFFEEHOUSE ON TRAVIS](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/2arIF1NQM1725877039050/LAST-COFFEEHOUSE-ON-TRAVIS.jpg)
LAST COFFEEHOUSE ON TRAVIS
For a few months, I stayed with my aunt's friend in Midtown, back when she could still afford to live there.
![Tales from the New World](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/FUEtmPGZg1725876059710/TALES-FROM-THE-NEW-WORLD.jpg)
Tales from the New World
The novelist Richard Powers considers our changing earth.
![Land of the Flea](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/xk--ld-TU1725873820810/LAND-OF-THE-FLEA.jpg)
Land of the Flea
What America 1s buying and selling.
![The Dark Time](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/V6UjUCdK01725867416552/THE-DARK-TIME.jpg)
The Dark Time
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
![The Post-Moral Age](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1826433/6J5KQks7M1725866971231/THE-POSTMORAL-AGE.jpg)
The Post-Moral Age
If conscience is merely a biological artifact, must we give up on goodness?