Nashville struggles to separate the neo-Nazis from the tourists

Among the throngs of tourists in cowboy attire who flock to Nashville’s famed downtown honky-tonks, a small but unsettling group has distracted locals and visitors from the neon lights lately with Nazi salutes and white supremacist rhetoric.

For weeks, neo-Nazis have livestreamed antisemitic antics for shock value in Nashville — waving swastika flags through crowded streets, singing hate songs on the downtown courthouse steps and even briefly disrupting a Metro Council meeting with jeers.

Their continued presence has sparked hard questions about why Music City is attracting groups amplifying Nazi beliefs and what, if anything, can help stop them.

“What’s significant is that so many of groups feel so emboldened,” said Jon Lewis, a George Washington University Program on Extremism research fellow. “They’re a symptom of the broader disease that is mainstreaming.”

Elsewhere in the country, white supremacist groups have made similar — but often isolated — appearances this year. Some have rallied at the South Dakota Capitol, rented billboards in the Detroit area to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday and projected a swastika on a dorm at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

But in Nashville, the groups have stuck around, peppering neighborhoods with propaganda leaflets. Dozens of masked white nationalists marched through downtown early this month, and Republican Gov. Bill Lee condemned the group for its antisemitic views. The uptick in activity comes after Neo-Nazis also marched downtown in February.

Rabbi Dan Horwitz, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville, said the city is an amazing place for the Jewish community, and a unity rally Sunday drew hundreds of supporters. Yet part of the reason neo-Nazis have picked Nashville could simply be its draw for tourists, he said.

“I’m not surprised that white supremacists would also say, ’Hey, this seems like a great fun place that we can go and meet up and get to do our honky-tonking at night,’” Horwitz said.

Nashville’s touristy attraction may be a factor, but the state’s embrace of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant…