How do you fight back when one of the world's most famous racists tries to take over your town? That was the question posed to residents of Leith, North Dakota, a sleepy Midwestern township with a population of 24. Leith's residents attempt to thwart a usurping of democracy when Craig Cobb, a prominent white supremacist, moves into the area and buys up land for affiliates of his white supremacist cause with plans to remove the town's local government by way of outnumbering its residents.
Directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K Walker offer no narration as they follow Cobb, his associate Kynan Dutton and the townspeople of Leith over the course of the conflict, combining interview footage with newsreels and phone video footage from the group's clashes. While the directors could easily have demonised Dutton and Cobb as outsiders worthy only of ignorance and scorn, we're instead offered the opportunity to learn their motives and understand what made them such virulent racists.
Welcome To Leith offers no fireworks, but it's a vital profile of a town in crisis. Extremist groups may be on the fringes, but the threat of domestic terrorism is more insidious than we imagine and, thanks to the internet, hate groups are more organised than ever. If Western society is going to deal with internal threats and domestic terrorists, it's vital we understand how and why people become this way and what we can do to fight it.
