I just finished re-reading The Brigade. I read it last year and I wanted to write up a summary but I felt reading it again was in order. Spoilers are ahead.
It is presented in part real time, part historical perspective of the War of Independence for the Northwest American Republic, a Caucasian ethno-state locate in the former states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and part of Montana. However the book primarily focuses on events in Oregon. The events start several months of the 10/22 event which the local child protective services came along to take children from a white nationalist and several of his neighbors decided enough was enough and they killed the CPS workers. This lead to a serious crackdown on white nationalists countrywide. Of course the President is Hillary Clinton, followed by Chelsea later in the book.
The book focuses on a series of characters. Two major and several minor. Zach Hatfield and Kicky McGee get well over the first half of the book with how they ended up involved with Northwest Volunteer Army (NVA) through the course of their lives. Hatfield kills the former wife and her lesbian lover of his friend and McGee witnesses a murder that she is later charged with and blackmailed into working for two corrupt cops to infiltrate the NVA. Both character arcs are used to advanced the NVA concepts through a series of training classes to educate the reader on how being a terrorist works and how much the lifestyle sucks. Covington does not glorify being a Volunteer until the end when they win. He goes a tad overboard illustrating the incompetency of the US Government and local government goons, everyone having a position of authority because of race or gender while the second-in-command white man save them from their own stupidity in some cases and relishing in their failure in others.
McGee gets real bad ending, especially for all the shit she goes through. The book suggests she had it coming because she worked for the cops and got a lot of NVA volunteers killed but she at least got to kill her handles who abused her, including some sexual torture, at their hands. Hatfield gets a much a better ending, marrying the girl but she also goes through some serious shit as well. The book does drag in a few spots, especially when it takes 20 pages to set up an attack and two or three pages to carry it out with more pages reflecting on the attack and its long term outcome.
The second half of the book shifts the focus to the leadership of the 3rd Brigade. There is a leadership council mentioned a few times but is never seen. It goes through three major events, an attack on the Oscars, the death of a secondary character named Lockhart which ignites the big win for the NVA, and the NAR after the first 10 years. The Oscars and the Portland offensive are the best parts of the book, well written, and you really want to keep reading to see the outcome.
The war goes on for almost 5 years but the entire time it was considered a law enforcement problem by US government. I can see it being that for first year or so but when you have a group of people who call themselves a military and they are scoring points, killing people, and causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage on a daily basis that problem is going to be upgraded to military. Covington talks about the US government not wanting to call it a civil war, the military is almost completely committed to a war in Iran, and the people sent in to impose a police state, called FATPO, are made up exclusively of non-white felons, drug abusers, and other assorted trash released from prisons, given a uniform, a gun, and a steady paycheck to rough up the local white people to find the NVA. Again, plausible during the first year but not five. It is only when half of Portland is burned to the ground by the NVA does President Chelsea Clinton finally sends in the Marine Corps but its too little too late.
Overall, I give the book A-, definitely worth the time to read. It's long...book is 517 pages long.
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