Dear North Dakota Media: Craig Cobb Is Trolling You, Stop Paying Attention

White supremacist Craig Cobb is in the news again.

You will remember Cobb as the man who was buying up bargain properties in the tiny community of Leith, North Dakota, with an eye toward turning the area into a sort of commune for racists. The idea was that Cobb and his fellow ignorants would buy up a bunch of land, move in, and then elect their own to local offices creating a sort of enclave just for themselves.

The plot gained national and even international attention, and it ultimately fell apart when Cobb and one of his cronies were arrested for threatening non-racist members of the Leith community with firearms.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]The folks in Antler are and should be concerned. Law enforcement and other community leaders should be watchful. Yet, the media shouldn’t hype this.[/mks_pullquote]

Now Cobb wants to do something similar, this time in the tiny border town of Antler, about 50 miles north of Minot. He’s calling it the Antler Pioneer Little Europe project, and they’ve even got a Facebook page.

According to the Grand Forks Herald, Cobb sent them an email about the project. And they dutifully wrote a story about it.

Which is sort of a problem.

The first time through, with the Leith situation, it was understandable that Cobb got a lot of attention. It was an unusual situation, and the idea of a community of white supremacists in North Dakota was repugnant enough to inspire a lot of morbid curiosity. Cobb basked in the attention, even getting some time on a national television talk show (where he was informed that he’s apparently 14 percent black).

But do we really need to give this cretin another 15 minutes of fame?

The folks in Antler are and should be concerned. Law enforcement and other community leaders should be watchful. Yet, the media shouldn’t hype this.

Yes, I know the stories tend to go viral and all the tweets and Facebook sharing results in solid traffic numbers, but c’mon. This isn’t like the Leith situation when Cobb was trying to keep his maneuvering out of the public eye. He is now basically sending out press releases about his intentions.

That’s not the actions of a man who plans to be successful. That’s the actions of a man who wants to claw his way back into the minds of the public.

Let’s not give him what he wants. Craig Cobb, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn’t matter. His movement has no traction. It is marginalized and scarce, and by focusing the media’s spotlight on it we’re only giving it the fuel it desperately needs.