The Extreme Right and Neo-Nazism in the Post-War United States
Ryan Shaffer
Following the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, political groups shifted language and tactics surrounding race. Groups on the far-right emerged that believed there was a finite amount of rights and that any gains for minorities came at the cost of White males. Those in the working and lower-middle classes who attached prestige to skin color as the physical proof that they were better than others developed new ways of expressing anger at the changing social and political landscape. The more extreme groups saw these changes as a deliberative and destructive transformation led by African American and Jewish people, and they believed the only effective response to the threat was a violent revolution, including the destruction of the United States government and genocide. The extremists developed outreach to youth with abrasive music, political campaigns, and even racist religions. Meanwhile, other groups and figures worked at resurrecting the memory of German Nazism and breathing new life into anti-Semitic conspiracies in U.S. politics. With further societal changes, the extreme right and neo-Nazi movement toward the end of the 20th century was acting out violent ideology in headline-grabbing ways.
U.S. fascism was revived after World War II by George Lincoln Rockwell, a veteran of the war, to create a worldwide National Socialist revolution and seek “a final reckoning with the Jews” (Weinberg & Kaplan, 1998, p. 42). In 1959, Rockwell established the American Nazi Party, which had a significant intellectual influence over a range of contemporary domestic and international fascist and extreme-right groups. Reacting to the Black Power movement, he formulated a reactionary brand of politics and published White Power (1967/1996), a work bemoaning racial and sexual equality while denouncing homosexuality and affirmative action, claiming that “[t]he Jews and their colored allies” were behind intentional efforts to destroy the White race (Rockwell, 1967/1996, p. 408). Rockwell’s answer to the changes and the threats was “white power,” which he described as a revolution “to meet the enemy in the street” and fight Black and Jewish “manipulation” as well responding to “burdensome taxation” (Rockwell, 1996, pp. 472, 444). When he was assassinated by a former supporter in 1967, the party began to fracture without a clear leader, but as scholars Leonard Weinberg and Jeffrey Kaplan explain, “Rockwell’s alumni serves as a virtual who’s who of the contemporary racist right” (Weinberg & Kaplan, 1998, p. 118). Notably, William Pierce (1933–2002), who earned a PhD in physics, worked with Rockwell and even edited American Nazi Party publications, but most of his fame in far-right circles was for leading the National Alliance from 1974 to 2002 as well as authoring The Turner Diaries (Macdonald [Pierce], 1978). By the 1980s, anti-Semitic concepts and Jewish conspiracy merged with anti-government ideology with the idea of ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), which became the “hallmark of the modern movement,” including Ku Klux Klan groups, Christian Identity, and neo-Nazi groups (Weinberg & Kaplan, 1998, p. 105). For these groups, anti-Semitic conspiracy connected the dots in the “destruction” of society and race. This chapter examines the ideology and key groups that promote far-right extremism and violence, and provides analysis about the history of the movements.
Opposition to Democracy and Equality
The core issues for racist movements, Aryan religions, and neo-Nazi youth cultures rest in the rejection of liberal democracy and opposition to equality. Roger Griffin’s classic definition of fascism “is a political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism,” which combines biological, political, and temporal beliefs (Griffin, 2008, p. 186). After World War II, the crisis of capitalism was no longer tenable and the xenophobia of the inter-war era “found an outlet in overly anti-liberal forms of conservatism and revolutionary nationalism” shifted in the post-war era by adopting “an illiberal form of democratic politics” (Griffin, 2008, p. 194). Indeed, more successful radical right parties in Europe have adopted “illiberal” democratic ideas, but the U.S. post-war far-right and fascist organizations oppose all forms of democracy, including Rockwell who stated: “the idea of democracy is a monstrous fraud” promoted by Jews “to hide their own power over these masses” while the “ordinary man cannot know personally the men and issues for which he is allowed to ‘vote’ ” (Rockwell, 1979, p. 417).
Influenced by Rockwell, subsequent U.S. national socialists envisioned a violent rebellion to overthrow the government in novelized depictions of their movement, which is the most popular medium and outlet, surpassing the circulation of the groups’ magazines and newspapers. William Pierce’s infamous novel The Turner Diaries sold 185,000 copies and inspired Timothy McVeigh to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City. The book’s plot depicts the U.S. government being destroyed by “patriots”; then the world drifts into a “war of extermination” based on race with the genocide of the Jewish, African, and Asian populations, leaving only a “white world” (Macdonald [Pierce], 1996, pp. 207, 210; the sales number of 185,000 copies appears on the title page). Pierce’s next novel, Hunter, sold over 61,000 copies and is about a man opposed to interracial relationships, homosexuality, and immigration, which Pierce connects to “Jewish media control” and “hunts” interracial couples (the amount sold is in Macdonald [Pierce], 1998). William Pierce and the National Alliance were not the only organizations to promote Rockwell’s fascist and violent ideas. Tom Metzger founded the White Aryan Resistance in early 1983, having previously been a member of the John Birch Society and leader of the California branch of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK). As the director of the California KKKK, Metzger promoted Rockwell’s “white power,” but also focused on reaching out to youth (“Gathering of the Klans in Fremont, California,” 1979). He first helped develop the Aryan Youth Movement with his son in Southern California, but by the end of the decade focused his energy promoting music with fascist messages. In 1988, Metzger and the White Aryan Resistance organized the Aryan Festival that spread “anti-system music and speeches” with a “white power” band (“Aryan Festival ’88,” 1988). Metzger warned his followers about “self-inflicted genocide” and told readers to prepare for a White revolution (“Self-inflicted genocide,” 1988). In addition to his interest in music, Metzger was a member and minister of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, a Christian Identity sect that believes Jews “are literal children of Satan” (Barkun, 1996, pp. 189, 196). For the religious and fascist, the religious justification for their beliefs meant that the adherents had God on their side in the future violent struggle for global domination.
Started by Richard Butler (1918–2004), the Church of Jesus Christ Christian’s headquarters was established in a secluded “white homeland” in Idaho and the religion’s political arm, the Aryan Nations, held annual meetings that drew radicals from throughout the country. The property welcomed an array of extremists over its history where plans were developed and served as a springboard for violent activity. In 1983, Butler invited a man named Robert “Bob” Mathews to serve as security for that year’s meetings where he gathered a group of men who would put The Turner Diaries goal of a racist revolution into action (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1989, p. 88). Mathews started The Order, mirroring the revolutionary group depicted in the book, with other Aryan Nations and National Alliance supporters, assassinating Jewish radio host Alan Berg and robbing armored cars that netted millions of dollars to fund the racist revolution (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1989, p. 140). After The Order members were arrested and given long prison sentences, Mathews died in a shootout with federal authorities in 1984 and became a martyr for Butler, Metzger, and Pierce. In 1988, just a few years later, 13 people, including Butler as well as The Order members David Lane and Richard Scutari, were charged and later acquitted of sedition for plotting to overthrow the federal government. Metzger praised the accused and called the “sedition trial” a “witch hunt” of White separatists (Metzger, 1988, p. 1).
The group’s anger was directed at minorities and the government, which they believed were opposed to their interests, and the extremists were involved with “sophisticated counterfeiting schemes, terrorist bombings, masterful loan fraud operations, daring armored car robberies, theft rings, a raft of murders, and thousands of federal firearms and explosives violations” (Coates, 1988, p. 11). When Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb of ammonium nitrate in 1995 and destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people, he carried out the plot from The Turner Diaries. In the book, Earl Turner, along with others, destroyed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters in Washington, D.C., to eliminate “their new computer complex” by using “100 pound bags” of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in a truck for the bomb (Macdonald [Pierce], 1996, p. 38). When McVeigh was arrested, police found excerpts of the book in his car (Thomas, 2001). Letters from McVeigh to his family revealed that he was distressed about not being able to discuss his “ ‘lawless’ behavior and anti-gov’t attitude” and his anger at the government grew following the 1993 raid of the Branch Davidian property in Waco, Texas (Thomas, 1998). The ideas in an extremist book directly influenced an angry man to commit one of the worst domestic terror acts in the history of the country.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, Pierce expanded to new mediums that expressed anger and hate. Like Metzger in the previous decade, Pierce turned his attention to youth culture and music. When Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance began associating with racist skinheads, he unleashed feelings and ideas that young people carried out in violent ways. Ultimately, in 1990, the family of a murdered Black man, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, successfully sued Metzger and several others, winning a $12.5 million judgment by arguing that the “defendants knew or should have known that the agents whom they had selected were violence prone racists and white supremacists who had themselves committed crimes of violence with racial animus, and who were likely to encourage the Oregon defendants to commit such crimes” (Berhanu v. Metzger, 1989). The White Aryan Resistance’s assets were forfeited and Metzger’s home was seized to pay the judgment, while items sold by Metzger continue to generate money to pay the family’s judgment (Langer, 2003). In contrast to Metzger, the National Alliance’s popularity and membership grew during that period. By the late 1990s racist music was a burgeoning business and in 1999 Pierce’s National Alliance purchased Resistance Records from Todd Bloggett, who had bought it from founders George Burdi and Mark Wilson, two senior figures in the racist religion Church of the Creator (Michael, 2009). Under the National Alliance’s ownership, music sales provided funding and promoted concepts through music, such as RaHoWa (Racial Holy War), a tenant of the Church of the Creator that sought a White world through genocide.
Identity as a Driving Force
The issues that drive an individual or movement to racial separatism and violent revolution are many. At the individual level, some people suffer from the feeling of displacement and alienation in society, which are sometimes caused during childhood, whereas other people become supporters or activists due to a yearning of wanting to belong to a “heroic” movement and be remembered by future generations for carrying out a revolution. Both types are drawn to a particular cause for different psychological and sociological reasons, much as how a person becomes involved in a religion. Some become introduced to ideas through friends or family; others learn about ideology through a search for new philosophies. The more esoteric ideas appeal to those who seek abnormal or “hidden” beliefs, and the ideas are special due to their perceived clandestine or deviant nature. At the group level, the individual’s beliefs are reinforced and expanded on by a collection of people and subculture that affirms those attitudes through newspapers, books, and music. For instance, the belief that immigration and the mainstream media were both part of a Jewish conspiracy was supported in a publication edited by revered fascist and academic William Pierce (Pierce, 1995). The xenophobic and extremist ideas are reinforced in an echo chamber where dissenting views or skepticism about conspiracy do not appear. The ideas are mixed with contemporary news to encourage the separation of the races and hostility between communities, such as claims “about the dangers of contracting AIDS through sexual contact with non-Whites” (Pierce, 1999). Consequently, the only evidence that the supporter hears from leaders and authors affirms the beliefs that attracted the supporter to the movement.
One of the most significant frustrations is the changing concepts of race and “White” male preference, which these people see as the source of identity that has lost value. Though race in contemporary terms is merely a social category and science has been unable to find any genetic evidence that supports race or racial hierarchy, fascists and far-right activists continue to see “White” and “Black” as fixed genetic categories.1 For example, David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote as fact that “dramatic IQ differences exist between Blacks and Whites” (Duke, 2008, p. 55). In earlier eras of racism there were social and legal mechanisms, such as Jim Crow laws, that reinforced poverty with a lack of access to education and political rights. The second wave of feminism in the early 1960s that saw women seeking equalities, such as in the workplace or in education, caused noticeable societal change, including more women receiving higher education to become judges, medical doctors, and professors. Fascists and far-right activists opposed and still remain defiant to these changes, as they perceive them destroying a way of life they want to conserve, and see transformation as part of the latest intentional campaign by long-standing “enemies.” Pierce remarked that the Civil Rights movement saw:
the transformation of the strongest, richest, and most advanced country on earth from a White nation, in which racial minority groups had been effectively excluded from any significant participation in White society except as laborers, to a multiracial pseudo-nation, in which non-Whites not only participated but were a privileged and pampered elite. (Pierce, 2012, p. 324)
For the radicals, the unifying feature of the threat to White male preference is conspiracy. Changes are seen as purposeful negative consequences and borrow from traditional anti-Semitism, including Rockwell’s readings of Adolf Hitler. Rationalized through dot-connecting in the infinite constellation of politics, business, religion and race, the “blame” for immigration, racial equality, sexuality equality, and government policies is easier to understand if a small group of people are blamed rather than the reality of disconnected and contradictory actions of a large population shaped by the electorate. As they preach violent revolution, any attempt for the government to create new laws concerning guns is seen as a way by the New World Order to “disarm America” (Pierce, 1994). The anger at these changes can then be directed to specific targets, which, as the thinking goes, can be physically attacked and defeated. A prominent target for the “decay” of society are Jews, who are blamed for everything from media coverage about gun violence to masonic lodges, which Pierce claims is part of “Jewish schemes” (Pierce, 2012, p. 325). Any group that is considered not hostile to organizations with Jewish or perceived Jewish people is seen as aligned with Jewish interests and those who have engaged in activity the fascists or far-right oppose is blamed on Jews or people being manipulated by Jewish interests.
Political Groups, Cultural Movements, and Aryan Religions
There are three types of groups that are significant among the fascist and far-right community. The first consists of political and social activist groups such as National Alliance-allied groups, Ku Klux Klan organizations, and neo-Nazi sects. This category consists of traditional political campaigns, such as the American Freedom Party, or groups such as the National Alliance and White Aryan Resistance, which have an organization that spreads political beliefs through the publication of material. Next, the least organized but no less dangerous grouping consists of youth and cultural-oriented organizations, including skinhead groups, notably the Hammerskins and Blood & Honour, along with virtual online communities. These groups differ from the political-group type because they rarely publish periodicals with political analysis and do not campaign, but are rather devoted to musical expressions of extremism and manifest those ideas into street violence. The last type is extremist religious movements, consisting of racist beliefs, such as Christian Identity and the Creativity Movement. These beliefs and their associated organizations or churches offer a theological backing for extremism, which includes mandates for a Racial Holy War or biblical justification for White supremacy.2 Although these three categories are used to highlight different roles in the movement, there are significant overlaps, as politically oriented groups are connected to music operations and racist religions, and skinheads also associate and identify with Aryan religions and join political groups. With a simplification of the categories, the groups’ roles and practices can be more easily understood.
The Southern Poverty Law Center lists hundreds of “active” U.S. hate organizations, which encompass a range of political, religious, and youth groups (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2015). After the splinter of the American Nazi Party, the most influential fascist organization, in terms of membership, book circulation, and admiration, has been the National Alliance. Though elements of the American Nazi Party continued under various incarnations led by people such as Matt Koehl (1935–2014), its operations became mostly limited to having a post office box and publishing pro-Hitler tracts. In contrast, the National Alliance drew a significant membership for its marginal politics, emerging as a major distributor of fascist magazines, books, and music, including sales of The Turner Diaries. Since Pierce’s death in 2002, there have been different leaders of the National Alliance, which had slowed and then stopped producing periodicals (Potok, 2012). Former activists have been battling, both on the Internet and in court, over control of the organization and Pierce’s legacy (Terry, 2014). Despite its current troubles, Pierce’s ideas continue to be spread electronically and the infamy of its violent racist “martyrs” ensures its unrelenting popularity. While Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance was associated with skinheads due to his promotion of music and his subsequent civil trial loss, the group was originally started with more traditional political efforts. Since the early 2000s, Metzger’s efforts are mostly confined to Internet posts about “lone wolf” activity on his website with no regular physical publication or activism outside the virtual world.3
The extremists’ traditional political efforts have lacked sustained success. The most notable electoral victory, which has failed to be repeated, was then Republican David Duke’s 1989 special election victory for Louisiana’s House of Representatives. Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader who later founded the National Association for the Advancement of White People, is a well-known extremist with inflammatory rhetoric and neo-Nazi associations. He admitted that the image of the KKK was detrimental to his political goals and as a member of the Klan, “[i]t became harder to discuss the critical issues facing our race and nation” (Duke, 2008, p. 633). He subsequently ran for office several times, including the U.S. Senate, but following his criminal tax convictions has mostly confined his activities to self-publishing books and making Internet videos. In My Awakening, Duke wrote about his life and ideas, arguing terrorism and violence undermine the “cause” and that there needs to be a “political path” to have “a government and a mass media composed of our own people” (Duke, 2008, p. 692). Yet, the reality of U.S. fascist and racist third-party politics has been a history of failure. The American Freedom Party, previously named the American Third Position Party, nominated Merlin Miller for the 2012 presidential election, earning 2,703 votes compared with President Barack Obama’s winning vote of 65,915,796 (Anonymous, 2013). This electoral result demonstrates how marginal these ideas are in the political realm. However outside of the political process, members in their own groups and gatherings give the appearance that they have strong numbers in their ranks.
Fascists have found a community of like-minded people online and at concerts. The most visited extremist U.S. website is Stormfront, founded by Don Black, who had previously inherited leadership of the Ku Klux Klan from Duke in the early 1980s (Duke, 2008, p. 634). Stormfront was launched in 1995 by Black, who learned about computers while in federal prison, in order “to take America back” (Abel, 1998). In 2014, the website was again engulfed in controversy when news outlets reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center connected the website to nearly 100 murders committed by Stormfront forum members, most recently skinhead Wade Michael Page’s murder of six Sikhs in 2012 (Newcomb, 2014). Although skinheads have had a decreasing role in politics since the 1990s, music still plays a part in uniting and promoting transnational extremism (Shaffer, 2013, 2014, 2015). The largest national skinhead groups are the Hammerskins and Blood & Honour, with the first being a homegrown organization started in Dallas and the latter originating in London (Shaffer, in press). Both groups at their peak had infrequently published periodicals with concert and album reviews as well as some political news, but currently have an online presence with occasional concerts that can draw a few hundred people. The local branches of these groups as well as other skinhead organizations do not publish magazines, but are instead interested in listening to or performing incendiary music. Despite the declining role of fascist music, which was a successful business for racists, the threat of violence remains as illustrated with Hammerskin Wade Michael Page’s 2012 rampage.
The third grouping of extremists is centered on racist religions, which have a more marginal role, but are no less of a threat to minorities and authorities. The oldest contemporary racist religion associated with these groups is Christian Identity. Scholar Michael Barkun’s history of the religion explored the origins of belief in British-Israelism in the late 19th century and took root in the United States during the Great Depression. For the next several decades it spread around the country. In 1973, Richard Butler moved from Southern California to Coeur’d Alene, Idaho, and continued the theology of Wesley Swift, a former Ku Klux Klan member, by establishing the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and the Aryan Nations (Barkun, 1996, p. 70). This was followed by “highly politicized and often violent Identity groups of the 1970s and 1980s” (Barkun, 1996, p. 70). These acts included connections to numerous people who were involved in racist murders, including Robert “Bob” Mathews’s The Order as well as Buford Furrow’s 1999 Los Angeles anti-Semitic shooting rampage. The following year the Southern Poverty Law Center won a $6.3 million lawsuit, finding Aryan Nations members responsible for the 1998 assault of three minorities (Michael, 2006). Butler lost the Idaho compound that included the headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, and two members, Ray Redfeairn and August Kreis, battled for control of Butler’s organization. Redfeairn died in 2003 and Kreis continued his efforts to lead the organization, though many activists did not consider him to be Butler’s true heir. Kreis made news in 2005 when he “expressed support for al Qaeda and publicly announced that sleeper cells of non-Muslims were ready to fight alongside the organization” (Michael, 2006, p. 185). The claim prompted the federal government to examine Kreis’s finances, and this led to fraud convictions over his income, causing him to step down before being charged with child molestation (Associated Press, December 11, 2011; Turnage, 2014). Filling the power vacuum in the early 2000s, several organizations competed for followers, which diluted membership and the ability to organize.
Though Christian Identity’s roots predate World War II, it is not the only racist religion followed by extremists. In 1973 the Church of the Creator, which became known as Creativity in 2003, was started by former state Republican politician Ben Klassen. As founder of the religion, Klassen wrote two religious texts about the tents of Creativity, including Nature’s Eternal Religion (1973) and The White Man’s Bible (1981). In Nature’s Eternal Religion, Klassen wrote the belief “reject[s] the Judeo-democratic-Marxist values of today” and praised Hitler “as the brightest meteor to flash through the heavens since the beginning of history” (Klassen, 1973, pp. 7, 290). The religion has 16 “commandments” that tell believers they must “secure the existence of our race” and “destroy Jewish influence” (Klassen, 1973, pp. 269, 279). Klassen’s Racial Loyalty periodical, which was later included in edited books that preached violence against minorities, told readers that RaHoWa, or Racial Holy War, “is inevitable” and the “ultimate and only solution” (Klassen, 1987).
Unlike Christian Identity believers, young fans of extremist music grew to be a large part of Creativity that was attracted to the radical and violent beliefs. Notably, Canadian George Burdi became a significant member, founding a band called RaHoWa and helping to establish Resistance Records, which achieved large international sales. Skinheads around the world joined the religion and Mark Wilson, who co-founded Resistance Records, briefly replaced Klassen as its leader (Michael, 2006, p. 97). A series of legal fights, criminal convictions, and murders in the 1990s fractured the movement’s structure, causing different sects to claim position as the rightful heir to Klassen’s leadership. In 1991, an African American Navy veteran was murdered by a church member and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil lawsuit against the church, winning a $1 million judgment (Michael, 2006, p. 107). Several other crimes shook the religion, including member Ben Smith’s 1999 attempt to start “RaHoWa” by shooting and injuring several Jewish men near a synagogue, shooting at several African Americans and Asians, killing one before ultimately committing suicide (Michael, 2006, pp. 154, 155). A few years later the religion’s then leader, Matthew Hale, was charged in a plot to kill the federal judge who ruled against him in a trademark case over the name Church of the Creator. As revealed at court, Hale solicited a man working for the FBI to murder the judge and was convicted of the crime, receiving 40 years in prison (Michael, 2006, pp. 175, 184). The organization fractured as Hale’s successor testified again him. During the following years, others attempted to position themselves as Creativity’s leader and a series of other violent acts created further setbacks for the religion (Michael, 2006, pp. 190, 191).
Spreading the Ideas and Direct Action
Fascist and far-right groups exist beyond the mainstream outlets of the media and political establishment. As a result, the groups turned to making public inroads through a range of grassroots political issues, occasional attention-grabbing violence, and outreach through non-traditional media. The first type of action is political efforts, which include mostly unsuccessful campaigns, such as the Populist Party and American Freedom Party running presidential candidates in national elections. The next form of activity is violence to enact direct change, such as The Order’s criminal enterprise in the 1980s, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, skinhead violence, or Church of the Creator member Ben Smith’s 1999 murder-suicide rampage. The final type is propaganda delivered through music, video games, and the Internet. The groups have failed to enact any significant change with these efforts and while the violent outbursts have grabbed headlines, this violence has also led to the destruction of specific groups and provoked law enforcement interest that damaged the extremists’ efforts. Yet, the constant battle to spread their ideas has made marginal gains, such as David Duke’s successful special election campaign in 1989 or youth recruitment through skinhead music in the 1990s.
U.S. third parties are mostly a story of failure. With a few notable exceptions, the two mainstream parties, Democratic and Republican, have dominated state and national elections. It is not surprising that fascist third parties would be an even more difficult sell as popular post-war memories reflect proudly on the U.S. role of defeating fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and the horrors of the Holocaust have been an important part of public discourse. Indeed, David Duke ran for office and won a seat in the state government of Louisiana as a Republican in 1989, but he also unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for president in 1988, as a Republican in 1991 for governor, and then had a 1992 Republican Party presidential campaign (Bridges, 1994, pp. 82, 139, 167, 216, 238). Since World War II, the few attempts for extremist and pro-segregation parties, including the National States’ Rights Party and American Freedom Party, failed to have their candidates elected. The parties have used their campaigns not to win elections, but to spread literature and promote particular ideas. This has included getting headlines through attention-grabbing efforts, such as Robert Ransdell’s 2014 write-in campaign for U.S. Senate in Kentucky that used the slogan “With Jews We Lose” (Montoya, 2014). Ransdell, a former National Alliance organizer, admitted he could not win the election against then Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, but used the controversy about his slogan and the campaign as a platform to spread his views (Montoya, 2014; see also Blackford, 2014).
Unable to make any impact in elections, fascist and far-right individuals and sub-groups have lashed out at critics, the government, and minorities. Violence in politics is nothing new, as several generations of Ku Klux Klan activity have employed terror, assault, and murder to enforce racial lines and retain influence outside electoral politics. There are numerous examples ranging from minor physical and verbal assaults from skinheads to large-scale bombings. The “bible” of extremist violence for the last four decades has been The Turner Diaries, which was originally self-published by Pierce and then distributed by a large independent publisher, Barricade Books. Rather than shy away from the controversy, Barricade Books’ version stated on the cover: “This book contains racist propaganda. The FBI said it was the blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing” (Macdonald [Pierce], 1996). Indeed, the actions of Robert Mathews and Timothy McVeigh mirrored the characters of the book to help bring about the violent genocide depicted in the book’s final pages. Numerous other crimes have been associated with the book, including local violent crime as well as the murderous 1999 nail bombing spree of David Copeland, a neo-Nazi in Britain (McLagan, 2000). Other people associated with the Aryan Nations, Creativity movement, and White Aryan Resistance have engaged in murder and assault, acting on their beliefs of racial superiority and justifying their actions as being benevolent for their extremist cause (for example, see Anti-Defamation League, 2014). Ultimately, the violence in each group led to its bankruptcy and divisions after losing civil court cases against the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of victims or victims’ families (Geranios, 2001; Wiley, 2000). Violence had few, if any, short-term gains and proved in the long-run to cause financial ruin and factionalism.
Aside from violence and political campaigns, fascist and far-right groups have been at the forefront of using new mediums to reach people. In the late 1970s, several organizations were started, such as the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism, in opposition to the electoral gains made by the National Front in England. In response, the National Front started its own music outreach efforts with its own White Noise Records and Rock Against Communism concerts that used skinhead music and style with fascist and racist themes (Shaffer, 2013, p. 467). Since White Noise Records’ 1983 release of Skrewdriver’s “White Power,” skinheads have been a mainstay, with music becoming one of the few money-making aspects of fascist politics when book sales proved to be weaker (Shaffer, 2013, p. 472). Groups such as the National Alliance promoted music with violent racist and fascist ideas, selling thousands of albums (Shaffer, 2013, pp. 474, 481). In addition to music, the National Alliance also created computer games, notably Ethnic Cleansing, where the player’s goal is kill minorities and ultimately murder then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon (Eng, 2002). Despite sales, the ability to convert youth and retain their long-term involvement in extremist politics is less certain. Nevertheless, youth who would not appear at a political lecture played computer games with racist themes and gathered at concerts. In doing so, the youth brought money and energy to extremism, while the media attention surrounding the extremist youth violence and offensive music further spread their message to larger numbers. Similarly, the use of the Internet by fascist and extreme-right groups has fostered faster and more international contact between radicals, enabling people in marginal groups in the United States to connect and reinforce their beliefs with fellow travelers in Europe. David Duke, for example, wrote that “[e]very Aryan should become computer literate, become connected to the Internet, and learn how to use it to spread our truth and awaken our race” (Duke, 2008, p. 692).
Spreading the extremist message through music and the Internet came at the cost of traditional groups that suffered from the changes brought by the online community. Music sales have been negatively affected due to people’s ability to download or stream songs for free. Consequently, this has deprived organizations of money they had earned from music sales. Likewise, the Internet has hurt book and magazine sales, as people can freely download and circulate publications such as The Turner Diaries and, in the era of rapid news, people rely on blogs and Internet posts, which causes fewer people to join an organization for a newsletter or subscribe to an organization’s magazine. With more people relying on the computer for their activism, these far-right and fascist groups have a harder time producing periodicals, mobilizing supporters, and growing actual membership. That is not to imply they do not have supporters or people willing to act on their beliefs. These groups certainly maintain backing, though in a diminished way. Yet their standing and operations have slowed in recent years. The Aryan Nations and Creativity movement lack a compound for year-around meetings and organizing members and fail to circulate periodicals that generate regular revenue.
Projections and Status of the Issue
Despite persistent activism before and after World War II, U.S. fascist and far-right political groups have failed to come to power or have any significant political influence. Indeed, the Civil Rights movement, the Sexual Revolution and more recently gay rights gains have shown a consistent loss of ideological ground for extremists. Although some elements of the extreme right have arguably drifted into mainstream politics, the call for racial genocide through a White revolution has fallen on deaf ears. As JoEllen McNergney Vinyard (2011, pp. 306, 307) explained in her book about the far right in Michigan, including the Ku Klux Klan, there are new phenomena with traditional concerns that oppose social reforms, distrust the government, and accept conspiracy as they harness support in the midst of economic volatility. Nevertheless, no extremist political organization or religion bent on White separatism had membership beyond a few thousand people. The reason for the failure to gain support for a “whites only nation” in the marketplace of ideas in a multicultural, democratic country is obvious.
Extreme-right and fascist groups in Europe, by contrast, have made electoral gains and in some countries have been members of ruling coalitions. The reasons for these successes are different from the issues the United States faces, including debates about the European Union, long histories with pre-war fascist movements, anti-Semitism in popular culture, the role and history of immigration, and parliamentary systems that give more room to third-party politics. Indeed, the European extremist groups have found support from debates about the nation as the European Union is accused of diluting national identity and superseding member states’ governments. Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin examined the radical right in Britain and discussed the importance of Euroscepticism mixed with domestic issues for people who feel they have no political voice (Ford & Goodwin, 2014, pp. 211, 213).
The importance of the Internet has only grown and will continue to play a dominant role for U.S. radicals. As they seek support, it becomes clear that it is easier to get backing by reaching out to like-minded people in other countries rather than change minds locally. This has fostered new transnational dimensions of whiteness, which is much different from pre-Internet racist groups that stressed strict national identity. David Duke, for example, organized an international conference, and stood with British fascists and National Alliance members for “a Euro-American” meeting in 2004. Several different figures signed the New Orleans Protocol to get different groups to agree on a few basic principles, including repudiating violence. In a panel with Duke, the speakers voiced the need to distance themselves from terrorism. Sam Dickson said, “the idea of The Turner Diaries about organizing a revolutionary group and toppling a government that is fighting against us is a complete non-starter” (Discussion Panel, 2004). Similarly, for the last decade the American Renaissance Conference has hosted international fascists, including leaders from Britain and France, who spoke about politics and commonalities with U.S. extremists (Griffin & Fraser, 2006; Taylor & Gollnisch, 2000). Meanwhile, U.S. computer servers have proved to be important for European radicals, whose countries make it illegal to deny the Holocaust, promote hatred, or share fascist books. U.S. extremists have helped their foreign counterparts with Internet postings and websites that could not be produced otherwise.4 As websites such as Stormfront have grown in numbers, governments like Italy have blocked access and prevented its residents from posting and reading the content (Associated Press, November 16, 2012).
Extremist political ideas, such as the demands for a “whites only nation,” have changed little since the era of the American Nazi Party. The physical sale of music, books, and magazines has dropped due, in part, to the Internet harming sales to fund extremist activity. Yet, the ideas are circulated and available for free by downloading a song or digital book. At the same time, the nature of the Internet demonstrates how marginal these ideas are because although one can visit a website and download The Turner Diaries in seconds, the information has not ushered in a political change or made extreme-right and fascist terrorism any more likely than earlier decades. Nonetheless, the threat of violence remains as the groups become increasingly marginalized in a multicultural and global world and the groups’ members feel helpless in the face of the changes.
Notes
1. For example, “There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past” (AAPA, 1996); “In view of concerns that linking of emerging genetic data and race/ethnicity categories may promote racist ideologies, we emphasize that there is no scientific basis for any claim that the pattern of human genetic variation supports hierarchically ranked categories of race or ethnicity” (Sandra Soo-Jin Lee et al., 2008).
2. William Pierce developed a religion called cosmotheism, but this was not a centerpiece of his mission, in contrast to Richard Butler’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian or Ben Klassen’s Church of the Creator.
3. For more on “lone wolf” terror, see George Michael (2012).
4. For example, the FBI closed a neo-Nazi website hosted in Arizona for a Polish Blood & Honour branch (“Poland shuts down neo-Nazi site,” 2006).
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