Earlier this month, I accidentally found myself at a Nazi rally in Nashville, Tennessee. There were roughly 50-60 people gathered for what was revealed to be an Identity Evropa conference, all of which had gathered in front of the Parthenon replica that stands in a park close to downtown Nashville. These people had gathered from across the surrounding states and from their respective chapters to come see their fellow white supremacists, using this flash rally as an attempt to openly demonstrate without significant interference from anti-fascist groups. While I recorded the event, I had one white supremacist position himself as close as physically possible in hopes of instigating a violent pushback, with a body camera strapped to his chest (for use as evidence that any contact would be initiated by a second party rather than himself). Following the rally, I had an old man approach me to tell me that I was wrong for calling the neo-Nazis fascists, and he explained to me the Holocaust was a Jewish invention to evoke sympathy and gain power. Between this, the Pikeville, Kentucky rally and Charlottesville, we can give a rough estimate of the actual numbers of organized fascists in America today and note how they can effectively be countered.
Fascists By The Numbers
There have not been significant rallies of the size of the flash mob formed outside of the Parthenon since Charlottesville, which for all purposes is a fantastic sign of the state of organized fascism. The Charlottesville rally was one of the most coordinated and well put together rallies in some time, and to give a conceptual idea of the past, the Anti Defamation League (ADL) put together a chart listing former rallies of the past decade. At any given time, despite the growing numbers of chapters, you can count the total number of neo-Nazis to around 1000 at most. With each chapter formed, there are at most eight members in any published image. Pikeville, which took place in May 2017 and was a combination of the Traditionalist Workers Party, the National Socialist Movement and the League of the South, came in total as 100-130 people and were outnumbered by the anti-fascist black bloc that showed up to counter them. The Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP) claims 300 as their total membership, but even when asking for warm bodies at their speech held at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, were able to pull together 35 total.
Infighting and Dissolution
A further issue between all of these groups, not including membership itself, is infighting. This typically consists of issues over race science and membership woes. Richard Spencer was first working with Identity Evropa (IE), the group I encountered in Nashville. However, he’s now turned to the TWP for support and in doing so, endangered the membership of groups like Stormfront (SF), which has begun creating book clubs in order to bring folks in. These three groups, the TWP, IE and SF, are all vying for new members, while all having to fight between themselves for who is able to join which, given they only loosely associate with each other based on each group having a different end goal of a white American ethnostate. That amounts to mass deportation, genocide or combination thereof based on their tendencies towards violence.
This is in part where the race science comes in, and where newfound interest in services like 23andMe have become so fascinating: when many new white nationalist recruits join in, one of their biggest priorities was and has been to check their DNA for white purity. In some cases this leads to large arguments or even shunning of new members (which can be witnessed on the Stormfront forums in several cases), based on whether their family tree involves a non-white person or the specific ethnic makeup listed in a racial background test. Of course, all of this says nothing of the credibility of these genetic tests, which are incredibly inaccurate, tantamount to a crystal ball reading, but it’s a fascinating drama you wouldn’t witness elsewhere.
Add on to this recent news: The TWP leader had an affair with the wife of his spokesman and webmaster (who is also, fascinatingly enough, the stepfather of his own wife), and the founder of the Oath Keepers has been accused of domestic abuse when his wife requested a restraining order. The Oath Keepers, while not strictly a neo-Nazi movement, are intertwined as being the largest militia, anti-immigrant, racist, and anti-government organization in America. Following the affair, the TWP is no longer organized, and the spokesman had the entire registry deleted to save face. So, in effect now we have a loss of 300 from the organized white nationalist movement in America, if the TWP numbers are to be believed, and there is no confirmation as to whether the former members are choosing to join a new group.
Women of White Supremacy
With this as well on the heels of the news on abusive men leading the Oath Keepers, this only shows that a lack of women’s leadership, ironically enough, will always fracture openly fascistic organizations in America. This isn’t particularly new, as can be seen with Elizabeth Tyler in the 1920s and 30s. But to be able to put together a functional white supremacist group in the modern world, women pose a unique problem and solution. Of course, none of this is to say that white supremacy hasn’t existed without the support of women, but it does lend a legitimacy that is crucial in this day and age. This can be seen even further as the #MeToo movement gave light for many of those women to confront sexism within white nationalism.
Anti-fascism
I think all this also begs another question: Does black bloc as a tactic serve a valuable purpose, and does it significantly stop the organizing of white nationalists? Given the events of Charlottesville, and the death of Heather Heyer, it’s incredibly hard to say that organized anti-fascism doesn’t have a valuable purpose – Nazi rallies were planned in many cities across America following what would have been considered the success of Charlottesville, and the protests erupting the following day acted to negate that threat, many if not all of them being cancelled shortly thereafter. Richard Spencer now has said that antifa organizing at his own rallies no longer allows his talks to be fun. But larger than that, does it stop white nationalists from organizing? Anti-fascism in black bloc acts as an effective punitive measure, counter demonstrating where white nationalists plan to rally, rather than actively working to remove or work against organizing measures.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Who could imagine a white ethnostate without a vast mistreatment of women? While it sounds horrifying and absolutely is, it’s important to remember that white supremacy as an organized force in America will be held cohesive more (and vice versa) by the involvement, use of and uplifting of women than it ever will be by interference from outside forces. This isn’t to say that anti-fascist organizing doesn’t work – in fact, it does. However, when left to their own devices, white supremacist organizations will either devolve or grow based on how they treat the women among their ranks.
But a key measure to prevent black bloc from becoming necessary is to organize. In rural areas, where I live, fascist organizing is sparse – in Clemson we know that we have various members of the Sons of Odin, Stormfront and the Klan active. All have a recorded presence, either by flyering or by online association with the area (there are four recorded Stormfront members living near Clemson). It’s comforting in some degree that there has not been known violence committed by these groups, and their lack of organization does assist with that. But at the same time, community outreach, working with the people and ensuring some level of community response is available when emergencies, rallies attacks of some kind take place, that’s important and needed.
In cities, where actual chapters of white supremacists are able to meet with a level of privacy or more organization, concern is far deeper – despite many of these chapters possessing at most 5-10 people in each, that organization allows some level of confidence in their ability to act out against vulnerable communities. It’s very possible to take comfort in that it took a conference and gathering of over 50 individuals for Identity Evropa to form a flash mob outside of the Parthenon. For their public presence in the general area to take almost a year to resurge (see Pikeville in Kentucky) indicates a good amount of fear of retribution and backlash. However, the most effective, and perhaps obvious, deterrent to prevent those numbers from going above 1000 (which is arguably a high number given the dissolution of the TWP) is necessary anti-racist, womanist, labor and community organizing. Where organizations already exist, joining them and working to point them in the direction of those in need is good support.
