The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) was a neo-Nazi political party active in the United States between 2013 and 2018, affiliated with the broader "alt-right" movement that became active within the U.S. during the 2010s. It was considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center's list.
Established by Matthew Heimbach under the name Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN), the group promoted white separatism and a white supremacist view of Christianity. As a member of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Front, the TWP held a number of protests and other local events. In 2015, the Traditionalist Workers Party changed into a political party so as to run in elections for local office. In April 2018, The Washington Post reported that the TWP had been disbanded the previous month after group leader Matthew Heimbach's arrest for battery.McCoy Terrence (April 20, 2018) "'Imploding': Financial troubles. Lawsuits. Trailer park brawls. Has the alt-right peaked?" The Washington Post In July 2021, Heimbach announced his intention to reform the party along National Bolshevik lines.
History Traditionalist Youth Network
The Traditionalist Youth Network was established in May 2013 by Matthew Heimbach and Matt Parrott. Heimbach has been a white supremacist activist since fall 2011, when he formed a group at Towson University in Maryland and invited the white supremacist Jared Taylor to speak at Towson's campus. The following year, Heimbach founded a "White Student Union" on campus, adopting racist and antisemitic views.Traditionalist Youth Network, Anti-Defamation League (February 7, 2014). In spring 2013, upon graduation, Heimbach established the Traditionalist Youth Network in partnership with Parrot, who founded a white supremacist group, Hoosier Nation, in Indiana around 2009. The group eventually became a chapter of American Third Position (later known as the American Freedom Party).
Traditionalist Worker Party The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks extremist groups, has designated the Traditionalist Worker Party as a hate group and has written of Heimbach: "Considered by many to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists... Since graduating in the spring of 2013, he has entrenched himself further in the white nationalist movement and become a regular speaker on the radical-right lecture circuit."
In January 2015 the TYN established the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) as its political-party offshoot in preparation for the 2016 elections, and a small group of candidates from the far right announced plans to run under its banner. The party states that it stands against "economic exploitation, federal tyranny, and anti-Christian degeneracy". The group's strategy differs from that of the American Freedom Party (AFP), a different fringe group: while the AFP "has long run presidential candidates with no hope of success" in order to "exploit the election cycle as a way to raise money and generate publicity for their racist positions, TWP actually hopes to win by running for local offices in small communities."
One element that separated the Traditionalist Worker Party from many other far-right organizations was its anti-capitalist positions "denouncing corporate interests and environmental degradation, endorsing worker unions and [supporting] nationalization of key industries." Heimbach and other Traditionalist Worker Party leaders publicly supported organizations and such as the Nation of Islam, Hezbollah, and the governments of Bashar al-Assad, North Korea, the Russian Federation, and China, stating that "Our policy is, if you're a group that's dedicated to a political revolution through peaceful, legal and honorable means, then you're someone we can work with...They want independence for their communities; they want self-determination. [That's something] all nationalists can stand by." The Traditionalist Worker Party endorsed the creation of a "Traditionalist International" so that nationalist organizations, under Russian leadership, could work to advance their far-right, separatist, and often homophobic and anti-semitic beliefs in global politics.
The organization focused its attention on developing chapters in impoverished areas through charity events, following the model by the Greek fascist party Golden Dawn, and putting forward a message that "these are people that the establishment doesn't care about" and working to provide a political voice for.
Nationalist Front
On April 22, 2016, the Traditionalist Worker Party formed a coalition with several other organizations called the Aryan Nationalist Alliance. The Aryan Nationalist Alliance later changed its name to Nationalist Front. Its aim was to unite white supremacist, neo-Confederate, and white nationalist groups under a common umbrella. The coalition was joined by the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM), neo-confederate League of the South, the neo-Nazi Vanguard America, and four other groups."Nationalist Front Limps in 2016", Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, August 8, 2017Natalie Allison (October 25, 2017): "4 extremist groups that will be part of weekend's White Lives Matter rallies", USA Today
In April 2017, the group organized the white supremacist rally in Pikeville, Kentucky which attracted 125 to 150 supporters."White Supremacist Nationalist Front Plans Rallies in Tennessee", Anti-Defamation League blog, October 24, 2017 In August 2017, the affiliated groups participated in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Jack Smith IV (October 11, 2017): "White nationalist alliance plans "White Lives Matter" rally for Tennessee", Mic.com In October 2017, the Nationalist Front was a key organizer of the "White Lives Matter" rally in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Participating groups included: NSM, TWP, League of the South, Vanguard America, The Right Stuff, and Anti-Communist Action.Mariah Timms and Natalie Allison (October 27, 2017): "White Lives Matter Murfreesboro rally: What we know now", The Tennessean"The far right returns to middle Tennessee", Hatewatch
Internal conflict and disbandment On March 13, 2018, Heimbach was arrested in Paoli, Indiana, on charges of domestic battery arising from a domestic dispute. Following this, Parrott shut down the TWP's websites and said he planned to delete membership data, citing privacy concerns. According to Parrott, the TWP no longer existed, as the incident had destroyed the group's credibility. Days later, however, Parrott filed a sworn declaration in court (in an ongoing federal civil lawsuit over the Unite the Right rally in 2017), stating that he had not deleted or destroyed the membership information, as it was relevant to the ongoing litigation.
On April 5, 2018, the left-wing media collective Unicorn Riot released hundreds of thousands of messages on TWP's Discord server and associated ones such as "Silver Guild" and "Not Tradworker" as part of a series on alt-right and neo-Nazi organizations. The messages on TWP's Discord server revealed that the group promoted and praised Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the Charleston church shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina as well as James Alex Fields, the man behind the Charlottesville car attack during the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The group also praised Jacob Scott Goodwin, a member of the group that was involved in the beating of DeAndre Harris in the parking lot during that rally. Additionally, there was a conflict within TWP over one of its members, Colton Williams, taking issue with another member having a non-white spouse. These conversations also included the group's ties to Atomwaffen Division, a violent neo-Nazi terrorist network linked to 5 murders such as the death of Blaze Bernstein of which Mark "Illegal Aryan" Daniel Reardon and Vasilios "VasilistheGreek" Pistolis were members of both organizations. Despite his group having been involved in violent incidents as well, Heimbach expressed concern over Atomwaffen's level of extremism and influence and eventually denounced it.
Ideology
Heimbach and his group advocated white separatism, and the group also adhered to a white nationalist and white supremacist ideology.Joe Heim, This white nationalist who shoved a Trump protester may be the next David Duke, Washington Post (April 12, 2016).Clashes at white-supremacist rally in Sacramento leave 10 injured, BBC News (June 27, 2016). Heimbach and Parrott are "self-declared ethnonationalists"Sarah Viets & Ryan Lenz, Matt Heimbach's Traditionalist Youth Network is Cutting Deals with Holocaust Deniers, Hatewatch, Southern Poverty Law Center (July 11, 2016). who aim to create a separate white ethnostate. Specifically, the group promoted a white supremacist interpretation of Christianity, recruiting members to battle what it terms "anti-Christian degeneracy."Jon Schuppe, 'Garrulous and Polite': The White Nationalist Behind Violent California Rally, NBC News (June 27, 2016). The group advocated the prohibition of abortion, restrictions on immigration, and the carrying out of what Heimbach calls "peaceful secessionist projects." In media reports, Heimbach has been called an "alt-right personality".
The SPLC describes the group's ideology as being "virulently racist and anti-Semitic."Keegan Hankes, Meet the New Wave of Extremists Gearing Up for the 2016 Elections, Southern Poverty Law Center (October 19, 2015). The SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League both note that the group is modeled after the European Identitarian movement. The TWP proclaims itself to be "against modernism, individualism, globalism and Marxism." The group identifies itself as an anti-capitalist organization and it connects this position to its advocacy of nationalism by stating "For us, to be anti-capitalist is to be a nationalist. Nationalism is a bulwark against capitalist exploitation and globalism."
The Traditionalist Worker Party rejected multiracial societies and the concept of civic nationalism, instead, it believed that "The ethnic community is the definition of a true nation. Shared blood, history, and traditions are what make a people and bind us together as an extended family." The rejection of multiculturalism as organizational policy is a continuation of the group's virulent white separatist beliefs.
In 2016, Heimbach hailed the British vote to leave the European Union as "the greatest European nationalist victory since 1933," the year of the Nazi rise to power in Germany. In 2016, the TWP and the Barnes Review, a Holocaust denial publication, announced a partnership to promote each other.
Organization and activities Traditionalist Youth Networks's only active university chapter is at the Indiana University Bloomington; this group is led by a white-supremacist activist Thomas Buhls, who has been affiliated with the Harrison, Arkansas-based Knights Party, a Ku Klux Klan group. In December 2016, the group's founder Heimbach claimed that it had some three dozen active chapters and 500 members across the United States; analysts at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League state that these numbers are likely exaggerated. The SPLC's 2017 annual report identifies the TWP as having chapters in Paoli and Bloomington, Indiana; Benson, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and the affiliated Traditionalist Worker Party as having chapters in Paoli and Columbus, Indiana; Sacramento, California; Louisville, Madisonville, and Murray, Kentucky; Kansas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dallas, Texas; and Virginia.Sarah Begley, Read the List of the 917 Hate Groups Identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Time (February 15, 2017).
In August 2013, the group protested a leftist bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana; in October 2013, the group held rallies protesting campus speeches by anti-racist educator Tim Wise.