Meet The Neo-Nazi At The Heart Of The Charlottesville Rally
Over the weekend, white nationalist alt-right groups burst into the national consciousness after their Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville ended in one hate-motivated death and highlighted the emboldened nationalist movement in America. What seemed like fringe politics during the Obama-era has begun seep into national influence as alt-right groups have been buoyed by the election of Donald Trump. One of the men leading the explicitly white nationalist wing of the alt-right movement is Matthew Heimbach.
Heimbach Was A Key Organizer Of The Unite The Right Rally In Charlottesville
In a black combat helmet with a bodyguard in tow, Heimbach led followers in Emancipation Park Saturday to push down police barricades, The Indianapolis Star reports. Heimbach wasn't shy about the overtly white nationalist motivations of the gathering (despite the official rallying point of the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue from the park), explaining the importance of the Rally to the Indianapolis Star:
The biggest thing is a show of strength… To show that our organizations that have been divided on class, been divided on religious issues, divided on ideological grounds, can put 14 words — 'We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children' — as our primary motivating factor.
In early July, Heimbach posted a video to the YouTube account of his Traditionalist Worker Party, promoting the rally as a show of force against "white genocide" and "the Jewish power structure" — claiming the destruction of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville was a step towards white cultural erasure.
After the rally, Heimbach portrayed the day as an overwhelming success:
We achieved all of our objectives… We showed that our movement is not just online, but growing physically. We asserted ourselves as the voice of white America. We had zero vehicles damaged, all our people accounted for, and moved a large amount of men and materials in and out of the area. I think we did an incredibly impressive job.
He was taped outside of the Charlottesville court house on Monday defending James Alex Fields Jr., the man arrested for plowing a car into a group of counter-protesters and killing one. Heimbach claims "the nationalist community" was defending itself from counter-protesters.
In College, Heimbach Ran A Controversial 'White Student Union'
While attending Towson University in 2012, Heimbach founded and ran the White Student Union. The group gained attention by patrolling the campus with flashlights and pepper spray to supposedly combat what he called a "black crime wave." In a Vice documentary on the group, Heimbach spoke about his belief that white people are treated unfairly on college campuses:
We have black student development, Latino student development, gay student development… So one day white people will be on there. We'll be treated equally with every other single group, hopefully. But demanding equality for white people on campus apparently isn't very popular.
Heimbach Believes In The Creation Of A White Ethno-State
Like many white nationalists, Heimbach advocates for the creation of a white ethno-state. In the Vice documentary, Heimbach sketched his vision, saying:
I think that especially the black community will find areas in the South, areas like Detroit, where they can have their own homelands, we don't have to be antagonistic towards them. And if you want to sell yourself and your children down the river of multiculturalism, you can do that. But we deserve the right to exist, deserve the right to defend our culture, and deserve the right to have a future for our culture.
In an interview with Chelsea Handler, Heimbach went further in sketching his disturbing vision, saying he advocated for the "voluntary separation of races," but that mixed-race couples would not be allowed into a white community:
Heimbach Is Anti-Capitalist And Anti-American
The foundation of Heimbach's racist political philosophy is the belief that capitalism has destroyed an "organic hierarchy." In a speech titled "Death To America," delivered in 2014 at the annual Stormfront Summit, Heimbach argues that capitalism has replaced supposed boundaries based in ethnic tribalism with ones based on economics.
His conclusion is that American values, founded on principles of free trade and equality, are antithetical to a white nationalist mission, and that white people must create their own ethnic tribes outside of American politics — eventually resulting in a monarchic ethno-state established through revolution.
More recently, Heimbach reiterated his anti-American, anti-capitalist philosophies in "America Left Us," posted to YouTube this April.
Heimbach Leads Multiple White Nationalist Organizations
Since graduating from Towson in 2013, Heimbach has started and led multiple white nationalist organizations, most notably the Traditionalist Youth Network and its political party the Traditionalist Worker Party. Most recently, Heimbach founded the Nationalist Front — an alliance of white nationalist groups dedicated to "the 14 points" — a set of 14 contemporary white nationalist values covering race, gender, religion, and statehood.
Heimbach Supported The Election Of Donald Trump
Despite the fact the Heimbach is a known neo-Nazi who disavows American politics, he supported the election of Donald Trump and has been supported by certain Republicans. After Trump's election, The New Republic documented a meeting between a Republican party official and Heimbach that appeared to promise Republican funding for the white nationalist movement:
Heimbach's contact said that the movement needed money and that the GOP needed the movement, and that today would be the first step in bringing the nationalists and the GOP together… He threw a hundred dollar bill on the table and took Heimbach with him to the Capitol Hill Club, where he said many people were excited to meet him… Finally Heimbach came back… The meeting had gone well, he said. In a room full of GOP operatives and state legislators he had been introduced as "the next president of the United States." He said that he had made no attempt at hiding his politics or his affiliations, and that no one had seemed to have a problem with it.
The relationship seems to have soured, however, after President Trump fired missiles at a Syrian airbase (seen as an afront to Vladimir Putin, who Heimbach claims is assembling an anti-globalist alliance) and after Heimbach was convicted of disorderly conduct for repeatedly shoving a black protester at a Trump rally. Now, Heimbach is suing Trump for directing supporters to remove protesters from his rallies.
In April, Heimbach noted the importance of Trump mainly as paving a political future for white nationalism:
Our values, and the ones that helped get Trump elected, can't be compromised on… Nationalism is basically faith, family, and folk, and you can't just do 50 percent of that. It's everything or nothing. Trump is a spectacular failure, but getting him elected proved that people are ready for nationalism.
