Matt Heimbach Is Relaunching Traditionalist Workers Party

My latest for @Newsy with @greenblattmark and @SeanCPow… about Matthew Heimbach’s latest iteration of the Traditionalist Worker Party – and why at least one extremism watcher is alarmed. https://t.co/gdEw9XBgES

— Lauren Knapp (@LCKnapp) July 21, 2021

So, this news broke last night.

Matt Heimbach is coming back and relaunching TWP.

Newsy:

“Matt Heimbach, a?self-described radical extremist who played an instrumental role in getting white supremacists to attend Charlottesville’s deadly Unite the Right rally, plans to relaunch his old hate group as soon as this weekend.  

In an interview with Newsy Heimbach says he now supports violence and killings in what he says is a revolution against rich corporate executives, global elites and even those who have caused global warming. 

“These people have names and addresses. Their kids have names and addresses, and the capitalist class, by hook or by crook,?has to?be liquidated. You know that it’s called class war for a reason.?” Heimbach said. “Any violence the proletariat brings is simply in self-defense.?” …”

Here are my thoughts on the TWP relaunch:

1.) First, one of the lessons that we learned from the Alt-Right years was never to talk to these “journalists” and have them tag along like Vegas Tenold. These “journalists” are not your friends. Nothing is gained and much is lost engaging with the “Enemy of the People.” Eric Striker was right.

2.) Second, it goes without saying that nothing is gained from associating your group with violent accelerationists with Merrick Garland leading a DOJ witch hunt against “white supremacists.” Their “strategy” has never worked and all of those people were arrested after El Paso, but years later their actions have been used to justify the Biden administration’s assault on our civil liberties.

3.) Third, I disagree with rebranding TWP as a “Nazbol” group. I also disagree with the overly lefty jargon and embrace of “socialism.” I don’t think it attracts anyone to our cause. I think these buzzwords repulse lots of people who otherwise share our values. The political center of gravity in this country is socially conservative and economically moderate, working class and non-college educated. There is no reason to complicate this by associating yourself with “Bolshevism” or “socialism.” It makes more sense to appeal to the Heartland working class as a normal White working class populist.

4.) Fourth, social democracy is popular with the White working class which supports economic fairness. Why not just say you are defending the cultural values of rural White America and oppose rapacious free market capitalism? Nothing is gained from taking a MODERATE position and presenting it with a RADICAL aesthetic. It makes much more sense to say your ideas are moderate and popular in the Midwest.

5.) Fifth, the Matts have always had this unreciprocated fascination with the fringe left and the fringe right and have focused on appealing to the wrong audience. Normal White people who share our values hate those people. The people we should be appealing to are not radicals or ideologues. They are the vast swath of people who are not part of the base of either political party who are caught in between the True Cons or Charlie Kirk or Tomi Lahrens on the Right and the shitlibs and lefty degenerates on the Left. It is fine to appeal to good people on the Left and there are plenty of Left Populists like Jimmy Dore who basically agree with us on economics and imperialism and who hate shitlibs as much as we do.

Huey Long once said, “All I care is what the boys at the forks of the creek think of me.” It was sound advice then. It is still sound advice today. Anyway, that’s what would I do. The dam is getting ready to burst on plain old vanilla White Middle American populism. That’s what will gain traction.