In May 2019, the white supremacist and fascist organization Patriot Frontplaced propaganda around Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta. Patriot Front splintered and rebranded from another racist organization, Vanguard America, in the aftermath of the disastrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, August 2017. We have now seen a few cycles of Patriot Front activity in Georgia. In late 2017 and early 2018, Patriot Front militants targeted several neighborhoods with propaganda, before our organization exposed their main organizer, coincidentally also in Lawrenceville. Patriot Front activity near Atlanta dropped off sharply after our 2018 exposé, so it was a surprise to see Patriot Front stickers appearing in Lawrenceville again the following year. [1]
Old Twitter account for Patriot Front shows propaganda in Lawrenceville, May 2019
While another Patriot Front member may have been involved, we have determined that Christopher Skylar Brooks helped place the white supremacist organization’s materials around Lawrenceville last May. Interestingly, while he assisted the white supremacist Patriot Front, Brooks was also involved with the Proud Boys, a “Western Chauvinist” far-Right group which claims to reject white supremacy and involves some reactionary people of color.
Chris Brooks
Brooks’ online bragging allowed us to identify him as helping with the Patriot Front propaganda in Lawrenceville. After Patriot Front hit Lawrenceville with stickers, anti-racists removed them and left some antifascist materials in their place. Not long after, a new Twitter account with the name “Nash Shunulitz” replied to the Atlanta Antifascists profile, posting images of an antifascist sticker being torn down in Lawrenceville, and a Patriot Front sticker being posted yet again. Patriot Front provides stickers only to those who have signed up with the organization, and so “Nash Shunulitz” must have joined the white supremacist group, or at least have been gifted a few stickers by a member. Since “Nash Shunulitz” was following up on a larger Patriot Front propaganda run, it is likely he participated in the initial activity too.
A simple internet search shows only one other social media profile under the name “Nash Shunulitz” – a Facebook account established in August by Christopher Skylar Brooks, who is visible in photos on the Facebook profile. The “Nash Shunulitz” Facebook has shared content that also appeared on Chris Brook’s personal account under his own name.
Chris Brooks’ “Nash Shunulitz” profile includes a “Black Sun” picture – a symbol used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Before his recent move overseas, a listed address for Brooks was in Lawrenceville. Brooks’ family home is also in Grayson, Georgia, just ten minutes away. The photos provided by “Nash Shunulitz” on Twitter cinch the identification. One photo shows a pair of tan pants of the sort favored by Brooks. While “Nash Shunulitz” attempted to obscure this, another Twitter photo shows a metal ring on the right index finger, exactly as worn by Chris Brooks.
From picture posted by “Nash Shunulitz”
Chris Brooks with ring on right index finger.
The Facebook profile maintained by Chris Brooks under his own name predates his alternative Facebook account as “Nash Shunulitz”. Brooks’ profile shows that in May 2019, he was posting Alt-Right propaganda, including an image which used the triple parentheses symbol to suggest a Jewish conspiracy. This online activity fits the profile of someone ripe for Patriot Front recruitment.
Although Brooks distributed Patriot Front propaganda in Lawrenceville, he may not have stuck with the organization for long. The “Nash Shunulitz” Twitter profile included the words: “Life. Liberty. Survival.” which misstates the Patriot Front slogan of “Life, Liberty, Victory!” This error suggests that Brooks was still learning the ropes in the organization. A lack of further Patriot Front propaganda around Lawrenceville last year also suggests that Brooks may not have lasted long, since Patriot Front members are under constant pressure to spread propaganda.
Chris Brooks in “Proud Boys Atlanta” Facebook group, March 2017
Brooks has stayed longer within the Proud Boys. He is found in our records from the “Proud Boys Atlanta” Facebook group, dating to March 2017. Brooks was photographed with other Proud Boy members as late as December last year, and his social media is a who’s who of the organization in our state and beyond. Notably, Brooks is friends on social media with Gregory Glenn Joiner of Warner Robins. Joiner is another Proud Boy in Georgia who signed up with a white nationalist organization. In Gregory Joiner’s case, his name appears in leaked logs from the racist group Identity Evropa (now rebranded as the “American Identity Movement”).
Chris Brooks in caricature Chinese outfit, December 2019. Georgia Proud Boy Chris Kemp is to Brooks’ right. Note the “Goy” t-shirt above Brooks – a term appropriated by antisemites and the Alt-Right.
In recent months, Chris Brooks moved to Shanghai, China. One image posted by Brooks as “Nash Shunulitz” shows a figure dressed a Pepe costume, moving between the mob scene from the “Unite the Right” torchlit march, to what appears to be a Shanghai cityscape. Superimposed on the Charlottesville mob is the logo of Identity Evropa, though it is unclear whether Brooks was a formal member of that organization. On LinkedIn, Brooks now lists himself as the Chief Operating Officer for “Shanghai Beverly Business Consulting, Ltd”, a company that “facilitates relationships with suppliers”. On Facebook, Brooks stated that he had been “keeping myself in misery” in Georgia with attempts to “change or save the world”, and that he was happier in Shanghai. An accompanying video shows Brooks tutoring a child, suggesting another job.
Image from Brooks’ “Nash Shunulitz” Facebook page, September 2019
Despite Brooks’ change of environment and attitude, there is no sign that he has fully abandoned far-Right politics. Brooks remains in contact with most of the main figures of the Proud Boys in Georgia via Facebook. Brooks also stays connected with “Paxton Rangerstein”, an antisemitic and explicitly fascist account. Brooks displays casual anti-Asian racism, casting himself as an expatriate lord whose whiteness grants him a privileged status over the Asian population.
Chris Brooks profile on LinkedIn
We are drawing attention to Brooks for a couple of reasons. First, when racists target communities with white supremacist propaganda, we will always do our best to expose them. Second, Chris Brooks is another example of a Proud Boy who further radicalized himself while in the organization. Brooks’ white power affiliations were seemingly not an issue for the Proud Boys, despite that organization’s pose to have nothing to do with white supremacy. While the Proud Boys are nominally “Western Chauvinist” instead of white supremacist, their organization is adjacent to organized white nationalism, facilitates racist radicalization, and welcomes clear white supremacists within its ranks. We believe it is important to document the porous boundaries between “Alt-lite” groups such as the Proud Boys, and explicitly white nationalist and fascist groups.
If you have further information on Patriot Front or other far-Right activity in our state, please get in contact.
Note [1] Patriot Front was also active in Columbus, Georgia, last year, where they eventually targeted synagogues. This year, there have been new rounds of Patriot Front propaganda in Atlanta and otherparts of Georgia. Please get in contact if you have information on this other Patriot Front activity.
Robert Timothy “Tim” Dickenson, currently linked to property in Hiawassee, Georgia and previously of South Carolina, is a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and a core member of north Georgia’s “American Patriots USA” (APUSA). We first noticed Dickenson at white supremacist Chester Doles’ far-Right rally in Dahlonega, north Georgia on September 14, 2019. Tim Dickenson marched in alongside Klansmen and other close supporters of Doles. Since then, Dickenson has been a constant presence supporting Doles and APUSA. For months we did not know who he was, but with some effort we have now identified him.
Tim Dickenson at 9/14/2019 rally in Dahlonega
Dickenson 2015 mugshot from West Virginia arrest
Dickenson further gained our attention after he appeared in Dahlonega on October 19, 2019 for the community’s Gold Rush Festival parade. There, Dickenson showed up alongside Chester Doles and members of Doles’ family, who had a float in the parade promoting Doles’ new APUSA organization. Dickenson wore a hoodless sweatshirt advertising the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKKKKK) as he accompanied the APUSA float.
Dickenson with back toward camera, Dahlonega Gold Rush Festival parade.
Another picture of Dickenson from October 19, 2019.
As we discussed in our earlier article about APUSA, Dickenson (unidentified at the time) posed with Klansmen and neo-Nazis following the first APUSA meeting on December 14, 2019. This year, APUSA attempted to pass a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary City” ordinance in Lumpkin County, as part of a mainstreaming effort to build their organization and pose as community leaders. Dickenson appeared alongside Chester Doles and antisemite Sean Keena in Dahlonega on February 1, attempting to get signatures for their “2nd Amendment Sanctuary City” petition outside the local Walmart.
Dickenson (L) with Chester Doles and Sean Keena, February 1st
From the late 1980s onward, Dickenson had a long history of criminal charges in Greenville County, South Carolina. The vast majority of Dickenson’s cases are related to driving while intoxicated. He also has a 1988 guilty plea for drug possession. More worryingly, Dickenson took a plea deal in 2014 for charges from an arrest the previous year. Dickenson pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal domestic violence as well as aggravated assault. Dickenson had originally been charged with attempted murder rather than aggravated assault from the May 2013 domestic violence incident.
Dickenson’s South Carolina guilty pleas for aggravated assault and domestic violence.
In early July 2015 – two weeks after white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina – Dickenson cycled around Simpsonville and Fountain Inn, SC, with a Confederate battle flag and advertised the KKK. A news story identified “Timothy” as a member of the Original Knight Riders, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at the time.
Dickenson distributes KKK literature, 2015
Tim Dickenson appears to have been using family property in Hiawassee, Georgia, since at least 2019 and possibly earlier. Hiawassee is a small community in Towns County with a population of less than one thousand. The property is currently listed as owned by one of Dickenson’s sisters; it was earlier owned by Dickenson’s mother (now-deceased). In addition to the rural property with a listed street address, two nearby plots of land are also owned by the family.
October 2018: Chester Doles post about “Sons of Yahweh” church in Hiawassee
In October 2018, APUSA leader Chester Doles claimed on the VK social networking site that he would attend the opening of a new church in Hiawassee named the Sons of Yahweh. Responding to a comment on VK, Doles suggested that the new church was based on the Aryan Nations (“AN”) model, referring to the notorious white supremacist group. Doles even suggested that the Hiawassee church would eventually have a guard tower based on the design from AN’s old compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho. The tower comment may be simply Doles trying to impress his neo-Nazi audience, just as he exaggerated his friends’ importance by claiming that Associated Press had been invited to the Church opening.
December 2019 in Dahlonega: KKK organizer Robert McDuffie, Tim Dickenson, Chester Doles and neo-Nazi Michael Carothers (AKA Michael Weaver) after the first APUSA meeting.
If the Georgia “Sons of Yahweh” church is more than a figment of Doles’ imagination, we suspect it is tied to Dickenson. However, no obvious church structure or signs currently stand on the Hiawassee property used by Dickenson, at least as visible from the road. The name “Sons of Yahweh” suggests a Christian Identity affiliation. Christian Identity is a racist religion which portrays whites as God’s true chosen people, believes Jewish people are imposters who have Satanic origins, and treats people of color as less than fully human. The “Church of the Sons of YHVH” was the name of an earlier Christian Identity group co-founded by Morris Gullett. Gullett also led an Aryan Nations faction after the main group splintered following a major lawsuit, bankruptcy, and the death of its founder. Gullett’s faction of AN had an associated Klan division, the Aryan Nations Knights (ANK) of the Ku Klux Klan. Approximately five years ago, ANK leaders in the South such as Greg Calhoun and Shaun Winkler switched their affiliations from ANK to IKKKKK. As discussed earlier, Tim Dickenson appeared in public advertising the IKKKKK in October.
Dickenson at APUSA meeting, March 14, 2020. From video posted online by militia supporter and fringe Republican candidate Michael Boggus.
Dickenson’s affiliations show yet
again that “American Patriots USA” is a front group for active white
supremacists, not simply an anti-socialist, pro-Trump organization as it
advertises itself. By publishing information on Dickenson, we are also warning
Towns County residents to be on the lookout for racist organizing in their
area, possibly under the guise of a new church.
Please get in contact if you have further information on Tim Dickenson, APUSA, or other white supremacists organizing in Georgia.
At the time of writing, the novel coronavirus pandemic is threatening untold lives. Even under a different set of rulers, a dysfunctional health system and slashed safety nets would place many in harm’s way. To add to this, the Trump regime lied and delayed when it had time, further compounding damage. Everything that we can do to protect each other – from physical distancing measures, to mutual aid networks and advocacy for those most at risk – makes a difference.
“5 Demands” circulating online, author unknown
The organized far-Right is not standing by idly in this crisis. However, their positions vary from denialism and minimization, to conspiracy-mongering and even chatter about actively accelerating and worsening the situation. As an organization, Atlanta Antifascists will continue to monitor and document these far-Right responses. With the situation changing rapidly, documentation will mostly take place on our socialmedia, which we encourage you to follow.
We must stand by our neighbors and challenge scapegoating at every opportunity. In particular, the anti-Asian racism deliberately fostered by Trump – and also boosted by fascists and white nationalist groups away from the center of power – must be consistently opposed.
Supporting mutual aid projects and networks is also crucial. Food4Life is one noteworthy survival program in Atlanta. You can read about it and support it – or reach out for assistance – here. If you have funds, please also consider supporting this fundraiser for refugees impacted in Atlanta. See ItsGoingDown for a list of COVID-19 community mutual aid projects across North America.
We admire the courage shown daily by
workers at the front of this pandemic, not only hospital staff and medical
workers, but also under-valued and exploited grocery clerks, delivery people,
trash collectors, and others providing vital services. Our communities are
behind you and will fight for you.
We are exposing Jamie Lee Mallard of Georgia as longtime racist and extreme-Right propagandist “James Futurist”. Mallard, whose other aliases include “James Egoist”, James Rockwell, Jameson Blackwell and NeoNationalist, has been active in the white power movement since 2012, including that movement’s most extreme neo-Nazi fringes. For years Mallard promoted IronMarch (IM), a website that birthed other white supremacist organizations such as Vanguard America and the murderous Atomwaffen Division (AWD). Jamie Mallard collaborated with IronMarch’s webmaster, “Slavros”, and had contact with early AWD members including its founder Brandon Russell – now imprisoned on federal explosives charges – and Devon Arthurs, who killed two other members of the group. As “James Futurist”, Mallard appeared on several episodes of IM’s “Mysterium Fasces” podcast.
Jamie Lee Mallard
Briefly-used profile image on white supremacist site The Daily Stormer
Jamie Mallard states that he currently lives in Smyrna, Georgia, part of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. Before his 2019 move, Mallard lived in several southern Georgia communities such as Tifton and later Moultrie. Mallard is a veteran of the US Air Force but now works in information technology. While living in Moultrie, Mallard claims to have had access to the “entire town’s sensitive data” as part of his job. Mallard currently fantasizes about an approaching civil war, or “Boogaloo”. While Mallard maintains a nihilistic and despairing persona, he remains in contact with key players on the racist scene, such as Alt-Right podcaster Mike Peinovich (AKA “Mike Enoch”) and members of the fascist Patriot Front.
Mallard’s “Jameson Blackwell” VKontakte account also references the skull mask, a symbol popularized by IronMarch.
Identification and Online Presence
Jamie Lee Mallard had two different accounts on IronMarch, an influential neo-Nazi forum which existed from September 2011 until it vanished in late November 2017. The forum’s contents were leaked online in November 2019 and are now hosted in a searchable format by The Jewish Worker.
Jamie Lee Mallard registered his first account on IM, “Malhard”, in July 2012, using an email address beginning with “j.lee.mallard”. The “Malhard” account last logged in to IronMarch in September 2015.
In August 2015, “James Futurist” registered an account on IM. This account existed until it was banned in December 2016. We will discuss the reasons for this ban later. After the ban, another IronMarch user commented:
“Fun fact, James has been gassed [banned from the forum, a reference to Nazi gas chambers] before. If you go back through the site you’ll find a user called MalHard which was James’ first account here. […] If any of ya’ll remember NeoNationalist on tumblr that was James as well.”
While the “Malhard” account may have actually been abandoned rather than banned from IM, the rest of the user’s comment is accurate. In a private message, “Malhard” admitted to being the person behind the “NeoNationalist” account on Tumblr. The same Tumblr account is referenced in a private message exchange between “James Futurist” and IM’s webmaster.
The first online archive of the NeoNationalist Tumblr account dates from September 2013, but it had already produced seventeen pages of content by that time. The account was banned by Tumblr in late September or early October 2015. The NeoNationalist account includedpictures that are clearly Jamie Lee Mallard. In addition, the account posted a photo of a house on Love Avenue in Tifton, Georgia, where Jamie Lee Mallard once lived.
Mallard poses with weapons, posted 2014 to now-deleted “NeoNationalist” Tumblr.
From this starting point, it was easy to locate other online personas used by Jamie Mallard. Our records revealed that Jamie Mallard once used the name “James Futurist” on Disqus.com, but the Disqus account (@NeoFuturist) has now changed its name to “Jameson Blackwell”. Mallard now also uses the name “Jameson Blackwell” on Instagram and on the Russian social networking site VKontakte. Reddit user @jfuturist is also clearly Jamie Lee Mallard, based on the username, writing style, worldview expressed in comments, and personal details about his life. Other aliases used by Mallard include “James Rockwell” and “James Egoist”.
Current Workplace and Work History
On LinkedIn, Jamie Lee Mallard states that he is currently employed by Shiji Group doing Point of Sale support. Shiji Group is a Beijing-based company that provides technology solutions for the hotel, retail, entertainment and food service industries. The company’s International Office is in Atlanta. Mallard has been working for Shiji Group since September. On LinkedIn and also on a PayPal link we found, Mallard gives his current location as Smyrna, part of Metro Atlanta.
Jamie Mallard LinkedIn gives location of Smyrna, Georgia
Prior to his job with Shiji Group and apparent move from southern Georgia, Jamie Mallard worked for almost two years doing tech support for Charis Technology in Moultrie, Georgia. While working this job, Mallard wrote as “JFuturist” on Reddit that it was easy to access “the entire town’s sensitive data” and “passcodes to every single fucking government PC in this town”. Mallard made these comments out of concern that weak security protocols would lead to the City of Moultrie’s information being compromised from outside, with Mallard being the fall guy for the data breach. From our perspective, an active white supremacist having inside access to the City’s data is equally alarming.
Before his work with Charis Tech in
Moultrie, Mallard had two workplaces in Tifton: Plant Telecommunications where
he was a network specialist and before that, MacKinnon Equipment, which sells
materials handling equipment.
In 2013, Mallard posted his Air Force wings, dog tags and a SERE patch alongside firearms to his Tumblr.
Mallard is a US Air Force veteran. On his “NeoNationalist” Tumblr blog, Mallard stated that: “I was a SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] specialist for my first enlistment and then cross trained to an air crew job on board the [Boeing] E-3 [Sentry] AWACS [Airborne Warning And Control System].” In another post, Mallard shared an image of his Air Force wings and his SERE patch alongside some of his firearms.
Mallard’s first job upon leaving the military was as a Veteran’s Service Representative at Valdosta State University, where Mallard worked from September 2010 to May 2012. By Mallard’s account, it was there he began moving toward fascist politics. In his introductory post for his second account on IM, “James Futurist”, Mallard claims that it was the “rabidly anti-white identity politics” of Occupy Wall Street while he was working on campus, that “rattled” him and led him to racist and antisemitic conclusions. If there is any truth to Mallard’s claims about his radicalization, the transformation must have occurred very rapidly. Occupy Wall Street began in September 2011. Jamie Lee Mallard registered his first account on IronMarch – an openly neo-Nazi forum – in June the next year.
IronMarch
From its launch in September 2011 until the site went offline in November 2017, IronMarch recruited and indoctrinated a new multinational generation of zealous fascists. The forum was the birthplace of the Atomwaffen Division, a militant neo-Nazi organization which has now been linked to multiple murders, as well as Vanguard America, which the current white supremacist organization Patriot Front splintered from. One of the IM administrators based in the UK was a founder of National Action, a neo-Nazi organization now banned as a terrorist group. IM’s founder is “Slavros” – believed to be Alisher Mukhitdinov – who operated the forum from Russia.
Mallard promotes IronMarch materials (and American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell), NeoNationalist Tumblr, March 2015
A large part of IM’s legacy is its popularization of Siege within the white power movement. That book – which compiled a series of newsletters published by James Mason for the National Socialist Liberation Front during the 1980s – endorses terrorism to hasten the collapse of society and pave the way for a fascist order. IM promoted Siege heavily from 2015 onward and even produced its own edition. Accelerationist neo-Nazi groups such as AWD and The Base have adopted Siege as a key text.
Even before the forum embraced Siege, Jamie Mallard was an active promoter of IM. In a private message exchange from December 2013, “Александр Славрос” (“Alexander Slavros”) asked Mallard to circulate a new propaganda graphic by Slavros on Mallard’s “NeoNationalist” Tumblr. A July 2014 archive from the NeoNationalist Tumblr account also shows propaganda by Slavros. A short-lived successor to Mallard’s NeoNationalist Tumblr, “WhiteFuturist”, also shared a long essay by Slavros in early 2016.
Jamie Mallard not only promoted Slavros’ materials on Tumblr but recruited for IM on a different site, TheRightStuff (TRS), which was closer to the Alt-Right. An October 2015 post on IM by “Hyperborean Shitlord” stated: “I have been shilling, along with NeoFuturist [i.e. Jamie Lee Mallard …] for A Squire’s Trial and Hammer of the Patriot [over the] last couple of days” on TRS forums. Hammer of the Patriot is a guide to winning debates written by Montreal, Quebec IronMarch moderator and neo-Nazi propagandist Gabriel Sohier-Chaput, also known as “Zeiger”. A Squire’s Trial is an introduction to fascism written in the form of a fictional dialogue. It was authored by Sohier-Chaput (as “Charles Chapel”) and IM site admin Slavros (Alisher Mukhitdinov).
Video posted by Mallard to Vimeo, attacking the Alt-Right for alleged tolerance of homosexuality
In mid-2016, Mallard and other IM users were banned from TRS forums. According to IronMarch user “Hyperborean [Shitlord]”, this was because “James Rockwell [Jamie Mallard] triggered them [TRS leaders] in a private FB [Facebook] group” and TRS reacted with a forum ban. In a private message exchange between Mallard and Slavros earlier that year, Mallard discussed his motivation to “funnel” TRS users to IronMarch. Mallard was frustrated with “TRS, alt-right stuff” because of its residual libertarianism – many Alt-Right members arrived from libertarian political backgrounds – and also because of its “complete apathy about f[*]ggotry”. Perceived tolerance toward homosexuality on the Alt-Right was used by Mallard and some others on IM to position themselves as uncompromisingly fascist, in contrast to the Alt-Right which they portrayed as compromised. The month after he was banned from TRS forums, Mallard posted a video on Vimeo attacking the “Alt-Right” over its alleged leniency toward homosexuality.
Now-deleted YouTube account for “James Futurist” circulated James Mason interview. Screenshot from web cache, accessed late 2019.
By 2015, IM was actively promoting James Mason’s Siege, which celebrates small-group terrorism to bring down the “system” and usher in a National Socialist society. At least initially, Jamie Mallard seems to have shared IM’s enthusiasm for Siege, since his now-deleted “James Futurist” YouTube account hosted a video of its author, James Mason. In leaked chats from the Traditionalist Worker Party – a now-defunct neo-Nazi organization – Mallard/“James Futurist” is referred to by one user as a former “prophet of Siege” who subsequently “left our cult [around James Mason and Siege]”. Mallard’s departure from IM and the “cult” did not mean that he left white supremacist and fascist circles.
In 2016 comment on The Daily Stormer, Mallard (“natfuturist”) praises Atomwaffen Division propaganda
Mallard also endorsed early propaganda by Atomwaffen Division. Commenting on a 2016 Daily Stormer article by Sohier-Chaput (“Zeiger”) celebrating AWD posters placed on Boston University campus, Mallard commented: “This [the neo-Nazi posters] is how it’s done”.
In late 2016, Mallard participated in several episodes of “Mysterium Fasces”, an IM-affiliated podcast “dedicated to the discussion of Christianity and Fascism”. (Several of its guests were non-Christians.) Mallard appeared as “James Futurist” in the first episode of October 2016, as well as episodes five, six, eight, and finally episode nine in early December 2016. On the podcast, Mallard appeared alongside Daily Stormer webmaster Andrew Anglin (once), Traditionist Worker Party leader Matthew Heimbach (once), Slavros (twice) and Gabriel Sohier-Chaput/“Zeiger” (three times). On episode eight, the Mysterium Fasces host “Florian Geyer” gave Mallard half the episode to present his views on the “PizzaGate” conspiracy theory.
Mysterium Fasces episode rehosted on YouTube
While Jamie Mallard was a busy propagandist during his time on IM, he periodically went through periods of dejection. In September 2014 Mallard/“James Futurist” wrote in a private message that white people have “been defeated on a level that the world has never seen” by “Jews” and that Mallard was “done”. Despite this claim, Mallard remained active on the forum and in the white supremacist movement. In March 2015, Mallard posted publicly on IM that “1945 was our last stand and we lost”, yet he again continued with the racist movement.
Mallard was finally banned from IM in December 2016, approximately the same time as his final podcast appearance on Mysterium Fasces. One month earlier, Mallard had commented favorably on an article written by “Gregory Hood” (real name Kevin DeAnna) for the white nationalist Radix Journal. In his post, Mallard claimed that direct “armed insurrection or violent revolution” endorsed by Siege was unrealistic in the context of the US, and that Siege adherents were actually engaging in a form of “LARPing” (Live Action Role Playing) as criticized by “Hood”/DeAnna. Mallard cited the neo-fascists of Italy’s Casa Pound movement and Greece’s fascist Golden Dawn as providing better models. This appears to have gone over poorly, with another IM user mocking Mallard as “James Conservative” for the comments following Mallard’s forum ban.
Brandon Russell
Devon Arthurs
In May 2017, a few months after Mallard’s IM ban, Devon Arthurs killed two of his roommates in Tampa, Florida. Devon Arthurs was a co-founder of AWD who was active on IM as “TheWeisseWolfe” but had converted to Islam. Arthurs’ victims were also AWD members. A fourth roommate, Brandon Russell, was “Odin” on IM and led AWD. Russell is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for bomb-making materials discovered at the shared apartment following Arthurs’ killings. By the time of the killings, Mallard had established a new account on TheRightStuff forums as “James Futarist” (sic) and commented: “I’ve tried talking sense into Devon [Arthurs] and Odin [Brandon Russell] on many occasions.” By that time, Mallard had expressed concern about Siege-style Nazi insurrectionism, while continuing to promote fascist and white supremacist movements. Mallard had also spent years promoting and recruiting for IM, the site where AWD developed.
Jamie Mallard and the Broader
Alt-Right
We discussed how Jamie Mallard tried to set himself apart from much of the Alt-Right, for example by using severe homophobia to distinguish his brand of fascism from others. However, to some degree this was a kind of friendly rivalry. Even the task of funneling TheRightStuff members to IronMarch entailed some level of good relations with the host site, since otherwise bans would have occurred much sooner. Shortly after being banned from TRS forums along with other IM supporters, Mallard claimed in a private message that he was still “cool with Enoch” – an alias for Michael Peinovich, the head of TRS. Mallard appeared as “James Rockwell” in a list of “Enoch”/Peinovich’s Facebook friends from January 2017. Mallard was eventually able to start posting again on the TRS forum.
Mallard’s “James Rockwell” Facebook account, 2017
Without a home on IM – which went offline completely in late 2017 – Mallard became a floating personality on the white nationalist scene. Mallard’s propaganda activity may have slowed from the years he was on IronMarch, but it never stopped. To this day, Mallard maintains ties with key fascist and white supremacist organizers.
Daily Stormer masthead designed by Jamie Mallard, October 2016
Even before Mallard’s time ended on IM, he was supporting other fascist projects. In 2016, he won a contest to design a new masthead for The Daily Stormer, an antisemitic and white supremacist website that Mallard’s IM associate Sohier-Chaput also wrote for. Mallard’s retro-wave design for The Daily Stormer spotlights the insignia of the Nazi SS and was featured on the site in October 2016.
In May 2017, Mallard cheered for The Daily Stormer after it published a misogynist rant, “Just What are Traditional Gender Roles?” by Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer. Auernheimer argued – with tongue only slightly in cheek – for marital rape, to reduce the status of women to property, and to beat or kill any woman who complains. The underlying hatred of feminism and women’s rights is sincere, and apparently shared by Mallard.
Meme posted by Jamie Mallard to “Gabber Hangout” chat, December 2016
Mallard appeared under the name “James Egoist” in leaked far-Right channels from the Discord chat platform, which were published online by the Unicorn Riot independent media collective. Mallard’s handle in these chats is seemingly a reference to the “Egoism” of individualist anarchist Max Stirner, whose writing has occasionally been appropriated by the far-Right. (Jamie Mallard is explicitly not an anarchist, however.) One of the Discord servers Mallard appeared in, “Gabber Hangout”, was a means for far-Right users of the Gab social network to coordinate away from that site. Mallard’s posts in the “Gabber Hangout” date from December 2016. In April 2017, Mallard/“James Egoist” also appeared in the “Vibrant Diversity” server, described by one member as “the most elite discord server in the Alt Right.” While that server later helped with planning for “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia, Mallard’s chat on the server is limited to April 2017 and does not concern the rally.
Mallard (“NeoFuturist”) jokes about Heather Heyer’s murder two days afterward
On the day of Unite the Right, 2017, after Heather Heyer had been murdered and dozens of others injured, Jamie Mallard commented on Breitbart News that “the Jewish wing of your organization is going to have to deal with the fact that half of their reader base was at this rally or supported it” and urged the site not to condemn the “people at […] these events.” Two days after the rally, Mallard joked about anti-racist protester Heather Heyer’s murder. On Voat – a more Alt-Right-friendly version of Reddit – Mallard posted an image asking how one’s views had changed since the Charlottesville rally, then quipped: “I’m reconsidering getting a Dodge Challenger actually.” White supremacist murderer James Alex Fields, Jr. used his Challenger to plow into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing Heyer.
Past Two Years
Since late 2017 and the Alt-Right’s reversal of fortune after Charlottesville, Mallard has continued his extreme-Right propaganda. Among his other many other posts, Mallard posted a Holocaust-denial rant to Reddit in June 2018. Mallard seems to have been involved with a Facebook meme page with thousands of followers, “Black Pill Memes for Fatalist Teens”, though few traces of that page currently remain.
2019 VK post by Mallard commented on by two Patriot Front members from Texas. (One references racist propagandist Mike Peinovich.)
Recent online activity shows that Mallard is a sympathizer – though possibly not a member – of Patriot Front, the white supremacist organization which broke off from Vanguard America soon after Unite the Right. On Voat, Mallard shared a video by Patriot Front in April 2018, highlighting the organization’s recent efforts. Patriot Front is one of seven pages followed by “James Futurist” on the Busy social media platform, which Mallard joined in December 2017. Since November 2019, Mallard has been active on the Russian social networking site VKontakte (VK) under the name “Jameson Blackwell”, where he gives his location as “Atlanta”. As well as his connections to TheRightStuff head Mike Peinovich and affiliated antisemite “Morrakiu”/“Tyrant Fashister”, Mallard’s VK account is linked to several Patriot Front members. On VK, Mallard associates with Texas Patriot Front organizers “Braxton Bragg” (Joseph Nicolas Brown), “Alexander Reese” (likely Erik Sailors), and Joffre Cross who recently pleaded guilty on federal weapons charges.
In addition to VK account, Mallard is currently active on Twitter. From August to December of last year, he maintained an Instagram account sharing memes about the “Boogaloo” – a far-Right term for an approaching civil war. In one of his posts from December 2019, Mallard displayed what looks like an AT4 unguided rocket launcher. However, these are single-use weapons and according to open source arms researchers the image likely shows a used tube. Although Mallard describes his Instagram page as “satire and jokes”, a glance through his posts shows that Mallard endorses the violent, apocalyptic fantasies of the US far-Right.
Conclusion
We have spent a long time tracing Jamie Lee Mallard’s history, since he is a well-connected member of the white supremacist movement with many years of propaganda and recruitment behind him. The forum which Mallard initially recruited for, IronMarch, was the birthplace of several notorious neo-Nazi organizations and spawned a new wave of neo-Nazi terrorism. Mallard not only worked with key members of IM such as “Slavros” and “Zeiger”, but by his own admission discussed with the initial leadership of Atomwaffen Division “on many occasions”.
Since being booted from IM, Mallard has supported other white supremacist projects, such as promoting The Daily Stormer website and Patriot Front. While he was living in Moultrie, Georgia, Mallard claimed he had easy access to local government computers. According to his recent online information, Mallard is currently based in Smyrna, Georgia and working for Shiji Group. After many years as an anonymous but influential white supremacist, Jamie Mallard can no longer lead a double life.
If you have further information on Jamie Lee Mallard or other white supremacists in our state, please get in contact.
Chester Doles, the lead organizer of “American Patriots USA” in North Georgia, has a history spanning decades in the white supremacist movement.
In December 2016, Doles, alongside other members of the violent Hammerskin Nation (HSN) racist gang, was involved in a brawl with family and friends of an interracial couple celebrating at Johnny B’s bar in Dahlonega, Georgia. Doles is affiliated with Crew 38, a booster group for the Hammerskins. Doles accepted a plea deal for two counts of battery from the Johnny B’s brawl in November 2017. Prior to accepting the plea, Doles traveled with members of the HSN to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he participated in the bloody August 12, 2017 “Unite the Right” (UTR) rally.
Photo posted by John Todd Kopko to Instagram in early 2018, showing the Hammerskin group from Unite the Right
Chester Doles’ presence at Unite the Right was noted by author Vegas Tenold. In addition, we published a still of Doles at UTR in our article on Doles’ September 2019 far-Right “Patriots” rally in Dahlonega. The publication of this image displeased Doles, who last month stated on the VKontakte social media site: “That picture could of [sic] been taken anywhere. I’ve never been to CVILLE.” Doles ignores that the still was taken from footage of UTR 2017 by independent media collective Unicorn Riot, and therefore could not have been taken anywhere else.
Georgia Hammerskin affiliates circled. L-R: Chester Doles, Jason Chance Reeves and Shawn Christopher Dunson.
We have now located a picture of the Hammerskin Nation group from UTR 2017. The image was posted to Instagram in early 2018 by John Todd Kopko, a longtime associate of the HSN in Florida who now leads a different white power crew, the “United Skinhead Nation”. Kopko added the comment: “That day Charlottesville was ours hail the [Hammerskin] nation”. In the picture, Doles appears crossing his arms in an “X” and clenching his fists, to indicate the crossed hammers logo of the HSN. Also included in the UTR group picture are Jason Chance Reeves and Shawn Christopher Dunson, Hammerskins who were both with Doles at the December 2016 brawl in Dahlonega.
Shawn Christopher Dunson (L) and John Todd Kopko (3rd from L) in Charlottesville
In addition, John Kopko published another photo of himself, Georgia Hammerskin Shawn Christopher Dunson, and others seemingly from the UTR trip. The picture was taken in the parking lot of the Rio Hill shopping mall in Charlottesville, VA. Attire matches the HSN group photo.
In conclusion: Chester Doles is a white supremacist who attended UTR 2017 with the violent Hammerskin Nation gang. Later in 2017, Doles took a plea deal for other violence he was involved with in Dahlonega alongside his Hammerskin associates. Doles lies when convenient about his ongoing involvement in the white supremacist movement.
Full version of Rio Hill mall parking lot photo. Chester Doles on left. Trevor David Thompson (AKA “Trey Hooligan”) third from left.
We have now accessed a complete version of the Rio Hill shopping mall photo. Chester Doles features in this untrimmed version of the photo.
As well as Chester Doles, Shawn Dunson and Kopko, the picture includes Hammerskin member Trevor David Thompson AKA “Trey Hooligan”. Thompson earlier served a long prison sentence for the attempted murder of a Black teenager in Indiana.
Update 3/27/2020: We have now identified the International Keystone Knights of the KKK supporter discussed in this article as Robert Timothy Dickenson.
Introduction
Since late last year, longtime white supremacist Chester Doles has attempted to build an organization – American Patriots USA (APUSA) – in north Georgia. Doles held a far-Right “Patriots” rally in Dahlonega, Georgia in September 2019 that was greatly outnumbered by counter-protesters, and started APUSA shortly afterwards. Although Doles’ September rally was not the success he’d hoped for, Doles has held regular meetings for his new organization since December.
Recently, APUSA seized on “2nd
Amendment Sanctuary” proposals as their main organizing issue. As this article
discusses, APUSA is dominated by active Klansmen as well as neo-Nazis, and is
an attempt by ideological white supremacists to broaden their base of support
in North Georgia and gain conservative electoral credibility. Our update will
also discuss a newly identified business manager supporting APUSA; local
militiamen doing security for the organization; a planned APUSA candidate for
Sheriff in White County who became a community laughing stock; and finally, a
new business linked to the APUSA front group. We hope this information is
useful for North Georgia locals challenging Doles’ organizing.
Late November 2019: Doles shares propaganda for the National Alliance, the neo-Nazi organization whose Georgia chapter he led prior to his 2003 arrest on federal firearm charges.
Meetings so far
Chester Doles reservations for the Lumpkin County Parks and Recreation Center, December 14, 2019 and January 11, 2020
To date, Doles’ American Patriots USA has had two formal meetings, both held at the Lumpkin County Parks and Recreation Center where Doles rented a room. The first meeting was held on December 14, exactly three months after Doles’ far-Right rally in Dahlonega. The main goal for this meeting appears to have been signing up members for the APUSA organization. After the meeting, new members briefly distributedThe Conservative Action Report in downtown Dahlonega and also went to a local bar (more below). The Conservative Action Report is published by William Carter of South Carolina, who was listed as a speaker for Doles’ September 14 rally but failed to appear. Carter was previously the SC state leader for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, and in 1992 ran that state’s presidential campaign for neo-Nazi and former Klan leader David Duke.
Paul Lovett of Nationalist Liberty Union speaks at January meeting
The January meeting, held on the 11th, focused on preparing for the anti-gun-control rally in Richmond, Virginia on the 20th. APUSA had by then seized on the issue of “2nd Amendment Sanctuaries” as an issue for the organization to push in north Georgia. Paul Lovett of Grovetown, GA and key member of the racist “Nationalist Liberty Union” gave a talk at the January 11 meeting, as did Christy Howle of Clarks Hill, SC. Howle is the designer for the APUSA website, attended the September 14th rally in Dahlonega with Lovett, and is Lovett’s “girlfriend” according to Chester Doles’ 10/2/19 appearance on The Right Voice white nationalist podcast.
APUSA aimed to have their third meeting on February 8th. That meeting was intended as a “muster call” for their efforts to make Lumpkin County a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” which would not comply with any state or federal firearms restrictions. This is an ideal issue for APUSA, since overstated fears of a gun grab play directly into the organization’s main narrative: that the US is careening into civil war, and that “Patriots” must prepare to battle the menacing forces of “socialism”. White supremacists using the issue to position themselves as community leaders is dangerous, whatever one’s actual position on 2nd Amendment rights and firearm restrictions. Local paper The Dahlonega Nugget gave APUSA’s efforts front-page coverage and failed to push back on Doles’ claims that the current APUSA campaign is “not a race thing”. The February 8th meeting was canceled due to snowfall and has been rescheduled for February 22nd, with the organization offering a free meal and auctioning an AR-15 in an attempt to attract numbers.
To examine the white supremacists at
the core of APUSA, we return to their first meeting.
Neo-Nazis and Klansmen at Core of
Group
Following the first APUSA meeting on December 14 and propaganda distribution in downtown Dahlonega, APUSA’s new members visited Johnny B’s restaurant and bar in the downtown area, where they posed for a group photo. Johnny B’s is a notable choice for a spot to celebrate, since that is where Chester Doles and other white supremacists attacked the family and friends of an interracial couple in December 2016. Not only has Johnny B’s failed to bar Doles from its space, but the establishment seemingly welcomes business from white supremacists despite their knowledge of how this endangers other customers.
Posing at Johnny B’s after December 14, 2019 meeting. L-R: Michael Carothers AKA Michael Weaver, unidentified Klan supporter, Chester Doles, Robert McDuffie, Cody Cantrell, Sean Keena, Gayle Hathcock Maddox and Justin Maddox.
The group photo from Johnny B’s following the December 2019 APUSA meeting shows how Klansmen and neo-Nazis form the core of the “Patriots” group. Of the eight individuals pictured, all are either documented Klansmen or neo-Nazis. Michael Carothers (AKA Michael Weaver) is a longstanding neo-Nazi who served a prison sentence for assaulting a Black man in Columbus, Georgia. Doles himself is a self-proclaimed “fourth-generation Klansman” who was also active in the National Alliance – once the most important neo-Nazi organization in North America – and later with Crew 38, the auxiliary support group for the Hammerskin Nation gang. Another, currently unidentified, individual in the group photo has appeared in public wearing International Keystone Knights of the KKK apparel. Four individuals in the group photo – Cody Cantrell, Robert McDuffie, Gayle Hathcock Maddox and Justin Maddox – are affiliated with the SCK Klan group which we wrote about last year. At the time, we portrayed Cantrell as a KKK supporter even though he had been photographed giving Klan salutes. As we will discuss later, Cantrell has now admitted that he is “affiliated” with the Klan. We will discuss the eighth person from the group photo, Sean Charles Keena, in a separate section below.
Displaying American Patriots USA membership cards after December 14, 2019 meeting. L-R: Cody Cantrell, Robert McDuffie, Gayle Hathcock Maddox, Chester Doles and Justin Maddox.
In addition to those pictured on December 14, Robert Craig Korom of Cumming, Georgia is listed as an official American Patriots USA member on the registered users’ section of the APUSA website. Earlier, Robert Korom appeared with Ku Klux Klan members (from the SCK group) at Dole’s September 14, 2019 rally in Dahlonega. Korom has publicly stated that he is “proud” of the KKK and that he believes the Klan exists “to help the white community”.
Robert Korom profile indicating APUSA membership
Since Klansmen and neo-Nazis dominate American Patriots USA, there is no doubt that the organization exists to further these white supremacists’ goals. Portraying themselves as “Patriots”, they aim to build a broader base of support in the community, while their extreme-Right and racist politics remain unchanged: they simply recycle their typical calls to attack Black and Jewish people as calls to attack “socialism”.
Sean Charles Keena
Sean Keena at “American Patriots USA” demonstration in downtown Dahlonega, September 14, 2019
Sean Charles Keena, who took part in the group photo with other white supremacists following the APUSA December meeting, also attended Chester Doles’ “American Patriots USA” far-Right rally in downtown Dahlonega in September 2019. Keena is an old friend of the Doles family and is linked through his socialmediaaccounts to not just Chester Doles but to his wife Teresa Doles and son Pierce Doles (AKA “Chevy Doles”). Keena uses the alias “Sean Cooley” for social media.
Keena (“Sean Cooley”) celebrates Adolf Hitler
On social media, Keena celebrated Hitler with a “smiley Adolf” image. He uses eliminationist language against Jewish people, who he refersto as “rats”. In another post, Keena mocked the Holocaust, posting a picture of the cattle car tracks that led into the Auschwitz concentration camp with the comment “I’m staying at the motel 6 million tonight.” Keena promotes conspiracy theories blaming Jewish people for a wide range of evils. For example, Keena promotes a book on “false flags” by deceased American Free Press writer Michael Collins Piper, which blames Jewish conspiracies for everything from the Kennedy assassination to the Oklahoma City bombing to the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. Facebookcomments made by Keena also suggest that he used to have a swastika painted on his motorcycle.
Sean Keena (“Sean Cooley”) mocks the Holocaust
On his Twitter account, Keena posted over a dozen supportive comments to neo-Nazi and former KKK leader David Duke in late 2019. Keena also follows the account for Kevin MacDonald, an antisemitic propagandist who claims that Jewish people are evolutionarily predisposed to subvert societies. Interestingly, Keena’s antisemitism and far-Right affiliations may predate his online activity of recent years. According to Federal Election Commission records, in 1999 Keena made two $200 donations to Pat Buchanan’s Reform Party-ticket run for president. Buchanan’s lifetime of racism and antisemitism is well documented.
On Venmo, Keena accepts funds for piano moving. Keena’s icon for Venmo is the same as for “Sean Cooley” on Twitter.
According to the Better Business Bureau, Sean Keena currently manages the Bennett Piano Movers company and its affiliated piano tuning service. The Bennett website lists customers such as Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Marietta High School, the Chastain Amphitheater and Coca Cola. The Georgia Governor’s Mansion and the Atlanta Symphony Hall are listed as historic customers.
Keena also plays bass in the rock group Wild Knights, which performs infrequently around Georgia.
Militia Support for “American
Patriots USA” Group
In our article about Dole’s September far-Right “Patriots” rally in Dahlonega, we noted that William Tex Simmons and his Brotherhood of Constitutional Patriots / American Brotherhood of Patriots (BCP / ABP) militia appeared to be drawing closer to Doles’ circles following the event. (Brotherhood of Constitutional Patriots is the name for a Facebook group for militiamen administered by Simmons, while the local group operating in North Georgia also goes by “American Brotherhood of Patriots”.) We have previously noted that ABP/BCP leader Tex Simmons knows about Chester Doles’ white supremacist agenda but plays stupid.
Chester Doles announces alliance between APUSA and Tex Simmons’ militia
In December, Chester Doles announced that, following “several private meetings”, Simmons’ militia group would provide “security” for all upcoming meetings of APUSA. Simmons is currently a full member of APUSA according to the registered users’ section of the APUSA site.
Antisemitism on BCP pageTex Simmons shares footage of Patriot Front march
The alliance between neo-Nazi Chester Doles and Simmons’ militia makes sense, since they share similar political impulses. On the BCP Facebook page, one postapproved by Simmons alleged that a “kosher mafia” controls events behind the scenes. In February, Simmons posted footage of a march by the white supremacist and antisemitic Patriot Front in Washington, DC to the BCP Facebook page, seemingly endorsing the rally. Despite Patriot Front being a white power group, Simmons claimed that calling the organization “racist” was just “spin”. This follows a pattern of Simmons promoting and assisting white supremacists, while pretending that there is nothing racist going on. Indeed, Simmons has publicly stated that designations of “white supremacist” or “neo-Nazi” currently mean “nothing”, and that people should “grow a spine” and not care about being considered racist.
Unsurprisingly, Simmons has been active in the drive to make Lumpkin County a “Second Amendment Sanctuary”. In the process, Simmons normalizes the white supremacists steering APUSA as acceptable community leaders, since APUSA is the main organization behind that campaign locally.
The Klansman who Wanted to be White
County Sheriff
Announcement on “White Information Network” blog. Note the crudely-photoshopped books behind Cantrell.
At the end of December, Cody Steven Cantrell announced his plans to run for Sheriff of White County in north Georgia as an American Patriots USA candidate. Cantrell’s announcement was published on the “White Information Network” blog operated by Georgia neo-Nazi and APUSA organizer Michael Carothers (AKA Michael Weaver). Carothers also reposted the announcement of Cantrell’s planned candidacy on twonotorious white supremacist forums, Stormfront and the Vanguard News Network. APUSA member Joshua Noah Mote of Gainesville, Georgia was listed as “Mr. Cantrell’s Campaign Manager” on the White Information Network post for Cantrell.
Cody Cantrell admits that he is “affiliated” with the Ku Klux Klan
Prospective candidates for Sheriff would have to file paperwork with the County in early March in order to qualify as a candidate. Until then, individuals may announce their candidacy, but nothing is official. In the second week of January, a north Georgia resident who had seen a flyer about Cantrell for Sheriff posted about it on Facebook. White County locals began discussing a picture of Cantrell and others giving Klan salutes, circulating it widely in the community. In the hubbub that followed, Cantrell admitted that he was “affiliated” with the Ku Klux Klan but claimed the KKK does not have “racist views”. “Campaign manager” Josh Mote meanwhile insisted that Cantrell was not a Klansman. Having become a laughing stock, Cantrell’s Facebook profile disappeared. An incredible story blaming everything on “antifa” hackers briefly appeared on the APUSA website. While a restart is possible, nothing has been heard of Cantrell’s campaign since.
New Business
Chester Doles’ new “Patriot” business
In January, a new website appeared
for a “Patriot” clean-up and junk removal business based in Dahlonega. The site
is designed by Christy Howle who maintains the APUSA site and features a phone
number used by Doles for APUSA as well as a picture of him. The junk hauling
business appears to not only be an effort by Doles to bring in additional
personal income, but to bankroll the APUSA group beyond dues and merchandise
income. The business could also be a possible source of employment for Doles’
white supremacist associates if it grows. Any resident of North Georgia should
know that support for “Patriot Clean Up and Junk Removal” means financially
supporting organized violent racists. We hope any posters or business cards
that spring up in north Georgia are promptly removed.
Conclusion
While the APUSA website claims that
there is “No Home for Hate” in the organization, Doles’ several decades in the
white supremacist movement, as well as the individuals he brought in for the
core of his new organization, make a mockery of that claim. APUSA aims for
influence in the region, for example through its Lumpkin County ordinance
campaign or running its own candidates. Although the Klansman for White County
Sheriff campaign appears to have flopped on its own, other efforts may need to
be actively opposed. If Doles’ group grows, it is reasonable to expect more
harassment or worse against those Doles views as his enemies.
In February post, Doles references white supremacist code. “14/88” is short for the “14 words” – a white power slogan – and 88, which is alphanumeric code for H.H. or “Heil Hitler”.
In our last major article on Doles, we wrote that anti-racists in North Georgia are “better connected, better organized, and most importantly confident” following their September counter-protest in Dahlonega. While this remains true, in recent months Doles has demonstrated that he has no intention of stepping back. Locals must organize to challenge his white supremacist front group, which will be harder to drive back if it grows.
If you have further information on APUSA members, please get in touch.
In mid-January, three men in Georgia – Luke Austin Lane, Jacob Kaderli, and Michael Helterbrand – were arrested as part of a broader national sweep against “The Base”, a neo-Nazi group attempting to spark a race war. The Georgia trio were arrested on charges of participating in a criminal gang as well as conspiracy to commit murder. According to an affidavit supporting the Georgia arrests, the three were preparing to murder a couple who they believed to be members of Atlanta Antifascists, and murder any children they may have had. The couple were also selected for assassination out of convenience, since they did not live far from one of The Base members.
The Base members training at Silver Creek, Georgia property, 2019.
The couple targeted for murder by The Base are not members of our organization. However, one family member targeted by the murder conspiracy had been listed in a series purporting to expose “Georgia Antifa[scists]”, published late 2018 on the white power Occidental Dissent website (OD). The header for the five-part series on OD was an image of Atlanta Antifascists’ Twitter account, suggesting that those being profiled were part of our organization. Instead, the site mostly listed unaffiliated third parties, attendees of leftist meetings or anti-racist rallies, and people who had interacted with our social media or who were involved in anti-racist cultural efforts. Unlike anti-fascists, who expose white supremacists in order to stop their violence against marginalized groups, white supremacists have no concern for accuracy when they publish enemy lists or kill lists – precisely because their goal is to terrorize entire communities.
Occidental Dissent website
The webmaster of OD, Bradley Dean Griffin of Eufaula, Alabama (AKA “Hunter Wallace”), has an extensive history of harassment campaigns against perceived enemies. In late October 2018 – while the “Georgia” series was being published on OD – white supremacist Robert Bowers killed eleven people and wounded six in an attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Bowers had earlier offered Griffin an address for an anti-racist blogger targeted by Griffin. Brad Griffin also worked with white nationalist Daniel McMahon (AKA “Jack Corbin” and “Pale Horse”) against opponents. McMahon spent years harassing anti-racists – especially women – but was finally arrested last year for cyberstalking, threats, and interference against a Black candidate for office. In addition to his associates Bowers and McMahon, Griffin is active in the white supremacist/Southern secessionist League of the South and was a major promoter of 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (which he attended). Court documents and journalist sources both indicate that The Base member Brian Mark Lemley had earlier been a member of Griffin’s organization, The League of the South.
Occidental Dissent is hosted by Bluehost with its domain name registered through GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY). Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) also provides “reverse CDN” services for the site. Bluehost is now owned by the Endurance International Group (NASDAQ:EIGI). After the Tree of Life massacre by Griffin’s associate Bowers, both Bluehost and GoDaddy were warned about OD. The companies completely ignored concerns about their assistance for a major white power propaganda site. In their efforts to keep OD and its lists online, these companies almost contributed to the brutal murder of a couple.
Cloudflare: twitter.com/Cloudflare
If you make an official abuse complaint through Cloudflare, be sure not to check the “forward my report to the website owner” box. Be aware that the website hosting provider could still forward the complaint.
Three members of the white supremacist group The Base have been arrested in Georgia, as part of a broadersweep against the organization. The Georgia arrests were revealed Thursday, January 16.
Georgia “The Base” arrestees L-R: Luke Austin Lane of Silver Creek, Michael John Helterbrand of Dalton, and Jacob Kaderli of Dacula.
The Georgia arrestees were allegedly plotting to murder a couple who they believed to be “Antifa”. They also allegedly planned to kill another member of The Base who helped hatch the murder plot but who they considered incompetent. Read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the Georgia arrests here.
One of those arrested, Luke Austin Lane of Silver Creek, Georgia, went by the online alias “TMB” and was the main recruiter for The Base in our state. On the Fascist Forge website, Lane/TMB’s profile was connected to that of Matthew Ryan Burchfield, a neo-Nazi we exposed last year and who is currently in Ukraine.
Atlanta Antifascists are following this situation closely. See our Twitter and Facebook pages for updates.
Update: Kenny Schneck, a Georgia neo-Nazi mentioned in this article, died in late April 2020.
On October 4-5, 2019, the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (IKKKKK) held a two-day event on private property in Morgan County, Georgia (approximately half an hour south of Athens, GA). According to the Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy quoted by local media, a Friday KKK meeting was attended by approximately ten people. A related social event the next day attracted approximately thirty. The event also included a cross lighting, although electric lights rather than fire were used due to a law against burning after dark. An International Keystone Knights banner was displayed outside the property. Approximately sixty federal, state and local cops patrolled the area while the racist gathering took place, essentially giving the KKK free security at public expense.
The local Morgan County Citizen discussed the Klan gathering as happening at a residence “on Aqua Lane” with the nighttime cross lighting being visible “off of Aqua Road”. Although the paper did not print the name of the individual who hosted the Klan event, we can confirm that the event was hosted at John Richard Thompson’s property in Madison. While Madison County property records list his land as being on Aqua Road, Thompson’s property also borders Aqua Lane on the opposite side.
John Richard Thompson and wife Bonita Thompson
A look at John Thompson’s Facebook profile shows him to be deeply immersed in Klan networks. Among those connected to Thompson on social media are:
Greg Calhoun (“Thor Calhoun”), the Georgia grand dragon (main state organizer) of the IKKKKK who is also active in the racist/Southern secessionist League of the South (LOS)
Shealyn Winkler (“Shealyn Marie”) of Mississippi, Shaun Walker’s wife
Jeremy Walls, who appears to be tattooing in Memphis, Tennessee despite an earlier arrest in Mississippi for inappropriate contact with teenagers while giving them tattoos. Walls has been mentioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an IKKKKK “associate”.
John Thompson jokes with National Socialist Liberation Front Deputy Director Sharon Robinson (“Lea Symons”) about hanging those they consider as race traitors.
In addition to his many KKK friends, John Thompson is also connected online to members of the revived National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF), a small neo-Nazi organization which endorses violent struggle against what it believes to be a corrupt, Jewish-controlled society. On Facebook, Thompson has joked with Sharon Robinson of Alabama (AKA “Lea Symons”, Sharon Symons Connell), the Deputy Director of the NSLF, about mass hangings of their enemies. This is an allusion to the “Day of the Rope” in The Turner Diaries, an infamous piece of white supremacist propaganda.
Thompson is also online friends with Kenneth Wayne Schneck (“Kenny Larkin”) of Centerville, Georgia, plus Kenneth’s wife Amanda Schneck (née Amanda Leigh Johnson). On the Russian social media site VKontakte, Kenneth Schneck boasted of being a Captain in the NSLF in 2018. On his “Kenny Larkin” Facebook, Schneck also claims to support the “PCK Brotherhood” – the Pacific Coast Knights, a Klan group mainly based on the US West Coast.
Schneck’s 2018 NSLF membership card with “Captain” rank
On his Facebook, Thompson has joked with Kenneth’s wife Amanda Schneck about making Nazi salutes.
Amanda Schneck and John Thompson joke about Nazi salutes
Thompson’s friendship with NSLF
members Sharon Robinson and Kenneth Schneck is not surprising, as the IKKKKK
and NSLF generally appear to be on good terms.
Morgan County resident alarmed by October 2019 cross-lighting on Thompson’s property
Since Thompson is committed to the Klan and jokes about the mass murder of supposed race traitors, we believe Thompson is a threat to those around him. Many Morgan County residents already know that John Thompson hosted the Ku Klux Klan gathering in October, but we are publishing this article for the benefit of those who may not have heard the news. Some of our documentation about the depth of Thompson’s Klan ties may be new, as well as our information on Thompson’s friendship with militant neo-Nazis. We hope this information is useful to those living in Thompson’s neck of the woods.
Please get in touch if you have further information on John Richard Thompson, other individuals mentioned in this article, or other Klan/white supremacist activity in our state.
In the summer of 2018, longstanding racist leader and Atlanta attorney Sam Dickson traveled for weeks in Russia. According to an interview with “The Political Cesspool” white nationalist radio show not long after his return (broadcast August 11, 2018), “several other people” accompanied Dickson on his trip in Russia. The July 2018 trip centered around attending a commemoration for the 100th anniversary of the execution of the Romanov family by Bolsheviks, and Dickson claims to have met with several “Russian nationalists” while in the country.
Sam Dickson message on Twitter about 2018 trip to Russia
Our organization has discussed Dickson at length in otherarticles. He’s a key figure in the white nationalist movement, with a history spanning several decades. Dickson has talked at every conference for the “suit-and-tie” racists of American Renaissance since the first one in 1994. Dickson is listed as a Director for the shadowy Charles Martel Society, which publishes the Occidental Quarterly – an attempt to provide white nationalism with a veneer of respectability and intellectualism. By providing seed money for the National Policy Institute, the Charles Martel Society also helped to create the modern “Alt-Right.” Dickson mentors and seemingly employs younger white nationalists in the Atlanta area.
The 2018 Russia trip was “only the second time I’ve been in Russia,” Dickson remarked in a follow-up appearance on The Political Cesspool (broadcast September 1, 2018). In March 2015, Dickson gave a speech at the “International Russian Conservative Forum” (IRCF) in St. Petersburg. Dickson’s longtime political associate Jared Taylor of American Renaissance also traveled to the IRCF and talked. In total, the IRCF attracted approximately 150 representatives from far-Right organizations and parties in Russia, Western Europe, and the US.
Sam Dickson speaking at the International Russian Conservative Forum in St. Petersburg, March 2015
Here, we identify another member of Dickson’s group who traveled to Russia in July 2018: Atlanta attorney Michael A. Dominy. We discuss Dominy’s political connections, Dickson and Dominy’s apparent main contact in Russia, and that contact’s involvement with the state.
Michael A. Dominy
Atlanta attorney Michael A. Dominy
Michael Alan Dominy is a lawyer specializing in family law who practices from an office on Piedmont Avenue in midtown Atlanta. Dominy was admitted to the Georgia State Bar in 1985. His long-deceased father directed the Georgia Department of Public Safety. According to the website for the Dominy Law Firm, LLC, two of Michael Dominy’s brothers are also attorneys. Dominy converted to Orthodox Christianity a decade ago. He has made several trips to Russia before the most recent one. In 2016 Dominy published a video from Moscow “last year” and commented that: “This was the most recent of my many trips to Russia. They’ve become more like pilgrimages.”
Dominy portrays Russia as under threat from a conspiracy involving “internationalists” and “bankers” – an antisemitic dog-whistle
As suggested by his social media, Dominy is sympathetic to the Russian state and far-Right politics. On Facebook, Dominy circulates stories from RT, Sputnik News, SouthFront and The Duran, all of which issue pro-Kremlin propaganda. Other posts shared by Dominy this year include a story about “Soros […] conspiring against humanity” as well as materials from the anti-immigrant “Voice of Europe”.
Carol O’Toole and Martin K. O’Toole
Dominy is part of white nationalist Sam Dickson’s circles in Georgia. Fulton County Superior Court records show that Dominy was twice a co-plaintiff with Sam Dickson in filings regarding real estate property in 2000 and 2002. Dominy also knows Dickson’s friends and associates. For example, Dominy’s Facebook profile is connected to white supremacist John C. Hall, Jr. of Dublin, Georgia, who has also worked as an accountant for Dickson. Another Facebook friend of Dominy’s is John Weatherman, an antisemite who we have discussed before. In addition, Dominy is connected on social media to Carol Barfield O’Toole, the wife of Marietta attorney and Sons of Confederate Veterans – Georgia Division spokesman, Martin K. O’Toole. Martin O’Toole does not have a Facebook profile himself. He is the President and Chairman for the Charles Martel Society and has an earlier history promoting Holocaust denial alongside Dickson.
Photo posted by Justin Stephen Owens in 2019, “liked” on Facebook by Michael Dominy
We were surprised to see Dominy’s account linked to Justin Stephen Owens, a participant in the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. We wrote about Justin Owens in 2018, when we exposed a Georgia cop’s pro-KKK social media activity. Dominy and Owens do not appear to be close. While Dominy was traveling in 2018, Justin Owens posted that he would like to finally meet Dominy “after all these years of hearing about you.” Dominy probably knew of Owens’ Klan sympathies, and he certainly knows of them now. This year, Justin Owens posted a picture of a young man wearing a “The Klan wants you!” t-shirt and posing in front of a burnt cross. Dominy “liked” the image.
Michael Lewis Lawrence
Mike Lawrence at white power gathering circa 2009
A potentially more important contact is Michael Lewis Lawrence, who keeps in touch with Dominy on social media. In the late 1980s, Lawrence was a founding member of the Confederate Hammerskins gang. Lawrence was among five Hammerskins convicted for vandalizing a synagogue and for attacks against Black and Latino people, for which he served a sentence of almost five years. After the Hammerskins, Lawrence went on to form the Christian Guard, which promoted racist and antisemitic “Christian Identity” theology. In 2007, Lawrence entered Volksfront, another racist bonehead group, and stayed until that organization disbanded five years later. Although Lawrence was disillusioned with neo-Nazi bonehead groups by the end of Volksfront – describing them as attracting “pedophiles, sociopaths, misfits and retards” – he did not leave the racist cause but rather changed approaches. During roughly the same time period, Lawrence shifted religion from Christian Identity to a “Folkish” (i.e. racist) version of Orthodox Christianity, as seen on the “Kindred Apostolic Orthodox Ministries” blog. [1]
Michael Dominy comments approvingly on 2018 Facebook post by “Mike Contro Rossi” / Michael Lewis Lawrence. (Original post by Lawrence has since been hidden or deleted.)
At the end of 2015, Lawrence was listed under the alias “Mike Romano” as one of the Directors for the World National Conservative Movement (WNCM) following “a conference held over the Internet”. WNCM had been announced earlier in 2015 as an alliance of parties, organizations and individuals fighting the values of “liberalism, multiculturalism and tolerance.” WNCM has its genesis in the 2015 “International Russian Conservative Forum” in St. Petersburg, the same event attended by Dickson and Jared Taylor. A driving force behind the WNCM was Yury Lyubomirsky, then of the St. Petersburg branch of the Rodina (“Motherland”) party, working closely with the Russian Imperial Movement. Lyubomirsky was also the primary organizer of the IRCF.
Lawrence/“Romano” was one of only two US individuals listed on the Board for the WNCM, the other being now-disgraced neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Worker Party. Several US far-Right organizations, such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, American Renaissance, and the American Freedom Party were also mentioned as participants in the Movement. Lawrence/“Romano” was listed as a representative of the “Society of St John the Goth” (AKA “Society of Saint John of Gothia”). [2] After the initial push, the WNCM does not appear to have gone far, although its page on the Russian-language VKontakte network still circulates materials. Some people and groups from MNCM still cooperate. [3]
Michael Dominy: Recap
We don’t know the details of any common political work by Dominy and Lawrence. However, their interactions suggest a similar political outlook and agenda. Klansman Justin Owens stating that he heard about Dominy for “years” also suggests something about Dominy’s political milieu.
“Let’s not forget who their killers are”: another dog-whistle from Dominy
More importantly: Dominy is doubtless part of Sam Dickson’s circles in Georgia. According to his Facebook profile, Dominy is acquainted with white supremacist accountant John C. Hall, Jr. of Dublin; antisemite John Weatherman of Atlanta; Carol Barfield O’Toole of Marietta, the wife of Charles Martel Society president Martin K. O’Toole; as well as Dickson himself.
We will now discuss how we know that Michael Dominy was part of Dickson’s party traveling in Russia.
2018 Trip to Russia
Dominy posted video and photos from his 2018 travel in Russia to Facebook. When we compare Dickson’s account of his 2018 trip to Russia, with Dominy’s online comments and images, it is apparent that they were both traveling together as part of a single group.
Carol O’Toole comments to Dominy: “Not in Beijing yet?”
On July 3, 2018, Dominy posted an image of himself in San Francisco, California, to which Carol O’Toole replied: “Not in Beijing yet?” Carol O’Toole must therefore have known the itinerary.
In discussion accompanying a picture from Beijing, Dominy announced: “on our way to Russia!” Commenting again on the San Francisco picture, Dominy informed John C. Hall that “We will be crossing the border at 4:17 am tomorrow [Monday, July 9, 2018]”. Dominy’s first photograph of that trip from inside Russia was a picture of the sunset at Lake Baikal in Siberia, which Dominy noted was from July 10. According to an online schedule, the Westbound Trans-Manchurian Express train departs from Beijing on Saturday, arriving at the China-Russia border at 4:17AM local time on Monday. On Tuesday evening, the train reaches Irkutsk in Siberia, described by one travelers’ guide as the “obvious” stop for Lake Baikal. Dominy posted otherpictures from Irktusk. One could have some days’ rest in Irktusk and still arrive at Yekaterinburg in time for the mass commemoration for the Romanovs on the night of July 16-17. Dominy published brief footage from this commemoration to Facebook.
Map showing the current Trans-Siberian Railway system. Trans-Manchurian Express is the route going from (or to) Beijing which passes through Harbin.
On his first Political Cesspool appearance discussing his 2018 trip, Dickson stated that he took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Yekaterinburg for the same commemoration. Dickson mentioned going through a China-Russia border control. This means that Dickson must have traveled on the Trans-Manchurian Express, which is the only route that does not pass through Mongolia. The Trans-Manchurian Express is now incorporated within the overall Trans-Siberian Railway system. Unless he wanted an additional week – not just a few days off the train – at or before Yekaterinburg, Dickson must have been on the exact same train from Beijing as Michael Dominy.
Michael Dominy tells Justin Stephen Owens that he will return from travels on July 29th.
Dominy and Dickson also returned to the United States at approximately the same time. Dominy told Justin Owens on Facebook that he would be back on the 29th and would be happy to meet up after then. On July 30th, 2018, Dickson posted to Twitter that he was “just back from 30 days in Russia”. Dickson’s claim about the number of days in Russia does not match the rest of his account of the journey, which would fit twenty or so days in Russia and perhaps thirty days of travel total. [4]
According to Dickson’s podcast account of the journey, the group proceeded from Yekaterinburg to Moscow. (There’s some evidence of a stop in Kazan.) In Moscow, Dickson “met with a person I know there, who is an aide to the Duma and who showed us around.” Dickson mentions being brought to the Central Armed Forces Museum by his guide, as well as revisiting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. We will discuss Dickson’s friend in the next section. The group seems to have ended their trip in St. Petersburg, since on July 26 Dominy posted that “We have traversed the continent” and had arrived there.
Dmitry Oveshnikov
Although attending the commemoration for the Romanovs was the focus of the 2018 trip and the group did some sightseeing, Sam Dickson reports that he met with a number of “Russian nationalists” while in the country. Dmitry Oveshnikov (Дмитрий Овешников), the person who showed the group around Moscow, is one such person.
Oveshnikov knew both Dickson and Dominy before the 2018 trip. On Dickson’s website, a message for Easter 2017 stated that “I was fortunate to visit the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour [in Moscow] with a true Russian Dmitri O. who acted as my guide.” If one accepts Dickson’s claim that 2018 was only his “second time” in the country, the earlier visit to Moscow must have occurred in 2015, either before or after the IRCF in St. Petersburg.
Oveshnikov tags Dominy in 2016 Facebook post.
The Facebook account for Oveshnikov (“Dmitriy Aweshnikov”) is linked to both Dickson and Michael Dominy. Dominy must have known Oveshnikov prior to his 2018 travel in Russia, since Oveshnikov tagged Dominy in a 2016 social media post.
Cezarium site
Oveshnikov is the main promoter and seemingly organizer of a website named Cezarium, which describes itself as a “geopolitical portal” discussing “politics, economics, technology, culture and military affairs.” The site favors expanded Russian geopolitical power to offset – as one English-language article puts it – the world threat from “American neo-Trotskyist world utopia” (which Trump is celebrated as opposing) [5]. The Cezarium domain was registered at the end of 2015. Historical domain records show a probably bogus name. While a handful of English-language pieces appeared on the site this year, Cezarium is mostly in Russian. One of Oveshnikov’s contacts, Kris Roman of “Euro-Rus” in Belgium [6], described Cezarium’s slant and its creators:
“Cezarium is created by patriotic and conservative Russians with ‘nice higher connections’.”
Roman may have exaggerated Cezarium’s “higher connections” to boost his own sense of importance. However, Dmitry Oveshnikov definitely has some.
In mid-February 2014, Oveshnikov appeared on Public Television of Russia discussing Crimea
In February 2014, Dmitry Oveshnikov was interviewed on Public Television of Russia as a “political expert” about Crimea, during the crisis but before Crimea’s annexation. The next month, an article quoted Oveshnikov as a political analyst involved in the Federation Council’s working group on Ukraine, with Oveshnikov characterizing new laws accompanying the change of power in Ukraine as illegitimate. A 2017 regional government statement listed Oveshnikov among notable attendees of a “Slavic Unity” festival held in Klintsy. Oveshnikov was noted as a “leading consultant” to the Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. The mentions of Oveshnikov working as a consultant or analyst for the Federation Council (upper house of the Federal Assembly) suggest that Dickson got it wrong when he described his friend as an “aide to the Duma” (the lower house). Oveshnikov is also connected on Facebook to Konstantin Kosachev, who heads the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council.
Oveshnikov (3rd from left) at Federation Council, late 2016
Yury Lyubomirsky, the coordinator of the 2015 IRCF in St. Petersburg and a main organizer of the WNCM, is also linked to Oveshnikov on Facebook.
Analysis
Dickson shared some interesting details from his 2018 Russian trip. For example, he stated that the far-Right nationalists had two major criticisms of Putin: that Putin did not have a clear successor, and that Putin had failed to control popular culture. The Russian far-Rightists Dickson talked to were apparently disturbed by Black people appearing in popular media. Other details from the trip remain unknown: for example, the identities of the other “Russian nationalists” who Dickson met and the extent to which Michael Dominy and the rest of the travelers were present during these additional discussions.
Sam Dickson and Richard Spencer, image posted 2016 by Dickson and liked by Dmitry Oveshnikov. Dickson has now deleted the image, probably because of falling out with Spencer.
Beyond Dickson’s comments, we do not know the content of these meetings and discussions. But the fact they occurred at all is significant. A few months before the trip, one US writer claimed that “Russia’s interests in American white supremacists” had “effectively dried up”. Good reasons supported this claim. Two US racist leaders who had consistently pushed for an alignment with the Russian state – Richard Spencer and Matthew Heimbach – were suffering reversals of fortune post-Charlottesville, with Heimbach especially disgraced. The Alt-Right, and other white nationalists adjacent to it, were in disarray. Yet when Dickson and company traveled to Russia, members of far-Right groups wished to meet with them.
Further, Michael Dominy and Sam Dickson’s friend Dmitry Oveshnikov serves Russian state interests. Oveshnikov works as a consultant for Russia’s parliament, apparently for the upper house’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. In early 2014, Oveshnikov gave interviews in which he promoted regime talking points, for example by reducing events in Ukraine to the involvement of “neo-Nazis from the ‘Right Sector’”. [7] While Oveshnikov’s “higher connections” can be exaggerated, they exist.
Political Cesspool broadcast
From the perspective of either Russian far-Right militants or the Russian state, we see no evidence that discussions in 2018 bore immediate fruit. However, upon his return Dickson appeared on the Political Cesspool podcast [8], praising what he described as a healthy society and a mostly good regime in Russia. For Dickson’s white nationalist listeners, being reminded in mid-2018 that they had international friends may have been a minor morale boost. Dickson’s advocacy suggests that he was encouraged by the meetings in Russia.
Conclusion
We have documented that Atlanta attorney Michael A. Dominy is part of racist leader Sam Dickson’s network and that he accompanied Sam Dickson and others on their 2018 trip in Russia. The trip, centering around a historic commemoration, also involved discussion with members of far-Right movements in Russia. We discussed Dominy and Dickson’s contact in Moscow, Dmitry Oveshnikov, and his connection to state power. The networking which took place during Dominy and Dickson’s 2018 trip is significant not because it achieved big results but as an example of an ongoing project.
It’s important to note that there is no full consensus in the US white nationalist movement around Russia. For example, some members of the white power Rise Above Movement have cultivated links to Azov in Ukraine. Other white nationalists find Putin to be an inspirational figure when it comes to the cultural promotion of nationalism and Orthodox traditionalism. And finally, others don’t pay much attention to either Russia or Ukraine.
As we release this documentation, we want to be clear about our politics. For us, white nationalism is not an issue of “USA versus Russia”. Such framing not only fuels xenophobia, it also suggests a disease metaphor in which the national body begins life as “pure” but is then corrupted or infected from outside. The truth is that racism in the US has been present from the origin of the nation state itself. If one wants to know where the modern white nationalist movement comes from, then the legacy of the Ku Klux Klan, resistance to the Civil Rights movement, or ongoing institutional racism would all be better starting points than Putin.
We also reject any conflation of the Russian state and those ruled under it. When we expose far-Right participants in our region traveling to Russia to network, this is because we see ourselves as part of the same movement as anti-fascists in Russia, who have been harshly repressed by Putin’s state apparatus.
If you have information on racist or far-Right organizing in our region, please get in touch.
Notes
[1] Lawrence used to promote the “Kindred Apostolic Ministries” in his signature on the Stormfront forum, where he was the user “FolkishOrthodoxy” (earlier “VFMike83”). Lawrence’s friend Craig Spaulding – who was in Volksfront with Lawrence and who went on to be a member of the Traditionalist Worker Party – did much of the actual labor for the Kindred Apostolic Ministries site, according to Spaulding’s leaked TWP messages as “John Mosby”. Spaulding was “easttnskin83” on Stormfront.
[2] Lawrence’s friend Craig Spaulding (see Note 1) assembled the Society of Saint John of Gothia site.
[3] Another thing interests us about Lawrence. Online posts allege that Mike Lawrence is a congregant at St. Nektarios Orthodox Church in Lenoir City, Tennessee. One listed address for Lawrence is in nearby Maryville, TN. That residential address appears in Blount County property records as owned by Kristine Duke. Kristine Chloe Duke is the daughter of David Duke, the neo-Nazi and former Klansman who believes that Russia holds “the key to white survival” and who lived for several years in that country. Kristine Duke’s mother, Chloe Hardin Black, is currently married to Don Black, the webmaster of the white power Stormfront forum. Because of this link to the Duke family, it’s important to point out that Michael Lewis Lawrence is different to M.C. “Mike” Lawrence, who was campaign manager for David Duke’s 2016 Senate run but quit before the election.
[4] It is impossible for Dickson to have taken the train route he discussed (which departs once a week), left Russia when he did, and spend exactly thirty days in Russia. To spend closer to thirty days, he would have had to spend a lot of extra time at or east of Yekaterinburg, assuming party’s route did not involve back-tracking. That scenario is very unlikely.
[5] The “neo-Trotskyist” language of that article is based on exaggerating the numbers of ex-Trotskyists in the early Neo-Conservative movement. Since so much antisemitic writing describes communism and Neo-Conservatism as vast Jewish conspiracies – with Trotsky featuring prominently in theories of communism as Jewish plot – the author does not need to mention anything explicitly for target audiences to receive the message.
[6] Roman attended the IRCF in 2015 and at the end of that year was named as a member of the Board for the WNCM. In 2018, Roman was an election observer in the Russia-backed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (in the Donbass region of Ukraine.)
[7] For some useful context on the adoption of “anti-fascist” discourse by the Russian state, see here.
[8] The main host of the Political Cesspool, James Edwards, is Executive Vice President of the Charles Martel Society, where Martin K. O’Toole is President and Chairman. Dickson is listed alongside William Regnery II as a Director.
