Nazis, racialists, and “alt-right:” Peace Garden State a perfect place for white supremacists 

Alt-White: The Siege of North Dakota. Part One in the series of racism in North Dakota, how Nazis plan to infiltrate the state and are being bolstered by Trump’s Administration policies. Hate crimes are not on the rise, but the state ranks high for intolerance to multiculturalism. Today, white supremacists are rarely dressed in white robes or swastikas, but are “Guccified.” 

By C.S. Hagen
FARGO – Nick Chappell no longer resembles the American Nazi he was 10 years ago during a recruitment drive to Fargo. He’s forgotten where he last put his braunhemden, or brown shirt, his black tie, and Nazi pin. The imperious swastika armband once wrapped around his left arm has also been packed away. 

“Not the best way to convert people, I believe,” Chappell said. “The purpose was to grab attention, which it did.” 

Once a rising star in the American Nazi party, he left the Nationalist Socialist Movement as director of the Viking Youth Corps during a “Soviet-style purge of its ranks,” according to Nationalist Socialist Files. Eleven months after his visit to the Peace Garden State, Chappell was ranked high on a confidential Nazi blacklist. American Nazi Party Commander Jeff Schoep labelled Chappell an “oath breaker” and “race-traitor.” 

Now, Chappell, 28, of Irish and English descent, makes occasional trips to Fargo from his home in South Dakota to help organize and educate groups of people involved with the Creativity Movement, which believes race, not religion, is absolute truth and that the white race is the highest expression of culture and civilization. The Creativity Movement rose from the ashes of the Church of the Creator founded in 1973. The organization’s colors evoke the swastika: red, white, and black; its logo is a large “W” representing the white race topped by a crown and a halo. 

Chappell prepares for RaHoWa, the acronym for an inevitable racial holy war, he said, which is coming soon. 

“I do believe that eventually this will boil down to a race war as we have already seen with the riots in cities like Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore,” Chappell said. His family doesn’t share his views. 

“They are in denial over what I see as an inevitable war brewing.”

A reverend, also known now as a “creator” for the Creativity Movement, Chappell has been targeted before while he was a Nazi. In 2007, he was attacked by non-racists in Columbia, Missouri; suffered a busted lip.

Hate and love are both parts to his nature, he said. He didn’t learn racism from his parents, but from attending a primarily black school in Edenton, North Carolina. “There were fights on a weekly basis. I tried to avoid them but I got suspended about once a year for a fight. 

“If you were white you had to travel in a group or you would be attacked and picked on for being white.”

When he left the Nazis – a time analysts describe as the most recent resurgence of white-power – smaller groups splintered from larger organizations. After the American Nazi party’s troubles of 2007, Chappell formed a new group called the Nationalist Socialist Order of America, and based it out of “The Redneck Shop,” a memorabilia store in Laurens, South Carolina. It was known as the “site of many NSM gatherings,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group watchdog and nonprofit civil rights organization. 

Marriage to a woman who shares his beliefs brought Chappell from North Carolina to his current home in a small town in South Dakota. He leads a normal life; has a full time factory job and fathered four children. He purchased a house, invested in four other houses for like-minded people in need, he said. As a reverend in the Creativity Movement, he holds regular weekly meetings for study and discussions, all open to the public. 

The Creativity Movement is a four-dimensional religion, Chappell said, focusing on a “sound mind, sound body, in a sound society, and sound environment.”

“Our organization is not afraid of confrontation, so if anti-racists wish for a confrontation our meetings are always open to give them that,” Chappell said. “We want a white-only society so it has to begin locally with white racial loyalists congregating together, helping each other. Where I live I purchased a few homes for those facing hard times…brings in people where we can get them jobs, and provide a roof over their heads.” 

He and others fight to protect white culture. They’re persecuted, rejected by many; small town governments fight against their plans at creating white enclaves.  

The current problems in the USA began in the 1960s with the civil rights movement, he said. 

“When we desegregated schools people were forced to intermingle, circles of friends began to blend, and with that black culture injected into ours.” If ethnic minorities can cling to their cultures with pride, whites can do the same, Chappell said. 

Hatred towards ethnic minorities in the USA is not blanketed, but pointed. 

“Do I hate all non-whites? No, but I would hate every single one that is a threat to my race,” Chappell said. “Yes, I hate black and Mexican gang bangers, and I hate drug dealers, and I also hate degenerate whites who do drugs and have been completely obsessed with non-white culture.

“But you cannot hate without love.” 

 

Another white power resurgence

Chappell doesn’t believe Donald Trump’s successful run for presidency is going to help his cause. “I am still waiting to see what he does, instead of what he says.” 

Others disagree. 

White supremacy, in its many forms, sects, and organizations, has been given new life with Trump’s presidential campaign and election, according to The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and AlJazeera. Additionally, nationalist groups like France’s National Front led by Marine Le Pen, and Golden Dawn in Greece led by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, are growing in numbers, threatening power balances, effectively tipping international scales.

Tensions between races are escalating on all sides. Violent crime and hate crime numbers are up, and not specifically white targeting black, but blacks also targeting whites, including the recent kidnapping and torture of a mentally-challenged white person by four young black people in Chicago. 

Or when the Tinsley Park 5 ambushed white supremacists in 2012, injuring ten in Chicago, or more recently the racist and anti-racist stabbings during a Ku Klux Klan rally in California in June 2016, the Neo-Nazi rally in Washington DC in November 2016… or the post-election celebratory “alt-right” Hitler salute hailing President-elect Trump during Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute meeting. 

“Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail our victory,” Spencer said during the meeting. “For us it is conquer, or die… To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer, and a conqueror. We build, we produce, we go upward.”

Criticism against Spencer’s speech in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, has caused his family financial suffering, The Daily Stormer reported, forcing his mother to sell property. Neo-Nazis have struck back, announcing plans for an anti semitic “Troll Storm,” in the ski resort town on Sunday, January 15, according to The New York Times, Huffington Post, and The Daily Stormer. 

Across the racial aisle in June 2015 Dylan Roof, a white supremacist, admittedly fired 70 rounds, killing 9 black people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Somebody had to do it,” Roof said in a video released in December 2016. “Black people are killing white people everyday… What I did is so minuscule compared to what they do to white people every day.”

Closer to home since 2004, hate crimes in the Peace Garden State range from threats to explosives, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

• 2004, feces was spread across a mosque’s doors in Fargo 
• 2005, at least five swastikas were drawn in the University of North Dakota’s campus in Grand Forks
• 2008, a Jewish student at the same college was harassed 
• 2011, a monkey-like figure attached to a large inflatable rat was hung from a noose outside an American Crystal Sugar plant in Grand Forks during a labor dispute in an attempt to intimidate minorities working at the plant
• 2011, racist quotes, swastikas, and anarchy symbols were written on the city hall, residences, cars, street signs in Harwood, North Dakota
• 2012, a threatening anti-gay epithet was written on the back window of a car that had rainbow bumper stickers – a symbol of gay pride – in Grand Forks
• 2013: a man impersonating a Hamas agent threatened a Jewish synagogue in Fargo
• 2013-2014, Craig Cobb and other white supremacists tried to take over the near-ghost town of Leith, North Dakota, and turn the hamlet of 16 people into a white-only enclave, Cobb plead guilty to terrorizing inhabitants with guns
• September 2016, Matthew Gust plead guilty to firebombing Fargo’s Somali restaurant Juba Coffee & Restaurant with a Molotov cocktail 

Fargo Police Department reported 48 hate crimes in the city since 2012, which involved 13 assaults, eight threats, and three harassment cases that occurred in 2016. 

Fargo Police Deputy Chief Joe Anderson said his department is aware of Nazis in Fargo. 

“We are aware there are people in our community who have those biased beliefs,” Anderson said. “As far as I am aware, we don’t have any active criminal cases involving their participation or rhetoric.  When a suspected hate/biased crime occurs we investigate the incident as thoroughly as possible, just like any other crime against a person or property.”

 

The Nazi vogue

Not unlike Adolf Hitler’s hiring of Hugo Boss, American Nazis are attempting a makeover, according to the NSM Magazine. Nazis focus much of their resources on external image, rallies, and direct action, while the Creativity Movement attempts to nurture their members. 

Nationally, supremacist leaders are now “Gucci-fied,” dressed in name brand suits and ties, as even the Ku Klux Klan, America’s most infamous and oldest hate group, has recently realized old ways of cross burnings, lynchings, and violence are “out of style.” They now speak from behind platforms; make runs at national office.

Lingo is changing. 

• Racialist – is the most correct term “with regard to accuracy of implied meanings,” an article in the magazine reported. A racialist is pro-white, and does not hate people or other races. 
• Neo-Nazis – a term “used by Jewish people as a way of demonizing white people who are decidedly pro-white.”
• Antifa – a semi-organized group of anti-racists who consider using anti-white actions. 

Uniforms and formal dress for the Ku Klux Klan and for Nazis remain stubbornly unchanged. Nazi patches, “No Mercy” sweatshirts, “100% Politically Incorrect” t-shirts, Skinhead music, and a video game named Zog 2, a first-person racialist shooter game, were for sale on NSM88records.com.

Nazi uniforms were made a requirement at all public functions in July 2008, Shoep wrote to party membership, adding all items must be purchased through Nationalist Socialist Movement website. The style closely resembles those made by Hugo Boss during the 1930s. 

• Shirt – black BDU (battle dress uniform)
• Pants – black BDU style or Dickies black slacks (pants should be bloused into boots) 
• Boots – black military style (black laces only) 
• Belt – black belt with silver buckle or Stormtrooper buckle 
• Cap – (optional) black SWAT style cap 
• Rank insignia – to be worn mid chest along the button line in keeping with current US military standards, sewn on with the upper edge even with the upper pockets, directly on the fabric covering the buttons on the BDU.
• NSM patch – on left shoulder one inch below shoulder seam 
• State patch – (optional) only official approved State patch, on right shoulder 1 inch below shoulder seam. 
• Party pin – one party pin may be worn over the left pocket. 

Most supremacists seek what they call equality, as the white race is in danger of being eliminated while African Americans are being “radicalized and emboldened by the Obama Administration,” according to Shoep. 

Activists argue if Black Pride, Black Power, and Black Lives Matter movements are considered acceptable, so too should White Power and White Pride. American Nazis are fighting to raise awareness of the “plight of whites,” according to the NSM Magazine. 

Chappell offered an example. “A few years ago in Kansas City there was a kid chased home from school by blacks, lit on fire on his front porch,” Chappell said. He referred to the February 2012 incident when a 13-year-old white child was doused in gasoline and lit on fire on mother Melissa Coon’s front porch. 

“The blacks were never charged with a hate crime. If a group of whites did that do you think they would be as fortunate? It is actions like this that influence people to joining organizations like mine. We are a reaction to society’s inaction.” 

The incident has been called a hoax citing the “black boogeyman” by some media outlets and activists, and a hate crime by others. To this day, no one has been reportedly arrested for the crime.

 

“Arks of survival”

Some in the Peace Garden State believe the movement in North Dakota took root in 1983 with Gordon Wendell Kahl, aka Sam Louden, a leader of the militant group Posse Comitatus, an early anti-Semitic, white supremacist organization. After refusing to pay taxes and garnering some local support, Kahl shot and killed two federal marshals at a roadblock outside of Medina, North Dakota, then led federal investigators on a four-month-long manhunt, which ended with the death of a sheriff and Kahl’s own life in Arkansas. 

Militant and racist groups have hibernated quietly in North Dakota, but are growing, according to analysts. White-supremacist and now Creativity Movement member Cobb’s attempted takeovers of Leith in 2012, and Antler in 2015, are only a handful of recent endeavors. 

White supremacy’s bite is easily found online; its presence in the real world comes in black, a light shade of brown, in jackboots with white laces, and swastikas. In letters, chats, or emails – 88 – stands for HH, or “Heil Hitler.” Wolfsangles and Odin’s hammers have been taken from Nordic culture to stand as Nazi signs. Another slogan, “14” signifies Adolf Hitler’s 14-word phrase: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” 

A newer campaign known as Pioneer Little Europe has recently spread throughout Facebook. Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota has received 1,080 likes, compared to Georgia’s page with 447 likes. During a recent blizzard, page organizers wished its followers Happy Yule, and “may the leftist terrorists freeze.”

Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota page organizers promise that a return to Leith and Antler is in the future, because “there are more of us.” Instead of targeting one specific city, page organizers plan to expand across the state pinpointing cities of Leith, Underwood, Washburn, and Antler. Advertisements for available homes in Sherwood, ND, where Cobb is currently reported to be residing, are listed.

Cobb, 65, is listed as a sustaining member of “Friend of Stormfront,” and is active in the Stormfront.org website. According to his posts on White Pride Worldwide chat in Stormfront, he attempted a second takeover in Antler, North Dakota, buying a 111-year-old bank, a septic, and two residential lots in July 2015. He made payments from the Creativity Movement of USD 10,000 to Skywalker Enterprises LLC. 

“Creativity Movement owns the bank, lock, stock and barrel,” Cobb wrote. “Why, I even have the key to the bank.” 

After taking control, Cobb wanted to rename the town of 28 to “Trump Creativity,” or “Creativity Trump” in honor of Trump, whom he admires deeply, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

City pressure on the real estate company’s president left the man in “sheer terror,” Cobb said, and the company promised him a full refund. The building was torn down in February 2016, its debris buried in a hole.

On January 9, Cobb told WDAZ News that he planned to file a racial discrimination lawsuit after verbally agreeing to purchase a home for himself and his girlfriend in Bottineau County city of Landa, population 40.

Because of a DNA Diagnostics test in 2013, which proved Cobb was 14 percent Sub-Saharan African, Cobb claimed the homeowner must have thought he was a mulatto-Nazi, and refused to sell him the house on the grounds that he was part black, WDAZ reported. 

“We the European-American people, and the European people in general have had enough, and if a little civil disobedience and direct action are needed – we are willing to do it,” Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota page organizers wrote. “We will not give in to the genocidal demands of the Antifa terrorists, the corrupt anti-white government bureaucrats, and their diminutive sycophantic yokels, their boot-licking thugs.”

Those that oppose supremacists are brainwashed. They cry out to bankrupt anti-white cities. Anyone opposing them, no matter their skin color, is listed as an “anti-white.” Page organizers also report that Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota is trying to fill the Peace Garden State “with invaders.” They make fun of Standing Rock; call DAPL supporters “Marxist savages.” On October 10, 2015, they also take credit for forcing the city of Antler to spend USD 35,000 in thwarting Cobb’s second attempt for an all-white enclave.

Page organizers also exulted in the fact that Congressman Kevin Cramer R-N.D., beat long-time attorney, activist, and Standing Rock resident Chase Iron Eyes for the position earlier this year.

Pioneer Little Europe, or PLE, is an idea developed primarily in the 1990s by Hamilton Michael Barrett and Mark Cotterill, two white supremacists from British and American connections, according to Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the Jewish human rights group Anti-Defamation League. 

In South Dakota, Chappell has met with more success than Cobb. The Creativity Movement there steers away from political rallies. “They create a mob atmosphere and people don’t listen, they just do what the mob wants when it’s worked up in a frenzy. You get far more accomplished one-on-one and in smaller meetings.” 

During meetings, some members come in from elsewhere and stay in local hotels, fill tanks with gas from stations down the road. 

“Thanks to us, we have created business in the area to improve the local economy in this town,” Chappell said. His organization owns a restaurant, a gym, and a banquet hall, to which they frequent for meetings or for socialization. 

“Less risk of getting booted out last minute or having our food spit in at restaurants,” Chappell said. “Can’t prove people spit in the food at restaurants, but it’s a safe bet.” 

Persecution has made Chappell stronger, he said. “It’s made us more independent, and inspired many to own their own businesses so you’re not fired for your beliefs. 

“We live in a society so concerned about the equality of non-whites, it has been completely unequal to whites. The Constitution doesn’t apply to us anymore.” 

Americans have a long history of “fringe groups trying to form communities of like-minded people,” Pitcavage said. “One can think of Puritans coming to America to escape hostility in Great Britain, or Mormons trekking to Utah to escape aggression from non-Mormons.” 

Two events after World War II heralded white supremacist cloistering: the Cold War and fear of nuclear holocaust, and the success of the civil rights movement in the 1970s. Since desegregation, die-hard separatists and supremacists have called upon followers to travel to states like Oregon and Utah under the auspices of the Northwest Territorial Imperative, also known as the White American Bastion, Pitcavage said. 

Although Cobb’s Leith and Antler projects failed, Cobb and his followers have not given up on the Peace Garden State, according to Pioneer Little Europe North Dakota Facebook page. Cobb could not be reached for comment. 

Historically, most cloistering attempts met little success due to infighting, crime, or lack of followers who were willing to give up their lives, Pitcavage said. The PLE campaign recognizes that such massive dreams are doomed, and believe that whites should form communities within communities as “arks of survival,” in order for racially conscious whites to survive. Their presence would “theoretically force non-whites to depart, leaving white supremacist enclaves whose members would aid and assist each other.”

In Grand Forks, Jamie Kelso, director and membership coordinator for the American Freedom Party – formerly known as the American Third Position, a political party initially established by skinheads, is a well-known figure with political ambitions. In 1976 he ran for Missouri’s House of Representatives as an independent, running a platform to abolish income tax, end Social Security, terminate government control of education, and pull the United States toward withdrawing from the United Nations. 

Kelso is a bullhorn for white supremacy ideals. He claims he is not a racist, but a “red-blooded American,” and he hosts “The Jamie Kelso Show” for the American Freedom Party. He was once the personal assistant for Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, and served as a moderator for hate-web guru Don Black’s forum Stormfront, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Under Kelso’s supervision, Stormfront grew from 5,000 members in 2002 to 203,000 members in 2010. 

From 2007 until 2010, Kelso became active helping to promote Republican Presidential candidate Rand Paul. On his radio show on the Voice of Reason Kelso said North Dakota is “an optimal place to live as a pro-white activist,” and further claimed the Peace Garden State is full of opportunities for like-minded people. The American Freedom Party is considered “the most serious nationalist organization in the U.S.” by Southern Poverty Law Center.

Kelso refused to comment when contacted by telephone. 

“I am not interested in your questions at all,” Kelso said.

 

A double-edged sword

Fargo’s countermeasure against racism, classism, sexism, and hate, is Unity-USA. As a nonprofit organization, its directors are educators and watchdogs. One of the organization’s jobs is to stop Nazis and other hate groups from unifying in North Dakota and elsewhere through direct action and strong opposition, according to Kade Ferris, Unity-USA’s social media director. 

“There is a Nazi movement totally under the radar in eastern North Dakota,” Ferris said. “These Nazi groups, they flourish when they’re the only horrid voice in this sea of discourse. The discourse has changed in the last year so that more and more people feel free to spout hate and racism. Your neighbor down the street could be saying more horrifying things than any Nazi would ever think to say. In that sense, this nativist movement that Trump has created is not a movement because the average guy down the street who said something horrible and racist is the same guy who would deny that he would ever join a hate group because he thinks hate groups are for horrible people.” 

Trump’s election is a double-edged sword, Ferris said, as hatred’s wave sweeps the nation it is also drowning out the Nazi’s voices.

“More people will be horrified who would have normally been silent,” Ferris said. “People are standing up and opposing racism as well too. In a way, this discourse had to happen because when racism hides, when it’s quiet, when it’s under the surface, it grows and flows around, but the second it comes out into the open people become horrified by seeing that. I think that is a positive. The more people say horrible things, the more people are taken aback by it.

“When people are silent about racism, racism festers.” 

Racial issues do not rest solely with people like Cobb, or Kelso, but is deeply-rooted within the Peace Garden State. 

“Many people in North Dakota share many of the same views as Cobb and the Nazis, but they don’t see themselves that way and would be offended if you pointed that out. They hate Nazis, but are so similar in so many ways.”

Three years ago, few people were vocal about their own prejudices, Ferris said. Supremacists like Cobb shocked North Dakota, sent international hate group watch dogs and activists into a frenzy of activity. More than 400 anti-racists traveled to Leith in 2012 to face down a few dozen Nazis and supremacists. 

“Now, everyone is a Craig Cobb. They all say what they want to say, they are free with their hate, and they’re proud of it. That right there makes people like Cobb irrelevant. There’s more hate being spread on the local news Facebook page than there is on Stormfront. And that in a way is both a bad thing, and a good thing, as it opens people’s eyes and they see themselves, and they see racism is growing.

“But racism was already there.”  

Founder of Unity-USA, Scott Garman, said he’s been fighting racism and fascism nearly all his life. He and his family have been targeted by Nazis with threatening emails, telephone calls, online “doxing,” when a person’s personal information is released to the public.

Trump’s rise to power has fed hate groups courage, Garman said. 

“For the last five or six years there’s been an increase in Internet chatter,” Garman said. “White nationalists are breaking through the surface now, showing themselves. They’re doing much more, they’re much braver with the election of Trump. Now we’re seeing they’re no longer below the radar, and they’re feeling much more comfortable speaking out, which is frightening.” 

Nazis, skinheads, clansmen, creators, separatists, all come from the same mold, Garman said, the differences are minimal, almost interchangeable. 

“They are all of the same pot. You can’t separate them out. They’re all so full of right wing and nuts that it doesn’t do any good to keep them apart. They are all the same people just in different clothing, or different haircuts, or one is wearing boots and one isn’t. They will constantly change clothes, names, just when they’re being discovered for who they are. They will all of the sudden surface somewhere else under a different name, or under a different group’s name.” 

Most hate groups target the elderly, because they have money, or young people with malleable minds, Garman said. Shared religious beliefs is another tactic hate groups use to entice people to their ranks. 

“It’s just like drugs, once you get a taste, once you show up at a rally with a bunch of shave-headed dudes preaching this tough guy stuff, there’s a feeling of camaraderie, a feeling of belonging,” Garman said. “That’s a huge deal, it’s really powerful, but once you have that taste, maybe later on you do some research, but you’re already hooked.” 

Another reason hate groups are stepping into the light is because people are sipping their “Cool-Aid” for finding scapegoats for their own problems, Ferris said. 

“If you’re down in the dumps how do you push yourself back up? You either work really hard, or you push someone below you. They’ve created these scapegoats, first it was the Mexicans, then it was immigrants, now everybody. I think the people are going to start to see that there is an inherent problem with that. They’re not going to become instant millionaires, and they’re not going to become famous politicians. They’re going to wake up January 22 as refrigerator repairmen, or whatever. They will wake up and their lives won’t be better, but they will be filled with hate.”

Scapegoats are primarily fingered by the elected few, or by organizations such as the American Freedom Party or the benign-sounding National Policy Institute, an “alt-right” think tank, as ways to pass the buck or trigger anger.  

“They play to identity politics,” Ferris said. “They play to the ‘us-and-them’ binary, and in a way it has come down to that, and it’s a bad thing for America. They’re job in their mind is to elect people into power who are of the same mind. They are a dangerous hate group because of that.”

Instead of striving toward a better life, scapegoating onto immigrants or Muslims is the same tactic used by Hitler against Jews before World War II. 

“The poorest of the poor white person has more in common with the poorest of the poor black person, or native, or Latino, than they do with these wealthy, rich businessmen and oligarchs who are running the world. But they’ve been told differently by these very people who don’t have their best interests at heart.” 

Those involved in the Creativity Movement are Nazis who believe white man is God’s number one achievement, Ferris said. He is constantly harassed by Nazis and racialists. On January 7, Pioneer Little Europe Florida issued Ferris a death wish: “This is 2017 and Fidel Castro is dead. The best thing you can do is join him.” 

“My address, workplace, and my family’s pictures were shared all over Stormfront,” Ferris said.  He paused long enough to answer a young Nazi from Florida who believes he has a chance for state office since Trump won the US Presidency. 

“That’s not too nice I guess, but you can’t live in fear of these deplorables.”

 

Preparing for racial holy war

The Nazi party was established in Fargo in 2007, according to the Nationalist Socialist Movement’s NSM International blog. 

“The NSM Hotline was also packed almost to capacity with calls from around the nation asking about joining or supporting the NSM, so you, the members, activists, and supporters of the Party are doing your part in getting the word out about our cause,” Shoep said after Fargo’s Nazi party was officially formed.  

In 2009, secret Nazi emails were leaked onto the Internet by Wikileaks. The Nazi correspondence provides a small glimpse into the shadow world of Nationalist Socialism. More than 600 messages between July 2007 and August 2009 depict Nazis spending as much time pointing fingers, complaining of hard times, and threatening to expose internal fiscal problems as they do at talking about protecting the white race. 

Shoep frequently admonishes members, ordering them to stop squabbling, and in one letter he took a threatening tone.

“The NSM does not operate as a democracy, your Pledge of Loyalty is to the party and its leadership. Honor your oath, and your Pledge of Loyalty to the party, or get out of our ranks now while you still can.” 

William Herring, a staff member and Fargo’s Nazi contact who handled correspondence for the group in 2008. Herring reports his handle in other online chats is odinn88 in the Vanguard News Network, and describes himself as a Nazi skinhead with a satanic temper who has spent eight years in prison. These days, however, he “likes to stay on the right side of the law.

“Law and order are essential or we have chaos,” Herring said in October 2007 on the Vanguard News Network. “I live a clean, honest life now and I obey the law… Make no mistake, I am one crazy, violent mother f*cker. But I choose to stay free and outside of a cell by using reason and logic and following the law – until such time when there is no longer law or order. Then I will cheerfully and enthusiastically pick up a chainsaw or axe and seriously go to town on the n*ggers and Zionist swine. When that horrible day comes, you will see me on the front lines laughing my ass off and taking off heads. Until then, I just want a quiet little life with no mayhem or bullsh*t.”

According to the emails released by Wikileaks, Herring was in contact with Shoep in 2009, apologizing for not paying annual party dues, and saying he values his position with the Nationalist Socialist Movement and with the SS. 

While in Fargo, he described personal struggles to the Nazi commander, writing about a cheating girlfriend, a battle with pneumonia, being free from alcohol for 75 days. When he hit bottom, he began using toilet paper as coffee filters, and was forced to live in a homeless shelter. To friends outside the Nationalist Socialist Movement he wrote his name as Bill; to Shoep and other party members, he was SS Mann Herring. 

The Nazi party’s goals in Fargo are to engage in public speaking events, participate in local and state elections, and to distribute information and literature, according to Herring. 

“Our plan is to convince others that this system is broken beyond repair and that the principles of National Socialism are superior to this ‘democracy’ we find ourselves in.”

Toward the end of 2008, Herring wrote that his office was overwhelmed by the influx of new membership applications. In July the same year, Herring wrote he moved from Fargo to Springfield, Missouri. “I really didn’t have much left for me in North Dakota and I missed the hell out of my girl, so I moved to where she lives.”

By October 2008, Herring’s tone became calmer, telling applicants that the Nazi party doesn’t hate Jews, but is adamantly against Zionism and the dangers of multiculturalism. In 2009, Herring stated he was preparing to move to Oregon. 

“At the same time, we must admit to and report on the terrible crimes that many whites commit in order to show that our race is falling into decadence and that this behavior is further destroying us.

“We are not so one-sided as many think.”

The Nazi party has divisions applicants can apply to, including the Skinhead Division. For those who aren’t keen on wearing the uniforms, support divisions are available. Stormtroopers are the Nazi party’s “fighting force.” 

In addition to Fargo’s Nazi party, nearby Grand Forks has the American Freedom Party spearheaded there by Kelso, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The organization’s mission statement is mellow, citing concerns over the economy, well-armed borders, freedom from foreign ideologies, and fiscal mismanagement. The organization’s leaders, however, include a wide range of white supremacists, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

White nationalist corporate lawyer William D. Johnson practices out of Los Angeles, and is the chairman of the American Freedom Party. In 1985, Johnson proposed a constitutional amendment that would revoke the American citizenship of every non-white inhabitant of the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

An excerpt from the “Pace Amendment” to the Constitution proposed by Johnson in 1985: “No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race. … Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.” 

In 1985, under the pseudonym James O. Pace, Johnson wrote the book Amendment to the Constitution: Averting the Decline and Fall of America, where he advocates for the deportation of anybody with any “ascertainable trace of Negro blood” or more than one-eighth “Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood.” 

Johnson was also selected as a California delegate by Trump. 

Both Johnson and national radio host James Edwards, one of six directors for the American Freedom Party, have also been in contact with one of Trump’s sons. Edwards, a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, reported on his show “The Political Cesspool” that America is on the verge of becoming a third-world nation because of its immigration policies. Edwards’ three-hour weekly show can be heard on its flagship station, the Christian station WLRM-AM in Millington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis, on stations affiliated with the Liberty News Radio Network, and on the Internet.

“The Political Cesspool” says in its mission statement that it “stands for the Dispossessed Majority” and is “pro-white.” It says the show rejects “homosexuality, vulgarity, loveless sex, and masochism” and believes “secession is a right of all people and individuals.”

“The show has become the nexus for radio-based hate in America,” the Southern Poverty Law Center reports. 

Kevin MacDonald, a former professor of California State University Long Beach, is also a director of the American Freedom Party and has been accused of being an anti Semite by the Southern Poverty Law Center. His Twitter account tweets have been retweeted by by the Trump family, and he was quoted in 2010 by the Long Beach Press-Telegram saying white people have the right to organize to advance their interests, like everyone else. His writings on Jews have also been called anti Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League, and have been quoted approvingly by Duke.

Kelso, also a director for the American Freedom Party, was awarded “nationalist comeback player of the year” in 2014 by Jack Ryan, a writer for Occidental Dissent, an “alt-right” online publication. 

In South Dakota and across the world, the Creativity Movement is preparing for a racial holy war. 

“I am an ordained reverend within the church and it is my duty to educate those in my area on our teachings,” Chappell said. “We prepare for RaHoWa by stockpiling food, water, and protective gear in case riots happen in our areas.”

Leader of the Creativity Movement, Reverend James Logsdon, said in a 2013 interview with Vice, no matter his personal struggles or society’s ostracism, his racist choices are worth his cause. 

“Believe me, things are going to get very, very ugly,” Logsdon said. “You just look at the common decline of society; you’d have to be blind to say that doesn’t exist.” 

The Creativity Movement is gaining ground in Fargo, and across North Dakota, Chappell said. “We have had ups and downs like any organization, but we are making progress.”

The Creativity Movement’s enemies are the fear mongers, Chappell said, and for 14 years – as long as he has been a racial loyalist – only federal informants have tried to incite violence. Most groups are focused on growth, recruitment, adhere to strict legal means and ideals such as creating white enclaves. 

“Should people fear us? No, they shouldn’t, but the should definitely fear for their children’s safety, not from us, but from the society they have created.” 

Only non-whites, or non-racists, should fear them. “You can only push a man so much until he begins to swing back. Even the atrocities of Adolf Hitler were petty in comparison to America’s allies at the time of Stalin and Mao Zedong of China.  Stalin killed 40 million Ukrainians and and Mao killed 90 million Chinese. As far as people using the actions of Hitler and the KKK to justify antifascist actions, I would say unless they want to see atrocities on a greater scale than Stalin and Mao Zedong, they might want to find a better way to take action. Eventually people are going to snap, and it won’t be pretty.” 

In the meantime, white supremacist projects like Pioneer Little Europe and other white enclave endeavors are expanding in North Dakota. 

“I prefer a quieter approach,” Chappell said, referring to Cobb’s two attempts in North Dakota. Nazis also helped hurt the cause at that time as well, he said. “There is no need for so much attention. The economy is good and can attract people with lots of small towns and relatively cheap land. Jews believe in racial loyalty and help each other succeed, so they rise in society easier. That’s something whites should do as well. 

“It’s a successful business model. Why not?” 

Days after the Nazi salute to Trump, which was performed in public, in the nation’s capital, Dan Rather, former reporter for CBS 60 Minutes and the current president of News and Guts, issued a statement. 

“Now is a time when none of us can afford to remain seated or silent. We must all stand up to be counted. History will demand to know which side were you on. This is not a question of politics or party or even policy. This is a question about the very fundamentals of our beautiful experiment in a pluralistic democracy ruled by law.

“We are a great nation. We have survived deep challenges in our past. We can and will do so again. But we cannot be afraid to speak and act to ensure the future we want for our children and grandchildren.”

Fighting back tears, First Lady Michelle Obama gave her final address to young people from inside the White House on January 5. “It is our fundamental belief in the power of hope that has allowed us to rise above the voices of doubt and division, of anger and fear that we have faced in our own lives and the life of this country. Lead by example with hope, never fear.”