On September 12, the national socialist National Justice Party (NJP) held its latest Labor Day event in Columbus, Ohio. Beyond repetitive demonstrations of their core antisemitism and white nationalism, NJP leaders revealed one point of interest– the addition of targeting proponents of fair housing laws to its standard mix of ginning up fear of crime by people of color, defaming transgender people, making racist appeals to white workers and spinning ad nauseam variations on the movement’s white dispossession myth.
Throughout the day, NJP speakers also demonstrated how national socialism fits within a broader middle American nationalism that reverberates across white nationalism and the far right – an ideology casting whites squeezed between elites “above” and people of color “below” them in the American social order.
For NJP, the “above” part is built on virulent antisemitism and the fabrication of a racialized ruling class. NJP Chief of Staff Tony Hovater offered:
“Our ruling class is composed of out of touch career politicians, ideologically incited neo-liberals, their Jewish puppeteers, and they’re all willing to make working white people’s lives significantly worse to carry out their political goals.”[1]
NJP Central Committee member Warren Balogh explained the group’s self-identity:
“In the first place, we’re nationalists – and I mean blood and soil nationalists. We reject Joe Biden’s pronouncement that America is an idea. It’s a land and it’s a people. We reject that there can be any other definition of a nation…White Americans are a nation. But this republic, The United States of America, if it was once synonymous with our white American nation, it really isn’t anymore. We live in a country that is not our nation and in many ways is against our nation. And it’s really not even a country, it’s an empire and in many ways this empire is our nation’s greatest enemy. And we sometimes use a term, we call it ZOG – which is short for Zionist Occupied Government…As nationalists, we are not tied down to any economic model. We reject capitalism as well as communism. We take a third position.”[2]
Warren Balogh at NJP Labor Day Conference. pic.twitter.com/hugCIFQZyS
— IREHR (@IREHR) September 18, 2023
In case the references to “blood and soil,” “ZOG,” and a “third position” aren’t clear, Balogh was recently more specific in a Telegram post emblazoned with a swastika and photo of a smiling Adolph Hitler alongside an equally happy Robert Ley:
“Today is May 1st, the traditional National Socialist labor day. There is no fight for race that isn’t also a fight for labor! Hail Robert Ley, one of the greatest true socialists and martyrs to labor of the 20th century… National Socialism didn’t collapse in Germany because it was unworkable or because people got sick of it or didn’t believe in it. Rather it was destroyed with bombs and its leaders were hanged because it worked only too well, the masters of international finance couldn’t allow it to exist.”[3]
Robert Ley was an early ally of Adolph Hitler, who became Regional Leader of the NSDAP for Southern Rhineland by 1925. Later elected as a Nazi to the Prussian Diet in 1929 and the national Reichstag in 1932, upon Hitler’s ascent, Ley came to head the German Labor Front as independent trade unions were ended and labor organizations subordinated to the Nazi Party.[4]
Elsewhere, Balogh wrote,
“Any form of nationalist populism or populist nationalism that is not explicitly PRO-WHITE AND ANTI-JEW will inevitably be subverted by Jews and turned into the new neoconservativism. Any form of ‘conservatism’ that rejects state power and state authority on principle (which is all conservatism) is built to fail and will always lose to the militant Left. [PRO-WHITE + ANTI-JEW] x STATE POWER = NATIONAL SOCIALISM, the only solution!” [brackets and capitals in original] [5]
Thus, while the National Justice Party dubiously touts itself as the “premier White nationalist organization in the United States,” it is, more specifically, a national socialist outfit – and recall that the name of Adolph Hitler’s party was the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).[6]
One addition to NJP’s standard white dispossession narrative worth tracking is the effort to cast criticism of white nationalists and racism as “stochastic terrorism” – a term referring to specific acts of violence spurred when leaders vilify segments of the population – and a term generally applied to bigotry and vitriol expressed by political leaders.
For instance, Tony Hovater absurdly claimed this happens when the media reports on people who “want to start running a homeschool curriculum that isn’t about white self-hatred or Jew worship.”[7]
The Other Side of Middle American Nationalism – NJP’s Push for Housing Discrimination
Tony Hovater articulated a troubling addition to the general targets of the group’s animus. Claiming that the federal government “works overtime” to make sure your rural community “gets diversified,” he continued that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) does this through grants for “workforce housing,” referring to federal Section 8 housing vouchers for low-income individuals. Hovater cast this as an “active government program” carried out with “purposeful malice” and the result of “evil bureaucrats choosing who gets to live around you and your family.” More specifically, Hovater said, “For the people that live in, like, around this area, boy, we have some issues with Somalis.”[8]
Tony Hovater at NJP Labor Day Conference. pic.twitter.com/bSXKXJySJT
— IREHR (@IREHR) September 18, 2023
“Our friend here from Fargo,” he continued, “they have a big issue with Liberians.”
Hovater’s shot at Section 8 is not just podium banter. In late August, the NJP mouthpiece, Justice Report, reported that 20 NJP “Supporters and volunteer activists” protested outside the home of Texas State Senator Drew Springer (R-District 30).[9]
NJP “Supporters and volunteer activists” protested outside the home of Texas State Senator Drew Springer
The NJP newsletter explained that it targeted State Rep. Springer because he “helped pass” Texas House Bill 1193, actions the racist organization accuses of “making it illegal for local housing authorities to bar Section 8 tenants from renting in their neighborhoods.” Sans evidence, the Justice Report claimed, “Since Section 8 renters in Texas are overwhelmingly Black, the move has been criticized by some as a way to subject traditionally White neighborhoods with the burden of violent crime.”[10]
In other words, the NJP made clear that their aim is to block Black people from accessing housing in white neighborhoods.
In a world not shaped by national socialist racism, HB 1193 banned discrimination against tenants based on their “method of payment,” a category extending beyond Section 8 vouchers to include “any other federal or state or local housing assistance,” including rental vouchers, rental assistance or “rental subsidies from a nongovernmental organization.”[11]
In fact, among Texas renters receiving federal or state rental assistance in 2022, including Section 8 vouchers, 60.1% were white, 34.2% Black or African-American, 31.5% Hispanic or Latino, and less than 1% each American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, according to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs’ 2023 Draft State of Texas Low Income Housing Plan and Annual Report.[12]
NJP organizer Ryan James declared that HB 1193, instead of “defending the good people’s protected freedom of association,” supported the “federally subsidized relocation of violent inner-city black criminals into predominantly White suburbs and rural communities of Texas.” James said that Rep. Springer would be “forever branded a traitor to his people” unless he led an effort to stop the bill.[13]
The cry of “freedom of association,” while an important right, was also a common frame mobilized to defend Jim Crow segregation and boost similar efforts in the North.[14]
The bill’s primary sponsors and cosponsors were all Democrats. Rep. Springer is a Republican. NJP’s attack on Rep. Springer is part of a growing trend among white nationalists and far-rightists, assailing moderate Republicans and conservatives to recruit from these ranks and pull them in a more racist and anti-democratic direction.[15]
At the Columbus meeting, NJP Chair Mike Penovich declared the main impediment to white nationalist advancement is “the Republican party and the conservative movement,” explicitly lashing out at National Conservatism and “phony Christian nationalism.”[16]
NJP Chair Mike Penovich
The same weekend the group targeted Rep. Springer’s home, the NJP also protested outside Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mansion against House Bill 3751, which would allow immigrants federally authorized to work and obtain a firearm in the U.S., or whose immigration action has been deferred under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, to “act as deputy sheriff or special policeman for the purpose of preserving the peace.”[17]
In the current public vernacular of national socialists, the Justice Report declared that the bill “paves the way for so-called ‘legal aliens’ and ‘asylum seekers’ to police, arrest, detain, and shoot to kill American citizens.” NJP activist Carson is reported saying, again sans evidence, that “When migrants begin to fill the ranks of our police and correctional officers, crime will not fall. It will rise.”[18]
An earlier Justice Report article on the law had been titled, “Migrants can now become police officers in Jewish-run Illinois.”[19]
These protests outside officials’ homes follow on the heels of NJP mobilizations around other racially-charged issues – such as immigrant resettlement and the murder of 6 people in 2021 by Darrel Brooks Jr., who is African-American, when he drove his vehicle into participants in a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.[20]
Recruiting from Racism, Building Capacity
Peinovich ended on another note. Citing surveys demonstrating the very real and disturbing persistence of significant racism and distorted thinking about race in the white American public, Peinovich declared, “Our task as the NJP is to find these people and convince them to join us.”[21]
As for capacity, Peinovich claimed that attendance at this year’s event was larger than the 400 the group claimed in 2022. An article in the NJP-allied Hypen-Report claimed 300 to 400 attended in 2022, and a photo posted in the piece showed at least 200 present.[22]
While the NJP has been overshadowed in on-the-ground activism by groups like the Patriot Front and Active Clubs and influence by the Groypers, it does have a base from which to mobilize. In recent months, the group distributed stickers and posters in at least 27 states, according to photographs posted by the group’s “ProMat Division” (1148 subscribers), its contact for “Street Activism.”[23] The NJP’s main Telegram channel has 10,173 subscribers, and it has a women’s auxiliary (Evergreen, 1869 subscribers), The Justice Report (3,870 subscribers), a “Foreign Policy” division (White Papers, 7508 subscribers) and “Dissident Radio.”[24]
And the national socialist group is now undertaking to violate the civil rights of people of color seeking to rent homes or apartments. Anti-racists and civil rights attorneys should pay attention.
NOTES
[1] The National Justice Party. Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/636
[2] The National Justice Party. Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/638
[3] National Justice Party. About Us. https://nationaljusticeparty.com/about-us/. Accessed August 30, 2023; Warren Balogh NJP. May 1, 2023. https://t.me/warrenbalogh88/5473
[4] See Snyder, Louis L., Dr. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. 1989. New York: Paragon House; Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. 2005. New York. Penguin Books; Britannica. Robert Ley. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Ley. Accessed August 30, 2023.
[5] Warren Balogh NJP. October 16, 2022. https://t.me/warrenbalogh88/3242
[6] The National Justice Party. May 15, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/413
[7] The National Justice Party. Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/636
[8] The National Justice Party. Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/636
[9] Justice Report. National Justice Party holds demonstrations across the country in run-up to major Labor Day event. August 28, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/28/national-justice-party-holds-demonstrations-across-the-country-in-run-up-to-major-labor-day-event/
[10] Justice Report. National Justice Party holds demonstrations across the country in run-up to major Labor Day event. August 28, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/28/national-justice-party-holds-demonstrations-across-the-country-in-run-up-to-major-labor-day-event/
[11] LegiScan. Bill Text: TX HB1193 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature | Enrolled. https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB1193/2023. Accessed August 30, 2023.
[12] Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. 2023 Draft State of Texas Low Income Housing Plan and Annual Report. December 8, 2022. Austin, Texas. https://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/board/docs/books/23-SLIHP-DRAFT.pdf. These numbers do not add to 100% because of overlap in the “racial” categories such a black and white and “ethnic” categories of Hispanic and Latino.
[13] Justice Report. National Justice Party holds demonstrations across the country in run-up to major Labor Day event. August 28, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/28/national-justice-party-holds-demonstrations-across-the-country-in-run-up-to-major-labor-day-event/
[14] Hartford, Bruce. 2015. “Ghettos, Segregation, & Poverty in the 1960s.” Civil Rights Movement Archive. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/ghetto15.htm; Civil Rights Movement Archive. Bruce Hartford. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/ghetto15.htm. Accessed August 15, 2023. For instance, Bruce Hartford, a onetime staffer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), wrote, “During the ‘50s and ‘60s, efforts to end housing segregation in the North sparked intense resistance from significant segments of the white population (including some who had supported campaigns in the South for school integration, lunch-counter desegregation, and nonwhite voting rights). Many local governments supported and reinforced pro-segregation attitudes by enacting or strengthening legal barriers that defended ‘property-rights,’ ‘community-standards,’ and so-called rights of ‘free association… Political, economic, and social gains by Blacks and Latinos were portrayed as the illegitimate grabbing of special benefits and privileges at the expense of innocent whites who were (they claimed) the ‘real victims.’ They told white voters that laws, court rulings, public policies, and negotiated agreements prohibiting racial segregation or requiring integration somehow denied them their ‘right of free association.’ By ‘free association’ they meant the ‘right’ to exclude Blacks and other racial minorities from their communities.”
[15] LegiScan. Bill Sponsors: TX HB1193 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature. https://legiscan.com/TX/sponsors/HB1193/2023. Accessed August 30, 2023.
[16] The National Justice Party.Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/640
[17] TrackBill. Illinois HB3751. MUNI CD-POLICE APPLICANTS. https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-3751-muni-cd-police-applicants/2373465/. Accessed August 30, 2023.
[18] Justice Report. National Justice Party holds demonstrations across the country in run-up to major Labor Day event. August 28, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/28/national-justice-party-holds-demonstrations-across-the-country-in-run-up-to-major-labor-day-event/
[19] Justice Report. Migrants can now become police officers in Jewish-run Illinois. August 18, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/18/migrants-can-now-become-police-officers-in-jewish-run-illinois/.
[20] Crowd Counting Consortium. Love Won. https://countingcrowds.org/. Accessed August 20, 2023; National Justice Party. VIDEO: NJP Waukesha Protest, November 27, 2021. November 29, 2021. https://nationaljusticeparty.com/2021/11/29/video-njp-waukesha-protest-november-27-2021/; NJP ProMat Division. June 16, 2023. https://t.me/promatDivision/1222
[21] The National Justice Party.Telegram. September 9, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/640
[22] Justice Report. National Justice Party holds demonstrations across the country in run-up to major Labor Day event. August 28, 2023. https://justicereport.news/articles/2023/08/28/national-justice-party-holds-demonstrations-across-the-country-in-run-up-to-major-labor-day-event/; Jazzhands McFeels. NJP’s Labor Day Rally was America’s Largest Authentic Pro-White Gathering in Decades. Hyphen-Report. September 5, 2022. https://archive.ph/dFOGG
[23] The National Justice Party. May 15, 2023. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty/413; See NJP ProMat Division. April 1, 2023 to August 30, 2023. The states where the groups appear active include Louisiana, North Carolina, California, Texas, Tennessee, New York, Minnesota, Virginia, Mississippi, Illinois, Maryland, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, Deleware, and Connecticut.
[24] The National Justice Party. Telegram. https://t.me/NationalJusticeParty. Accessed August 30, 2023; The Justice Report. Telegram. https://t.me/justicereport; White Papers. Telegram. https://t.me/HuWhitePapers; Evergreen. Telegram. https://t.me/TheEvergreen
