by Matt Heimbach

After Charlottesville, Matt Heimbach was considered the future face of white nationalism in the United States. Now, he’s out of the movement. In this, his first public statement since departing, he gives us a glimpse into the true nature of participation in the movement, discusses the process of walking away, and offers a complex narrative on the nature of his radicalization, why and how he left and more.

My name is Matthew Heimbach. Throughout my adult life, I’ve been defined by my association with the American white nationalist movement, from my early interest to my eventual role as one of its primary modern architects. I am writing this to explain who I was then, who I am now, and who I hope to become. I hope my narrative might help readers learn from my experience.

I grew up in a middle-class home in a small rural town in Maryland, to loving, color-blind conservative Christian parents. Unlike what you see in the stylized Hollywood productions or on Daytime TV on the issue of white nationalism, there was no great trauma that brought about my thinking on the issue of race. No one extinguished their cigarette on my flesh. I had no disagreements or conflicts with people of color growing up, and I was always encouraged to be open-minded to other peoples and cultures. My entire family actively worked to provide a stable and “normal” upbringing.

Yet, I’d always enjoyed contrarian views and pushing people’s buttons by playing the devil’s advocate. I rebelled against my parents-- steadfast Reagan Republicans, not with emo makeup or heavy metal music and weed, but with the sort of “race realism” that flew in the face of their Sean Hannity-crafted worldview. I began reading books on taboo subjects like race, history, and National Socialism during High School.

My descent down the rabbit hole of white nationalism began with Jared Taylor’s writings and books like the Bell Curve, before graduating onto such “classics” as The Turner Diaries, the Northwest Front series, Mein Kampf, and Imperium. Thanks to steady media coverage of the movement, I discovered many new books and documentaries, which arrived at my door courtesy of Amazon or foreign online sellers. By my high school graduation, a Waffen SS flag hung over my bed. My parents had no idea what it was, but I knew. And that was enough.

At this time, I began alienating my family with my politics. I was ordered to leave an Easter dinner one year after a discussion about police brutality in non-White communities and the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case grew contentious. My liberal aunts and uncles cut me off, while my parents sat silent, exasperated, disgusted, and disappointed.

My official initiation into American white nationalism came during college, when I created a White Student Union at Towson University. Initially, though, being a public figure and politician of sorts was exhilarating and often overwhelming. My transformation from a veritable nobody to one of the most well-known students on campus seemingly happened overnight. It would also be the beginning of my descent into alcoholism, depression, extreme anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. The death threats began rolling in, and I was all alone, apart from my connection to the movement, of course. My best friend and comrade had a nervous breakdown and dropped out of school, while leftists and conservatives who I had thought were my friends distanced themselves entirely.

I’m not going to play victim by claiming somehow that because I was lonely, dealing with my parents’ divorce, and battling mental illness since my early teens that I was “preyed upon” by the movement. There was no one to prey on me. In fact, I eventually became part of the brand new generation of relatively hip (me not so much on the hipness factor) and young white nationalists. We were building something new together, not so much resurrecting a part of American history’ but copying the style of like-minded European movements.

My first in-person meetings were disappointing, though-- elderly men sitting around, rehashing the same old tune from the George Wallace campaign of 1968. A record stuck on repeat. It was clear that white nationalism’s “Establishment” was dying out. But soon I discovered a growing network of young, energetic, and exciting individuals that would come to be known as the “Alt-Right.” Instead of discussing segregation and school bussing ad nauseum, these kids were content-creators like me: publishing articles, podcasts, music, and art as the means to deliver our ideological message. These were my comrades.

My new comrades offered a sense of belonging, and I’d regularly travel to meet them, away from the dirty glares on campus. When I began holding local meetings for like-minded students from different schools, the movement became a surrogate family. We bonded through events such as “Reichsgiving” where all of us who couldn’t go home to our families for Thanksgiving, usually due to being ostracized for our political beliefs, would come and celebrate the holiday together.

After graduation, I teamed up with some activists to create the Traditionalist Youth Network, which we then formalized into our own FEC registered political party, the Traditionalist Worker Party. The five years that followed were a whirlwind of international travel, event planning, and media engagements: we were building the framework for a political revolution.

Yet, there was also the less glamorous side of this. I was uninsured, working often as an “independent contractor” or temporary worker who had no benefits or job stability, and lacked the means to pay for a stint in rehab or even a therapist out-of-pocket. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my mental health took a steep decline. The pressure of trying to find work, incessant threats to my safety, fear over government crackdowns, and continual financial instability finally tipped me over into full-fledged alcoholism.

I did not know who I could trust to even talk about my problems. The culture of the Far-Right generally does not allow for a space of weakness, where a member can truly ask for help from his comrades and receive it in a selfless way. Anyone I fully trusted could potentially use my weakness as a way to make a power-play in the movement against me.

Alcohol abuse is a major problem within the movement. It is an open secret that drinking at events, and in private, is a major issue for white nationalists, but one that was never addressed in any meaningful way to help those who were suffering. Alcohol has taken the lives of several dear friends, who used it to numb themselves to the profound anxiety of life as a despised political dissident and just trying to scrape out an existence in late-stage capitalist America.

Despite this pain and complexity of the individuals in the movement, the image of white nationalists in American culture is inherently dehumanizing, turning them into hateful caricatures (of which, to be totally fair, some truly and honestly are) or the villains from some World War Two shooter game. It is easier to dehumanize than to humanize, to label people based on a simplistic view of them, when to do otherwise would require an introspective look at the American economy, society, healthcare industry, history, foreign police, class relations, and a whole host of other issues that push people into the movement. It would make a lot of very comfortable people uncomfortable to address the needs, concerns, fears, and grievances of people who they would much prefer would stay quiet and suffer in silence. These are people who in many cases work hard, love their families, and have a kindness and sincerity that is never acknowledged in mainstream conversations.

There is an entire book’s worth of whacky, heart-breaking, and absurd stories related to my time in the movement. I’ve held an impromptu lecture on the value of the Affordable Care Act in a field surrounded by robed Klansmen; I’ve been banned from the entire United Kingdom; I’ve had loaded firearms aimed at me with ill intent more than a few times; I’ve watched families be created and others torn apart; I’ve consoled comrades in moments of great loss; I’ve been there with friends to celebrate their marriage and birth of their children, and I’ve been blessed enough to meet thousands of people who I will never forget.

Many former white nationalists simply condemn their former comrades instead of addressing the reality that the fear, anxiety, and grievances of the movement have in at least some cases, a legitimate basis. They have become part of the system that they once criticized, defending the talking points and views of bourgeois society above all, usually in exchange for a paycheck and a pat on the head. There seems to be a fundamental fear of not fitting in with “acceptable” mainstream society, so they do everything they can to become running dogs for the elites. The fact of the matter is that it’s true: the capitalist system is one hundred percent grinding White working class people into the dirt. But the true realization must come that it isn’t just White working class people who are suffering, but all working class people. It is not about race, but class.

That’s the problem with white nationalists, in my opinion. They see one part of the puzzle, the one that pertains to themselves. But the true scope of the problem is not just facing the White working class in America, but all working people around the world. Climate extinction and countless millions killed, exploited, tortured, and imprisoned by the capitalist system is even more terrifying and horrific than the often apocalyptic white nationalist rhetoric that is put forward. Over nine million people die every single year due to starvation, hundreds of millions are suffering from the impact of pollution, over 1.5 million people died last year of diseases that could have been prevented by access to vaccines, and the statistics of suffering go on and on. To zoom out and see the suffering of every person, of any ethnicity/religious creed/sexual orientation, who is struggling under the shackles of oppression and exploitation demands a sense of shared community, shared struggle, and of solidarity.

All of this insight however, has come through time and reflection, after pulling back from the movement. In 2018 I was still dedicated in mind, body, and soul to the movement, and then the wheels came off. My drinking finally caught up with me and overnight my political career imploded after I was arrested in a case involving domestic violence. Most of my comrades turned on me so suddenly, that I, once categorized in the media as “the future face of organized hate in America,” fell apart and hit rock bottom.

Within twelve hours of my arrest, multiple independent factions of the Traditionalist Worker Party had splintered off, with wannabe mini-Fuhrers making their move for power. As happened when Commander George Lincoln Rockwell was killed, or with the passing or arrest of other movement leaders throughout the decades, years of hard work disappeared as radical individualism and a desire for power took over, in opposition to the solidarity and brotherhood that is constantly preached in the movement. My own former comrades, who a week earlier had chanted “Heil Heimbach” at the top of their lungs, were now telling me that they would look forward to putting me up against a wall and shooting me come “The Revolution” that their new seven man organization would surely lead.

And so began my journey inward, forcing me to challenge all the things I’d been saying-- no, shouting-- into a megaphone, for my entire adult life. I had to come to grips with the reality that my entire understanding of self and my place in the world had always been a castle built on sand. The whirlwind from being an average college student to being a real political leader, able to assemble hundreds of comrades into American streets and being showcased in the world media to promote my views had been a mirage due to the built-in failures and frailties of the ideology driving the American white nationalist movement.

Two days after my arrest, realizing that I had to do something to avoid taking my own life in some demented version of seppuku, I slunk into the back of my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. My life changed forever.

I had gotten used to being an outcast over the years, being kicked out of churches and civic organizations, and being fired from jobs for my political beliefs. Over the years, being a despised outsider had become an uncomfortable yet familiar reality for my everyday life. In Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) I found people who knew who I was, what my views were, and yet loved and supported me unconditionally despite all of that. We were a motley crew from different backgrounds but almost entirely working class, and I found a sense of solidarity there that I hadn’t known before in my life.

When things got bad in white nationalism, people always turned on one another. There is no solidarity in that movement, shown by the implosion of every single organization after a leader dies or exits in one way or another. In AA I found people that didn’t turn their backs on me when I fell off the wagon or came up lacking in some way. Above all, I could finally be weak in front of other people. I could get the brotherly support to help me push through the shakes, frustration, and ups and downs of beginning not just recovery from alcoholism, but recovery from my previously held political beliefs that nearly were the death of me.

Still unready to fully begin my ideological recovery, in late 2018 I joined the National Socialist Movement (NSM). But my heart just wasn’t in it. After my arrest, antifascists and Leftists had reached out to me, often expressing more love and support than I’d ever received from the white nationalist movement, despite having sacrificed nearly everything for it. I began reading books they suggested, about Marxism, anarchism, and socialism. The influence from people outside of the closed off community that is white nationalism in America were planting seeds, both intellectually and personally, that were beginning to take root.

I’d always been an odd duck in American white nationalism, with my disdain for the American empire and compassion for people of color. I recall a heated debate with a Klansmen over my “radical” notion that Black people have souls. After the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, I went to Charleston, SC to lay flowers and attend several peace vigils, publicly condemning the massacre. My writing and rhetoric always had an anti-imperialist bent, earning me the label of “secret Marxist” and “Russian plant” from certain factions of the movement.

With a newly heightened awareness of the economic struggles plaguing every community, I no longer saw myself fitting in anywhere in the movement at all. I drafted my resignation to the NSM. The same day I was publicly fired for being “a communist.” The shoe fit, I guess.

After the NSM debacle, I tried a few more times to put my foot back into the movement, but my heart just wouldn’t go with it. Every time I found myself less and less engaged. I was tired, I was working on my own recovery. But besides that, I had become convinced that I needed to be a part of something bigger, for the whole of humanity’s sake. My last engagement with the movement was helping establish a charity to provide assistance to prisoners, but I later resigned.

While I’ve been off the public stage for awhile, something I don’t mind because it is nice to be able to go to Wal-Mart or out to dinner with my wife without confrontation, I feel the need to say something now. In the past year, we have seen numerous terror attacks against people of color, and dozens of arrests of white nationalists for discussing, or planning, violent acts. As a society, modern America is about as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and the uptick in violence is only putting us closer to a breakdown.

I now feel like I have a responsibility to try to reduce violence in our society, however I can. Luckily, it isn’t a heroic act to shoot people praying in a mosque or plotting to kill fellow working class people who you disagree with. I’m mentally and psychologically exhausted seeing the names and faces of so many young men arrested for playing revolution or feeling driven to commit horrendous acts. I’m kept up at night thinking about the long lists of victims of attacks carried out, and the videos of their heartbroken family members trying to make sense of the senseless.

Chickenhawk organizers who hide behind anonymity and distance, both physical distance like the current the leader of The Base who lives in Russia but sent orders to American-based teenagers, but also the distance one gets from the safety of the internet, are pushing young White men not to better their community or answer real social and economic issues, but to lash out in rage against people whom they share much of the same struggles with. Instead of building a path for a healthy environment, a fair economy, peace, and an end to the systems of oppression in which all working people struggle under, these individuals send these young men out to exacerbate the problem, throw their lives away, and take innocent people with them.

I’m going public now with the purpose of trying to help those in the movement get out of something that is unproductive and does not aim to fix the real problems and threats that our global community and planet are facing. Not just that: I want to help use that fire and energy to mobilize those I see everyday suffering from the exploitative realities and humiliation that accompanies the inequalities of the working poor.

Just as the American presence in Iraq creates recruits for Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other extremists, and the legacy of colonialism and ongoing destabilization in Africa fill the ranks of Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, we cannot end the growth of white nationalist violence by deplatforming, mass arrests, and government overreaction. To rely upon the State to counter violence with ever increasing amounts of violence will create a feedback loop of escalation.

Top-down solutions to solve violent extremism are only going to make problems worse, fill the ranks of our already insanely large prison population, and inevitably, in my opinion, cause more violence. As concern mounts, a top-down response will only further divide and could create a situation where, if you are to protest against government policies, you are “in for a penny, in for a pound” and many will react with wanton violence.

I now believe that the way to end violence is to work to end systems that perpetuate oppression. Systems that have historically disproportionately affected minorities but that are now also deteriorating quality of life for the white working class. Only through grassroots efforts can we defend our communities and empower one another to resolve the underlying issues in front of us all. Through compassion, understanding, increasing access to education, filling the basic needs of the people, and mass mobilization we can build a more just and peaceful world together. As Black Panther martyr and organizer Fred Hampton said “We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity.” Only through solidarity can we begin building a better world for ourselves, our children, and all future generations.

We can come together, I now truly believe this. Radicalization need not necessarily be a bad thing. Perhaps one can reorient radicalization, acknowledge the wrong-headedness and counterproductive nature of extremist movements and the mentality that goes along with them. I believe I’m on my way. Today I realize that we need to stand together, people of all backgrounds, to address the real root causes and grievances that extremists exploit for their recruitment, offering counterproductive solutions. I’m here for anyone at an individual level, but we also need to consider how we can address the threat posed by what I once was at a collective level. I’m hoping that I can play a productive part in that as we move forward.