The Traditionalist Worker Party, a neo-Nazi white nationalist group headed up by Matthew Heimbach, has spent the last week crashing and burning in the public eye.
After clashes between white nationalists and anti-fascist protesters turned violent last week before alt-right talker Richard Spencer spoke at Michigan State University, the alt-right’s feuding about the movement’s “optics” and its ability to recruit new members boiled over as Heimbach and other members of the Traditionalist Worker Party came under fire for their roles in violent fights with protesters.
Heimbach began publicly arguing with neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin, who accused Heimbach and the Traditionalist Worker Party for hurting the alt-right’s public image. Heimbach told Anglin to “just bury the hatchet” because “when white men fight, Jews win.”
Shortly afterward, the Traditionalist Worker Party announced on Gab—an alternative to Twitter popular with the alt-right—that its show was canceled by The Right Stuff, a podcast network operated by alt-right radio host Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, at the request of Anglin. At the time of publication, the Traditionalist Worker Party’s landing page on The Right Stuff, as well as the website tied to Traditionalist Worker Party, is offline.
Then, problems for Heimbach and Traditionalist Worker Party took another bizarre and violent twist.
Yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch reported that Heimbach was arrested and released on bond for charges of battery after he allegedly violently attacked his spokesperson and father-in-law Matt Parrott, who confronted Heimbach about the affair he was having with Parrott's wife. Parrott told SPLC that, as a result, he has quit his role as a Traditionalist Worker Party spokesperson From the report:
The strange incident began just after 1 a.m. Tuesday, when Matt Parrott, 36, called police from a Walmart near his home. He fled to the Walmart with his step-daughter after a violent confrontation with Heimbach.
The step-daughter told police that Heimbach and Parrott’s wife had been having an affair for three months. Heimbach and Parrott’s wife said the fling had ended.
The step-daughter and Parrott’s wife tried to set up Heimbach to see if he would continue the affair after saying it was over, police said in a report.
During the set up at Parrott’s Paoli trailer home, Matthew Parrott and his step-daughter waited outside, standing on a box and watching through a window, police said.
A confrontation ensued between Heimbach and Matt Parrott. Parrott told police Heimbach twisted him down to the ground, then “choked [him] out.”
After Heimbach’s arrest, the future of Traditionalist Worker Party is uncertain—as is that of much of the alt-right, nowadays.
In a video uploaded Sunday, Spencer said he was rethinking his college speaking tour because the “violent clashes” that happen at his speeches “aren’t fun.” Spencer said “Antifa is winning” and as a result, dates and locations would need to be concealed for future events.
As we noted last year, the alt-right movement as originally envisioned is on a path to self-destruction and is splintering into a handful of spin-off movements that hyper-focus on various dogmas of the alt-right. Although the Traditionalist Worker Party appears to be dissolving and the founding infrastructure of the alt-right is crumbling, the hate the alt-right movement inspired is still alive.
