Organization and activities
Traditionalist Youth Networks's only active university chapter is at the Indiana University Bloomington; this group is led by a white-supremacist activist Thomas Buhls, who has been affiliated with the Harrison, Arkansas-based Knights Party, a Ku Klux Klan group.[6] In December 2016, the group's founder Heimbach claimed that it had some three dozen active chapters and 500 members across the United States; analysts at the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League state that these numbers are likely exaggerated.[31] The SPLC's 2017 annual report identifies the TWP as having chapters in Paoli and Bloomington, Indiana; Benson, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and the affiliated Traditionalist Worker Party as having chapters in Paoli and Columbus, Indiana; Sacramento, California; Louisville, Madisonville, and Murray, Kentucky; Kansas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dallas, Texas; and Virginia.[33]
In August 2013, the group protested a leftist bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana; in October 2013, the group held rallies protesting campus speeches by anti-racist educator Tim Wise.[6]
In September 2013, the group, as Traditionalist Youth Network, held an event in Corunna, Michigan, in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government.[34] The group initially planned a "Koran BBQ" that would feature the burning of copies of the Qur'an and pictures of Muhammad, to show "Islamic immigrants and citizens alike that they are not welcome here in Michigan"; however, this was changed to a pro-Assad protest after the U.S. government announced its plans to support Syrian rebels.[34] Heimbach told MLive that he did not regret the group's original plan, and that the group supported Islam "when it's in its own home in the Middle East."[34]
In 2014, the group filed an amicus brief in a federal court in Michigan in the case of DeBoer v. Snyder. In its brief, the group took a stance against same-sex marriage, which Parrott described as part of "the Leftists [sic] social engineering campaign to destroy every last vestige of Western civilization."[35] Later the same year, the group filed a second amicus brief in a case in Maryland challenging a law prohibiting assault weapons; in a four-page filing, the TYN stated that it opposed "the enemy of freedom—the Culture Distorter—in its sights and wishes to shoot down unconstitutional legislation that disarms our people".[36]
In July 2015, the group called for the filing of hate-crime charges in connection with the beating of a white man in Fountain Square, Cincinnati. The local prosecutor, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, stated that there was no evidence of ethnic intimidation in the crime.[37]
At a March 2016, Donald Trump rally at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville,[38] Heimbach was filmed shoving a black woman who was protesting Trump.[25] Heimbach and two other men were initially charged with misdemeanor harassment with physical contact and were served with a criminal summons in April 2017.[39] The charge was later amended to second-degree disorderly conduct; in June 2017, Heimbach entered an Alford plea, a form of guilty plea.[39] Heimbach was fined $145, was ordered to attend anger management classes, and was sentenced to 90 days in jail; the jail sentence was suspended on the condition that Heimbach not commit another crime within two years.[39][40] In 2018, after Heimbach was charged with misdemeanor battery and felony domestic battery in Indiana in a separate case, Heimbach's probation in the Kentucky case was revoked and he was sent to jail for 38 days.
In a separate civil case, Heimbach is being sued in federal court for assault and battery by the woman he accosted at the March 2016 rally, Kashiya Nwanguma, and two of her fellow protesters, Henry Brousseau and Molly Shah, who allege that they were also the victims of violence at the rally. Also named as defendants are Alvin Bamberger (who is accused of assault and battery) and Donald Trump and Trump's campaign (who are accused of incitement to riot, negligence, and vicarious liability).[42] In the case, Heimbach, who is representing himself, said that he "relied on Trump's authority" in order to oust the woman from the rally, citing Trump's directive to "Get 'em out of here" and promise to "pay for the legal fees" of supporters who expelled dissidents from rallies.[38] On this basis, Heimbach has filed court papers seeking indemnity from Trump.[43]
In November 2017, the group created an online crowdfunding platform called "GoyFundMe" for racists, white supremacists, and other extremists with the objective of advancing their causes.[44] The name is a play on the name of the GoFundMe crowdfunding platform, founded in 2010, and the word goy.
Twitter suspended the account of Matt Heimbach on January 3, 2017.[45] The account for the group itself was suspended from Twitter on December 18, 2017.[46]
