White nationalists and neo-Nazis step out of the shadows: ‘Trump has changed the game’
On the day thousands of Granite Staters attended March for Our Lives rallies around the state and joined with survivors of the Parkland, Florida school massacre to demand action against gun violence, a counter-protest of sorts was taking place in Hooksett.
There, in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shops, white nationalists and neo-Nazis quietly distributed anti-Semitic flyers demanding to know, “Why are Jews after our guns?”
“Operation Gun Grabbing Kikes” was the first national campaign carried out by Daily Stormer Book Clubs, loosely-connected groups of white nationalists led by Andrew Anglin, the man behind the website the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “the top hate site in America.”
The goal for the operation, Anglin wrote, was to “Raise awareness about who is trying to take away the gun rights of good Americans, leaving them defenseless to the ugly colored hordes they are forcing into our country, against the will of the actual Americans (White people).”
Anglin describes Stormer Book Clubs as an “IRL [in real life] troll army” of like-minded men organized “to prepare for the coming race war.”
“What I envision is more than simple meetings, but something where people can form real friendships with others who are in the know and share a desire to strengthen themselves and crush the enemy,” he explained. “You will form cells, build bonds, develop brotherhood. You will become stronger, better men.”
In a March update to members, Anglin and Daily Stormer’s “man on the ground” Robert Warren Ray (aka Azzmador) proclaimed, “Stormer Book Clubs are going to be the very best pro-White activist group on Earth.”
That same month, leaders of the New Hampshire chapter created an account on Gab, the Twitter-alternative favored by the alt-right. “We represent the great State of New Hampshire and American nationalism on behalf of the infamous and unapologetically pro-White Daily Stormer,” they wrote.
The group used the Gab account, which has since been deleted, to document their exploits around the state. “New Hampshire loves guns, New Hampshire loves Bass Pro Shops, New Hampshire does not love gun-grabbers,” they wrote in a caption accompanying the photos from the Hooksett action.
The group’s next national campaign, “Operation White America,” launched a few weeks later and featured posters that declared, “America was created as a White Nation… and it WILL be a White Nation again!” Members of the local chapter posted a photo that featured one of the posters mounted outside the Target store in Keene.
In June, local members left an anti-Semitic flyer at the New Hampshire Holocaust Memorial in Nashua. “Back to Israel, Jews!” it read, a declaration Azzmador described as “a simple, timely message designed to get people thinking about the pernicious kosherites busily rubbing their hands as they celebrate our destruction.”
No individuals have publicly acknowledged being members of the New Hampshire chapter nor taken credit for distributing any of the flyers. “The anonymity and well-being of our members is our top priority,” the New Hampshire group noted on Gab.
Diversity forum attendees receive threats
One Granite State white nationalist who doesn’t hide from the public eye is Ryan J. Murdough, a one-time candidate for the New Hampshire House and founder of New Hampshire Nationalists, a group whose website and social media posts are filled with racist and anti-Semitic slurs.
“New Hampshire Nationalists are sick of hearing about racial injustice and inequality while 13 percent of the population commits over 50 percent of the violent crime in the United States,” Murdough wrote in a letter to the editor published by the Laconia Daily Sun last year. “I created New Hampshire Nationalists so white men and women can work together to fight for their rights, survival, and those they love.”
References to Murdough as the group’s leader have since been scrubbed from the group’s website, though archived copies survive. On white nationalist message boards, the group’s founder and president is sometimes identified as “R.J. McBride,” an apparent pseudonym (or nom de guerre) for Murdough.
The group recently grabbed headlines by publishing contact information for dozens of Granite State business executives, nonprofit leaders and government officials who gathered last month to explore how the state can attract a more diverse workforce. On Gab, “New Hampshire Nationalists” wrote, “The identifying of these anti-White scumbags will never stop.“
“The Anti-Whites attempting to force ‘diversity’ into a state that doesn’t need it nor want it, should move to Africa, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Brazil and spare the rest of us from their Anti-White agenda…” the group’s website complained. “Diverse simply means less White and we oppose that very much.”
The Union Leader first reported that at least a half-dozen of the diversity forum attendees subsequently received threatening phone calls and emails following the disclosures.
Some of those who harassed the attendees bragged about their exploits on Gab. “New Hampshire Nationalists” posted a copy of an email he sent to photographer Becky Field, who has been documenting daily life among families of foreign-born residents of New Hampshire since 2012. “Hello Becky,” his email read. “We wanted to let you that your anti-White activism in N.H. has paid off. You made our list of ‘Anti Whites in New Hampshire’, congrats.”
John Young, an “ethnic advocate” for California-based European Americans United, also admitted contacting some of those on the list. “I very politely expressed my displeasure at the racism THEY were demonstrating toward white people, and told them I would work to remove them from positions of power and influence,” he wrote. “But that is not a ‘threat’ in any physical sense. And I am not a white supremacist. I’m an identitarian. Very different thing.”
‘Trump has changed the game’
Murdough has been active in white nationalist causes for over a decade. He served as the New Hampshire state chairman for the American Freedom Party (formerly the American Third Position Party or A3P), a group whose stated mission was to "represent the political interests of White Americans” and as the National Political Director for the neo-Nazi National Socialist American Labor Party.
In 2010, when Murdough ran for a seat in the New Hampshire House as a Republican, the state party disavowed his candidacy. “Mr. Murdough is a despicable racist,“ party spokesman Ryan Williams said. "His racist views are abhorrent and he is not welcome in the New Hampshire Republican Party.”
The white nationalist American Freedom Party also withdrew support for Murdough, their first official political candidate. Jamie Kelso, the party’s membership coordinator (and onetime personal assistant for David Duke), called Murdough a “Sieg Heil provocateur” who “hurt the party’s image badly.” Kelso told a reporter that the party “repudiated him immediately after they heard his ‘Hitlerian neo-Nazi material.’”
Murdough received 296 votes in the GOP primary for the Grafton District 8 seat representing Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Bristol, Groton and Holderness. He finished last among the five Republican candidates and failed to advance to the general election.
In a series of recent messages on Gab, Murdough described the campaign as “a blast.”
“I got 13% of the vote despite all of the opposition and explicit pro-White philosophy,” he wrote. “I truly enjoyed how much I triggered the NH media and political establishment… I loved it. It came with consequences but I knew that going in.” He concluded, “I will definitely do it again.”
After the 2010 campaign, Murdough retreated from the public eye. He re-emerged last fall – just weeks after Pres. Trump failed to condemn the white nationalists and neo-Nazis involved in the deadly Charlottesville protest – with a series of inflammatory letters to the editor of the Laconia Daily News and the launching of the New Hampshire Nationalists website and related social media accounts.
“Trump has changed the game permanently,” the website proclaimed. “Trump has enabled people to no longer be afraid to say what they think. People are awake and taking action. They won’t be silenced and bullied anymore and that is refreshing.”