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American Freedom Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairperson | Ralph Brandt |
| Founded | January 5, 2010; 15 years ago (2010-01-05)[1] |
| Headquarters | Westminster,California, United States |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Website | |
| americanfreedomparty | |
TheAmerican Freedom Party (formerly theAmerican Third Position Party orA3P) is afar-rightwhite supremacist political party in the United States.[2][3][4][5][6] In November 2009, it filed papers to be on a ballot in California, and was launched in January 2010.[7] It was created after the collapse of the Golden State Party, a party founded by the racist skinhead group Freedom 14, after its leader was exposed as a two-time felon.[8]
The party chairman is Los Angeles attorneyWilliam Daniel Johnson.Kevin B. MacDonald, a retired evolutionarypsychology academic atCalifornia State University, Long Beach, has been named one of the eight party directors. MacDonald is also a principal contributor toThe Occidental Quarterly[9][10] where his articles have claimed that traits that he attributes toJews, including higher-than-average verbal intelligence andethnocentricism, haveeugenically and culturally evolved to enhance the ability of Jews to out-competenon-Jews for resources. MacDonald believes this advantage has been used by Jews to advance their group interests and end potentialantisemitism by either deliberately or inadvertently undermining the power and self-confidence of theEuropean-derived majorities in theWestern world.[11][12][13]
A 2006 article inThe Nation magazine byMax Blumenthal reported that MacDonald's 2004Understanding Jewish Influence: A Study in Ethnic Activism (originally published in theOccidental Quarterly) "has turned MacDonald into a celebrity within white nationalist and neo-Nazi circles."[14] Writing in theJournal of Church and State, ProfessorGeorge Michael wrote that MacDonald's work "has been well received by those in the racialist right, as it amounts to a theoretically sophisticated justification for anti-Semitism," and that on the far-right MacDonald "has attained a near reverential status and is generally considered beyond reproach".[15]
New Hampshire state party chairman Ryan Murdough ran in theRepublican primary for a seat representing the Eighth District of theGrafton County delegation to theNew Hampshire House of Representatives,[16] but he was refused support by the Republican party, which called him a "despicable racist".[17] He placed fifth out of five candidates in the Republican primary, garnering 296 votes (11%).[18] Murdough was the National Political Director for theNational Socialist American Labor Party, a party which espousesNazi beliefs.[19]
In November 2009, the American Third Position Party filed papers with the office of theSecretary of State of California, with the intention of becoming a fully ballot-accessible party by the time of the June 2010 Californiaprimary election.[20] However, the party failed to qualify and was not entered on the 2010 ballot in California[21] or any other state.[22] The party received enough signatures to get Harry Bertram on the ballot for the2011 West Virginia gubernatorial special election.[23] Bertram's campaign ran a television ad emphasizing his desire to advance the interests of white Americans. Bertram was soundly defeated in the election, coming in last place out of 5 candidates on the ballot and netting only 1,111 votes; less than 0.4 percent of the total.[24]
In January 2012, the American Third Position Party announcedMerlin Miller as its presidential nominee for the2012 presidential election.Virginia Abernethy was announced as his running mate.[25] According to an AmericanFreedomUnion.com posting, they obtainedballot access in Colorado, New Jersey, and Tennessee.[26]
Kenn Gividen was nominated by the party as its candidate for president and Bob Whitaker was nominated for vice president in March 2015.[27] Gividen resigned from the nomination on July 26, 2015, after holding the role for 4 months; Whitaker then stepped into the role as candidate for president.[28] Tom Bowie took Whitaker's place as the vice president candidate.[29] Whitaker, whose favored term "White Genocide" was blocked by the AFP leadership, gave up the nomination on April 7, 2016, in protest over the party's growing support forDonald Trump and the toning down of its use of language.[30]
| Year | Office | Candidate | On the ballot as | Votes | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Governor of West Virginia | Harry Bertram | American Third Position | 1,111 (0.37%)[31] | 5/5 |
| 2012 | West Virginia House of Delegates, District 51 | Harry Bertram | American Third Position | 1,110 (0.88%)[32] | 11/11 |
| 2012 | President of the United States | Merlin Miller &Virginia Abernethy | American Third Position | 2,703 (0.00%)[33] | 18/27 |
The party traces its roots to a California-based white power skinhead group that called itself "Freedom 14", a name partially derived from theFourteen Words slogan created by neo-NaziDavid Lane. In 2009, the members of Freedom 14 announced the creation of a new political party called the "Golden State Party" onDon Black's hate siteStormfront. When theOrange County Register revealed that Golden State Party spokesperson Tyler Cole had felony assault and weapons charges, the group abandoned the name and formed American 3P, before changing the name again to American Third Position. WhenBill Johnson took over the group, the name was changed to the American Freedom Party.[34]
In early February 2012, members of the hacker groupAnonymous released statements claiming to have hacked the website of the party and various forums and email accounts connected with the group, including that ofJamie Kelso, the website's operator.[3][35] The front page of the party's website was defaced with #OpBlitzkrieg (the designated name used in January 2012 for a series of Anonymous cyber-attacks on German neo-Nazi websites) and private information about the organization's members was released.[36]
Occidental Quarterly ... contained Long Beach State University evolutionary psychology professor Kevin MacDonald's article 'Understanding Jewish Influence: A Study in Ethnic Activism', which contends that Jews have special psychological traits that allow them to out-compete white Gentiles for resources and power. The 2004 tract has turned MacDonald into a celebrity within white nationalist and neo-Nazi circles.
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