Traditionalist Worker Party / Traditional Youth Network

Introduction

The Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) emerged in 2015 as the political arm of the Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN), which Matthew Parrott and Matthew Heimbach created in 2013. The TWP claimed to be America's "first political party created by and for working families."* Although the TWP claimed that it opposed racism, it endorsed former KKK leader David Duke for U.S. Senate, praising his "service of our identity" and his work "against the actual racial supremacists: the Zionists."* The group is guided by the Fourteen Words mantra: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children."* Deceased white supremacist David Lane created the motto, which has been adopted by the TWP and various other white nationalist groups.* The Fourteen Words are the basis for the TWP's dedication to creating a "sustainable Homeland for our culture, identity, families, and blood."* The TWP dissolved in 2018,* but Heimbach announced in July 2021 his intentions to revive the group.*

The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed Heimbach a "rising star in the white supremacist world."* According to the Anti-Defamation League, Heimbach cites Duke as a major influence.* Parrott owns a compound in southern Indiana where he and his son-in-law, Heimbach, lived with other followers. The TWP planned to put forward candidates in Indiana's state and local elections in 2018.* Heimbach promoted and attended the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.*

The TWP focused its rhetoric on what it termed the pillars of faith, family, and folk. The party called for a rejection of atheism and secularism while claiming its members come from the "traditional faiths of the European people." It promoted what it called traditional family values, and fought for the interests of white Americans, who it says have been "abandoned by the System and actively attacked by globalists and traitorous politicians." The group claims it actively fights for a white homeland in order to secure the future existence of the white people.*

The group’s leadership fell into disarray in March 2018 after Heimbach was arrested for physical assault against his wife and Parrott, his step-father-in-law. Heimbach is married to Parrott’s stepdaughter. On March 13, 2018, Heimbach was arrested after a physical altercation with Parrott following Heimbach’s affair with Parrott's wife. Matthew Parrott resigned from TWP following the incident.* Parrott told the Daily Beast that because of the public altercation, "people have lost faith in the party on every level."* The TWP’s website shut down shortly after Parrott’s resignation, though its YouTube presence remains active. In September 2018, Heimbach briefly joined the National Socialist Movement as its community outreach director.*

Heimbach publicly renounced white nationalism in April 2020.* In February 2021, he told Ohio television station WKRC he had sobered up and his sympathies had shifted toward communism and leftist politicians like U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. He told WKRC that the divisions between people were not race driven but based on economic disparities. As such, he said he would work with Black Lives Matter or any other racial group to fight against the economic gap. “The capitalist class that rules this country does not care, fundamentally,” he said.* That July, Heimbach was scheduled to speak at a Medicare For All rally in Muncie, Indiana. National organizers canceled the rally after receiving complaints about Heimbach’s participation.* Despite his claimed desire to work across racial communities for economic equality, Heimbach soon began to combine his ideology with his old. In July 2021, Heimbach announced his intentions to relaunch the TWP.  He told the website Newsy he was drawing inspiration from Marxism and Bolshevism to support global revolution. Heimbach told Newsy he did not “particularly like Judaism as a religion.”* Heimbach also called for President Joe Biden and former presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush to be tried for crimes against society. He pled the fifth amendment—protection from self-incrimination—when asked if it is permissible to kill the U.S. president. According to the report, Heimbach intended to relaunch the TWP that month.*

On November 23, 2021, a U.S. District Court in Charlottesville found Heimbach and other organizers of the Unite the Right rally liable in a civil suit that alleged they were responsible for injuries to counter-protesters. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on two federal conspiracy charges. The two dozen defendants in the lawsuit included Parrott, Richard Spencer, event organizer Jason Kessler, and neo-Nazi podcaster Christopher Cantwell, among others. The jury awarded plaintiffs more than $25 million in damages.* According to Heimbach’s testimony during the trial, he had proposed the uniform of khakis and polo shirts for the rally. In a June 5, 2017, message to Vanguard America commander Dillon Hopper, Heimbach referred to the two of them, National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep, and League of the South leader Michael Hill as the leadership of the far right. Heimbach said the Charlottesville rally would bring them together with other far-right leaders.* The jury held Heimbach liable for $500,000.* After the jury announced its decision, Heimbach claimed he is a single father of two sons, working paycheck to paycheck, and will never be able to pay the damages. He accused the plaintiffs’ lawyers of wasting $20 million “to try and play Whac-A-Mole with public figureheads.”*

Matthew Parrott

was the chief information officer and co-founder.* Parrott resigned from the TWP in March 2018.*

Base of Operations

Paoli, Indiana*

Website

https://www.tradworker.org/ (defunct)

Membership Size and Relevance

The TWP had chapters in Kentucky and Ohio.* On YouTube, the group has gathered more than 6,800 subscribers and more than 407,000 channel views as of January 2, 2018.* By March 19, 2019, that number had decreased to 5,961.* The TYN YouTube channel has more than 55,000 views and 756 subscribers as of January 2, 2018.* As of March 19, 2019, the YouTube channel’s subscribers had decreased to 729.* As of August 2017, the TYN had more than 6,700 Twitter followers.* By January 2018, the TYN and TWP Twitter accounts had been suspended.

Recruitment and Propaganda

TWP promotes pro-white and pro-National Socialist propaganda.* The TWP and TYN rely on the distribution of printed propaganda materials as well as social media and the group's website. The party's website offers a propaganda section with multiple pro-Nazi and white nationalist fliers, stickers, and other materials.* Followers were encouraged to move to the group's compound in Indiana.*

Violent Activities

TWP has not been found to instigate violence. Some of its followers have, however, physically clashed with protesters.

Rhetoric

Daily Dose

Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.

Fact:

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded southern Israel where, in the space of eight hours, hundreds of armed terrorists perpetrated mass crimes of brutality, rape, and torture against men, women and children. In the biggest attack on Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, 1,200 were killed, and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza—where 101 remain. One year on, antisemitic incidents have increased by record numbers. 

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