News

American Third Position: Academic Racists Take the Reins from Young

March 09, 2010

Racist William Johnson, a lawyer and the chairman of the recently created white supremacist party American Third Position (A3P), and Kevin MacDonald, an anti-Semitic professor of psychology and a director of A3P, have taken the helm of a group that was spearheaded by young racists.

These young racists initially formed a group called Freedom 14, whose members handed out fliers in Orange County and often posted to the white supremacist Internet forum Stormfront. On the forum, they encouraged white Americans "to consider acting politically on their own behalf."  Members of Freedom 14 went on to form the Golden State Party, which attempted to register as an official political party in California. After local media reported that Tyler Coles, a leader of Freedom 14 and the Golden State Party (GSP), was a two-time convicted felon, the GSP seemed to disappear overnight and then apparently morphed into the American Third Position party. The young racists who claimed that "they would go to the moon, if that's what it takes to win" turned to older, more established racists and anti-Semites to get their political movement off the ground.

In an interview on the Political Cesspool (an AM- and Internet-based radio show run by white supremacist James Edwards, who came on board as another director of A3P), Johnson declared that his group wanted to run candidates that were "sincere, honest people" who can embrace the group's platform and theme of preserving white culture. Despite the party's ties to a felon and another member who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in March 2010, Johnson, said, "We must promote principles that are sound and moral and right and obey the law." Johnson stressed that the A3P wanted to run candidates in all 50 states and would start with the states that had the easiest ballot access, including Florida, Delaware, Mississippi and Vermont.

Kevin MacDonald’s involvement in A3P is his first foray into electoral politics and the first time he has explicitly become involved in a white supremacist group.  In an interview on another white supremacist Internet-based radio show, Radio Free Mississippi, he stated, "What we have to get people to understand is that it's okay to have an explicit white identity."  Turning his focus on Jews, MacDonald said that white nationalists need to focus on the "Jewish lobby" as a strategic issue and inform the public about alleged Jewish "dual loyalties."

It is clear that Johnson, MacDonald and Edwards see the current atmosphere of anti-government anger and economic uncertainty, as well as the election of the first African-American president, as an opportunity to reach a wide range of whites and bring their party to mainstream America.