A couple of months ago the American National Justice Party, one of the new political entities to emerge in 2020, appeared to be moving along at a reasonable pace with a series of local and regional supporters’ groups, several supporting podcasts hosted by leading personalities within the party, and a number of demonstrations held around the USA. In October, NJP activists tried to attach themselves to mass rallies calling for ceasefire in Gaza by holding a vicious anti-Semitic rally outside the White House in Washington DC. “The Jews in the Biden cabinet want to recruit white men to fight their war,” said NJP leader Mike “Enoch” Peinovich.
Mike ‘Enoch’ Peinovich
Searchlight readers will not be surprised by such anti-Jewish rhetoric emanating from far right leaders though they may be surprised that between that demonstration and today the NJP has completely imploded. But, you may ask, “What has this got to do with the UK?”
Well, the NJP is the main US ally of Britain’s most significant fascist organisation, Mark Collett’s Patriotic Alternative. Only last October, NJP leaders Warren Balogh and Tony Hovater were in the UK speaking at the annual PA rally in Leicestershire.
At the PA conference: Mark Collett (left) with Tony Hovater (centre) and Warren Balogh
Although just a few years old, the NJP had become a serious rival to Patriot Front, American Freedom Party, NS131, Rise Above Movement and others. With anti-Semitism at their core, the main debate between these groups – often leading to long-winded, personal attacks on social media, and the occasional physical assault – has been about optics; how “Normies” (everyday people) see them. So, do they need to wear combat gear (Patriot Front) and hold offensive marches through major cities, or do they hold “respectable” rallies in the countryside wear attendees wear suits and look like ultra-Conservatives…?
Warren Balogh, in a podcast released this week with his wife, NJP activist and far right pin up girl Emily Youcis, admitted as much. Do we, he asks, continue to wave the Christian cross and the American flag, or do we go for a more National Socialist approach…?
And, elephant in the room, how can we make money from doing so. Clearly not, in Balogh’s mind, by dressing in nazi-style uniforms and fighting in the streets. The ghosts of Charlottesville haunt Balogh, Enoch, and fellow activists Eric Striker (Joseph Jordan), Hovater, Greg Conte (ally of the now disgraced Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute).
With Trump as President, elements of the Republican party sought to disassociate themselves from the lunatics that had taken over part of their asylum. Trump (eventually) spoke out against the murder of student Heather Heyer by white supremacist James Fields. And then he gave complete, total and outright support for Israel, arguably going further than any previous President, making him an enemy for all time as far as the extreme right are concerned.
The NJP, for its part, held rallies attended by a few dozen activists around the USA and larger party rallies drawing a few hundred supporters on several occasions. The party was assisted in appearing credible to some by media coverage it received after its main 2021 rally.
The NJP grew out of far-right fallout from Charlottesville and the political failure of the Alt Right. The founding committee of the party included Warren Balogh, Peinovich and, importantly, Balogh’s father, Alan, a serious, violent and serial fascist activist whose credentials are not in doubt within rightist circles. Balogh senior knew William Pierce – indeed he was a member of Pierce’s National Alliance – Matt Koehl, Kevin Strom and Pat Buchanan, and was involved in numerous groups on the fringes of the Republican party where anti-Semitism was the main thrust. He is, and was, an entryist, able to attach himself to protest parties, populist campaigns, the Tea Party movement, in attempts to move those groups in a more extreme direction because to Balogh and friends, politics boils down to one thing; hatred of Jews. That is it.
Alan Balogh (2nd left) with William Pierce (right) 1984
Despite this, the NJP were, it seemed, becoming serious players. Until, that is, two weeks ago.
Tony Hovater, bearded and popular with the suited bigots that heard him speak at the recent Patriotic Alternative rally with Collett and Melia, learned his trade within Matt Heimbach’s Traditionalist Workers Party. Just as TWP looked to be making progress it all fell to bits within a week when it emerged that Heimbach had been having an affair with a fellow leader’s wife. That was in 2017.
Fast forward to 2023 and Hovater is back in the mix. NJP activists have been horrified to see thousands of (they thought private) messages pouring onto the internet courtesy of Hovater, How, they ask, did a dangerous, deluded, incompetent and egotistical lunatic like this become Chief of Staff in the NJP? Hovater has enjoyed a very close relationship with Peinovich.
Searchlight is presently working through thousands of internal messages generated by NJP supporters and activists dumped online by Hoveter. They reveal a party at war with itself, totally unfit for anything remotely political, whose leadership is only concerned with stabbing other members in the back publicly and privately, and, surprise, surprise, trying to keep their hands on the money from NJP dues paying members and supporters.
Hovater, in a series of incredibly revealing messages on NJP social media platforms, blew the lid on internal matters;
Leader Mike Enoch Peinovich is drawing a huge salary and does virtually no political work.
Peinovich is lazy and driven by money, ego and power.
NJP leaders have been lining their pockets with supporters’ funds, several of them drawing six to eight thousand dollars a month for doing very little.
The party is, others claim, lacking funds. See above.
Peinovich, despite working very closely with Warren Balogh, thinks him irrelevant despite Balogh being one of the very few genuinely political people within the party.
Balogh Jr is worried about being “cut out” by Peinovich and left with nothing.
Peinovich, despite claiming the NJP has no money, offered Hovater a “substantial severance and compensation package.
In true nazi style, Peinovich has declared that “I AM the party.”
Peinovich has apparently been taking advice from PA’s Mark Collett who, it must be admitted, has vast experience in creating splits in the UK movement. Collett is another egotist and anti-Semitic fantasist whose focus has, for many years, been less about politics and more about money and power. He has been involved in almost every serious fall out on the far right in the last 20 years. Peinovich spoke about the NJP implosion last week on Collett’s Patriotic Weekly Review, Collett obviously more than happy to host a fellow political fraudster.
Warren Balogh with Mark Collett
Warren Balogh, seen by many in the American fascist movement as a rising star, and despite working with Peinovich for at least ten years, has been thrown under the bus by his “comrade.” And yet, Balogh’s podcasts, and his father’s political musings, are still hosted on Peinovich’s ‘The Right Stuff’website, which also features disgusting antisemitic shows like “The Daily Shoah”.
It emerges that the NJP has not even been holding regular organisational meetings so that many relatively successful active supporters groups have either left the movement altogether, lost interest, or joined other operations. Many leading supporters and local organisers have already joined the American Freedom Party organised by William Johnson, Kevin McDonald and Jamie Kelso. The AFP, despite appalling results, has at least contested a number of elections since its founding in 2009. The most deranged of these people may be drawn to Accelerationist groups like The Base or Atomwaffen, where the inevitable result is death or imprisonment.
These are echoes of the PA/Homeland Party split; PA has totally failed to stand in any elections despite being seen as a good way of promoting fascist propaganda. PA activists were embarrassed to have to leaflet and canvas for non-PA candidates in local elections. Across the water, the NJP singularly failed to get a single candidate onto the ballot despite the political contacts it claimed to have. But elections are a drain on money and personnel…especially money.
In echoes of the controversy that saw a split between Patriotic Alterative and the newly formed Homeland Party, another reason that the NJP self-destructed was that Hovater and his allies wanted to continue a policy of ruthlessly vetting potential members, getting as much detail on their personal lives as possible ostensibly for “security reasons.” In practise, he managed to alienate just about every NJP activist he contacted. If they failed to agree with him, he would launch bitter expletive ridden rants.
This is all very familiar. One of the issues dividing the factions in the PA split was the issue of membership vetting: Kenny Smith who led the Homeland breakaway had earlier introduced more rigorous checks in PA, something Collett was not particularly happy with. He would prefer to build databases of members’ personal details. The more information, the more control. The more control the more money.
The fact that Mark Collett and his leadership group take the NJP seriously, inviting them over to the UK to give UK supporters the benefit of their wisdom, when it’s really a money-making scam dressed up as a political enterprise, speaks volumes. It is yet another reason to hope that PA, like its bastard American cousin, is going to die an inevitable death.
