Hate without Borders: The Alt-Right and Transnational Liaisons

Hate without Borders: The Alt-Right and Transnational Liaisons

By Pierre Mourier and Erik Piccoli 

---

Keywords: alt-right, transnational ties, far right, Russia, Hungary

---

In 2015, the alt-right, long hidden in obscure corners of the internet, burst visibly onto the political scene. Appearing initially as a loose network of far-right activists, this predominantly online movement attempted to normalize the far right in the 21st century. As political scientist George Hawley explains, “on its face, the term Alt-Right is innocuous, providing little information about the movement’s ideological content.”[1] However, investigation into the movement’s roots showcases how they are found in the manosphere, a digital space in which traditional masculinity reigns, but its original influences can be traced back to the American paleoconservative movement. Thanks to its combined digital and grassroots strategy, the movement has since provided a myriad of far-right websites and influencers with a faithful and long-standing audience.[2]

In 2016, both the alt-right and Trump-led Make America Great Again (MAGA) movements formed an apparatus which pushed the Overton window further to the right.[3] This alliance between pro-Trump Republicans and the alt-right helped the American white nationalist movement to solidify its hegemonic role within the right-wing digital space by operating largely according to a subversive “online axiom,” using racist memes and cultural symbols that particularly resonated with younger, more digitally-inclined activists.[4] Therefore, the 2016 election emerged as a watershed moment in reactionary digital politics, with this strategy cementing itself as the new modus operandi.

However, the alt-right failed to establish itself as a significant power bloc within the wider American conservative movement, since it was not the only online organic grassroots current seeking to critique mainstream conservatives from the right. In fact, it was outmaneuvered by the “alt-lite,” a smaller group of more influential actors which included British far-right commentator and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and investment-banker-turned-ideologue Steve Bannon, the latter eventually acting as White House chief strategist during the first several months of President Donald Trump’s first administration. While sharing certain ideological features with the alt-right, the alt-lite had little or no interest in establishing ties with Eastern European countries at the time, focusing instead on the West. While the works of Russian far-right philosopher Aleksander Dugin, who will be discussed in depth later in this piece, were incorporated into Bannon’s own set of ideas, the American ideologue’s strategy centered around cooperation with Western European actors, leading to the eventual collaboration with British firm Cambridge Analytica and Brexit-leading politician Nigel Farage.[5] However, Bannon and the rest of the alt-lite do not include themselves in the same framework as the alt-right, and thus analyzing them is beyond the scope of this paper, particularly as it relates to seeking legitimization from illiberal countries.

While historians such as David Walsh have highlighted how ultra-reactionary tendencies had constituted a core segment of the American conservative movement since the 1930s, it was in the age of Trump when the fringe actually entered the mainstream.[6] Other scholars have highlighted how the boundaries between far-right forces and mainstream right-wing political organizations have been blurred, resulting in far-right actors playing an essential role as producers of the discourse that would later be adopted by many mainstream activists and politicians, with the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory serving as a prime example.[7] Some of those pushing these topics into the public discourse were the alt-right’s own intellectuals, whose networks were already active before the movement had fully emerged. For example, two of its main outlets, the National Policy Institute and American Renaissance, were created in 2005 and in 1990, respectively. When alt-right leader Richard Spencer took over NPI in 2010, these two organizations formed the intellectual vanguard of the wider movement.

The alt-right does not have a univocal political strategy or doctrine, since the movement stems from the synergy of various currents within the American conservative ideological milieu and European New Right philosophical tradition. As Hermansson explains, “whilst the USA would play a pivotal role in the development of the Alternative Right, its ideology was shaped by a transatlantic conversation.”[8] For example, the European New Right and think tank GRECE played a key role in shaping their shared set of values.[9] However, with regard to foreign policy, it was the paleoconservative movement and its leading figures, namely Paul Gottfried[10] and Pat Buchanan,[11] who exerted the most influence on the alt-right’s geopolitical views, in particular their noninterventionist stance. It is this geopolitical doctrine that would result in the alt-right’s initial defense of and subsequent desire to collaborate with illiberal countries.

Based on the alt-right’s geopolitical principles, they would turn towards the illiberal government of Hungary and competitive-authoritarian government of Russia.[12] It is important to clarify here what we mean by “illiberalism” and its applicability in the context of this paper. We employ Marlene Laruelle’s definition, which views it as a backlash against today’s understanding of liberalism and “proposes solutions that are majoritarian, nation-centric or sovereigntist, favouring traditional hierarchies and cultural homogeneity.”[13] Both Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, therefore, can be defined as culturally illiberal, while in the latter case the regime type itself goes beyond mere illiberalism to being authoritarian. The former embodies this culture of illiberalism, as the Hungarian leader has cracked down on institutions such as the Constitutional Court, targeted media through his National Media and Communications Authority, and pursued a sovereigntist anti-immigration policy.[14] As for Russia, Laruelle highlights how its illiberalism is defined by the regime’s struggle against the international liberal order, a belief promoted by its elites, and its open promotion of illiberal ideology globally.[15] Illiberalism transcends traditional conservatism and attacks the idea of pluralism.[16] Ultimately, it is the joint antipathy towards liberal institutions and globalization that serves as the core ethos of this trans-Atlantic illiberal synergy, especially in the Russian case. While the alt-right is an amalgamation of various types of reactionary ideas, at its core it promotes an illiberal vision of politics which sets the stage for its transnational endeavors.[17]

The illiberal heart of Europe resides in Russia, which, ever since the Putin regime underwent its conservative turn, has served as a reference point for European and American illiberals seeking to present a political alternative to that prevalent in their own countries.[18] Hungary has also become a point of reference for the Western far right, as it frames itself as an openly illiberal stronghold within the European Union and other liberal frameworks.[19] It is out of these countries that the connections which would eventually form a significant part of the transnational illiberal network emerged. Organizations such as the Danube Institute, a Hungarian conservative think-tank, and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, house American illiberal figures such as Rod Dreher and Gladden Pappin, respectively.[20] The alt-right’s transnational ties, therefore, are simply one network within a larger series of far-right matrixes that stretch across the Atlantic. These ties are forged on both an organization-to-peer as well as peer-to-peer basis.

In this article we seek to examine the different thrusts within the alt-right to engage with illiberal regimes through a case study of alt-right actors. We focus on the reception of the alt-right’s ideas and ties to Russia and Hungary. The first section analyzes the alt-right’s support for illiberal countries, whereas the subsequent sections focus on the alt-right’s different attempts to foster ties in illiberal nations, with three case studies addressing the National Policy Institute, the American Renaissance organization, and the Traditional Worker Party.

The Alt-Right Looks to the East

The alt-right[21] is not the first far-right movement to set its eyes on Eastern Europe in the 21st century. In January of 2001, an article in the Los Angeles Times[22] exposed the well-known far-right activist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke’s dealings in Moscow. Seeking international recognition, he visited Russia in order to present his book, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding.[23] Russia is a country that Duke considers “key to white survival.”[24] His vision of an ethnically pure Russia led him to form relationships with Russian activists, which in turn allowed for his book to be printed and sold in Russia. The text would even appear in the Duma’s library, where a total of 5,000 copies were distributed, thanks in part to Duke’s Russian contact Boris Mironov, who was former President Boris Yeltsin’s press secretary.[25]

Duke’s ties to Russia existed for years as the former Klan leader participated in multiple conferences in the East European country, including “The White World’s Future Conference” in 2006. Inspired by French New Right philosopher Guillaume Faye’s work, it was organized by Russian New Right member Pavel Tualev and featured many speakers from the white nationalist sphere, including Constantin von Hoffmeister, editor of the far-right publishing house Arktos.[26] Duke’s successful exchanges with Russian activists paved the way for other far-right actors, namely white-nationalist activist Preston Wiginton, who would establish long-lasting ties with Russian far-right groups in the 2010s.[27] Duke and Wiginton’s engagement with the Russian far-right scene represented the first wave of American and Russian far-right organizations interacting since the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, as this article demonstrates, with the alt-right’s surge years later, a new generation of American activists followed in their predecessors’ footsteps, with mixed results.

As noted earlier, the alt-right owes much of its intellectual origin to American paleoconservatives. In the 1980s, these traditionalist conservatives were “locked out of prominent White House positions [and they] watched helplessly as neocons inserted themselves into the decision-making loop.”[28] Paleoconservatives opposed the hawkish view of international politics brought forward by the neoconservatives and instead advocated noninterventionism. They built an alternative ideology to neoconservatism through the defense of American nationalism and traditionalist conservatism, tracing their heritage back to Senator Robert Taft’s Old Right. Intellectually, they rallied around the figure of Paul Gottfried, chairman of the H. L. Mencken Society, a paleoconservative think tank, while politically they supported Pat Buchanan during the 1992 Republican presidential primary election. According to Jeffrey Bloodworth, “contemporary paleoconservatism [is] a direct descendant of the traditionalist Old Right with a ‘countercultural’ twist.”[29] Furthermore, we consider Pat Buchanan’s “Culture War” speech as one of the foundational paleoconservative texts, as it emphasizes a conflict of values between civilizations.[30]

According to Bloodworth, paleoconservative ideas, thanks to the Buchanan campaign, had impregnated the American political field, and “in the 1990s, Pat Buchanan’s warnings about global interventionism, immigration, and free trade garnered a quarter of primary votes in targeted states,” meaning in those states where he had been on the ballot prior to dropping out of the race.[31] While the campaign had established a foothold within the Republican Party and the conservative movement as a whole, it was not enough to reset the inner balance of power. Outnumbered by the neocons, paleoconservative Republicans were pushed to the movement’s fringes, where they created societies and think tanks. Buchanan’s clique was not alone in promoting these narratives. In 2008, Gottfried gave a speech entitled, “The Decline and Rise of the Alternative Right,” in an effort to reach beyond classical conservative circles. Bloodworth explains that, with “provocateur Richard Spencer, Gottfried promoted the alt-right as an alternative, hipper moniker for paleoconservatives and [a strategy to] expand their ranks.”[32]

The paleoconservatives and Spencer’s brand of alt-right activism emerged from a common ultra-right ideological background. Therefore, once these actors sought to position themselves on the global stage, it was only natural that they looked to the regimes in Hungary and Russia, which had already established themselves as vocal advocates of illiberal values prior to the 2016 US presidential election. This is why, as Patrik Hermansson writes, “the relationship between the Alternative Right and Russia needs to be seen in the context of the far-right movement’s rejection of liberalism, globalism, and egalitarian and progressive ideals.”[33] However, it is important to highlight how the figures within the alt-right did not accept the paleoconservative geopolitical stances at face value, instead modifying their set of beliefs on international politics.

The alt-right’s infatuation with the Kremlin stems from two main areas: opposition to the neoconservatives’ interventionist foreign policy, and Russia’s perceived defense of a white ethnostate imbued with anti-Semitism. On the level of geostrategy, members of the alt-right have voiced their support for the Russian occupation of Crimea. As Hermansson writes, “such rhetoric intensified during the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, during which Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. Putin justified the annexation in ethnic terms by referring to Crimeans as ethnic Russians.”[34] Thus, this particular event resonated with the alt-right on both the topic of geopolitics and protecting the ethnostate. With regard to anti-Semitism, Greg Johnson, a white nationalist and editor close to the alt-right, published an article written by Robert Steuckers, a Belgian far-right intellectual tied to GRECE as well as to Alexander[35] Dugin, in Steuckers’ Counter-Currents blog. Steuckers wrote that “Putin’s anti-Western rhetoric, including his opposition to NATO, has been interpreted as a move against interventionism, features of globalization, and, among the antisemitic alt-right, a stand against alleged Jewish influence.”[36] It is important to highlight that the manner in which Russia is framed as an illiberal bastion betrays how the alt-right’s affinity for the nation does not stem from an understanding of Russian domestic politics, but instead from the search for a foil to American liberalism. Having covered the historical backdrop to the alt-right’s geopolitical preferences, we turn now to our three case studies.

Richard Spencer and the Alt-Right’s First International Initiatives

In 2011, then-director of the racialist Washington Summit Publishers, Richard Spencer became the head of the National Policy Institute, a largely unknown think tank at the time. A public offshoot of the secretive Charles Martel Society,[37] the NPI was a white-supremacist organization based out of Virginia which quickly became Spencer’s personal platform. Soon thereafter, he launched the journal Radix, modeled after the Occidental Quarterly, an academic-style publication produced by the Charles Martel Society.[38] Thanks to his journal, Spencer held a privileged position that allowed him to publish and amplify the opinions of certain authors. Thus, in his capacity as director of the NPI and director of Radix, Spencer held a hegemonic position in the alt-right intellectual sphere.

Due to his influential roles, Spencer’s opinions on international affairs greatly shaped those of the alt-right at large. Influenced in part by his wife, Nina Kouprianova, Spencer was drawn to Russia as a source of ideological inspiration and as a means to oppose the neoconservative geopolitical worldview, something he inherited from his paleoconservative influences. In fact, according to his wife, for Spencer, “backing Putin was a way to oppose the establishment he hated. [He proclaimed:] These guys are the enemies of the American empire; therefore, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”[39] However, there was an added racial dimension as to why Spencer supported the Russian regime. In an interview with Mother Jones magazine, he stated that, for him, Russia is “the most powerful white power in the world,” and that he admired Putin’s authoritarianism, adding that “he would admit most Russians into his ideal ethnostate.”[40]

In addition to Moscow, Spencer found another source of ideological inspiration within the heartland of Europe: Viktor Orbán’s government in Budapest. The Hungarian prime minister’s victory was considered by far-right American actors as a step forward. Hungary was, for Spencer, the political proof of the imminence of a far-right rise to power. Thus, in his quest for international legitimacy, Spencer looked to Orbán’s Hungary as a model. At the start of 2014, NPI announced that it would be hosting a conference in Budapest entitled, “The Future of Europe.”[41] Despite the Central European nation acting as a bastion of illiberalism within the EU, Spencer ultimately maintained reservations about establishing a foothold in mainland Europe there, since he believed that Russia represented the primary country his organization ought to collaborate with. In fact, he explicitly stated this in an email to Bill Regnery, founder and financial supporter of the National Policy Institute:

Going to Europe is fine … but it’s a vacation spot. And we’d ultimately be lecturing in a country and region that opposes us. The EU, as it’s currently constituted, will never fund us. Russia is a completely different story. I could actually imagine a situation in which Moscow decided that not only does it like us but that we could be useful to the state in spreading pro-Russian and anti-American imperialist propaganda. What I mean to say is that there would be a strong chance for us to develop a relationship with the state. In America and Europe, we’ll only be dissidents.[42]

Despite his reservations, Hungary remained the host nation for the conference. Amongst the list of participants set to attend, the webpage for the event listed members of the European far right such as Alexander Dugin, Marton Gyöngyösi, Manuel Ochsenreiter, Philippe Vardon, Gábor Vona, Markus Willinger, Patrik Brinkmann, and American activists such as John Morgan, and Jared Taylor.[43] In addition to them, the conference was set to feature members from another Hungarian far-right party, Jobbik.[44]

Yet the planned event quickly collapsed after the Hungarian Interior Ministry banned it, promising to deport all speakers found within the country.[45] A few days before the start of the conference, Dugin’s visa was denied, and he received a warning that he would be arrested if he tried to enter the country.[46] The Russian philosopher was not the only one to be targeted, with Austrian Identitarian[47] writer Markus Willinger and French activist Philippe Vardon also receiving warnings not to come. Faced with this situation, Jobbik officially distanced itself from the conference.[48]

With the original plan for the conference failing to come to pass, an informal get-together was organized on the evening of October 3 by American white-nationalist Kevin DeAnna and American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor at the last minute with those who were able to pass the Hungarian border. At the Clock Cafe, Flemish, German, Swedish, Romanian, and American speakers held an informal gathering a day before the event as reported by some of the attendees.[49] However, Hungarian police descended on the cafe and arrested Spencer along with others.[50]

Nonetheless, Taylor and Tomislav Sunić, a Croatian close associate of Taylor’s, were able to present on October 4, 2014. In the end, while originally envisioned as an event capable of bringing together the far right from both sides of the Atlantic, the “The Future of Europe” event failed to produce any ideological legitimation or any significant partnerships, with attendees having to settle for a small dinner.

The reaction of Orbán and his party may seem surprising, as one would tend to think there was an ideological proximity between Orbán and the alt-right, with the latter seeing the former as a major source of inspiration. In reality, banning a conference with racist content was a perfect opportunity for both Orbán and his party, Fidesz, to create distance between themselves and Jobbik and simultaneously harm his political rivals while appearing less illiberal to European authorities.  Aron and Holland explain that “for the most part, illiberal leaders comply with international demands when faced with existential economic and security pressures.”[51] Faced with Orbán’s decision, the alt-right tried to find other explanations. F. Roger Devlin, an alt-right writer, explained in a Counter-Currents blog post that the EU authorities had put pressure on the Hungarian government. According to him, “the third theory points to Jewish pressure.”[52]The alt-right assigns blame for the failure of the event by deploying one of its main ideological targets: Judaism.

The event’s failure resulted in divisions within the alt-right’s ranks. The movement’s organic intellectuals were divided between Greg Johnson, who is critical of the Russian regime and a proponent of ethnonationalism; and Spencer, who would wholeheartedly defend Putin’s positions. Johnson attacked the NPI director, stating:

I have a lot of disagreements with the direction that Spencer has been taking NPI and Radix in recent months. He has basically abandoned ethnonationalism and turned into an apologist for Dugin and reactionary Russian chauvinism. But I still wished to attend the conference and wanted it to be a success.[53]

The NPI’s failure to host the conference as planned revealed a fractured alt-right on one of its major ideological positions: the establishment of an ethnostate. It also revealed the frail nature of the movement, as it lacked the proper infrastructure to launch a coordinated assault to establish ties between illiberal countries. One explanation for this failure is a lack of funding. As journalist Elle Reeve explained, “in January 2011, [Bill] Regnery made Spencer head of NPI and a sister organization, Washington Summit Publishers. Regnery had a lot of money, but he didn’t want to dump much of it into NPI.”[54] Spencer’s desire to secure new sources of funding led him to organize events that were lacking both organizational support and an understanding of European political dynamics. The failure in Budapest resulted in a loss of prestige for the NPI amongst the wider European far-right ecosystem. For example, the Polish National Social Congress, an event organized by a Polish far-right organization, had announced that Spencer would attend as a panelist at the “Europe of future” debate in Warsaw, but, following the events in Hungary, Spencer was no longer allowed to attend the Polish event.[55] In this case, the alt-right failed to establish significant and lasting ties with illiberal countries.

The Race Realists Go to Russia

In November of 1990, American Renaissance published its first issue. Founder Jared Taylor aimed at creating a publication that focused on race realism, drawing on the works of J. Philippe Rushton and publishing the works of Richard Lynn.[56] Both authors paved the way for works exploring IQ differences among races. Their work had resonated deeply with far-right organizations as members found a new justification for their ideology. In addition to the publication of its magazine, the American Renaissance organization held a series of conferences covering the topic. The first conference did not gather the usual far-right audience but instead attracted a more academic crowd. Years later, a wide array of members from the American conservative movement were in attendance. These included former advisors to Pat Buchanan, Samuel Francis (a paleoconservative writer fired from the Washington Times due to racist comments), Paul Gottfried, and J. Philippe Rushton.

However, by 2006, contacts had been established between Taylor’s group and the European far right, with British National Party leader Nick Griffin, French politician Bruno Gollnisch, and French author Guillaume Faye attending American Renaissance conferences.[57]

In 2015, a year after the Budapest debacle, Taylor sought to foster ties in Russia. He planned to accomplish this by attending the International Russian Conservative Forum, an event sponsored by the Russian minority political party Rodina, which is an amalgamation of nationalist groups that nonetheless support Russian president Vladimir Putin, and is led by Yuri Lyubimirsky, a member of the Russian National Cultural Center.[58] Along with Taylor, Lyubimirsky invited other major figures of the European far right to Saint Petersburg.[59] American Renaissance, unlike the alt-right as a whole, sought to expand partnerships with various European far-right actors, not just Russians. Contrary to both Matthew Heimbach and Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor is solely focused on race and not on geopolitics. His interest in establishing relationships with non-American far-right activists is therefore constrained. In the following years, American Renaissance would invite Eastern European activists to its annual gathering, but no lasting ties were established.[60]

So far, these examples showcase how the alt-right sought international legitimization through parties or organizations linked to or adjacent to illiberal regimes. However, not all attempts at legitimization were pursued through this route. The case of the Traditionalist Worker Party, while electorally unsuccessful, nonetheless represents the alternative route taken towards legitimization, that being through the extra-parliamentary radical fringe.

Traditionalist Internationalism

Matthew Heimbach first received public attention in 2012 due to his political activities as a student at Towson University in Maryland. These include founding a chapter of the far-right student group Youth for Western Civilization, starting an unaffiliated White Student Union chapter, and inviting Jared Taylor to a conference.[61] That same year, he also volunteered for then Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s libertarian-leaning Republican[62] presidential primary campaign advocating for noninterventionist policies, a position he would continue to support as his ideology developed. While his first political forays were made at Towson, he explained that he started his political journey during high school, growing up in a liberal family:

And that’s when I started researching National Socialism. You know, my dad was a history teacher, had a lot of, you know, history books and stuff like that in the house. And that’s when I found Strasserism.[63] So at the end of my, you know, time in high school, you know, and for me, I kind of found the left wing of National Socialism as being really the only ideological place where I could be a socialist but then also be a white guy.[64]

While Heimbach’s involvement with Youth for Western Civilization and the White Student Union helped establish him on the national stage as a controversial figure, in 2015 he would further entrench himself within the far-right milieu by creating, with then-acolyte Matt Parrott, a far-right activist and former member of the now-defunct organization Hoosier Nation, a new organization:  the Traditional Worker Party. The core ideology of the TWP revolves around a reactionary view regarding racial and social relationships in the United States. It is summed up in one of its slogans: “Faith, Family and Folk,” advocating for reactionary neo-Nazi policies to be put into place.

The case of the TWP is closely tied to the emergence of Dugin as an influential figure within the American far-right intellectual sphere. Dugin by this point had established himself within the transnational far-right milieu and as an influential figure possessing a dense network across Europe and parts of the Middle East.[65] In 2012, the same year Heimbach began his political endeavors at Towson, Arktos Media, the alt-right publishing house and main distributor of Dugin’s works in English, published the English edition of The Fourth Political Theory.[66] Arguably Dugin’s best-known text, the Russian philosopher argues in favor of a new political ideology, or Fourth Political Theory (4pt), inspired by German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s notion of Dasein (being), which transcends liberalism, Marxism, and Fascism by synthesizing elements from each of the obsolete ideologies.[67] While most of Dugin’s transnational influences at the time that he wrote this book were confined to the European continent, it was with the publication of The Fourth Political Theory that he burst onto the American scene, receiving interviews from figures such as far-right radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.[68] Among the more influential actors to engage with elements of Dugin’s philosophy was the aforementioned Steve Bannon, primarily due to their shared traditionalist beliefs that stem from Italian philosopher Julius Evola.[69] While Dugin’s influence on organized political structures in the United States would remain minimal, at least until his resurgence in popularity following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian philosopher was able to form a strong relationship with Heimbach and the TWP.

At the inaugural meeting of the TWP, Dugin delivered the keynote speech entitled, “To My American Friends in Our Common Struggle.” In it, he warned the audience that the descendants of the European settlers in America were in danger, facing the threat of being replaced both culturally and demographically.[70] Heimbach’s decision to have Dugin deliver the keynote speech is not surprising, as they share similar foreign policy and ideological views. Heimbach’s ideology resides at the root of his connection to the Russian philosopher, since both share certain political preferences—namely, National Bolshevism.[71] On May 1, 1993, Dugin helped found the National Bolshevist Party, an organization whose policies would be similar to those later promoted by the TWP.[72] While Dugin’s philosophy has since evolved, this national-revolutionary syncretic ideology he once advocated for molded his current belief system.

Furthermore, Heimbach’s Strasserism led him to consider an unorthodox view on international geopolitics. For example, he praised the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah, describing them as being “part of a united Arab nationalist front, helping [Bashar al] Assad in Syria while using funding from Iran … mostly they are lighter skinned, due to a higher proportion of European genes than the Egyptian or Saudi Arabs and their policies are nationalist, socialist and anti-Jew.”[73] The alt-right’s quest to become a more mainstream political movement mirrors Dugin’s own strategy. Umland explains that “when he started drawing closer to the establishment, however, Dugin put more emphasis on labels like ‘Eurasian’ or ‘Traditionalist’ although his ‘neo-Eurasianist’ ideology, in important regards, sharply diverges from both classical Eurasianism and Integral Traditionalism.”[74] Thus, the framing change is, for both Dugin and the alt-right, a normalization strategy. The creation of the TWP was concomitant with the rise of Dugin’s influence in the United States.

The concept of traditionalism is a shared ideological foundation of both Heimbach’s and Dugin’s movements. The TWP founder chose to convert to Orthodox Christianity, and embracing Dugin’s views on Orthodoxy, considering the old Orthodox rite as the traditional way of practicing it.[75] For Dugin, Orthodox Christianity encompasses traditionalist values, and both Matt Heimbach and Matt Parrott adopted his views and after converting to Orthodoxy.[76] Therefore, TWP activists managed to bring together religion, necessary violence as a means of action, and defense of traditional Orthodox Christian values. The relationship between Dugin and the TWP is one of ideological inspiration. On topics such as religion and geopolitics, the Russian philosopher serves as an ideological guide, offering a foundational framework for interpreting the world.

While holding a privileged position in relation to the organization, Dugin is not the only European actor to forge ties with the TWP. In 2014, Heimbach met members of the Greek neofascist party Golden Dawn in New York City at a public gathering before a series of private meetings. He declared in a blog post that: “Golden dawn [sic] has risen as a political movement of the people to fulfill the needs of the people, where the mainstream political parties have not only failed, but totally abandoned their responsibilities and duties.”[77] The following year, he visited Eastern Europe, where he married Parrott’s stepdaughter, and they their spent their honeymoon in Greece. This trip to Europe was a major revelation for Heimbach, as he explained to an Orthodox blogger:

I don’t consider myself a neo-Nazi. [The late Romanian ultranationalist Corneliu] Codreanu is my largest inspiration and the Legion. [Its] mission was to save souls through the revitalization of the Orthodox Church in Romania. I do not identify as a neo-Nazi. I consider my biggest spiritual inspiration to be the Legion of St. Michael the Archangel. When I went to Romania with my wife, when I got to talk to some old timers who remember the Legion, I saw humble and loving Orthodox Christians who were willing to suffer torture for decades in prison.[78]

In 2015 and 2016, Heimbach succeeded in creating a short-term intellectual exchange between movements in Russia, Germany, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.[79] While establishing numerous ties with these movements, he remained focused on those with Russia, declaring that, for him, “Putin is the leader, really, of the anti-globalist forces around the world.”[80] In fact, after touring Europe and establishing connections, Heimbach attended the World National Conservative Movement Forum in Russia in 2016. Nicholas Truschalov, a representative of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a white supremacist group that seeks to re-establish the Russian Empire, opened the forum stating that the “goals of the Forum are, firstly, the coordination and integration of actions of national-patriots from all the countries and continents of the world.”[81] According to Heimbach, the initiative represented the “first step towards creating an official nationalist umbrella organization for traditionalists around the globe.”[82]

Heimbach continued cultivating a relationship with the RIM group. In the summer of 2017, he invited Stanislas Shevchuck, a Europe-based representative of the RIM, to tour the United States with him. A picture published on the TWP website shows Heimbach posing with Schevchuk in front of the White House holding up the Russian Imperial flag.[83] The purpose of Shevchuk’s trip to the United States was to establish connections between RIM and American far-right extremists.[84] While the TWP successfully established ties with representatives of the far right in Russia, its strategy failed to gain sufficient international recognition for the group. From Dugin to RIM, the TWP’s attempts to engage with extremist forces in Russia have been characterized by ties to actors and minor organizations on the periphery, not by a direct relationship with the Kremlin. Thus, while inspired by the Russian state’s illiberalism, the TWP’s transnational ties represent a dyadic network between radical fringe actors rather than a pursuit of legitimization by a foreign regime.

Conclusion

In August of 2017, pictures and videos of hundreds of American white nationalists marching on Charlottesville, Virginia covered the internet. For the first time, the term alt-right was broadcast into the houses of thousands, becoming forever engrained in the national psyche with the violent scenes that erupted. The Unite the Right Rally, as it was called, signaled the beginning of the movement’s end, as the alt-right would cease to exist a few months later in what would be known as “Hailgate,” which refers to Richard Spencer’s “Hail Trump” tirade at the 2016 NPI conference. While many of the actors and groups remain active, the wider movement has declined significantly, shifting into irrelevance. 

Regardless of its current status, assessing the history of the alt-right remains important to understanding the current far-right political ecosystem in the United States, in particular the under-studied aspect of its trans-Atlantic liaisons. In light of our findings, it is clear that the nature of the alt-right, inspired by the illiberal governments and actors in Russia and Hungary, sought political legitimacy through transnational ties as early as the movement emerged in the American political field. However, the lack of commitment from international partners, as well as the lack of practical infrastructure on the American side, are two reasons that explain the failure of this strategy.

With the exception of David Duke’s book presentation in the Duma in 2001, which occurred prior to the alt-right’s emergence, most institutions and parties in both Hungary and Russia did not in fact welcome the Americans and, in the case of Hungary, barred most of the planned event’s organizers from entering the country in the first place. Within the movement itself, alt-right actors were divided not only along practical but also ideological lines. Spencer’s position on Russia was not shared by the alt-right writ large at the time. Greg Johnson, for example, wrote on his blog that he “called [Spencer] out for turning his second journal, Radix, as well as the National Policy Institute, into outlets for Kremlin-penned anti-Ukraine propaganda” and accused him of selling out “on spec,” in the hopes of gaining the support of a hostile foreign power.”[85]

Our research finds that the alt-right, if understood as a now-defunct far-right coalition, was unable to portray itself as a political force deemed to be engaged in a long-term relationship with illiberal countries and did not achieve its international strategy goals. While past studies have sought to understand Russian involvement in American politics during the time of the alt-right, our study focuses on the willingness of alt-right actors to establish their legitimacy abroad and therefore examine to what extent illiberal countries attract American far-right actors and movements.[86]

While these findings have provided insights into the strategies adopted by the different organizational components of the alt-right, further analysis of the trans-Atlantic ultra-right is needed.

The article’s findings do not establish a link between the American far-right actors and organizations studied here and illiberal countries in Europe. Rather, they indicate a change of strategy for the American far right, a return to older relationships between far-right organizations. While the alt-right failed to obtain the legitimacy it sought, this strategy of forming trans-Atlantic ties remains a strategy open to other far-right movements or organizations that future research must focus on. 

---

[1] George Hawley, The Alt-Right: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 4.

[2] Thomas J. Main, The Rise of Illiberalism (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2022), p. 213.

[3] The term “Overton window,” or window of discourse, refers to a model for understanding “how ideas in society change over time and influence politics.” Politicians “generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate policy options,” that is to say, policies within the Overton window, since if they push for ideas outside of what is acceptable, they risk marginalization. However, “the Overton Window can both shift and expand, either increasing or shrinking the number of ideas politicians can support without unduly risking their electoral support.” See Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “The Overton Window,” n.d., https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow.

[4] Hawley, The Alt-Right;  Maxime Dafaure, “ ‘The Great Meme War’: The Alt-Right and Its Multifarious Enemies,” Angles: New Perspectives on the Anglophone World, no. 10 (April 2020), https://journals.openedition.org/angles/369.

[5] Jane Mayer, “New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica’s Role in Brexit,” The New Yorker, November 17, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-evidence-emerges-of-steve-bannon-and-cambridge-analyticas-role-in-brexit.

[6] David Austin Walsh, Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024), p. 2.

[7] Katy Brown, Aurelien Mondon, and Aaron Winter, “The Far Right, the Mainstream and Mainstreaming: Towards a Heuristic Framework,” Journal of Political Ideologies 28, no. 2 (May 2023): 162–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569317.2021.1949829; Milan Obaidi, Jonas Kunst, Simon Ozer, and Sasha Y. Kimel, “The ‘Great Replacement’ Conspiracy: How the Perceived Ousting of Whites Can Evoke Violent Extremism and Islamophobia,” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 25, no. 7 (October 2022): 1675–95, https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302211028293.

[8] Patrik Hermansson, David Lawrence, Joe Mulhall, and Simon Murdoch, The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century? (New York: Routledge, 2020), p. 24.

[9] The Groupement de Recherche et d’Études pour la Civilisation Européenne, known by its acronym GRECE, is a far-right and ethno-nationalist think tank founded by French author Alain de Benoist which, through its magazine Éléments, came to play a leading role in the ideological development of the European New Right.

[10] The former editor of the paleoconservative magazine Chronicles, Paul Gottfried is a former professor in the humanities. He was a leading figure of the paleoconservative movement and a key advisor to Pat Buchanan during the latter’s 1992 Republican presidential primary campaign.

[11] Pat Buchanan, a three-time primary candidate for the American presidency, is considered to be the most influential paleoconservative figure. His “Culture War” speech during the 1992 Republican National Convention made him famous for his adoption of bellicose rhetoric regarding social issues.

[12] Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

[13] Marlene Laruelle, Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction, East European Politics 38, no. 2 (June 2022): 303–327, https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2022.2037079.

[14] Bartosz Rydliński, Viktor Orbán—First among Illiberals? Hungarian and Polish Steps towards Populist Democracy, Online Journal Modelling the New Europe, no. 26 (2018): 95–107.

[15] Marlene Laruelle, “Making Sense of Russia’s Illiberalism,” Journal of Democracy 31, no. 3 (2020): 115–129. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0049; Marlene Laruelle, Ideology and Meaning-Making under the Putin Regime,(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2025), p. 88.

[16] As Edmund Fawcett writes, illiberalism is more than just a conservative ideology but is directly motivated by its opposition to liberalism, something both the regimes in Europe and movements in America demonstrate as a shared belief. See Edmund Fawcett, “Illiberalism and Conservatism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism, ed. Marlene Laruelle, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024): 43–60, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197639108.013.42.

[17] It is important to note here that the alt-right is not simply an illiberal movement, as it supersedes illiberalism in its radicalism. It is better to define the movement as ultra-right or radical right, in that it is composed of distinctly far-right ideological currents (neofascism, ultranationalism, eugenicist beliefs, neo-Nazism, certain strands of traditionalism, etc.). Illiberalism is a term best suited when discussing the reaction to perceived liberalism, something we can observe in the alt-right, but it appears reductive in this case due to the distinct ideological preferences we observe within the movement.

[18] It is important to underscore how the Russian illiberal turn was initially informed by its struggle against the liberal international order, which it perceived as limiting Russian sovereignty and geopolitical autonomy. That which makes a given nation or party adopt an illiberal framework varies depending on the nation in question and the demand side for such an illiberal stance coming from its electorate. Furthermore, Russia is not the cause for an illiberal turn in the United States for those on the political right. Instead, it is a source of inspiration for some. See Marlene Laruelle, “Russian and American Far Right Connections: Confluence, Not Influence,” Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia, PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo no. 516, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University, March 12, 2018, https://www.ponarseurasia.org/russian-and-american-far-right-connections-confluence-not-influence/. For more on how Russian and European liberals engage in mutual-legitimation strategies through shared narratives, see Franziska Wagner, Liliia Sablina, and Bálint Mikola, “Russia and Central European Illiberal Actors: Mutual Legitimation amid the Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine,” East European Politics 41, no. 1 (March 2025): 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2024.2420967.

[19] For analysis on how American conservative media in particular has praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, see Carla Cabrera-Cuadrado and John Chrobak, “Illiberalism and the Deinstitutionalization of Public Diplomacy: The Rise of Hungary and Viktor Orbán in American Conservative Media,” Communication & Society 36, no. 2 (April 2023), 311–324. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.36.2.311-324.

[20] In fact, events hosted by these organizations, and many other illiberal events hosted in Europe, are dominated by American speakers showcasing a strong US influence on illiberal thought on the old continent. See Erik Piccoli, “The American Friend: Trans-Atlantic Illiberal Events and Prospects for Joint Ideological Development,” Journal of Illiberalism Studies (forthcoming).

[21] By 2018, the alt-right had ceased to exist as a recognizable coalition of far-right online groups. It has subsequently morphed into a myriad of subgroups leaving their ideological stamp on American politics.

[22] John Daniszewski, “Ex-Klansman David Duke Sets Sights on Russian Anti-Semites,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2001, sec. Books, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-jan-06-mn-9088-story.html.

[23] David Duke, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding (Covington, La.: Free Speech Press, 1998).

[24] “David Duke Takes Crusade to Russia,” The Oklahoman, February 3, 2001, https://eu.oklahoman.com/story/news/2001/02/03/david-duke-takes-crusade-to-russia/62160275007/.

[25] Pierre Mourier interview with Preston Wiginton, 2024; The presence of Duke’s books within the Duma prompted outrage from Russian Jewish organizations who sought the ban the book on the grounds of antisemitism. Despite a shared mobilization of activists and elected officials, the book would not be banned.

[26] DavidDuke.com, “Historic Moscow Conference,” June 21, 2006, https://davidduke.com/historic-moscow-conference-press-release/.

[27] Bartlett, Tom, “How One White Nationalist Became—and Remains—a Thorn in Texas A&M’s Side,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 22, 2017, https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-one-white-nationalist-became-and-remains-a-thorn-in-texas-a-amp-ms-side/.

[28] Jeffrey Bloodworth, “Trumpism’s Paleoconservative Roots and Dealignment,” Journal of Right-Wing Studies 1, no. 1 (July 2023), p. 191, https://doi.org/10.5070/RW3.1502.

[29] Bloodworth, “Trumpism’s Paleoconservative Roots and Dealignment,” p. 186.

[30] Patrick Buchanan, “Culture War Speech: Address to the Republican National Convention,” Voices of Democracy US Oratory Project, University of Maryland, August 17, 1992, https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/buchanan-culture-war-speech-speech-text/.

[31] Bloodworth, “Trumpism’s Paleoconservative Roots and Dealignment,” p. 199.

[32] Bloodworth, p. 230.

[33] Hermansson, Lawrence, Mulhall, and Murdoch, The International Alt-Right, p. 132.

[34] Hermansson, Lawrence, Mulhall, and Murdoch, p. 221.

[35] Alternately romanized in other sources cited in this paper as Aleksandr, depending on the publication style in question.

[36] Patrik Hermansson, David Lawrence, Joe Mulhall, and Simon Murdoch, The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century? p. 221.

[37] The figure of Charles Martel is embedded in a far-right vision of French history. Charles Martel was leader of the Franks during the early 8th century. Charles Martel is famously known for his victory in 732 in the battle against an Arab army in Western France. This battle would be later used as a symbol of resistance against a foreign enemy.

[38] Its first issue was launched at the end of 2012 and was entitled, “The Great Erasure—The Reconstruction of White Identity.”

[39] Elle Reeve, Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics (New York: Atria Books, 2024), p. 94.

[40] Josh Harkinson, “Meet the White Nationalist Trying to Ride the Trump Train to Lasting Power,” Mother Jones, October 27, 2016, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/richard-spencer-trump-alt-right-white-nationalist/.

[41] Richard B. Spencer, “The European Congress—The National Policy Institute,” June 9, 2014.

[42] Reeve, Black Pill, p. 95.

[43] Brinkmann, a Swedish millionaire who had funded far-right organizations across Europe, would ultimately be cut from the final speakers list due to his proximity to Orbán’s party Fidesz. Since the alternative Hungarian far-right party Jobbik, which opposed Orbán, served as Spencer’s main point of contact in Hungary, this resulted in conflict and ultimately in Brinkmann’s dismissal. Márton Gyöngyösi is known for his anti-Semitic positions. In November of 2012, he allegedly asked the Hungarian Parliament “to create a list of Jews who allegedly posed national security threats.” See Sasa Woodruff, “Increased Hostility against Jews and Roma in Hungary,” Code Switch, National Public Radio, March 9, 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/09/287342069/increased-hostility-against-jews-and-roma-in-hungary.

[44] The party represents the right-wing opposition to Orbán’s Fidesz.

[45] Jared Taylor, “Report from Budapest (Updated),” American Renaissance, October 7, 2014, https://www.amren.com/news/2014/10/report-from-budapest/.

[46] Grant Fellows, “The Foundations of Aleksandr Dugin’s Geopolitics: Montage Fascism and Eurasianism as Blowback” (master’s thesis, University of Denver, 2018), p. 100, https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1516.

[47] The Identitarian movement originates from the French Nouvelle Droite (New Right) movement. It advances a white nationalist agenda through the defense of a discursively-built European Identity. It differs from American far-right rhetoric by not putting forward an openly racist discourse. It revolves around a white ethnic rhetoric of being endangered by threats from within and without. Its members advocate for white nationalism by fighting for national ethnic identities.

[48] Southern Poverty Law Center, “White Nationalists Gather in Hungary, Richard Spencer Arrested,” October 6, 2014, https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/white-nationalists-gather-hungary-richard-spencer-arrested/.

[49] American Freedom Party, “Paul Fromm from Budapest NPI Conference,” 2014.

[50] Southern Poverty Law Center, “White Nationalists Gather in Hungary, Richard Spencer Arrested,” October 6, 2014.

[51] Hadas Aron and Emily J. Holland, “Illiberal Leaders in the International Arena: The Cases of Hungary and Israel, Journal of Illiberalism Studies,”4 no. 2 (Summer 2024): 59–77, https://doi.org/10.53483/XCPW3576.

[52] Devlin, F. Roger, “Defiance in Budapest,” Counter-Currents, October 13, 2014, https://counter-currents.com/2014/10/defiance-in-budapest. By “third theory,” he is referring to his thoughts as to why the organization was shut down. His first was that “EU authorities may have put pressure on the Hungarian government,” his second theory was that “Orbán was acting to discredit his right-wing rivals Jobbik,” and his third theory was that “Jewish pressure” forced the event to shut down.

[53] Greg Johnson, “Budapest Conference Update,” Counter-Currents, September 30, 2014, https://counter-currents.com/2014/09/budapest-conference-update.

[54] Reeve, Black Pill, p. 90.

[55] The World, “Poland’s Right-Wing Nationalist Government Objects to Visit by US White Supremacist Richard Spencer,” Public Radio International, October 26, 2017, https://theworld.org/stories/2017/10/26/polands-right-wing-nationalist-government-doesnt-us-white-supremacist-richard.

[56] Race-realism, or racialism, refers to the belief that inherent biological differences in intelligence or behaviors exist among human races.

[57] American Renaissance, Seventh American Renaissance Conference, 2006, https://www.amren.com/archives/conferences/ar2006/.

[58] Alan Cullison, “Far-Right Flocks to Russia to Berate the West,” Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2015, sec. World, http://www.wsj.com/articles/far-right-flocks-to-russia-to-berate-the-west-1427059613.

[59] German Udo Voigt, Greek Georgios Epitideios, Italian Robert Fiore, and Briton Nick Griffin attended the event. Their presence underlined the willingness of the organizers to build a European-wide far-right coalition.

[60] American Renaissance, “2018 American Renaissance Conference,” https://www.amren.com/2018-american-renaissance-conference/.

[61] David Neiwert, Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (New York: Verso, 2017), p. 241.

[62] Paul had previously run as a Libertarian Party nominee in 1988. However, he was not, in 2012, a member of the Libertarian Party, but rather a member of the Republican Party.

[63] Strasserism is a revolutionary faction within national-socialism opposed to the dominant political faction at the time. Coined and theorized by brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser, Strasserim is built around two main tenets: antisemitism through anticapitalism, and statist ultranationalism (see James Hughes II, “Otto Strasser, the Nazi Party, and the Politics of Opposition” (PhD diss., University of Vermont, 2023), https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1745).

[64] Matthew Heimbach, interview by Pierre Mourier, November 2022.

[65] For more on Dugin’s network and his general relationship to the far right, see Marlene Laruelle, ed., Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015); Marlene Laruelle, “Aleksandr Dugin: A Russian Version of the European Radical Right?” Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Kennan Institute, Occasional Paper no. 294, (2006) republished July 7, 2011,  https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/aleksandr-dugin-russian-version-the-european-radical-right-2006.

[66] The company fashions itself as “a prominent publisher specializing in New Right and traditionalist literature,” offering English translations of books written by thinkers such as Julius Evola, Pentti Linkola, and, of course, Dugin. As of the writing of this article, 13 English translations of the Russian philosopher’s books can be found on the website, making Arktos the leading source for English-speakers looking to immerse themselves in his body of work.

[67] Alexander Dugin, The Fourth Political Theory (Budapest: Arktos, 2025).

[68] Circular Times YouTube channel, “RUSSIAN CULTURAL ADVISOR ALEKSANDR DUGIN & ALEX JONES Aug 4 17 Edited,” YouTube, August 5, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGvePjB8RE.

[69] For more on this connection, see Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right (London: Penguin, 2020).

[70] George Michael, “Useful Idiots or Fellow Travelers? The Relationship between the American Far Right and Russia,” in “Russia, the New World, and the New World Order,” special issue, Terrorism and Political Violence 31, no. 1 (January–February 2019), 74, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1555996.

[71] National Bolshevism is an ideology that can be considered a modern outgrowth of Strasserism, as it contains an ultranationalist dimension. It includes elements of traditional Bolshevik doctrine such as state intervention in the economy. Dugin’s own Eurasianist ideology is a National Bolshevik movement opposed not only to values such as liberalism and capitalism, but also postmodernism, drawing on traditionalist schools of thought.

[72] “Declaration on the Creation of the NBP,” Natsbol.ru, September 21, 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20080921193029/http://www.nazbol.ru/rubr28/index0/249.html. Heimbach himself claimed that the TWP was National-Bolshevist: see Mark Greenblatt and Lauren Knapp, “Extremist Heimbach to Relaunch Hate Group, Says He Supports Violence,” Scripps News, July 20, 2021, https://www.scrippsnews.com/us-news/crime/extremist-heimbach-to-relaunch-hate-group-supports-violence-3.

[73] Heimbach, Matthew, The Daily Traditionalist: Learning from Hezbollah, Radio Aryan, May 27, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20201010123322/https://www.radioalbion.com/2016/05/the-daily-traditionalist-learning-from.html.  

[74] Andreas Umland, “Fascist Tendencies in Russia’s Political Establishment,” Russian Analytical Digest,no. 60 (May 2009).  Integral traditionalism, as put forward by René Guénon, aims at a naturalization of social relationships in order to guide society back to a primordial tradition, while classical Eurasianism puts forward the idea of a Russian civilization as a pan-Slavic state rather than a collection including different (non-Slavic) ethnic groups.

[75] Edward Stawiarski, “Foreign Policy as Spiritual Warfare: A Conversation with Aleksandr Dugin,” Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, June 1, 2022, https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/foreign-policy-as-spiritual-warfare-a-conversation-with-aleksandr-dugin/.

[76] Alexandr Dugin, The Way of the Absolute, (Arktogeya, 1991).

[77] ” Heimbach, Matthew, Traditional Worker Party website, October 2014.

[78] Ryan Hunter, “My Interview with Matthew Heimbach,” Orthodox in the District (blog), June 26, 2015, https://ryanphunter.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/my-interview-with-matthew-heimbach/.

[79]  Heimbach, interview.

[80] Michel Casey, “US Hate Group Forging Ties with the ‘Third Rome,’ ” Eurasianet.org, June 15, 2016, https://eurasianet.org/us-hate-group-forging-ties-third-rome.

[81] Casey, “US Hate Group Forging Ties with the ‘Third Rome.’ ”

[82] Casey.

[83] Mariya Omelicheva, “Designating the Russian Imperial Movement a Terrorist Organization: A Drop in the Bucket of Needed US Counter-Extremism Responses,” Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia, PONARS Eurasia memo no. 653, Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University, June 1, 2020, https://www.ponarseurasia.org/designating-the-russian-imperial-movement-a-terrorist-organization-a-drop-in-the-bucket-of-needed-u-s-counter-extremism-responses/.

[84] He has also spoken on behalf of RIM at rallies in Europe and advocated publicly for the group throughout Europe as recently as 2019, according to the US Department of Treasury when it issued sanctions against him.

[85] Johnson, Greg, “Budapest Conference Update,” Counter-Currents , September 30, 2014, https://counter-currents.com/2014/09/budapest-conference-update.

[86] For more on this topic, see Shelby Butt and Daniel Byman, “Right-Wing Extremism: The Russian Connection,” Survival 62, no. 2 (April–May 2020): 137–152, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2020.1739960, and Andrew R. N. Ross, Cristian Vaccari, and Andrew Chadwick, “Russian Meddling in US Elections: How News of Disinformation’s Impact Can Affect Trust in Electoral Outcomes and Satisfaction with Democracy,” in “Media and the Future of Democracy,” special issue, Mass Communication and Society 25, no. 6 (November–December 2022): 786–811, https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2022.2119871.