On Saturday, August 17, 2024, three white nationalists held a demonstration in Dawsonville, Georgia. The trio displayed signs promoting racial “loyalty” and alleging that white people are being “replaced.” The theme of their demonstration—“the great replacement”—is a racist conspiracy theory which has inspired mass shootings. An onlooker photographed the three demonstrators, and the images were posted to Reddit later that day.
August 17, 2024 demonstration in Dawsonville. Photos from Reddit.
A Reddit commenter correctly identified one of the racist demonstrators as Stuart Nicholas DiNenno (born 1959) of Chamblee, Georgia. Through his posts on Reddit and elsewhere, DiNenno confirmed that he was involved in the demonstration. He was clearly the public face of this event. The signs displayed by the white nationalists featured a URL for DiNenno’s website, which advocates for a racist version of Christianity known as “Kinism.”
Update, night of November 1, 2024: The Schatzkind Services website has been taken down. Archives of its content are available here.
On Saturday, October 26, 2024 the Aryan Freedom Network, a neo-Nazi organization, held their Aryan Fest gathering in Georgia. (See background information here.) We quickly discovered the location of the event, which was on a property at the northeast corner of Elberton Road and Brown’s Chapel Road in Lexington, Georgia. We recorded video from the ground and sky, including the clip below, in order to establish definitive proof of the correct address. Note the giant wooden swastika on the land, which was burned in a swastika lighting ceremony that night.
Swastika lighting at “Aryan Fest” 2024
We now wish to expose the hosts of the neo-Nazi gathering: Shannon Ashley Haynie and George Raymond Haynie III.
The “US Men’s Academy” (USMA) is a Christian fraternal organization founded 2022 which promotes so-called “Alpha” masculinity and rigid gender roles. USMA has been active on the ground in North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene, using disaster relief to raise the organization’s profile and to attract members. USMA’s leader is Dustin Lee Barnes of Blairsville, Georgia. We exposed Barnes in late 2021, when he was a Georgia administrator for the racist “White Lives Matter” (WLM) network. There is no indication that Barnes abandoned white supremacist politics when he founded USMA.
US Men’s Academy website highlights disaster relief
The Aryan Freedom Network (AFN) is a neo-Nazi group that claims to operate within 26 US states, according to the chapter listings on its website. AFN is currently advertising its national “Aryan Fest” gathering—a major get-together for AFN and its white supremacist allies—for Saturday, October 26th at an undisclosed location in Georgia. While AFN also advertised an “Aryan Fest” in Georgia last year, that year’s event was eventually rescheduled and relocated to Texas. However, the 2024 event appears likely to take place as announced in our state.
As a militant anti-fascist group, we have never endorsed any electoral candidate, and that will not change with this election. However, elections can impact the growth of fascist movements, as well as the ability of anti-fascists to fight. Furthermore, although grassroots anti-fascist groups like ours have been operating in the US continuously from the 1980s onward, we were rarely in the national spotlight. 2017 changed this entirely, when the existence of “antifa” became a matter of wide discussion and often wild speculation. This guide aims to combat misinformation about our politics and activity. We also make suggestions on how to organize in the future, no matter which candidate wins.
“Antifa” stereotype on the cover of right-wing election fraud propaganda documentary.
Our group usually keeps a tight focus on exposing overt white nationalists and neo-Nazis, but there are times when our goal of antifascist education involves speaking about political actors whose motivations are not quite so obvious. With this post, we will identify and briefly give some political context to Grayson Walker, the “MAGA Communist” Emory law student responsible for the cancellation.
Grayson Walker, Emory Law Student and “MAGA Communist”
“Today, we unwittingly damaged the movement for Palestinian liberation by allowing a rogue actor to brazenly hijack an event intended to highlight the Palestinian genocide and uplift the Palestinian movement. A student co-organizer commandeered this platform by inserting hateful and divisive guests into the program. He greenlighted a deeply problematic speech without sharing with co-organizers, prevented our attempts to reverse his last-minute changes to the speaker line up, prevented our staff from making statements on stage, and insulted our honored guests Dr. Norman Finkelstein, Ibrahim Awad, and Juilee Shivalkar.”
CAIR-GA Statement
Our group usually keeps a tight focus on exposing overt white nationalists and neo-Nazis, but there are times when our goal of antifascist education involves speaking about political actors whose motivations are not quite so obvious. With this post, we will identify and briefly give some political context to Grayson Walker, the “MAGA Communist” Emory law student responsible for the cancellation. While CAIR did not name Grayson Walker as the “rogue actor”, many other witnesses have already done so. This post is neither a full exposé nor a detailed timeline of the failed event, simply an alert to be aware of Grayson Walker and similar infiltrators who seek to exploit Palestinian suffering to curry social media attention for their niche cryptofascist political brands.
The word “cryptofascism” can evoke fanciful images of secret Nazi agents, but the historical reality is much more prosaic. A party or movement springs up claiming to be “above political divisions”, claiming to “synthesize left and right”, and then inevitably assimilates into the traditional right wing when their ideas fail to gain traction. These people often genuinely believe that they are not fascists, but they also tend to be sympathetic to outright fascists.
The “MAGA Communist” speakers invited by Grayson Walker — Jackson Hinkle and Adam Tahir/Haz Al-Din — fall neatly into this pattern. Here are some defining characteristics of their cryptofascist movement, which is also sometimes known as “patriotic socialism”:
A social conservative identity and call to return to “traditional” values expressed through homophobia, transphobia, and clownish performative misogyny. For example, Hinkle and Haz are both full-throated supporters of sex trafficker and rapist Andrew Tate.
A hatred of vaguely defined “elites” expressed through conspiracism and antisemitism
Populist nativism and support for harsher, Trumpian anti-immigrant measures
Campism: the naive belief that the world is divided into competing camps of states and that each state can be assigned into a good camp or bad camp. They regard China and Russia as the good camp, with the US state as the bad camp, until their MAGA Communist patriotic revival somehow takes over the US and redeems it.
The invocation of a simplistic ideology-as-superstructure-only concept from early Marxist theory (this is a concept which many Marxists disagree with and have replaced with more sophisticated models of ideology, such as Gramscian hegemony).
anti-environmentalism and pro-extractivism (support for the fossil fuel industry)
For this last point, it is worth noting that MAGA Communists have strong ties to the Lyndon Larouche cult, sharing not only their anti-environmentalist beliefs but also their underhanded tactics: Larouchites are known for targeting college students and for attention-grabbing publicity stunts. This idea that “any publicity is good publicity” is why this group calls themselves “MAGA communists” in the first place, because it attracts instant attention.
The “MAGA communists” have especially strong ties to the Russian state and far right, as shown by these recent photos.
Grayson Walker with Hinkle, Haz, and Aleksandr Dugin at an event in Shanghai, China in February 2024Grayson Walker in Russia at the 2nd Congress of the International Russophile Movement also in February of 2024. Source.
As for sympathy with outright fascists, Kris Roman (seen in back) is a Belgian who heads a pro-Putin white supremacist group which receives little support in Belgium but often features in Russian media. Maryam Susli, known primarily as a Bashar al-Assad propagandist, has made an appearance on neo-Nazi and former National Justice Party figure Eric Striker‘s media and has been interviewed by KKK figure David Duke. Hinkle and Haz have also both streamed on white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ website after having been banned on Twitch.
Giving cryptofascists a platform generally leads to the platforming of their fascist allies, among other damage. By unwittingly allowing Grayson Walker even an indirect role in their event, CAIR-GA’s reputation was hurt and their members made more vulnerable. In a video after the event, Hinkle and Haz threatened CAIR directly, and Hinkle wielded a racist nativist dogwhistle against them, saying, “CAIR wants to come to my country, our country, and use their lobbying power to take your taxpayer dollars, just like the Zionist lobby…”. In light of how this country targets Muslim and Palestinian immigrants and refugees and treats Muslims as perpetual foreigners, this line of attack is especially egregious and makes a mockery of any “MAGA Communist” claim to Palestinian solidarity.
Luckily, autonomous protesters quickly circulated alerts about Hinkle and Haz, giving real information about their motives and cutting short the Haz speech. CAIR and other people present were able to limit the damage by not allowing Hinkle and Haz to speak and by issuing a swift apology afterwards. We encourage everyone in the Atlanta community to familiarize themselves with Grayson Walker and bar him from any political events, or else they, like CAIR, could fall victim to a similar publicity stunt. Please make public any new tips on Walker’s local political activity and/or email tips to us securely at [email protected].
No tolerance for racism, antisemitism, or Islamophobia in our city!
Michael Cason Hitt (born 1991) and his wife Shannon Joy Hitt (née Nicholson, born 1993) are neo-Nazis living in Senoia, Georgia. Last year, both distributed flyers for the viciously antisemitic Goyim Defense League (GDL), also involving their children in this effort. Michael Hitt, a former Marine, uses the alias “D1ktater” online. Michael Hitt claims to have “been a part of at least 5 active” white supremacist groups. Recently, he has been close to Patriot Front. He works as a rebuild technician for RAS Systems, LLC, a machinery supplier in Peachtree City, Georgia that is the US partner of a German company. Hitt claims to have traveled to Germany for his work and expressed interest in networking with neo-Nazis while there.
A self-proclaimed “tribe” of racist heathens is building a compound on a 122-acre property in Tellico Plains, eastern Tennessee. This group overlaps with Patriot Front (PF), a fascist organization with members nationwide, and the “Church of Aryanity,” a racist cult that refers to Adolf Hitler as “the Great One.” The leader of the Tennessee “tribe” is Brian Culpepper, who spent a decade in the white supremacist National Socialist Movement (NSM) and was its PR Director for several years.
At the start of each year, we publish this reminder to any white nationalists or fascists reading our site. Our offer stands year-round.
Some advice for the new year: if you want this year to be better than 2023 was, then you need to make a permanent break with the fascist movement. The fascist movement is not one you want to be associated with, and the consequences are often life-ruining. Even if you make it to the top of a far-Right group, backstabbing and infighting is so common that other members of the group may threaten your life. Fascist organizations typically have a short lifecycle, and when they fall apart, despite all the vaunted claims of eternal brotherhood, you may be left alone to face the consequences.
There are, however, options to leave the white power movement. Contrary to the established mythology around “red-pilling,” people leave all the time, both publicly and privately. There are even networks in place that can help you exit the movement – let us know if you need help establishing contact with them. Merely saying you are no longer a racist or fascist while still organizing and associating with your fascist pals is not acceptable. We will know if you are insincere.
Because our priority is countering active white supremacists, Atlanta Antifascists will not go after you for your past. If it’s clear that you’ve left white nationalism behind, we’ll leave you alone. Just send us an email with an account of your time in the movement as a token of good faith/sincerity (what you’ve done, with what organizations, etc.), be ready to answer some follow-up questions, and make clear in your actions going forward that you’ve left white nationalism behind. That’s all. We can’t speak for anyone else you may have harmed, but we don’t get in the way of people trying to do better by themselves and others.
Let 2024 be a year of turning your life around. Reach out for help leaving the fascist movement if you think you need it. If you’re in our region, send us a message to let us know about your choice. We look forward to hearing from you.
This article is a collaboration between Atlanta Antifascists and Utah Antifascists.
Nicholas Ambrose photographed after placing racist stickers in Columbus, Ohio, September 15, 2023.
Summary: Nicholas Gene Ambrose is a Patriot Front member from South Carolina, currently living in Columbus, Ohio, where he is an undergraduate student at The Ohio State University. He is active with multiple racist and fascist organizations in the US, and also brags about his connections to other far-right groups overseas. Online, he uses the handle “GoyHio” to talk about stalking and harassing people he perceives as enemies, including other students; and to advocate for violence against women, people of color, Jewish people, and LGBTQ+ people. The actions and behavior documented in this article demonstrate the ongoing threat he poses to members of his community.
