US neo-Nazi group tries to register as federal political party

An American neo-Nazi group has attempted to register as a national political party with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), according to a report in Forbes magazine.

The group, the National Socialist Movement (NSM), sent in a registration form to the FEC on August 8 that would entitle it to the status of a “national committee party,” which would give it the status of a national political party, including fundraising and other abilities.

The Anti-Defamation League describes the NSM as a “neo-Nazi group with membership scattered around the country. Once the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi group in the United States, the NSM has been in decline for several years and its core membership has fallen to one or two dozen.”

Four days after it received the NSM’s forms, the FEC told the NSM it would have to prove that it could meet the criteria for a national political party by September 16.

According to the report, the name of the NSM’s treasurer on the filing matches the name of a man who was listed in 2018 as being a member of the organization by Northwest Florida Daily News.

The bank listed on the group’s filing, BB&T Bank said in a statement that “we reject hate and discrimination in all their ugly forms.”

“Our purpose to inspire and build better lives and communities motivates us to help build a stronger, more equitable company and society,” BB&T told Forbes.

The last year has seen a rise in incidents involving neo-Nazi groups and hate symbols in the US.

In late July, a series of numbers described as an anti-Semitic code were removed from a sports field in San Anselmo, California after residents spotted the neo-Nazi symbol and alerted authorities.

Several weeks later, a Sussex County, New Jersey man pleaded guilty in federal court to possession of an arsenal of weapons, including a grenade launcher, and was also allegedly found to be in possession of neo-Nazi, white supremacist and racist material, although that charge was later dropped.

On August 20, members of a US far right extremist group who had met on a Neo-Nazi forum, including two former Marines, were charged with conspiracy for allegedly planning power grid attacks.

The same week, a leader of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division was sentenced to three years in prison for taking part in a campaign that threatened journalists and Jewish activists in three states who worked to expose anti-Semitism.

At the end of August, a man was caught on a security camera leaving neo-Nazi flyers on the porches of houses near the Temple Beth El Jewish Community Center in Santa Cruz County, California.