WEBVTT - A Secret Third Thing 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:08.920 Col Zone Media. In March of twenty twenty five, a 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.239 few dozen white nationalists from across the country gathered at 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.400 a castle in the mountains. The meeting itself wasn't really 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.279 a secret, it had been announced months ahead of time, 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.439 but it was a private event, and the location was 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.319 a closely guarded secret, shared only with those on the 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.360 invite list at elector and adorned with a golden eagle 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.640 and flanked by flags bearing fascies and lightning bolts. Speeches 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.559 were made by movement leaders spanning generations, men in their 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.640 seventies nearing the end of their decades long careers as 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.960 white nationalist organizers, and men in their twenties looking ahead 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.280 to the movement's future. During an afternoon break between speeches, 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:52.400 the keynote speaker took off a suit jacket in bolow 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.760 tie to oversee a shirtless, bare knuckle boxing match on 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.000 the lawn. The American Freedom Party has changed its logo, 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.520 its leadership, and even its name over the fifteen years 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.240 since it was first founded as the American Third Position Party, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.560 but they are still who they've always been, a handful 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.640 of racists and suits whose inability to properly fill out 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.720 paperwork keeps getting in the way of their dreams of 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:23.920 a white ethno state. I'm Molly Conker. This this weird 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:42.720 little guy. When we left off last week, we were 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.200 talking about the strange winding road that led a white 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.600 nationalist group called the American Third Position Party to run 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:53.400 a failed filmmaker for president in twenty twelve. By his 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.760 own account, Merilyn Miller had never been all that interested 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.040 in politics, that is, until he had his political awakening 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.120 after nine to eleven. He'd been trying unsuccessfully to sell 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.160 the distribution rights to his second film, a western called Jericho, 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.360 when he met a man who had served aboard the 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.080 U s S. Liberty in nineteen sixty seven when the 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.959 ship was bombed by the Israeli Air Force. Batman introduced 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.040 Merlin Miller to the wide world of conspiracy theory surrounding 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.760 the incident and connected him with Richard Thompson, a Navy 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.480 veteran who had recently helped finance a documentary about it. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.840 For several years, Thompson and Miller discussed making a movie 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.560 about the US Liberty, not another documentary that had been done, 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.760 but an action thriller set in the modern day, connecting 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.400 the conspiracy theories that have grown up around that incident 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.120 with those About nine to eleven, the screenplay was written 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.800 and ready to go. The movie was going to be 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.280 called False Flag. Miller would direct and produce it, and 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.520 Thompson was going to be the moneyman. When Richard Thompson 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.760 died unexpectedly in the summer of tearwo thousand and seven, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.560 the project stalled out. Without funding, he couldn't make the movie, 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.520 and it looks like he redirected some of that energy 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.079 into the Ron Paul campaign. Federal Election Commission records show 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.240 that Merlin Miller made his first ever federal campaign contribution 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.960 in November of two thousand and seven when he gave 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.480 Ron Paul one hundred dollars. He even threw his hat 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.799 into the ring to be a Ron Paul delegate in Tennessee, 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.119 but doesn't look like he was chosen. But he made 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.760 a lot of new friends through the Paul campaign. Admittedly, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.520 there's a bit of a blank space in my research here. 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.760 I couldn't tell you exactly what path he took down 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.480 the road to political extremism between two thousand and two 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.600 and two thousand and seven. That part of the timeline 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.960 is pretty sparse. It's entirely possible that his descent into 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.520 USS liberty conspiracy theories brought him into contact with the 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.440 political fringe long before he got involved with the Paul 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.840 campaign in two thousand and seven, but that's the point 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.080 in time where he reappears in any record I can find. 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.120 By two thousand and eight, Merlin Miller was rubbing elbows 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.760 with some of the big names in American racism. That summer, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.040 he was a speaker at the Council of Conservative Citizens 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:20.280 National Conference. The archived version of that racist group's website 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.960 shows that at some point all of that year's speeches 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:28.280 were uploaded, but the files haven't survived, and the attendee 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.240 who uploaded some of them to YouTube must not have 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.080 thought Merlin Miller's speech was very interesting, because it isn't there. 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.480 Other speakers at that event included Drew Lackey, the police 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.080 officer who was famously photographed fingerprinting Rosa Parks after her 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.680 arrest in Montgomery in nineteen fifty five, and he was 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.479 also the officer who booked Martin Luther King after his 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:55.200 arrest in nineteen fifty six. Lackey's speech, too, seems lost 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.839 to the sands of time, but according to a write 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.960 up on AlterNet, he talked about his book Bok called 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.120 Another View of the Civil Rights Movement, in which he 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.880 calls Rosa Parks a communist agitator and dismisses the entire 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.560 civil rights movement as a farce designed to intimidate and 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:17.480 demoralize the police. In America, Alabama State Senator Charles Bishop's 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.840 keynote speech was a rambling racist rant about Mohammed Obama 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.560 and Several of the other speakers listed on the website 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.520 are men who would go on to serve together on 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.920 the board of the American Third Position Party, Paul Frome, 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:37.520 Tom Sunich, and James Edwards. And a few months after that, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.599 Merlin Miller packed a suitcase for another trip. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.400 September second, two thousand and eight. You remember what you 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.440 were doing that day, September second, two thousand and eight. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:50.320 Yes, up in Minneapolis. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:56.120 Merlin Miller and another man who will come to these microphones, 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.479 William Daniel Johnson, the chairman of the American Free Party, 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.799 and yours truly, all three of us were in the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:09.640 Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.719 This one came as a bit of a surprise to me. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:15.839 None of the write ups I could find about the 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.240 early days of the party led me to believe that 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.160 Merlin Miller had been involved with the group's actual founding, 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.240 let alone hanging out with its founders more than a 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.880 year before the group even existed. But there it is 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:32.000 in his own words. In May of twenty thirteen, he 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.120 appeared on an episode of the American Freedom Party's new podcast. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.200 It was a project they'd launched that spring as part 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.080 of their rebranding after they changed the name from American 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.600 Third Position to American Freedom Party. And the man he's 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.640 talking to is Jamie Kelso, one of the party's founders. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.479 Kelso is I know. I say this all the time. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.479 He's the guy that's going to get his own episodes. 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.800 He is an incredibly odd man. Before he was on 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.520 the board of the American Third Position Party, he was 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.600 a member of National Alliance for years. In the early 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.800 two thousands, he was David Duke's live in personal assistant. 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.080 He was a moderator on Stormfront for a decade, and 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.600 when he was a much younger man, he was a 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:21.400 member of Scientology's Sea Org. And in two thousand and eight, 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.200 Jamie Kelso was traveling all over the country attending Ron 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:29.040 Paul campaign events because he recognized their value as a 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:34.960 recruitment pool for white nationalism. And I guess he wasn't 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.480 attending those events alone. Like I said, I can't find 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.560 much evidence that still exists online about the nature of 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.640 Merlin Miller's relationship with the movement during those early years, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.440 but he was close enough to Jamie Kelso and William 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.560 Daniel Johnson by the fall of two thousand and eight 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.120 to be traveling with them. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:56.880 Now. 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.400 Ron Paul did not become the president in two thousand obviously, 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.400 but Miller's involvement in the campaign had introduced him to 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.920 new friends and new possibilities. He'd failed to gain the 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.160 support of Tennessee Republicans to become a primary delegate, just 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.800 like he'd failed to make films in Hollywood. This system 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.800 seemed designed to prevent white men with traditional values from 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.720 succeeding in anything, and in that spirit, Merlin Miller founded 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.200 a new film production company in two thousand and nine. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.760 He'd produced his first film, A Place to Grow, in 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.840 nineteen ninety five through his company Ozark Pictures. His second film, Jericho, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.480 premiered in two thousand and one through his company Black 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.880 Knight Productions, But his new vision was going to require 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.880 a new production company, Americana Pictures, a film company dedicated 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:56.440 to making movies that promote quote, traditional American ideals. He 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.439 announced the new venture in an essay on The Occidental Observer, 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.760 a far right publication edited by Kevin mac donald, another 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.720 future founding member of the American Third Position Party. In 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:12.200 the essay, Miller asks where are the good stories? Where 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:17.160 have our heroes gone? Writing quote At one time, we 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.960 could discern right from wrong because stories promoted truth, justice, 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.600 and liberty. The world felt good when they ended happily, 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.079 or inspired us to overcome when they did not. They 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:29.920 made us want to be better people and live in 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:35.120 a better world, a world built by our European American brethren. 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.680 But after working in Hollywood, he came to realize that 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.640 Hollywood was in the business of killing those heroes, of 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.000 killing that American dream and propagandizing for a new world order. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:54.360 Hollywood doesn't represent traditional Americans. Instead, it quote seeks to 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:59.280 destroy our European American heritage and our Christian based traditional values, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.920 place them with values that debase these traditional values and 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:09.760 elevate minorities as paragons of virtue and wisdom. He complains 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.840 that despite graduating from a prestigious film school program, the 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:16.960 industry had no place for people like him, people with 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.640 traditional values who refused to denigrate Christianity and participate in 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:25.559 the Jewish controlled media. Americana Pictures could be an alternative 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.520 to Hollywood, making pro white movies for pro wide audiences, 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:37.560 developing their own talent by running screenwriting workshops. When Americana 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.240 Pictures launched in two thousand and nine, Miller had two 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.480 projects in mind, that unfunded film about the USS liberty 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.320 that he'd been working on for years, and one that 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:53.600 he tentatively titled The Liberator. The Liberator was a retelling 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.120 of the story of Arminius, the Germanic chieftain who commanded 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.560 a coalition of forces against the Romans at the Battle 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.960 of tutors Forrest in nine AD. As part of an 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.160 effort to drum up financial support for the films, Miller 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.040 published a piece in The Barnes Review later that same year. 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:14.560 I know I'm always telling you about this seemingly infinite 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.720 number of conspiracy theory blogs and Nazi newsletters and racist magazines, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.679 and they all probably run together. But the Barnes Review 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.200 has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.920 one of the most virulent anti Semitic organizations around, and 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.319 most issues feature several articles devoted to Holocaust denial. I mean, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.440 you'd think you'd run out of ways to talk about it, 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.760 but they haven't. This particular issue included the text of 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.600 a speech made by Hitler in nineteen forty one, two 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.800 articles about Hitler, an interview with the founder of a 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.360 Greek fascist party, and an essay by Ingrid Zundel, wife 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:58.559 of famous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. Miller's piece was about 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.080 the historical figure of our Minius, and there was just 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.160 a little box of text on the side of one 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.040 page announcing that he would be making a film to 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:12.960 tell this incredible story. Okay, I'll admit I don't ever 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.400 think about the Roman Empire. That's just never on my mind. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.679 I don't know the story of Arminius. I don't have 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.480 the tiniest bit of interest in knowing more about how 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.280 Publius Quintilius Verus committed suicide out of shame at having 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.240 lost three Roman legions at the Battle of Tuteburg Forest. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.480 I couldn't tell you if Merlin Miller's retelling of those 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:38.240 events is historically accurate. Maybe he's a Roman history buff. 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.800 I don't know, but I do think it's worth considering 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.960 that his interest in the story of Arminius might be 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.319 less about a love of two thousand year old Roman 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.600 history and more about an interest in some slightly more 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.800 recent history. Arminius has long been a symbol of German 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:19.079 national identity and German nationalism. Two plays written in the 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:23.680 nineteenth century dramatizing the events of the Battle of Tuderberg Forest, confusingly, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.400 both called the Hermannschlacht, were so wildly popular in Germany 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.679 in the nineteen thirties and forties that it was shameful 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.040 and scandalous to put them on stage for decades after 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.959 the war. In January of nineteen thirty three, just weeks 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.800 before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, a party official gave him 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:50.120 a gift, an illustrated copy of The Hermannschlacht. Hitler not 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.959 only loved the gift, but he responded, that's the idea 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:01.440 a second Battle of Tudeberg Forest. That same week, Hitler 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:05.160 gave a speech comparing himself to Arminius, and when the 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.160 text of that speech was published at a Nazi Party newspaper. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:10.920 It was accompanied by a picture of a statue of 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:18.120 Arminius surrounded by swastikas. Nazi Party election posters in nineteen 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.160 thirty three feature this imagery prominently, along with slogans like 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:29.520 Machtrei dos Hermannsland free Hermann's country. Hermann is the German 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.920 variation of Arminius. I picked up a copy of Arminius 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.840 the Liberator, Myth and Ideology, a book by Martin Winkler, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.360 a classics professor at George Mason University, to get a 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:46.720 better idea of where Arminius lives in the nationalist imagination. 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.080 It's four hundred pages long. I didn't have time to 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.760 do more than skim it, admittedly, but it seems pretty 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.360 clear the popularity of this story was at an all 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.600 time high when it was rep purist in Nazi propaganda 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:06.160 in nineteen thirties Germany. I found what I needed in 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.040 the book, but as I was flipping to the back 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.880 to see if the last chapter was a convenient summary, 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.760 which is often the case in academic texts, I found 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:16.360 something else. 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:16.840 Entirely. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.400 The final chapter of Winkler's book is not a summary. 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.560 It's called arminious and white supremacy, and it's about this. 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:34.720 It's about this article by Merlin Miller. There's a picture 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.760 of the front cover of this two thousand and nine 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:41.800 issue of The Barnes Review. Winkler writes of Miller's article, quote, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:49.960 Miller explicitly but unconvincingly rejects propagandizing by means of falsehood, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.440 But he also implies that Miller himself doesn't seem to 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.720 realize that he's building his own story on a foundation 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.920 of propagandized false hoods. In comparing Miller's use of the 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:09.200 story to that Nazi propaganda, Winkler writes, quote, the similarities 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:14.480 are astonishing or rather predictable. The only difference is that 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.920 Nazis saw Jews as the root of all their evils, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:21.040 while Miller is obsessed with non white and racially mixed globalism. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.120 To the Nazis, as to Miller, Arminius had laid the 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.240 foundation of a superior West. Later generations, especially contemporary ones, 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.000 have lost this heritage and become victims of decadence and 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:38.440 domination by others. That spring two thousand and nine issue 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.160 of The Barnes Review is dedicated almost entirely to Arminius. 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.200 It's not just Merlin Miller's article. Immediately following Miller's piece 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.880 is the one by Ingrid Zundel. In two thousand and nine, 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.520 her husband, Ernst Zundel was still in a German prison. 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.400 He'd been convicted of incitement of racial hatred, and she 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.920 writes that during his imprisonment, she felt moved to rekindle 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.760 the spiritual flame by reviving the story of Arminius, and 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:11.040 her company, Soaring Eagles Studios, published a book about Arminius 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.480 that had come out that year, and it wasn't just 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:19.680 a book project. I didn't find an actual copy of 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.320 this book, but I found one for sale on eBay, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.720 and I saw a picture of the cover, and the 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.680 cover bears a picture of that Arminia statue, the same 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.720 one featured in Nazi propaganda posters in nineteen thirty three. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.480 But across Arminius's chest there's text that reads soon to 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:42.960 be a major motion picture. Ingrid Zundel wrote in that 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.240 Barnes Review article that she'd been having intense meetings with 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.879 Merlin Miller and they were collaborating on the film adaptation 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.720 of the book. In December two thousand and nine, he 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.040 even scouted locations. The pair hoped to film in Herman, Missouri, 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.960 a small town settled by German immigrants and named after Arminius. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.720 Locals and Herman were horrified to learn that the independent 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.080 filmmaker wandering around town was a member of the Council 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.040 of Conservative Citizens, and the local newspaper printed a quote 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.200 from Miller about his opposition to interracial marriage. They didn't 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:23.240 really need to worry, though. The movie never got made. 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:28.200 Americana Pictures never made any movies at all. Both of 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.159 the projects he'd hoped to produce, False Flag and The 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:36.640 Liberator were someone else's idea. They were someone else's obsession. 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.960 He wasn't a subject matter expert on the USS liberty, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.240 he didn't have any meaningful connection to Arminius as a 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.640 symbol of German nationalism. But he presented himself in these 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.360 circles as someone who was going to break the system 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:56.439 and make propaganda films for the white supremacist movement. And 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.600 I think he really wanted to. He wanted to make movies. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.160 It had been his dream since childhood. It just never 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:10.360 came together. But what I've been trying to get to 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:15.200 all this time was his run for president. On January third, 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.160 twenty twelve, he posted a candidate statement on Merlin Miller 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:24.680 twenty twelve dot com. It's nothing special. He's fighting back 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.120 against the new World Order and the global elites. He's 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:32.760 very concerned about the ongoing demographic assault against traditional America, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:37.360 which is just a few extra words for white genocide. 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:41.720 He's outraged that patriots are being silenced by political correctness, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.639 et cetera. At the bottom of the statement, he links 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:51.240 to the party's website, but only after dropping a link 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.919 to the site for Americana Pictures. A week later, the 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:00.000 party's chairman, William Daniel Johnson, issued the party's official press relief. 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:06.000 His language is more explicit, writing the American Third Position 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:08.720 Party believes the time has come for a strong political 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:13.560 party that explicitly advocates for the interests of white Americans. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.880 And posts started popping up on stormfront, but it wasn't 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.680 really a hot topic. Most of the people posting enthusiastically 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.320 about his candidacy on those stormfront threads are people I 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:30.760 can identify as party members, like a thread from Harry Bertram, 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.720 the party's frequent candidate in West Virginia, offering to pay 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.800 Stormfront members a dollar per name if they'll go out 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.880 and collect signatures for the campaign. In February of twenty twelve, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.720 a month into the campaign's existence online, the party filed 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.439 paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, or at least they 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.960 tried to. They filed a statement of organization for a 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.199 committee called Merlin Miller for President twenty twelve, but they 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.840 failed to fill out the part of the form where 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.080 you say who the candidate is and on the page 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.240 where you check a box to indicate whether the committee 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.000 is a candidate committee or a party committee. They checked both. 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.919 The FEC responded with aid request for additional information, and 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.199 they tried again. It wasn't until April that they filed 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.719 forms to register the party itself with the FEC, and 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.560 they didn't actually file a statement of candidacy for Miller 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:31.080 until July. It's a bit of a mess. Almost everything 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.120 they've ever filed is quickly followed by a reply from 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:38.080 the FEC that they've done it wrong and they only 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:43.439 ever raised eighty seven hundred dollars. As the party is 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.399 fumbling with the paperwork, behind the scenes, Merlin Miller is 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.800 out there as the face of the party. The American 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.240 third position party is running for president. In every campaign 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.640 interview I listened to, he talks about himself a lot. 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.040 That's normal for a candidate, right, I mean, who is 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.880 this guy? Why should I vote for him? But someone 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:08.840 should have sat him down and broken the news that 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.520 making two independent films over a decade ago and being 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:19.360 really mad about the Federal Reserve aren't enough. And it's 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.320 just confusing that you keep rambling on about how you 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.639 knew David Petraeus in college, but he does it every time. 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.920 Most of these interviews are with friendly outlets, white nationalist 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.600 fringe podcasts and conspiracy theorists who make Alex Jones look 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.880 like a level headed and professional broadcaster, so he can 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.760 regurgitate the talking points from the website without really getting cornered. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.119 For the most part, no one's asking him hard questions. 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.199 But in one interview in February, someone does ask a 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.639 question that I'd actually spend hours searching for an answer 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.560 to on the party's website. Why third position? 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.320 Tell us a little bit about the third position? You know, 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.320 I think some people might be a little confused by 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.600 that term. I know when I hear third position, I 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.440 almost think third way or takes me back to the 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.040 nineteen thirties or twenties or something. But I don't know. 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:22.480 I mean, why did you choose that name? And what 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:25.720 are you trying to evoke by calling yourself a third position? 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.280 That's Richard Spencer. By twenty twelve, he was already the 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:36.240 director of the National Policy Institute, and he was the 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.480 editor of his Alternative Right dot com website, having coined 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:43.359 the term alright a few years earlier, at least by 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:47.200 his account, and for all the evil that man has 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:52.080 visited upon this world and my hometown in particular, he's 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:56.320 not stupid. I mean, he's not the brilliant philosopher he 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.960 believes himself to be, don't get me wrong, But he's 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:04.000 read some books. He is at least conversant in the 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:08.560 political theory he's working with. This is a question with 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:12.359 an actual answer, And Merlin Miller didn't know that. 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:19.080 You know, actually the founding members of Bill Johnson William Johnson, 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:21.680 an LA attorney, as the chairman of the American Third 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:24.159 Position Party, and I believe it was a bill that 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.840 came up with the name American Third Position, and a 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:30.119 year and a half, two years ago, I actually recommended 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:34.440 he used the Americana Party because I didn't actually understand 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.280 his reasoning for the American third at that time. I've 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:40.640 since grown not only accustomed to it, but I do 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.439 like it because I see the Republican and the Democratic 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:47.399 parties as really being two heads of the same monster. 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:50.919 And we really don't have a voice party that represents 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:52.760 the interests of the American people anymore. 0:24:56.320 --> 0:25:00.520 Oh, dear, no, No, that wasn't the end, Sir Richard 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.520 Spencer was looking for. It wasn't the answer I was 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:09.600 looking for. Third position isn't just some generic term for 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:13.680 third party. It doesn't mean the party is offering itself 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:18.840 up just generally is some kind of third option. He 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:22.760 seems to think that third position just means not Republican, 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:28.880 not Democrat, but a secret third thing. I guess, come 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:30.560 to think of it, you know, in the spirit of 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:36.120 the secret third thing meme kind of does the secret 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:41.520 third thing? Here is fascism. Here's another member of the 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.000 party offering his definition. 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:53.119 Third positionism is not centrism. Third positionists understand the false 0:25:53.160 --> 0:25:58.240 dialectic that liberal capitalist regimes established to split the electorate 0:25:58.920 --> 0:26:03.920 and maintain their all holigarchic rule through fiscal power. This 0:26:04.000 --> 0:26:09.920 capitalist dialectic separates nationalism from socialism, ensuring that two positions 0:26:10.640 --> 0:26:13.320 are never united under one political party. 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:21.160 Now, I think he probably thinks he sounds very clever here, 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:27.399 but I'm not sure he actually comprehends the words he's using. 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:31.800 But it is closer, He's a little closer. That's Nathan 0:26:31.840 --> 0:26:35.720 Dimigo speaking at the party's national convention earlier this year. 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:40.000 And if you're familiar with Nathan Dimigo's name, you may 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:43.080 remember him as the founder of Identity Europa, the neo 0:26:43.160 --> 0:26:46.800 Nazi organization that started popping up on college campuses and 0:26:47.000 --> 0:26:49.760 was marching here in Charlottesville in their white polo shirts 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:54.160 in twenty seventeen. But he actually has a very long 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:59.480 history with the American Third Position Party. But that's something 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:03.880 we'll get to itother day. The problem that Nathan Dimigo 0:27:04.000 --> 0:27:06.760 and Merlin Miller and others in the party are running 0:27:06.760 --> 0:27:10.359 into when they try to define third positionism is that 0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:14.639 most people aren't using it sincerely. I mean, maybe they 0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:17.679 don't actually know what it means at all, like Merlin Miller, 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:22.320