These Nazis Want to Turn New England Into a White Ethnostate

Tim Dickinson
·7 min read
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A neo-Nazi front group is demanding that New England secede and establish itself as a white nation. Decrying “enemies” that are “all around us” and vowing to defend racial “integrity,” the People’s Initiative of New England published a revolutionary manifesto on July 27 advocating “separation from the United States of America.”

PINE is a creation of the neo-Nazi organization NSC-131. While the latter functions outside of the political system, with often violent street confrontations and stiff-arm, heil-Hitler salutes, PINE is intended to give those same toxic political beliefs a more palatable political framework. If NCS-131 exists to shock, PINE is an effort to seduce — tempting far-right conservatives into explicitly white-nationalist politics.

The PINE document appeals to nostalgia and shame. “Our people, who once built the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen, have been embarrassed, sold out and demoralized.” It alleges that the “only option” is to establish a “sovereign and unified New England” and thereby “set an example for revolutionaries everywhere.” In a nation where a previous secession attempt by racists sparked the bloodshed of the Civil War, PINE fancifully imagines a “peaceful separation.”

The call for a New England ethnostate — posted to Substack — marks a coming out for PINE, or what it calls its “formal introduction.” The initiative was quietly launched in April by NSC-131, also known as Nationalist Social Club-Anti-Communist Action.

Think of PINE as a Nazi wolf in MAGA clothing. “PINE is basically NSC 131 — but instead of going out and punching people at drag shows, they’re showing up at Trump rallies and recruiting Trumpers into out-and-out white supremacy,” says Kris Goldsmith, founder of Task Force Butler, the veteran-led anti-fascist nonprofit that published a 300-page dossier on NSC-131 for use by journalists and law enforcement in April.

“It’s still white supremacist bullshit, but it’s a little less abrasive,” Goldsmith says of PINE’s agenda. The initiative, he insists, seeks to “blackpill” Americans who’ve bought into “Tucker Carlson and the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory” and move them down the “pipeline” to full-fledged fascism.

In fact, PINE’s Substack manifesto soft pedals its Nazism, leading with patriarchal values and economic populism. It’s only upon finding the group’s Telegram feed, that readers discover the dark intention behind PINE’s call for racial integrity: A white ethnostate with non-white immigration banned and existing non-white residents left with an undetermined fate.

Designated as a “neo-Nazi” group by both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, NSC-131 unabashedly deploys the salutes and symbols of Hitler’s genocidal German regime. The group’s literature brags that “by using the Swastika … we place ourselves in the most stark opposition possible to everything that we would change in modern society.”

NSC-131 members — who dress in khakis, black hoodies, and cover their faces — are notorious for staging confrontations at liberal events, spewing hate, and rumbling with anti-fascists. Its literature declares: “We become less fringe with every successful action, our presence normalizes the impossible.” The group pointedly adopts the culture-war crusades of modern conservatism as its own, with declarations like: “We remind our people that it is Nazism … to oppose Drag Queen Story Hour and Critical Race Theory.”

PINE, by contrast, is presenting itself in gauzier focus — as a tradlife political party, that just so happens to champion white supremacy. Its logo, an evergreen tree inside an oval, is not obviously offensive. And parts of its political agenda — e.g. blasting international trade agreements or demanding government support for father-led family units — overlap with mainstream MAGA conservatism. Attempting to draw America Firsters into its ranks, PINE representatives have distributed literature at Trump rallies in states like New Hampshire.

Goldsmith cautions — severely — that despite the differing names, logos, and tactics of NSC-131 and PINE, the objective of the two groups is singular. “The only way you achieve a white ethnostate is the forced removal of, or mass killings of, people of color, right?” PINE is “using synonyms,” Goldsmith believes, “but still seeking to accomplish the same ethnic-cleansing goals of the neo-Nazi version of their brand.”

An email to PINE leadership seeking comment was not returned. But NSC-131’s own literature, announcing the launch of PINE, explained the relationship between the two groups: “The Nationalist Social Club was conceived and implemented as the vanguard of our people,” reads a Telegram post from April. “We have taken to the streets, and have shown our people that we are fighting for them.” By contrast, the post continues, “PINE will paint a more vivid picture for our people of what our future could look like,” promising that this approach will, “broaden our support base, and propel our message further than ever, by articulating our worldview in a more traditional political manner.”

A PINE political platform, also posted to Telegram, lays out five of the group’s demands, including that “New England will be formally recognized as a White Homeland and a sovereign state”; that the “institutions of the U.S. Federal Government will no longer be recognized”; and that “we will end all non-white migration to New England” — with the goal of “maintaining our ethnic identity.” The group’s intentions for what happens to the existing non-white residents of the region is, darkly, unspoken.

Why is the group championing the northeast for its “revolution”? “New England is the whitest region in North America, and it is here that our unique Pan-European identity was originally established,” PINE literature alleges, adding: “If someone is not of European descent, they are not a New Englander.”

The Substack introduction touts PINE members as “family men of action who champion tradition, family, and community.” And rather than showcasing the ruffian tactics NSC-131, PINE social media posts feature photos of members removing graffiti or cleaning up debris after the recent flood damage in Vermont. “Through activism and community outreach we aim to drive this cultural change,” PINE posts insist, “which will foster a more favorable political environment for us later.”

But even as it seeks to mainstream its hate through PINE, NSC-131 has been active — and intimidating — in its familiar manner. In June, the group made national headlines for disrupting a drag story hour in Concord, New Hampshire. Watch a brief video of that chilling encounter as filmed by the drag queen Juicy Garland:

NSC-131 has also had a string of success in court. In June, founder Chris Hood, was found not guilty of the charge of “affray,” stemming from a street fight in Massachusetts. And in July, a New Hampshire judge dismissed a civil rights complaint brought by the state against NSC-131 for a racist banner drop executed over a state highway, with a sign that read, “Keep New England White.” The judge ruled that the action, though “reprehensible by most civilized standards,” was not illegal.

NSC-131 has also recently amped up its public relations — seemingly in response to the dossier distributed by Task Force Butler that labeled them “a violent terrorist gang” that engages in “harassment against religious, racial, and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, and others deemed ‘enemies.’”

The neo-Nazi group now asserts on social media that it is “a non-violent Pro-White fraternity in the New England area” that engages in “First Amendment protected political protests and demonstrations.” The group — which has a Telegram channel that hypes videos of its violent street encounters — adds: “Sometimes at these events, outside agitators beyond our control threaten and attack us for exercising our First Amendment rights.” But it alleges: “we have never attacked anyone” and that “physical altercations were brought on by outside agitators beyond our control.”

The group also insists: “We reject any and all false assertions that we are in any way a gang, criminal enterprise, or terrorist group.” (It also denigrates Task Force Butler founder Goldsmith as “Goldbrick,” blasting him as “a Jew who engages in deception for a living.”)

NSC-131 is also continuing its strategy to occupy the front lines of the culture wars. A recent Telegram post describes the actions of members who “patrolled the parking lot outside of the Jason Aldean concert in Hartford, Connecticut,” purporting to be engaged in “WHITE COMMUNITY DEFENSE.” The group positioned itself in opposition to “BLM and Antifa adjacent agitators” who were protesting Aldean’s hit single, which has been accused of glorifying lynching: “Try That in a Small Town.”

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