Identity Evropa 

(/juːˈroʊpə/) was an American neo-Nazi[8][9][10] and white supremacist[10][11]

[12]
 organization established in March 2016. It was rebranded[16] as the American Identity
Movement in March 2019.[2][17] In November 2020, the group disbanded.[5] Leaders and members of
Identity Evropa, such as former leader Elliot Kline, praised Nazi Germany and pushed for what they
described as the "Nazification of America".[9]
The white supremacist slogan "You will not replace us" originated from the group.[18] In an attempt
to boost its numbers, Identity Evropa allied itself with the broader alt-right and identitarian
movements[11] and the group targeted college campuses and students in particular[19] by distributing
slogans on fliers, posters, and stickers.[7][11][12] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC),
Identity Evropa was one of several groups which contributed to the growth of white supremacism in
the United States during the 2010s, with the organization being designated by it as an
influential hate group during its four-year existence.[19][20][21]
In March 2018, it was reported that the group was seeing steep declines in membership. The
collapse was similarly seen in other alt-right groups, and was attributed to a widespread public
backlash against white supremacist organizations that occurred after the 2017 Charlottesville rally.
[22]
 In March 2019, following a leak of the group's Discord messages published by the non-profit left-
wing media collective Unicorn Riot, Patrick Casey, the group's leader, rebranded[13][14][15] the group with
the new name "American Identity Movement" with an Americana aesthetic, despite initially claiming
they were unrelated organizations.[2][17]

History[edit]
The organization's founder, Nathan Damigo (/dəˈmɪɡoʊ/), is a self-described member of
the identitarian movement.[21] Damigo grew up in San Jose, California,[21] and was a member of
the U.S. Marine Corps from 2004 to 2007.[11] In November 2007, Damigo robbed a La Mesa,
California, taxicab driver at gunpoint, believing that the man was Iraqi.[11][23] Damigo was convicted
of armed robbery and was incarcerated for a year in county jail and four years in state prison.[21][11] He
said of the event that "it's something that I'm certainly not proud of," attributing his behavior to "major
issues" after returning from Iraq.[21]
In prison, Damigo began to read works by far-right figures, including David Duke.[21][11] He was also
influenced by J. Philippe Rushton and Nicholas Wade.[11] After being released from prison in 2014,
[24]
 Damigo led the National Youth Front,[24][11] the youth wing of the American Freedom Party.[11] The
group was classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti-
Defamation League,[24] with the SPLC reporting that it was founded by "racist Southern California
skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule."[11] The National
Youth Front later disbanded.[24][11] Damigo founded Identity Evropa in March 2016.[11] His activities with
"racist organizations" has been disavowed by his father.[25]
In the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally, the leadership position passed onto Elliot Kline, aka Eli
Mosley.[3] The group participated in the planning for the October 19, 2017 speech by Richard B.
Spencer, a white supremacist, at the University of Florida, where Mosley also spoke. In addition to
Spencer and Mosley, the speakers included Mike Enoch, a white nationalist blogger.[26][27] The event
drew about 2,500 protesters, vastly outnumbering Spencer's supporters.[28][29]

Re-branding as "American Identity Movement"[edit]

In March 2019, the non-profit left-wing media collective Unicorn Riot released more than 770,000
messages leaked from Discord channels related to the group. The leaks had been published on the
"Discord Leaks platform" established by Unicorn Riot.[2] Within the leaked chat logs, members of the
groups are discovered to have laid out plans to "infiltrate" local Republican parties and win public
offices, plans to influence local media to garner positive coverage, as well as plans for rebranding
the group's racism and antisemitism with the "identitarian" label and innocuous-sounding slogans
such as "Make America Beautiful Again". The Southern Poverty Law Center commented that the
group's rebrands "offers further cover to smuggle white nationalist views into mainstream politics",
and that its attempts to influence media for spreading propaganda and recruiting were "often
successful". Shortly after the leak, Patrick Casey said that the group "has been retired" and
announced the formation a new group, "American Identity Movement". The SPLC commented that
the new group will continue Identity Evropa's efforts at "quietly working to normalize their ideas
within the Republican Party."[17] After the leak, Discord removed Identity Evropa chat channels from
the platform. The group switched to Slack, but was again removed shortly. Zelle stated that they
would investigate and remove associated accounts, after journalists informed the platform that
Identity Evropa was using it to raise funds. Legal documents filed to the Arizona Corporation
Commission under the AIM front group "Foundation for American Society" was found to have used
Identity Evropa's email address.[30]

The group's logo after it was re-branded

The leak of Identity Evropa's Discord messages led to journalists and antifascist activists exposing
the identities of many of its members.[31] Following the leak, an investigation by HuffPost reported that
seven Identity Evropa members were also currently serving in the U.S. armed forces and were
actively disseminating Identity Evropa materials in their communities. According to military
spokespersons, several of them were being investigated by their military branches.[32]
[33]
 A Chesterfield County Police officer in Virginia who was working as a school resource officer at a
local high school was also identified as a pledge coordinator for Identity Evropa.[34] The officer was
suspended from his position, and the Chesterfield police chief began the process for him to be fired
per state law.[35][36][37] In April 2019, a teacher at Valley Christian School near San Jose, California was
placed on paid leave while the school investigated allegations he was a member of the group, based
on leaked chat logs.[38][39] In the same month, a master sergeant of the U.S. Air Force's 50th Space
Wing was being investigated by the military as a possible member, again based on leaked chat logs.
The sergeant had allegedly posted photographs of himself applying group stickers, holding banners,
and painting Identity Evropa's logo on an underpass in Colorado Springs.[40][41] Also in April, a 19-year-
old National Guard recruit from Chaska, Minnesota and a member of the group, was recalled from
basic training and investigated by the Minnesota National Guard.[42]
In late April 2019, Unicorn Riot published several audio recordings of the group's weekly meetings.
These audio recordings reveal that, despite Casey's claim that American Identity Movement is not a
rebrand of Identity Evropa, the two are in fact the same group. Matthew Warner, the group's second-
in-command, admitted in the recordings that Identity Evropa's membership list and dues payments
directly carry over to the AIM, and reiterated that the group would only accept non-Jewish White
Americans. After the Discord leak, the groups has used stricter vetting processes in an attempt to
prevent future leaks, where members are required to make two Skype calls and one in-person
meeting before being given "sensitive information" such as the location of the group's new
headquarter in Washington D.C.. After the rebrand, Identity Evropa continued its attempts to
coordinate its members to edit the group's Wikipedia page into more favorable terms. Leaders of the
group expressed fear that the existing page for IE would simply be renamed into AIM, which would
foil the groups's rebranding attempts. In the recordings, Casey urged members to rebrand their
social media accounts as well, saying that the groups's new Americana aesthetic would help its
members avoid being held accountable for their membership. Discussing the group's strategy,
Casey said in the recordings that the group would appeal to the "boomer patriot crowd", and would
ideally exploit political crises to seize control of the United States government, and replacing it with a
white-only "identitarian" regime.[31]

Fake "Antifa" Twitter account[edit]

In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, Identity Evropa set up a false flag account
on Twitter purporting to represent the antifascist movement antifa. The account urged violence, with
comments such as "Tonight's the night, Comrades ... Tonight we say 'Fuck The City' and we move
into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours." According to a
spokesperson for Twitter, it was not the first time that Identity Evropa had created such fake
accounts. Before the account was closed down by Twitter, it had been cited by United States law
enforcement officials as an example of left-wing radicals attempting to foment violence.[citation needed] A
comment on the account was re-posted on Instagram by Donald Trump Jr., who commented about
antifa, "They're not even pretending anymore." John Cohen, a former senior Department of
Homeland Security official, said, "Time and time again we have seen public figures, media
personalities and even government officials amplifying disinformation and extremist rhetoric intended
to inspire violence. ... A great step in deescalating the violence currently facing the Nation would be
for this to end." Facebook also took action against supposed antifa accounts, and had prevented the
Twitter postings from being distributed on its platform.[43][44][45]
In 2017, Data & Society, a non-profit research organization, documented how fake antifa accounts
are used to damage the movement, writing, "Various white supremacist groups have consistently
tried to damage Antifa's reputation in the media by 'doxing' protesters (releasing their personal
information) or impersonating them online ... Throughout 2017, right-wing manipulators utilized
parody to discredit Antifa, taking advantage of available Twitter handles and public confusion about
the organization and their motives."[46]

Views[edit]
Identity Evropa is a neo-Nazi and white supremacist group;[12][11][47] the organization espouses white
supremacist[48] and white separatist views.[24][49] The group endorses racial segregation.[47] It "bills itself
as a 'generation of awakened Europeans' who 'oppose those who would defame our history and rich
cultural heritage'".[11] Damigo describes it as "an identitarian organization"[7] and says that the group's
aim is to "act as a fifth column, over time shifting the edifice of our political establishment" in favor of
what he describes as "pro-white" interests.[50] Identity Evropa's spokesman and director of
administration, Reinhard Wolff, states that Identity Evropa is engaged in a "culture war" in an effort
to create a "90 percent white" America.[49]
The white supremacist slogan "You will not replace us" originated from the group, according to the
Anti-Defamation League, after Damigo and other members of Identity Evropa appeared on camera
chanting the words during LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US project at New
York's Museum of the Moving Image in February 2017.[18]
Identity Evropa excludes Jews from membership because Damigo regards Jews as non-white.[7]
[51]
 Only those "of European, non-Semitic heritage" may join the group.[11] Damigo claims that "Jewish
power, Jewish influence" has "been extraordinarily negative for people of European heritage".[7] He
has refused to say whether he acknowledges the Holocaust.[51][7]
The Anti-Defamation League has labeled Identity Evropa a white supremacist group,[5][52][53] and
the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks extremist groups in the United States, has
designated it as a hate group.[19][54][55][56] Their campus-centric advertising posters depict photos of
classical Greek sculptures of men overlaid with various short slogans which urge whites to embrace
cultural elitism. Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC, states, "Identity Evropa is merely the latest
iteration of the white-supremacist movement. Although you might think, based on their propaganda,
that they're all about Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, in fact they're merely a gussied-up version of
the Klan."[50] Anna North, writing in The New York Times, states that the group promotes racism
under the guise of white racial pride and cultural identity for those who are of European ancestry.[57]

Activities[edit]
In December 2016, the group had roughly 200 members.[24] In a February 2017 interview, Damigo
claimed a membership of 300.[7] The group has distributed fliers on dozens of college campuses
including the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Lynchburg College, Liberty University,[58] University
of Massachusetts Amherst, UCLA, San Diego State University, University of California, San
Diego, Penn State, Ohio State, and the University of Washington.[12][7][54][59][60] According to an ADL
count, Identity Evropa was by far the most active white supremacist group on college campuses in
2017, responsible for 158 of the 346 incidents nationwide of the posting of white supremacist
propaganda fliers.[61] These fliers typically show photos of classical and neoclassical sculpture.
According to art critic Ben Davis, the random use of dissimilar photos demonstrates a poor
understanding of European culture and art history.[62]
At Ohio State, the group has considered seeking recognized student organization status.[52] The
group's "#ProjectSiege" aims to "siege" college campuses with literature[52] in order to combat what
Damigo describes as a "false anti-white narrative" by professors, whom Damigo calls "charlatans."[50]
[63]

In late 2016, Damigo and Identity Evropa members traveled to Washington, D.C., for a post-election
conference hosted by the white supremacist National Policy Institute, at which keynote
speaker Richard B. Spencer and several other attendees rendered a Nazi salute.[24]
During the 2017 Berkeley protests, Damigo punched a young woman, captured on video that
subsequently went viral.[64] Footage showed Damigo punching the woman in the face, then running
away into the crowd.[48] The attack prompted calls for Damigo's arrest or expulsion from Cal State
Stanislaus, where he is a student; the university subsequently said that it was investigating Damigo.
[48]

Damigo has been identified as a leader in the August 2017 Unite the Right rally. A news source that
has interviewed him states that "Damigo has made these rallies a key driver for recruiting new
members of the group".[65] Additionally, Peter Cvjetanovic, one of the members of Identity Evropa,
was dubbed as the "angry torch guy" in the Unite the Right rally.[66]
On July 28, 2018, around 45 members of Identity Evropa, some dressed as construction workers,
demonstrated outside the Mexican consulate in Manhattan, New York City, holding large letters that
spelled out "Build the Wall". The government of Mexico said it had written a diplomatic note to
the State Department protesting the incident.[67] Later that day, a group of several dozen Identity
Evropa members hung a banner in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan. The banner, which said
"Stop the invasion, end immigration", overlooked the Henry Hudson Parkway. The response of
the Washington Heights and Inwood communities was to hold a "vigil against hate" at the same site
on July 31.[68][69]
On February 9, 2019, eleven Identity Evropa members went to the University of Utah’s Block
U carrying colored smoke flares and a banner that read, "End immigration!" Patrick Casey stated
that the action was in response to the University's condemning of the organization earlier in the year,
after it had posted stickers around the campus. Police were called, but the members left before they
arrived.[70]
On April 27, 2019, hours after the Poway synagogue shooting in California, around ten members of
Identity Evropa disrupted a book discussion event at the Politics and Prose bookstore at Washington
D.C. The book discussed at the event was Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial
Resentment is Killing America's Heartland, by Jonathan Metzl, which discusses how working class
white Americans who were attracted by the Trump administration's promises end up having a
greater risk of illness and a shorter life expectancy as a result of its policies. Members of the group
interrupted Metzl's speech using a bullhorn, said "You would have the white working class trade their
homeland for handouts. But we, as nationalists and identitarians, can offer the workers of this
country a homeland, their birthright, in addition to health care, good jobs and so forth.", and chanted
"This land is our land" while walking through the bookstore, before exiting ten minutes later.
Washington D.C. mayor, Muriel Bowser, condemned the Poway shooting