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Andrew Anglin is the founder of the Daily Stormer, an alt-right website. After the death of Heather Hoyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, Anglin wrote a post full of insults directed at the late 32-year-old, calling her a “slut” and “fat.”
Heyer was killed on August 12 during the “Unite The Right” rally organized by white supremacists and the alt-right. James Alex Field Jr. is suspected of driving his car into a crowd, killing Heyer and injuring dozens more.
The 32-year-old Anglin launched the Daily Stormer in July 2013 and hundreds visit it each day. Alexa ranks it as the 4,483rd most popular website in the U.S. GoDaddy said on August 13 that Anglin has 24 hours to “move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service.”
Here’s what you need to know about Anglin.
1. Anglin Moved The Daily Stormer to a Russian Provider, but It’s Offline Already
After his post filled with insults of Heyer, GoDaddy responded to Twitter users who criticized the company for continuing to provide the site with its domain name. “We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service,” the company said.
Hours later, it appeared that the Daily Stormer was hacked by Anonymous, but Twitter profiles representing the international hacktivist group insisted that it was not behind it. Your Anon News theorized that the site “hacked” itself so it could blame hackers when GoDaddy pulls the site’s registration.
“We have no confirmation that ‘Anonymous’ is involved yet. Looks more like a DS stunt. Wonder if they are having issues finding a new host,” Your Anon News wrote. “We find claim that it took a ‘UNITED FORCE OF ELITE HACKERS’ to hack a CMS run by amateurs incredibly amusing.”
The message was posted like a typical news post on the site. It ended with, “HACKERS OF THE WORLD HAVE UNITED IN DEFENSE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED US.” However, the rest of the site remained accessible, which isn’t how hackers typically work when they take over a site.
Other Anonymous Twitter pages called it a “false flag.”
Anglin published a post claiming that he has “retaken” the site from “Anonymous” and will leave their post up.
“It just goes to show that these people cannot do anything to us other than try to shut down our free speech,” he wrote. “Absolutely disgusting. To all those on the forum, don’t worry about you email addresses: that is hosted on a totally separate server that was not breached.”
Google joined GoDaddy by “cancelling Daily Stormer’s registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service.”
The Daily Stormer briefly resurfaced online on August 16 after it was registered with the Russian Network Information Center (RU-CENTER). The site was accessible as “dailystormer.ru” briefly. The site is back offline again.
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2. The Daily Stormer Praised Trump’s First Comments on Charlottesville, Writing ‘No Condemnation at All’
While even Republicans criticized President Donald Trump for not condemning white supremacists, the alt-right had a different reaction. In its live-blog of the events in Charlottesville, the Daily Stormer praised Trump’s initial response to the violence there.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms, this display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides,” Trump said, without specifically mentioning white supremacists. “It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It’s been going on for a long, long time.”
Anglin’s website took that as “no condemnation” at all.
“There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all,” the site read. “Also refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him. No condemnation at all. When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who is on a tour of Latin America, told NBC News that the administration doesn’t tolerate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.
“We will not tolerate hatred and violence of groups like white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazis. These extremist fringe groups have no place in the American debate,” Pence said, adding that Trump “stated clearly that he condemns hate and violence in all of its forms.”
When asked if Trump should have specifically condemned white supremacists, Pence replied, “I think the president yesterday spoke to a national moment, words the American people needed to hear — that we condemn acts of violence, acts of hatred.”
On Monday, Trump delivered a speech, condemning the KKK, neo-Nazis and “other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
3. Anglin Says He Agrees With the ‘Core Principles of National Socialism’ & 1 of His Early Websites Was Called ‘Total Fascism’
In 2014, Anglin told Vocativ that he was “spoon-fed America’s liberal brand of politics.” He said he read Noam Chomsky in high school and dabbled in “all that Communist, Jewish stuff.” He even studied Islam, Buddhism and French philosophers. But then he started reading Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“The term ‘neo-Nazi’ is clearly a slur, and I’m not certain I want to repeat everything like it was in Hitler’s Germany,” he told Vocativ. “But I agree with all the core principles of National Socialism.”
In 2012, he posted his first website, AdventureQuest2012, which was a site for conspiracy theories about the Reptilians. That year, he also launched TotalFascism.com, which no longer exists. That site featured longer essays, but The Daily Stormer posts are noticeably short.
“I wanted something punchy and funny and enjoyable to read, and something that anybody can get something out of,” Anglin told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “A lot of people on the Internet prefer to write long essays, which a lot of people don’t read, which have a limited audience. … My ideology is very simple. I believe white people deserve their own country. … There’s not really anything that can happen that can affect my ideology because it’s so simple and straightforward.”
In 2013, he launched The Daily Stormer. The name is inspired by “Der Stürmer,” the Nazi tabloid newspaper. The publisher of the tabloid, Julius Streicher, was executed for crimes against humanity after World War II.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the first registrant of the Daily Stormer was Greg Anglin, Anglin’s father. Greg Anglin runs Morning Star Counseling , a Christian-inspired counseling office in Worthington, Ohio.
4. It’s Not Clear Where Anglin Lives Today
Even though Anglin has no problem posting other people’s addresses or personal details, he has kept information about himself private. For example, in 2015, he spoke to the Los Angeles Times, but refused to say where he was calling them from. He spoke with the LA Times after the Southern Poverty Law Center identified Dylann Roof as a possible Daily Stormer commenter. In 2015, Roof killed nine black churchgoers in a Charleston, South Carolina church.
In his interview with Vocativ, Anglin admitted that he grew up in Ohio and said he traveled to Europe and Asia. In July 2017, he told CNN that he lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Columbus Alive notes notes that reports have placed him in Germany or Russia. He told The Huffington Post that he’s living in Ohio, but FBI sources told the site that they think he’s living in Berlin.
What makes it ironic that Anglin has kept his current whereabouts unknown is that he has no problem posting information about others on his site.
Tanya Gersh, a Montana realtor, was accused of extortion on the Daily Stormer. Anglin also revealed that she is Jewish and encouraged his readers to troll her. Gersh got on the wrong side of the alt-right because she contacted the tennants of a local building, whose owner happens to be Richard Spencer‘s mother. The alt-right accused Gersh of extortion. Gersh sued Anglin, who has hired a First Amendment lawyer to represent him in the case, notes CNN.
“This is not free speech, this is nothing protected by the First Amendment, this is not the expression of political opinion,” SPLC co-counsel John Morrison told CNN. “The purpose of this is to damage these people, the purpose of this is to cause them fear and emotional harm, and that’s illegal.”
5. Anglin Thought Politics Was ‘Pointless’ Until He Heard Trump Was Running for Office
In a September 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Anglin said he had no interest in the 2012 presidential campaign. He even thought politics was “pointless” until he heard Donald Trump.
“Trump had me at ‘build a wall,’” Anglin told the Times in September. “Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign.”
Trump instantly earned the support of Anglin after he heard Trump’s announcement in the summer of 2015 that he was running for office. In July 2015, Anglin posted a poll showing Trump ahead of other Republican primary candidates.
“If The Donald gets the nomination, he will almost certainly beat Hillary, as White men such as you and I go out and vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests,” Anglin wrote, a year and a half before the 2016 presidential election.
In another December 2015 post, Anglin called Trump a “Glorious Leader” calling for the “complete ban” on Muslims.
