Backgrounder: American Third Position: Formation of the American Third Position Party

Formation of the American Third Position Party
The American Third Position (A3P),¹ a white supremacist political party based in California, was reportedly created in October 2009 but began promoting itself to the public in January 2010.

The A3P appears to be a new version of the Golden State Party (GSP), a white supremacist political party from the same state, which formed in May 2009. GSP grew out of the efforts of a loosely organized group of white supremacists in their 20s and 30s who had met on the white supremacist Internet forum Stormfront and called themselves Freedom 14. Although Freedom 14 claimed they had do direct affiliation with GSP, the two groups had members in common and used the same P.O. Box. Freedom 14 members often promoted the GSP on Stormfront.

According to reports, the chairman of GSP, Tyler Cole (who allegedly used the pseudonyms Eugene Cameron, Tim Robbins and Tyler Robbins) was a two-time felon who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in Arizona in 2001 and convicted for possession of an illegal machete, possession of marijuana and resisting arrest in Orange County, California, in 2008. He is also a former member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. After a local reporter from the Orange County Register revealed Cole's background, he no longer acted the public spokesperson of the group and soon afterwards the GSP all but disappeared.

In January 2010, the A3P made its debut. Although there is no "official" connection between the GSP and A3P, the two groups' policy statements on immigration, the economy and other issues are identical. In addition, in June 2009, Sean Vaxmonsky, the A3P treasurer, identified himself on Stormfront as a member of GSP.

At the time of A3P's official launch in January 2010, Vaxmonsky had an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in court in response to a misdemeanor charge. On March 2, 2010, he pleaded guilty to charges of driving without a valid driver license and failure to appear in court. Vaxmonsky, using the name "Sean Vax," had organized an event in Huntington Beach to publicize the A3P, according to a January 2010 article posted to Stormfront.

Publicly identified leaders of the A3P are its chairman William D. Johnson, a California lawyer who has run for office in Wyoming, Arizona and California; and four directors: Kevin MacDonald, an anti-Semitic professor of psychology at California State University-Long Beach; James Edwards, a Tennessee-based white supremacist who runs the Political Cesspool radio show; Tomislav Sunic, a white supremacist author and radio show host and Don Wassall, a white supremacist who founded the racist and anti-Semitic American Nationalist Union.

¹Traditionally, third positionism is a small political movement that claims that there is a "third" alternative to socialism and capitalism that goes beyond traditional right or left political orientations. They are generally against globalization and are pro-environment. In practice, third positionism is nationalistic and infused with racism and anti-Semitism.

Third positionism has always been more prominent in Europe than in the United States. However, American white supremacists such as Tom Metzger, leader of the now inactive White American Resistance (WAR), and the racist skinhead group American Front have promoted this ideology. In addition, in 2001, Kenneth Schmidt, formed a founded a New Jersey-based white supremacist group which he called American Third Position. The group "racial purity," opposed Zionism "and all its manifestations," and advocated for "preservation of the environment.