#1251: James P. Wickstrom

James P. Wickstrom is an American radio talk show host, minister, white supremacist and staunch antisemite based in Linwood, Michigan. He has a reputation for, shall we say, “firm” rightwing views and for his intense devotion to fighting communists and whoever he perceives to be communists, which doesn’t have to have much to do with, you know, communism – disagreeing with Wickstrom is his main inclusion criterion (after ethnic or cultural background). As such, Barack Obama is an arch-communist, and … well, suffice to say that Wickstrom kicks wingnuttery up a notch.

As such, Wickstrom doesn’t try to reappropriate Nelson Mandela. Instead Wickstrom rejoiced his death in 2013, describing Mandela as a “vile black terrorist” (his column is here; it’s not for the faint of heart, partially also because of the, uh, colorful web design). He also weighed in on the Haiti earthquake in 2010: “Praise Yahweh for destroying these butchers of whites & voodoo creatures,” said Wickstrom. Indeed, and despite what some commentators suggest, Wickstrom doesn’t primarily seem to be a holocaust denier – instead, he is pro-holocaust. Let’s take it from the start.

Wickstrom has a background as a pastor in Christian Identity organizations, and did repeatedly (in the 80s) run for political positions e.g. for the Constitution Party or the American Independent Party. In the early 80s, he attracted national attention to the ideology of the Posse Comitatus movement, and in 1982 he decided to set up his own municipality, a Posse enclave within the boundaries of Fairbanks, Wisconsin, named the “Constitutional Township of Tigerton Dells,” with Wickstrom as “acting clerk” and Municipal Judge. and fellow Posse member Donald Minniecheske as Chairman and Assessor. Over the next months he attempted to file various documents indicating he was a judge or town clerk with local and state offices, and convinced his followers that debts and taxes were Constitutionally illegitimate. The results were as (the rest of us) would have predicted, and he was promptly arrested for “assuming to act as [a] public officer” and got to serve some time in jail (Minniecheske, on the other hand, turned out to have a rather longer criminal record and went away for a while). Wickstrom returned tojail a few years later over a plan to distribute $100,000 in counterfeit U.S. currency to white supremacists attending the 1988 Aryan World Congress.

As for ideology. Wickstrom has developed his own Two Seedline Racial Covenant Identity, an ideology which among other things, postulates that the Caucasian race is made in the image of God, whereas people of Jewish descent are not considered “children of God”, but rather “children of Cain.” It is thus the “white western, European” race that constitute the actual Israelites referred to in the Bible. Indeed, white people are, according to Wickstrom, the only ones who have souls. Jews, on the other hand … well, you get the gist. And Wickstrom doesn’t take prisoners: “I’d like to see these Jews all be brought to the VA [Veterans Administration hospital] and wooden chairs be put down on the lawn. Tie the Jews in. Bring these veterans down who have been mutilated, physically mutilated, their lives ruined without the opportunity of a family or children, and give them baseball bats and let them beat these Jews to death! Every one of them!” saus Wickstrom. “Take these chairs and Jews after they’re beaten to death, throw ‘em in the wood chipper! And from the wood chipper let the remains go into a big incinerary truck, which is right behind the wood chipper, and give them the holocaust they rightly deserve!” That goes for all Jews, even the children: “Take ‘em all and let none remain!” snarls Wickstrom with all the charm he can muster.

Currently he hosts a weekly Internet radio talk show, Yahweh’s Truth, devoted to what he perceives to be a communist, Zionist mandate operating in the United States whose goal is to destroy the Western civilized nations (i.e. the nations where Caucasians are the ethnic majority). “I have a dream that in the days to come there won’t be anyone who isn’t white that’s gonna be in America!” he told a group of skinheads during a 2003 meeting, a view he shares at least with “commander” Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement whose party platform demands that “all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.”