Neo-Nazi Loses Job, Says He Might Lose Home After Widely Criticized New York Times Profile

Tony Hovater, the Nazi sympathizer profiled by the New York Times over the weekend, revealed that it has since cost him his job and his house.

The 29-year-old New Carlisle, Ohio resident told The Washington Post that he, his wife and his brother-in-law had all been fired from the restaurant where they all worked, and that he had been forced to relocate due to financial reasons and concerns for his own safety.

“It’s not for the best to stay in a place that is now public information,” he told the paper. After the Times profile was published on Saturday, someone published Hovater’s address online. “We live alone. No one else is there to watch the house while I’m away.”

Also Read: NY Times Expresses 'Regret' for Profile of Neo-Nazi: 'The Point Was Not to Normalize Anything'

In a statement on Wednesday, 571 Grill & Draft House issued a statement saying it was unaware of Hovater’s political views and felt it necessary to terminate his employment when the restaurant became “swamped with phone calls and social media messages that are threatening and intimidating to both us and our employees.”

“We felt it necessary to fully sever the relationship with them in hopes to protect our 20 other employees from the verbal and social media threats being made from individuals all over the country, and as far as Australia. We neither encourage nor support any forms of hate within our establishment,” the statement said.

The New York Times feature by Richard Fausset, “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland,” originally titled “In America’s Heartland, the Nazi Sympathizer Next Door,” followed Hovater who helped start the Traditionalist Workers Party, one of the extreme-right groups that marched in Charlottesville earlier this year.

The piece was widely criticized for, among other things: failing to provide crucial context including the actual views of TWP; an apparent unfamiliarity with known white supremacist terminology; failing to verify of several claims made by Hovater; failing to note that the paper had previously published a similar profile of his TWP co-founder.

The piece was also slammed for what many critics said was a tone that normalized white nationalists, describing Hovater as an avid “Seinfeld” watcher whose “Midwestern manners would please anyone’s mother.”

The backlash was such New York Times national editor Marc Lacey published a response on Sunday articulating the paper’s thinking.

“Our reporter and his editors agonized over the tone and content of the article,” he wrote. “The point of the story was not to normalize anything but to describe the degree to which hate and extremism have become far more normal in American life than many of us want to think.”

Also Read: Debra Messing Trashes 'Despicable' NY Times Over 'Nazi' Profile

Hovater told the Washington Post that he was happy with the way the story turned out, calling it “immensely fair.”

“A lot of people were confused with what he was trying to do with that story. He’s not trying to set out and spook people,” Hovater said. “He wrote the article, he wrote the story that was given, and it was an accurate portrayal of me.”

He has since launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website GoyFundMe.com (launched after other platforms began banning campaigns linked to far-right leaning causes) which has raised more than $6,400 as of Wednesday evening.

White Nationalists Seek to 'Top' Charlottesville and 7 More Shockers From Vice News Doc (Photos)

Monday night's episode of "Vice News Tonight" on HBO took a deep dive into the violent white supremacist rallies that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. The short documentary has gone viral, featuring interviews with white supremacist leaders as well as with victims and activists in Charlottesville. Scroll through for the eight biggest shockers from the doc.
Vice News/HBO
1. White supremacists are proud of their violence.

"Of course we're capable [of violence]," said Christopher Cantwell, a white supremacist speaker for "Unite the Right." "I'm carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time. I'm trying to make myself more capable of violence."

Also Read: Charlottesville Neo-Nazi Leader Cries: ‘I’m Afraid You’re Going to Kill Me’ (Video)
Vice News/HBO
2. White supremacists want a leader who is more racist than Donald Trump.

"I'm here to spread ideas, talk, in the hopes that someone more capable will do that," said Cantwell. "Someone like Donald Trump, who does not give his daughter to a Jew... A lot more racist than Donald Trump. I don't think you can feel about race the way I do and watch that Kushner bastard walk around with that beautiful girl, OK?"
Vice News/HBO
3. The alt-right wants to mimic "camaraderie" of the left.

"We don't have the camaraderie, we don't have the trust level that our rivals do," said Cantwell. "And that camaraderie and trust is built up through activism, and that is one of the tactics that we are adopting."
Vice News/HBO
4. The alt-right is ready to come out of the online woodwork.

"We are stepping off the internet in a big way," said Robert Ray, a writer for the white supremacist site Daily Stormer. "For instance, last night at the torch walk, there were hundreds and hundreds of us. People realize they are not itemized individuals, they are part of a larger whole because we have been spreading our memes, we have been organizing on the internet... as you can see today we greatly outnumbered the anti-white, anti-American filth... We're starting to slowly unveil a little bit of our power level. You ain't seen nothing yet."

Also Read: Jennifer Lawrence Shares Impassioned Post-Charlottesville Message: ‘We Must Always Take Sides’
Vice News/HBO
5. White supremacists think their freedom of speech is under threat.

"We had a federal court order to have this rally... They don't want our speech because we're telling the truth," said David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK. "We're talking about the ethnic cleansing of America and the destruction of the American way of life and a new Bolshevik-style society, with no freedom, no freedom of speech in this country. That's really where we're going in America and that's gotta change."
Vice News/HBO
6. Charlottesville residents feel unprotected in their own city.

"We told city council we did not want them here," said Timothy Porter, a Charlottesville resident. "They let them come. We told the police we did not want them here. They let them come. I had to jump out of the way, I almost got hit by the car my f---ing self... This is my town. We did not want those motherf---ers here, and now we got bodies on the ground."
Vice News/HBO
7. Violence harkens back to civil rights era of 1960s.

"I have a great-grandfather who literally has told me the same stories of what I have experienced today," said Montae Taylor, a student activist at the University of Virginia. "And the fact that I can look at what's going on and see what my grandfather was talking about--it's not scary, but it's appalling."

"This has always been the reality in Charlottesville," said local activist Tanesha Hudson.
Vice News/HBO
8. The alt-right want to "top" what happened in Charlottesville.

"I think [the car plowing into the crowd] was more than justified," said Cantwell. "The amount of restraint that our people showed out there I think was astounding... I'd say [the next protest] is going to be really tough to top but we're up to the challenge... I think that a lot more people are going to die before we're done here, frankly." Watch the Vice News doc here.

Also Read: Charlottesville Victim’s Mother Speaks Out: ‘They Tried to Kill My Child to Shut Her Up’ (Video)
Vice News/HBO

1 of 9

Alt-right members say they’re just getting started

Monday night's episode of "Vice News Tonight" on HBO took a deep dive into the violent white supremacist rallies that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. The short documentary has gone viral, featuring interviews with white supremacist leaders as well as with victims and activists in Charlottesville. Scroll through for the eight biggest shockers from the doc.

View In Gallery