Ride the Zeiger: Montreal’s Antifascists Are Just Getting Started

Since late last week, a storm has erupted in response to the publication of the personal information of one of the leaders of the most popular neo-Nazi websites in the world, The Daily Stormer. On Thursday, student journalists with the Montreal Gazette published a story which outed Gabriel Sohier Chaput as the prolific neo-Nazi writer and podcaster, “Zeiger,” after receiving information from local antifa organizers. Along with Andrew Anglin, Weev, and Azzmador, Zeiger is seen as one of the leaders of the Alt-Right website which openly embraces swastikas, calls for genocide, and the rape of women. Like Stormfront before it, it as been a key source of influence for a variety of killers, from Dylann Roof to James Harris Jackson.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of local antifascists who were able to track down Zeiger, as well as slog through thousands of messages on the Daily Stormer’s Montreal Discord chat logs, Zeiger’s full name and home address was exposed, as was the wider network he operated within which included everyone from Alt-Right ‘Identitarians,’ to hardcore national socialists. In fact, Zeiger himself grew out of the infamous ‘IronMarch’ forums which birthed Vanguard America (best known for most likely including the murderer of Heather Heyer at Unite the Right, which Zeiger also attended), as well as an off-shoot, Atomwaffen, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group which has been linked to a variety of murders and attempted bombings. Ironically, Atomwaffen was too over the top even for Andrew Angin of The Daily Stormer, however it appears that Zeiger during his time at IronMarch was closely part of the same scene that gave birth to it.

Antifascist poster in the Montreal neighborhood outing Zeiger

While journalists at the Montreal Gazetter have been quick to receive accolades for their work, they have remained clear that all that did was simply fact check the information given to them by local antifascists and then publicize it.

As Unicorn Riot wrote:

After the Montreal Gazette reported the chat records in a series of stories, national Canadian media picked up the news. The Gazette’s editorial board added that “exposing neo-Nazi activity is essential“, comparing Sohier-Chaput to mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette (who attacked a Quebec City mosque in January 2017, killing six) and Toronto’s alleged misogynist ‘incel’ van attacker Alek Minassian, accused of murdering ten people on April 23. The Montreal Gazette also released a story specifically about the Montreal Storm Discord chats.

The chats, which have been archived by Unicorn Riot, show that Zeiger was behind monthly “book clubs,” or in real life get togethers between various neo-Nazis and members of the Alt-Right. At one point, they also discussed merging with the “pool parities” organized by The Right Stuff neo-Nazi podcast network, which hosted similar events. These get togethers featured a broad range of individuals, including so-called ‘Identitarians’ which supposedly want nothing to do with swastika waving neo-Nazis, as well as members of the Soldiers of Odin, which have for years stated that they are not a white nationalist group. Also, the group at times invited over “normie” conservatives to watch Trump speak and debate on TV, in an effort to further radicalize them. Lastly, the group often engaged in putting up stickers and flyers, and on the Discord discussion board, often talked about carrying out acts of violence and mass murder.

As a post on Montreal Counter-Info wrote:

Reading the logs, it became clear that members of this tiny scene were behind the racist posters put up around McGill in late 2016, had worked with Soldiers of Odin in their (failed) attempt to disrupt an anti-racist teach-in in 2017, and were present at the infamous March 4, 2017, demonstration in front of Montreal city hall organized by Georges Hallak and attended by a range of far right groups.

They laugh about genocide and the murder of Muslims, Jews, and people of color – after Alexandre Bissonette’s massacre in Quebec City one poster talked about how the city had now become “culturally enriched.”

In a video produced by local antifascists, the group explained how they meticulously and methodically looked for clues and facts which helped exposed Zeiger. Once the information went public, people then began putting up posters around the neighborhood in which Zeiger lived. According to one local anonymous anarchist and antifascist which spoke to It’s Going Down, a shipping container right next to Zeiger’s home was also sprayed with graffiti which read: “NAZIS OUT. BASH THE FASH.”

Antifascist graffiti found outside of Zeiger’s home.

It seems that Zeiger got the message. On May 6th, The Daily Stormer addressed the controversy in their regular fashion of declaring that a massive defeat was in fact a victory, and that despite all of the evidence, neo-Nazis were simply the weak victims of mean bullies. The Daily Stormer, which before Charlottesville declared “We want a war,” and that the “Final Stop [after Charlottesville was] Auschwitz,” even went so far as to back track on the nature of its publication. Its goal was not, as Azzmador was seen screaming in Charlottesville on August 12th, “Gas the Kikes, Race War Now!,” but was simply a “Internet comedy website.” It went on to ask, as if anyone was taking them seriously: “What kind of a sick world persecutes people for jokes on the Internet?” As always, the Alt-Right is good at two things: lying, and playing the victim.

The editorial then wrote specifically on the fate of Zeiger:

[O]ur guy has been run out of his home and job. There’s people hunting for him in the streets…These people are violent, subhuman animals. The left is the source of nearly all political violence. Something must be done to defend the innocent moral dissidents against these criminal terrorists…Zeiger was a brave and noble warrior, both online and off. This is a huge blow to a man who did so much for our struggle for many years.

The post then went on to write that Zeiger was in the process of leaving Montreal, and needed financial help in moving to “rural Quebec.”

Far from being satisfied, local antifascists are now calling for people to pour over the Montreal Discord logs and out other local neo-Nazis and members of the Alt-Right. One post read:

Unlike other sections of the far right, there appears to be a significant overlap between the cultural and social reference points of these men, and sections of our own scenes. They are young, often have gone to the same schools as us, have frequented the same bars as us, live in the same neighborhoods we do, and even in some cases may have previously had acquaintances or friends in common with us. So please read on, and if anything you see rings a bell, reminding you of someone or something you have seen, please get in touch. We can be reached at [email protected].

The shattering of the Alt-Right in Montreal by the exposing of Zeiger shows many things. First and foremost, as in the US, the Alt-Right is strongest when it works hand and hand with other far-Right formations which often openly proclaim that are not neo-Nazi or even are against racism. Thus, just as Joey Gibson in the Pacific Northwest has given cover to people associated with The Daily Stormer for years, so to have far-Right groups in Canada who proclaim to not be neo-Nazis. Moreover, despite many organizations in the Alt-Right wanting to distance themselves from outright neo-Nazis or groups like Atomwaffen, the Montreal scene shows clearly that these groups are still very much within the same small circles.

Lastly, the case of Zeiger shows that antifascism works. Exposing and outing neo-Nazis to the communities that they live in disrupts and often stops their organizing, and more often than not, forces them to drop out of the movement. As action continues against the Alt-Right in Canada, hopefully this reality will only continue to play out.