We have received confirmation that Schomaker has been fired from Momo’s. We would like to thank the owners there for doing the right thing, and safeguarding the community and their customers from the threat that Schomaker poses.
Aaron Hast Schomaker is a neo-Nazi ex-musician working at Momo’s bar in downtown Portland (update: he has been fired). Most of Momo’s customers are unlikely to know about Schomaker’s prolific fascist social media activity and neo-Nazi ideological commitments because he keeps it predominantly hidden behind a locked instagram account. On multiple occasions however, Schomaker has been seen wearing alt-right apparel at work, and it is highly likely that he is attempting to create a gathering space for other fascists, and to “red-pill” (proselytize and recruit) bar patrons.
Schomaker formerly worked as a bartender at Momo’s, a popular SW Portland bar. The word “Infidels” on his t-shirt references a far-right, Islamophobic conceit designating oneself as an enemy of Islam. The barely-concealed racism on display raises concerns that he is attempting make his workplace welcoming to other fascists. The skull-faceplate imagery on the shirt (inset) has been adopted most-prominently in recent years by Atomwaffen Division
Schomaker records a video of himself saying “Donald Trump hates n***ers, queers, and fags. That’s why I voted for him.” while wearing a MAGA hat.
Prior to his radicalization, Schomaker was a fairly conventional Portland hipster, playing in black metal bands. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign shifted Schomaker’s somewhat-reactionary politics and social media output toward overt racism, then entering broader public consciousness as the “alt-right”.
On Febuary 18, 2017 Schomaker and his then-partner allowed their two year old son to go missing from their home. At 6 AM Schomaker’s partner called the police to report her son missing. The police eventually found the boy around noon in a patch of black berry bushes about two blocks away from his home. Apart from being terrified and nearly frozen, the child was physically unharmed. He was taken to protective custody for a time and now seems to be living with extended family in another state. Court documents filed two months later by Schomaker’s ex-partner petitioning for a restraining order against him reveal that Schomaker was drunk at the time his child went missing, that police found an “unsafe amount of firearms and weapons in the house that were not stored properly,” and that Schomaker is a violent domestic abuser. Rather than learning a lesson from this despicable act of negiligence toward his child, Schomaker began to collect more guns and dive headlong in to neo-Nazi ideology.
Aaron Schomaker with police on the day he endangered his young child with his negligence.
Court documents reveal that Schomaker was drunk at the time his young child wandered out of their house, and also that police found a large cache of improperly-stored weapons in the house.
Court documents reveal Schomaker’s history of domestic abuse.
Schomaker’s extensive neo-Nazi social media activity touches on several prominent themes in contemporary fascist organizing, in the next sections we will identify and elaborate on the references he uses to signal his fascist ideological commitments.
James Mason’s Siege
Among Schomaker’s social media output are multiple favorable references to neo-Nazi James Mason’s interminable, rambling writings, titled Siege. Originally published as a newsletter in the 1980s, Siege has since been reprinted as a single volume by various fascists including Michael Jenkins Moynihan, one of the orginal “hipster Nazis.” Recently Siege has gained attention from the alt-right. Atomwaffen Division, one of the most violent and disturbing of fascist groups to emerge in the Trump era, regard Siege as their primary text. The mantra “Read Siege” can be found all over neo-Nazi social media, and as a constant refrain in Schomaker’s instagram posts.
Mason’s text is part anti-semitic conspiracy theory, part outline for white supremacist revolution through “lone wolf” style terrorist attacks, and part old man getting mad at his VCR (literally). The ideas put forth in Siege share an odd continuity with the ethos of petit bourgeous American counter-culture of the late 1960s. In Mason’s view, projects of incremental reform, electoralism, and public protest should be abandoned in favor of “dropping out.” Whereas hippies on the left adopted various niche lifestyles, Mason advocates for far right drop-outs to begin attacking society as “lone wolf”-style terrorists. The following passage is typical of Siege’s violent, racist content:
By actual rights Blacks, etc., should be turning up dead at a rate that would render a body count impossible. The police would be befuddled (and supportive) to a point where detection would be a joke. Fence-straddlers of all stripes would receive the clear message to choose, keep silent or die. Quote from Siege pg. 305
Siege is essentially an elaboration on Klansman Louis Beam’s concept of “leaderless resistance”. In response to the massive infiltration of the KKK by federal agents (by the 1970s one fifth of Klansmen were undercover FBI agents), Beam advocated for the formation of non-hierarchically organized affinity groups to carry out terrorist attacks. Mason takes this concept and applies it broadly to almost any act of anti-social violence, including the murders committed by the Manson Family.
The concept of leaderless resistance quickly became popular among a large section of the far-right and has directly influenced a number of terrorist attacks in the United States. Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 is to date the deadliest example of the concept put in to practice. Media Outlets at the time reported the bombing as a “lone wolf” attack, likely without realizing that there was a specific strategy behind this praxis. We can say McViegh was under the influence of Louis Beam’s idea with relative certainty based on the fact that he was found to be in possession of a number of far-right, KKK, and fascist texts, including the racist dystopian novel The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce. Several murders committed by Atomwaffen Division members as well as the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Philadelphia were committed under the influence of “lone wolf”/Siege style terrorist ideology. The Turner Diaries also happens to be another favorite of Aaron Schomaker’s.
Schomaker references Siege. Notably he also posts a photo of his young child (bottom left) and claims that he will be a “future siege boy”
(Bottom) Schomaker makes various references to Siege and also the Proud Boys (including their adopted slogan “fuck around and find out”), (Top) neo-Nazi Aaron Schomaker is in contact with anti-Semitic Proud Boy Jake Farmer.
Another of Schomaker’s repeated references to to James Mason’s Siege. These posts also frequently contain an embrace of the aesthetics of the neo-Nazi organization AtomWaffen Division.
The Turner Diaries
William Pierce’s The Turner Diaries is one of the most popular texts among white supremacists and the source of the popular slogan “day of the rope” or “rope day”, to which Schomaker makes repeated references in his instagram posts. “Day of the rope” is the name for a day of mass hangings carried out by a fictional white supremacist terrorist organization. In the novel, “race-traitors,” Jews, queer people, leftists and others are publicly executed in the streets. The event is filmed and used as propaganda to incite an apocalyptic race war in which all non-whites are eventually exterminated. The extremity of the scenarios described in The Turner Diaries should not detract from how effectively it has functioned in white supremacist organizing over the decades since it was published.
Schomaker venerates The Turner Diaries author, and life-long neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce.
Schomaker poses wearing a tactical vest stuffed with ammunition clips and in the comments wishes for The Turner Diaries portrayal of genocide to become reality. Another Nazi references the Tree of Life Synagogue mass murderer Robert Bowers’ final post on the fascist social media site GAB. Both echo the doctrine described in Siege. The patch on his vest is an emblem of the Ukrainian fascist militia Azov Battalion.
Azov Battalion
As mentioned above, Schomaker makes frequent references to his admiration for the neo-Nazi-affiliated Ukranian militia called Azov Battalion, alleged by Amnesty International to have carried out atrocities in Eastern Ukraine. Azov is one of a number of far-right militias who came to the fore in the power vaccuum left in the wake of the 2014 “Euromaidan” clashes, wherein, among other atrocities, dozens of trade unionists burned to death when a union hall in Odessa was set on fire and its exits blocked by Ukrainian nationalists. Azov Batallion frequently displays symbols used by the Nazis such as the swastika, sonnenrad, totenkopf, and wolfsangel. Schomaker seems to embrace Azov signifiers as a stand-in for esoteric Hitlerism, and the group itself as an aspirational model for fascist violence.
Schomaker displays Azov shirts on his instagram.
Schomaker displays Azov morale patches featuring the Sonnenrad and wolfsangel symbols.
Schomaker claims to have direct contact with Azov.
Further Fascist References by Schomaker
George Lincon Rockwell
Schomaker expresses his affection for George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party.
“Generation Identity”
Schomaker posts the Lambda symbol which has been adopted as the logo of the “Identitarian” movement which has attempted to sabotage migrant rescue missions at sea. The U.S. manifestation of this movement is Identity Europa. Schomaker also references the “Jews will not replace us” slogan chanted by neo-Nazi marchers at the deadly 2017 Charlottesville rally.
Roman Salute
Schomaker poses throwing up a Nazi salute at a bar in Arizona. In the comments his friend describes their conversation as “shitposting irl about n***ers”.
“14 words” and “1488”
Schomaker is also fond of the popular neo-Nazi slogan “1488” (14 for “14 words”, another neo-Nazi slogan, and the number 88, HH in an A=1 alpha-numeric subsitution code, standing for Heil Hitler). The racist “14 words” revered by neo-Nazis was coined by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist organization The Order. The Order was explicitly and directly influenced by the aforementioned book “The Turner Diaries” and its ideology of leaderless resistance.
(Left) Schomaker films himself reciting the neo-Nazi slogan “1488” for his followers on instagram, and (Right) uses the slogan to explain his feelings for his son.
Schomaker references the neo-Nazi “14 words” slogan in a caption for a photo of his family.
Schomaker and his instagram followers invoke the neo-Nazi code “1488,” and one of them offers to sell him weapons.
Anti-Semitism
Aaron Schomaker is a virulent anti-Semite.
Schomaker posts a video of himself declaring his anti-Semitism.
Bigoted Fantasies of Violence and Murder
(Top) Schomaker fantasizes about murdering anti-fascist activists. (Bottom) Schomaker posts a screenshot from the neo-Nazi website “The Daily Stormer” and, riffing on Donald Trump’s violent rhetoric, fantasizes about carrying out homophobic murders.
While sharing an instagram photo of his ammunition, Schomaker fantasizes about mass murder with his instagram friends.
Taking cues from Trump’s racist rhetoric about the migrant caravan, Schomaker fantasizes about asylum-seekers being summarily executed and buried in mass graves.
Schomaker shares a meme about the Columbine High School Massacre. Social media content that might merely be taken as “edgy” in other contexts takes on an ominous quality when posted by an “Siege” avowing neo-Nazi with a large arsenal of firearms.
Schomaker fantasizes about the “ovens” of another holocaust enacted when “a million” neo-Nazis like himself don their skull masks.
Schomaker shares anti-semitic memes celebrating the holocaust and the recent Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, which was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history.
Schomaker photographs himself holding a rifle– and wearing one of the skull-masks prominently associated with Atomwaffen Division– in front of a neo-Nazi sonnenrad flag. In the comments, he and his friends “joke” about perpetrating a hate crime at a synagogue. The words “Hate crime” are placed in scare quotes to signify that Schomaker and his friends believe anti-semitic attacks are justified. This post comes one month after Robert Bowers’ anti-Semitic massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.
Schomaker brags about how much ammunition he has, claiming it will be used to murder anti-fascists.
Current Details:
Name: Aaron Hast Schomaker
AKA: Bambi; Asch Hast
DOB: 02/04/1989
Address: 630 NE LAWRENCE AVE APT 5B PORTLAND, OR 97232-2365
Vehicle: Silver 2006 Subaru Forester, OR 322JRH
Employment: recently unemployed
Firearms:
As partially depicted in these instagram posts, neo-Nazi Aaron Schomaker has a sizeable collection of firearms and frequently fantasizes about using them to murder activists who oppose neo-Nazi violence.
Conclusion
The messianic visions of an apocalyptic race war inevitably just on the horizon portrayed in writings such as Siege and The Turner Diaries often turns out to be a convenient justification for fascists who are more interested in collecting expensive firearms and military swag than engaging in traditional political organizing. However, as has been seen, the predominant mode of political violence in the United States is mass shootings committed by “red-pilled” white men; and consciously or not, these attacks have a coherent political lineage and are part of a deliberate strategy of “Leaderless Resistance.” The intention of these works is to inspire political violence. The James Fields and Dylan Roofs of the world do not have to know one another to orient themselves within the ideology marketed to them by contemporary fascist media and organizing. Aaron Schomaker’s embrace of neo-Nazi ideology, and particularly of the terrorist approach laid out in works like Siege presents a very real threat to the Portland community. Rose City Antifa will continue to work to expose and oppose fascist organizing in order to prevent the racist violence and murder which always result from it.
If you have further information on Aaron Schomaker or any other fascist organizing in the Pacific Northwest, please contact Rose City Antifa at [email protected].