Thomas Linton Metzger (April 9, 1938 – November 4, 2020) was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi leader and Klansman.

[5] For a short time, he was a member of the right-wing group the John Birch Society, and attended anti-communist luncheon meetings sponsored by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation.

[4]: 56 During the 1970s, Metzger joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which was led by David Duke, and he eventually became the Grand Dragon of the State of California.

[6] In the summer of 1979, he organized a patrol, the Klan Border Watch,[7] to capture illegal Mexican immigrants south of Fallbrook, California.

"[13] According to Steven Atkins, author of The Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism in Modern American History, Metzger's ideology "differs from other white supremacists by rejecting the basic tenets of the Christian Identity movement because he considers himself to be the champion of the Third Position.

Despite Metzger's open racism towards blacks, he alleged the two groups had common ground based on their desire for racial separation and their hatred of Jewish people.

[19] Metzger also appeared on Wally George's Hot Seat show with Irv Rubin, the chairman of the Jewish Defense League, in what was a very contentious debate.

[20] Art Bell interviewed Metzger on his overnight call-in radio show, and mentioned his Filipino wife, asking: "'I am married to a brown-skinned Asian woman.

'"[21] The group was eventually bankrupted as the result of a civil lawsuit centered on its involvement in the 1988 murder of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who had moved to the United States to attend college.

[23] Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit against him, arguing that WAR influenced Seraw's killers by encouraging their group East Side White Pride to commit violence.

[6][33] In 1992, Metzger and his son John violated a court order not to leave the country and entered Canada to speak to the Heritage Front.

[34] With his son John, Metzger was jailed for five days for breaking Canadian immigration laws as he had done so "to promote race hatred".

[6] From the early 1990s, Metzger advocated the "lone wolf" method of organization, of which there are many, for white nationalist groups, which states that a person should not outwardly display his/her racist ideology, but must act covertly.

Metzger was allowed to leave the premises during the search and stated that address books, compact discs, tapes and computers were seized in the raid.

[40] Metzger hosted an Internet radio talk show and by 2018 no longer resided in Indiana, having moved back to California.

[42] This led to the Democratic Party to disavow his candidacy, and take the unusual step of endorsing his opponent, Republican Clair Burgener.

[citation needed] In 2010, Metzger took out an advertisement in the Warsaw Times-Union, in order to announce his intention to challenge, as an independent, U.S. Representative Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana's 3rd congressional district.