Career
He was deported from Rhodesia in 1976, after sending threatening letters to a Jewish congregation. Covington joined the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) after returning from Rhodesia. In 1980, while leader of the party, he lost a primary election for the Republican nomination for candidates for attorney general of North Carolina.
Covington resigned as president of the NSPA in 1981.
That same year, Covington alleged a connection between the NSPA and would-be presidential assassin John West. Hinckley. However, law enforcement authorities were never able to corroborate the alleged Hinckley-NSPA connection.
Covington later settled in the United Kingdom for several years, where he made contact with British far-right groups and was involved in setting up the neo-Nazi terror group Combat 18 (C18) in 1992. C18 openly promotes violence and antisemitism, and has adopted some of the features of the American far right.
However, Covington no longer runs the NSWPP. He launched a website in 1996, and used the nickname Winston Smith, becoming one of the first neo-Nazi presences on the Internet.
Since 2005, Covington has maintained a political blog entitled "Thoughtcrime". Covington is furthermore the author of a number of novels in various genres. Covington was mentioned in the media in connection with the 2015 Charleston shooting, whose perpetrator Dylann Roof cited Covington as an influence.