WEBVTT - The Insurrectionist: Tyler Dykes, Part Two 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:11.719 Cool Zone Media. On October twenty second, twenty twenty five, 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:20.680 two men suddenly found themselves almost entirely unemployable. They didn't 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.560 have the same job, they weren't even in the same state. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.760 But the bad day they were both having on October 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.000 twenty second was a consequence of a long and complicated 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:37.040 series of events that started at the same time and 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.760 at the same place for both of them, the evening 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:46.760 of August eleventh, twenty seventeen, in an empty field behind 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:53.720 the tennis courts at the University of Virginia, eight years 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.480 after they marched with tiki torches on the eve of 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:02.000 that deadly Nazi rally in Charlottesville. Men are now convicted felons. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.480 One of them just had his law license suspended. The 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:15.240 other is running for Congress. I'm Molly Conger and this 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:35.680 is where little guys. This is an update to an 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.280 old story, an episode that originally ran on October seventeenth, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:45.840 twenty twenty four, more than a year ago. That episode 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.640 is back at the top of your feed today in 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.800 case you missed it the first time, or if you 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.720 just want to revisit it alongside this one. That's an 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:59.720 unusual choice, especially considering Every episode of this show is 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.600 kind of part of the same long story told out 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:09.560 of order. Every episode connects back to some other storyline, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.280 and they almost always feature some names I've mentioned before. 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:20.960 It's a small world, and theirs is even smaller. You 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.560 really can't talk about the lives of these weird little 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:29.000 guys without seeing all the places where their lives intersect. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:30.799 So if I re. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.120 Ran every old episode that helps add context to the 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.800 current one, I'd end up putting half the show's catalog 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.679 up as reruns every month, and I think that would 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:48.640 get overwhelming. In this case, though, it felt necessary because 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.600 the man at the center of this story is trying 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.360 to erase that chapter of his life, and he's trying 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:02.080 to rebrand himself for a big second act. I don't 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.720 think we should let him forget that part of his 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.160 own story. But I didn't want to retell it all here. 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.040 I wanted to leave plenty of roomin this episode to 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.440 talk about this new venture of his, and I didn't 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.720 want to rehash the entirety of the old episode, but 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:20.680 I wanted to make it easy for you to revisit 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:29.840 that part of his story because the context is everything here. Obviously, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.120 I write a new episode of this show every week, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.520 but I'm never done thinking about the subjects I've written 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.360 about in the past. There are court cases. I keep 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:46.440 docket alerts on for guys whose custody status. I monitor groups, 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.600 I keep tabs on. I try to stay up to 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.160 date on these weird little guys even after their episodes 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:58.240 are done. And it's not usually a positive thing when 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.640 there's something in the news that's relevant to the show. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.720 When I sat down to start writing this script, it 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.520 was Friday morning, and I had just seen on Blue 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:10.880 Sky that one of you posted a news story about 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.480 AT and T. The company had announced the end of 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:19.080 their diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and that listener connected 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.159 that news story back to an episode of this show. 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.080 It was an episode that had come out exactly a 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.600 year ago, the Ku Kluks Cable Access TV episode on 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:35.400 December fifth, twenty twenty four. In that episode, I was 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.359 talking about what happened to the millions of dollars that 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.960 Nazi stole from a Brinks truck in nineteen eighty four, 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.919 and that money ended up all over the place, but 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.120 some of it wound up in the hands of William 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:53.760 Luther Pearce and his Nazi group National Alliance. They used 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.040 the money to buy land in West Virginia where they 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.679 built their Nazi compound, but they also bought ten thousand 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.400 dollars worth of stock in AT and T. And they 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.000 bought that stock for the express purpose of owning enough 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:14.159 shares to introduce shareholder resolutions three years in a row. 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.080 Starting in nineteen eighty eight, a neo Nazi showed up 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:21.279 at the AT and T shareholders meeting and introduced a 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:26.480 resolution to end the company's affirmative action policies. If you're 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.599 too young to remember that term, it was basically just 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:34.279 the eighties version of what we call DEI today. In 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:40.320 nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty nine, and nineteen ninety, shareholders 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:44.680 at AT and T rejected a racist idea proposed to 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:49.320 them by a literal neo Nazi. In twenty twenty five, 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.839 it's the president attacking those diversity initiatives, and this time 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:56.279 the company isn't fighting back. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:00.839 None of these. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.520 Stories that I tell on this show are ever really over, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.920 because history doesn't work like that, So we're sort of 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.480 perpetually revisiting the events of the past and examining how 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.039 they got us into the current political predicament. But today 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:26.039 we're talking about a very specific update. Tyler Dikes is 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.960 running for Congress and Augustus and Victus has finally been 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:36.520 suspended from the Florida bar. On a surface level, these 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:42.080 events are unrelated. I would argue, though, that they are 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:48.200 in fact developments in the same story. Tyler Diykes was 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.440 the subject of that October twenty twenty four episode The 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.440 one Then's back at the top of your feed today. 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:55.600 He attended the. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.239 Unite the Right rally here in Charlottesville back in twenty 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:03.119 seventeen and participated in the January sixth insurrection in twenty 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.520 twenty one. He was arrested and convicted for participating in 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.480 the twenty seventeen torch March in twenty twenty three, and 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:12.160 on the day that. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:13.800 He was supposed to be released from. 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:18.480 Jail here, the doj unsealed a federal criminal complaint against 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:23.720 him for January sixth. He was sentenced to fifty seven 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.480 months in prison at the end of twenty twenty four, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.040 only to be released three months later after he received 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:35.000 a presidential pardon alongside more than fifteen hundred other people 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.280 who'd been charged with crimes related to the events of 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:44.040 January sixth. As for Augustus and Victus, he hasn't actually 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.440 been covered in an episode of his own, but he 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.080 has come up a fair number of times on the show. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.280 He's mentioned in that episode about Tyler Dikes because both 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.560 men were convicted on the felony charge of burning an 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.040 object with the intent to intimate for their participation in 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.040 that Nazi torch march on August eleventh, twenty seventeen, at 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.720 the University of Virginia, and that isn't the only time. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.040 We've talked about him. 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.320 In the episode called an Accidental Nazi Rally from February 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.360 of this year, he was one of the local organizers 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.000 who stepped up to help an Islamophobic group put on 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:25.080 a nationwide series of rallies against the boogeyman of Sharia 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:31.280 law in the episode State Created Danger in May, he 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.000 was the attorney who ghost wrote the lawsuit filed against 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.760 the City of Charlottesville by two Nazis who thought the 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.320 police should have proactively assisted them in putting on their rally. 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.920 In the episode stand Back and Stand By that aired 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.880 in June, he was the attorney hired by Enrique Tario 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.959 to represent several members of the Proud Boys who are 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.679 currently suing the government for one hundred million dollars in 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:00.760 damages for what they feel was an unfair prosecutor against 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:07.160 them for orchestrating the events of January sixth. So it's 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.000 a name you've probably heard before on this show, even 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.520 if he hasn't officially been the subject of an episode. 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.000 Most of the times you've heard his name it had 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.480 something to do with the fact that he's a practicing attorney. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.079 As of a few weeks ago, that's no longer the case. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.560 On October twenty second, twenty twenty five, a clerk at 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:35.600 the Florida Supreme Court filed an order suspending Augustus Solenvictus 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.000 from the Florida bar. The suspension came just over a 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.000 year after his felony conviction, but they generously held off 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.320 until the State Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal. He 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.160 was given just thirty days to wind down his practice 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:56.080 in the best interests of his current clients. That same day, 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.840 October twenty second, twenty twenty five, Tyler Diykes lost his 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:09.480 job too. That afternoon, he tweeted, my name is Tyler 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.679 Dikes I was pardoned by President Trump from my actions 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:18.839 on January sixth, and I was just fired again. The 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.840 mass media relentlessly posts photos of my Nazi salute on 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.960 the Capitol steps about how I was a violent neo 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.920 Nazi terrorist. What makes me a Nazi? Loving my country, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.600 loving my family. This is probably the third job I've 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.559 lost this year alone from this. Please, I need your help. 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.880 Thanks to the lies in the media, I'm almost completely 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.439 unable to make a living in anything that isn't politics, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.040 and that is their biggest mistake. 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:51.760 Do you know why? 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.400 It's a mistake that they attacked me so because now 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.520 I have no choice but to enter politics and fight 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:05.920 to make America great again. I don't have a choice. 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.800 But like I said, these two events are unrelated. They 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.320 don't have anything to do with each other except that 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.679 they share the same root cause. Augustus and Victus was 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.319 suspended from the Florida Bar because suspension from the Florida 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:28.160 Bar is automatic after a felony conviction, and Tyler Dykes 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.640 was fired from a series of jobs in South Carolina 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.640 after his release from prison because, despite that federal pardon, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.960 he had quite infamously been convicted of felonies related to 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.880 his participation in two of the most infamous violent right 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:48.040 wing extremist events in America in the current century, the 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:54.040 Unite the Right rally and the Insurrection. Now, I can't 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.040 tell you for certain exactly why he lost his job 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.800 this time around, but I don't think it would be 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.280 a bad bed to put ten bucks on it, having 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.800 something to do with his weird behavior at the No 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.440 King's rally in Hilton Head a few days earlier. The 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.920 details are different, sure, but if you connect all the dots, 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:22.160 if you work backwards in each man's story, you'll end 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:27.679 up at the same place. They became unemployable on October 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.000 twenty second, twenty twenty five, because they both lit that 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:36.760 tiki torch in twenty seventeen, and then they never. 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.079 Stopped doubling down on it. 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.160 Where that doubling down is leading them, though, is where 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.680 these stories split back off again. And neither of those 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.600 stories are anywhere near over yet, so we'll just have 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.240 to be satisfied with the middle of one of those 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:58.920 stories today. How to catching a felony at a Nazi 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.360 rally lost one man his licensed to practice law and 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:11.319 set another down the path to electoral politics. When Tyler 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.160 Diykes made that post on October twenty second about losing 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.080 his job, he included a link to a now deleted 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.280 online fundraiser on the right leaning crowdfunding platform gives and Go. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:24.920 Based on some of. 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.560 The other texts in that post, it sounds like the 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.840 fundraiser was geared more towards soliciting money for his personal 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.520 living expenses so he could devote himself full time to 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:42.880 the nebulous work of politics. Generally, he's not actually announcing 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.240 anything specific here, just that he's going to get into politics. 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.800 And the portion of the post I quoted here doesn't 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.680 include the strange way it began. The body of the 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.000 message is in the first person, right. My name is 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:04.080 Tyler Dykes was pardoned. I was fired. But before that, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:10.600 the message is introduced as quote a message from our leader. 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.520 The account that currently functions as his official Tyler Dykes 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.000 for Congress campaign account didn't start. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.000 Off that way. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.960 He'd created the account a few weeks earlier, but it 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:30.240 was originally called b C. Pat's Assembly, which is short 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:37.240 for Beaufort County Patriots Assembly, and it is Beaufort in 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.000 South Carolina, which was a surprise to me. There's a 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.280 county with the same name in North Carolina, but in 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:50.200 North Carolina it's Beaufort. But this is Beaufort. Don't email 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.880 me about it. I looked it up. The domain for 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.440 Patriots Assembly dot com was purchased on October fifth. An 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.480 early post on the Patriots Assembly Twitter account refer to 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:09.080 Tyler Dikes as quote our leader or our chairman, or 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:14.600 a prominent leader in our new organization. But after that 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:20.680 October twenty second post, the account switches to first person language. 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.760 He's no longer pretending to be an entire organization, He's 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.040 just posting as himself now. And the very next day, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:34.000 on October twenty third, he posted a now deleted video 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:40.080 to the right leaning YouTube Knockoff Rumble. According to posts 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.640 he made on other platforms announcing this video, it was 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.680 an hour long and. 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.000 It was called the J six Marine. 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.840 They tried to silence Colan my story of persecution and 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:57.600 why I'm fighting for christ and America. Honestly, whatever it was, 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.360 it shouldn't have been an hour long, and it needed 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.000 a more concise title. I mean, I'm not workshopping with 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:09.960 the guy, but come on, but the video is gone, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.320 so I didn't have to watch it. His entire Rumble 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.160 channel is actually gone now and I was only able 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:22.640 to find a short clip of this video. Based on 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.000 the clip, though he seemed to be workshopping a campaign message. 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:29.480 Here's the thing. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:31.840 The reason that all of our. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.800 Republicans sit in congressmen are sick. That we're sick and tired, right. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.440 The reason they're not doing anything is because they are 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.640 afraid of getting the same treatment that guy. They're afraid 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.880 of doing deportations because they're afraid of the last They're 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.000 afraid of the different attacks, the different phone calls, everything 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:51.560 they'll get. 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:53.520 And that's why they're not doing anything. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.040 And so let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen who 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.440 are watching this, I'm not afraid. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.719 He was entering politics, all right. He was working up 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:11.200 to announcing that he's running for Congress. Like I said, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.320 I only have this brief clip of that hour long video, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.600 so I don't know what else might have been in there. 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.720 I don't know what he said that made him want 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:26.120 to delete it afterwards. But if this clip is representative 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.760 of the whole video, it pretty much lines up with 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.320 other things that he's left online, like how he's really 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.960 fixated on making sure you know that it's unfair and 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:40.760 wrong to call him a Nazi. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:43.040 And here's the thing. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.080 They still call me a Nazi to this thick they 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.800 still randomy is all these evil, horrific things. But let 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.560 me tell you this, what makes me a Nazi? I 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:58.000 love Christ, I love God, I love my country. I 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.159 love my state, my family, in my community, and the 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.639 entirety of the Low Country area. And that's why I 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:04.800 live here because I. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:05.520 Love you so much. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.720 So does that make me a Nazi? Does love in 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.440 your family? Does loving God? Does love in your country? 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.760 Does that make you a Nazi? That makes you a Nazi? 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:23.879 Sophiets, this is the messaging he seems to have settled on. 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:28.040 He's bravely standing up to people who call him a 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.480 Nazi just because he's a good Christian man who loves 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.280 his country. I guess he knows he's going to have 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.560 to address the fact that people are calling him a Nazi, 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.680 and he's chosen to do that in the most disingenuous 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:48.199 way possible. On November fifth, he registered a domain for 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.280 his campaign website and filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.240 He was officially throwing his hat into the ring for 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:01.639 the Republican primary in South Carolina's first congressional district. That 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.199 primary will be in June of twenty twenty six, and 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.760 it's a crowded field, with nearly a dozen Republicans vying 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.320 for the nomination, and there's no incumbent in the mix. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.359 The current representative in South Carolina's first district announced in 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:22.600 August that she won't be seeking reelection. Nancy Mase is 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:28.159 running for governor instead. The first order of business for 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:32.560 a new candidate, after filing the paperwork and making the website, 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:38.280 is making the big announcement a launch party, right, You 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.919 have to create excitement around the campaign. You want to 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.879 recruit volunteers and get people to open their wallets. You 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.080 can't run a campaign without money and volunteers, and this 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.359 is your first shot at both of those. You're setting 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.560 a tone for the campaign. You don't want your launch 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:02.320 party to flop. So the newly ed Dykes for Congress campaign, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.200 which is a name that sounds very cool but unfortunately 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.480 doesn't mean what it sounds like at all, set about 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:14.600 trying to generate buzz by mailing weird letters to people's 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.119 homes all over the first district. Someone who listens to 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.800 this show got one in their mailbox and sent me 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:22.640 a picture of it. 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:23.840 Thank you for that. 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.639 It is a single sheet of regular white printer paper. 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:35.520 It's not a slick, professionally printed campaign mailer, and it 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:40.359 actually doesn't announce that he's running for office. It starts 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.520 off with a big bold header that says our civilization 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:49.520 is being destroyed, and it goes downhill fast from there. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:57.320 Civilization is being destroyed by communism, George Soros, christ Haters. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:01.199 Et cetera. The usual further down the page. 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.760 In this wall of text, which again is on a 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.840 sheet of plain printer paper, civilization is in bold again, 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.879 and this time it's spelled wrong. The letter also addresses 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.760 the quote slander on the leftist news that has falsely 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.679 labeled him a Nazi just because there's an out of 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:27.320 context photograph of him waving to a friend from the 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:31.920 steps of the Capitol Building. He closes the letter by 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:35.399 inviting the recipient to attend a rally on November ninth 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.240 to find out who Tyler Dykes really is. I guess 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.119 it's possible that there was more included in the envelope, 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.000 but there's nothing I can see in any of the 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.959 multiple photos I've seen of this letter that mentions this 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.440 is a political campaign, there's no mention of him running 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.280 for office, there's no mention of a particular group that 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.359 funded the letter. It just says, hey, come to this 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.960 event to hear this guy tell you about how much 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.840 he loves God and hates Communism and how he's not 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.720 really a Nazi like they said in the newspaper. And 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.800 each letter was signed by hand I assume by Tyler personally, 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:25.520 in oddly childlike handwriting. Under the signature it reads US 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:46.199 Marine Corps veteran business owner Pardoned J six Patriot. He 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.440 also went door to door with a slightly nicer looking 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:54.359 flier advertising the same event, and these two failed to 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.680 disclose that the event had anything to do with a 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.960 political campaign. It was billed as a public assembly for 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.640 upholding immigration law, affordable housing, safe streets, and American values. 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.360 And again, based on the photographs I've seen of these flyers, 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.440 they did not appear to even have his name on them. 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.400 It seems like mainly weird letters to people's houses did 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:24.639 not convince anybody it's a real my I am not 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.240 a Nazi. Flyers are raising a lot of questions already 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:28.480 answered by my flyers. 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:30.040 Type of situation. 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.800 You know, because despite his claim that the leftist news 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:38.000 had been falsely smearing him as a Nazi simply for 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:41.760 peacefully attending a political rally in our nation's capital one 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:47.000 day in January, if you google his name, you're gonna 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.600 see a lot more than that. And one of the 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.919 people who got this letter made it her personal mission 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:56.400 to make sure people understood what they were looking at. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.119 A Beaufort resident who, according to her Facebook profile, is 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:04.720 named Dawn, posted online a few days before the event 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:09.200 that she'd found some troubling information about the man behind 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:13.560 those letters. She posted screenshots of a few headlines about 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:17.600 Dikes's legal troubles and suggested that the VFW hall where 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:20.840 he planned to hold his event was not an appropriate 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:28.720 venue for this well technically, she posted quote, He's being 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:32.480 hosted by our local veterans of Foreign Wars. Tyler Diys 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:34.920 is a well documented troubled young man with a long 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:39.240 history of violence and Nazi ideations. Our VFW must not 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:44.760 understand the vile, dangerous cop attacking Cretan this lipless little 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:49.439 shit is. She followed up in the comments on her post, 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:52.440 saying that she'd called the VFW hall, and the man 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:56.320 she spoke to hadn't been aware of Diykes's history of 0:24:56.840 --> 0:25:01.119 Nazi salutes and assaulting cops. He was pretty concerned to 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:05.359 hear about it. Not long after that phone call, the 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:10.639 VFW canceled on Tyler Dikes. The campaign then scrambled to 0:25:10.640 --> 0:25:13.800 find a replacement venue and managed to book a conference 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:18.520 room at the Hampton Inn in nearby Okty. But Dawn, 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:22.639 this mysterious but determined woman on Facebook, caught wind of it, 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:28.080 and she called them too. I didn't do a ton 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:30.919 of digging on Dawn. I just scrolled through her Facebook 0:25:31.000 --> 0:25:34.200 and based on what I saw, I have to respect 0:25:34.240 --> 0:25:37.960 the level of civic engagement here. When the manager at 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:41.240 the Hampton Inn brushed her off over the phone, she 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:45.480 printed out a packet that included several news stories about 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:49.160 Tyler Dikes and she drove over to Okty to hand 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:53.480 deliver it. The hotel canceled the event a few hours later. 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:58.720 Just twenty four hours before his big launch party, Tyler 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:03.239 Diykes was once again without a venue. He posted a 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:07.800 very weird video on his Instagram. He's infuming mad, but 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:11.200 still determined to hold the event. At an undisclosed location 0:26:11.359 --> 0:26:14.560 that would only be revealed to his most loyal supporters 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.480 by text message one hour before it was scheduled to begin, 0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:23.159 But Dawn already knew God bless her woman after my 0:26:23.200 --> 0:26:27.639 own heart. The morning of the ninth, she posted on 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:30.760 Facebook that the event had been moved to a public 0:26:30.840 --> 0:26:35.679 park in the nearby town of Ridgeland. Not long after that, 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:40.000 Tyler Dykes emailed her and said that he had reported 0:26:40.000 --> 0:26:45.000 her to the police for harassment and death threats. He 0:26:45.080 --> 0:26:48.280 also posted on telegram that most of the people at 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:51.680 the event would be veterans and that they had concealed 0:26:51.680 --> 0:26:57.160 carry permits implication there being everyone at the park will 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:01.720 have a gun. But it seems the launch party ended 0:27:01.800 --> 0:27:04.160 up going off without a hitch at that public park 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:10.520 in Ridgeland. There's only one picture of the party. It's 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:14.280 a tightly cropped photo showing Tyler Diykes at a dress 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:19.080 shirt and khakis, standing in what looks like an empty field. 0:27:20.320 --> 0:27:25.560 I'm sure his throngs of armed supporters were just out 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:29.080 of frame, and he's only respecting their privacy by showing 0:27:30.000 --> 0:27:35.120 absolutely no evidence that anyone was there. And I certainly 0:27:35.359 --> 0:27:39.360 wouldn't publicly speculate that his mom might have taken that picture. 0:27:39.680 --> 0:27:40.159 I don't know. 0:27:43.680 --> 0:27:46.600 On the day of the campaign launch event November ninth, 0:27:47.240 --> 0:27:51.960 a new fundraising page went up. The original fundraising campaign, 0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:55.720 the one launched on October twenty second before any political 0:27:55.720 --> 0:27:59.680 campaign had been formally announced or any candidacy statement filed, 0:28:00.640 --> 0:28:05.160 raised at least three one hundred twenty five dollars before 0:28:05.200 --> 0:28:08.600 it was deleted on November sixth, the day after the 0:28:08.680 --> 0:28:14.280 FEC paperwork was filed. The new fundraiser was also on 0:28:14.400 --> 0:28:17.960 gives and Go, which was a little surprising to me. 0:28:19.240 --> 0:28:23.920