Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to it could Happen Here a podcast about
Speaker 2: things falling apart. And when things fall apart, one of
Speaker 2: the things that happens is you get a bunch of
Speaker 2: a lot of opportunities for a lot of weird little guys,
Speaker 2: a lot a lot of Nazis and other kinds of
Speaker 2: scums start, you know, sliding up to the surface in
Speaker 2: the hopes that they can get some of the sweet
Speaker 2: sweet oxygen of collapse. And that's why we've brought onto
Speaker 2: the program and are bringing into the network our good
Speaker 2: friend Molly Conger for a little recurrence series. I like
Speaker 2: to call look Who's stalking? That was the That was
Speaker 2: the stocking joke. I'm wanted to open the episode with
Speaker 2: my ow journey.
Speaker 3: I'm not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That
Speaker 3: is a crime. This is reporting.
Speaker 2: It is reporting, and the line between reporting and stalking
Speaker 2: always clear, you know.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's on the publication. Yeah, yeah, so, Robert,
Speaker 3: Today's topic is such a perfect mashup of so many
Speaker 3: of my favorite things. It couldn't be more my speed
Speaker 3: unless this whole story took place on a Wiener dog ranch. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: this story has city council meetings that got rowdy. It
Speaker 3: has unite the right attendee getting docks. It has the
Speaker 3: internal calms of a hate group getting leaked. It has
Speaker 3: regular ass people putting their foot down about hate in
Speaker 3: their town. It is a year's long arc of one
Speaker 3: man's journey from fucking around to finding out his evolution,
Speaker 3: from chanting you will not replace us to getting replaced
Speaker 3: at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Ward one City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Ah, we're going back to my old home.
Speaker 3: That's why you spent some time in Oklahoma as a kid.
Speaker 3: So so, jud Levins was raised in the town of
Speaker 3: en in Oklahoma, and the listener, you'd be forgiven for
Speaker 3: thinking this is the story of a small town. And
Speaker 3: I'll be honest, I did. I never heard of Enid,
Speaker 3: but you grew up in the area. Do you have
Speaker 3: any sort of pre existing notions of Garfield County? Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Enid was like a bigger play. I
Speaker 2: grew up in Ida Bell, which was really out in
Speaker 2: the sticks, so kind of everywhere was more civilization than
Speaker 2: Ida Bell, but Enid certainly was. Although not much. No
Speaker 2: one would No one would accuse it of much civilization.
Speaker 3: It is apparently the ninth largest city in Oklahoma, which
Speaker 3: was surprising to me. It's an hour and a half
Speaker 3: outside of Oklahoma City, seventy six percent white, sixty percent Republican,
Speaker 3: and according to a twenty twenty one article on Yahoo
Speaker 3: News that reads like it was written by an intoxicated chatbot,
Speaker 3: it is ranked one of the most conservative cities in
Speaker 3: the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah that all scans for enid share. Now that scans
Speaker 2: for a lot of cities in Oklahoma, mind you right.
Speaker 3: They could have named any of them. Yeah, but it
Speaker 3: has a population of about fifty thousand, which is actually
Speaker 3: the same size as Charlottesville, my hometown and a city
Speaker 3: that Judson Blevins happened to visit in the summer of
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, the former US Marine moved
Speaker 3: back to his hometown to work at his father's roofing business.
Speaker 3: In twenty nineteen, he was publicly identified as a regional
Speaker 3: leader in a white supremacist organization, and in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two he announced he was running for office.
Speaker 2: I mean that all that's a very Oklahoma politician. Route
Speaker 2: it's also like a not a white like. From roofing
Speaker 2: to white supremacy not a wildly uncommon route for people
Speaker 2: to take in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Now he's still doing both.
Speaker 2: Oh good. I mean, you never want to give up
Speaker 2: on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.
Speaker 3: Although some of his supporters have pointed out that he
Speaker 3: hires lots of non white people to do manual labor,
Speaker 3: so how could he be racist?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean you don't want to get up on those
Speaker 2: roofs yourself. That's dangerous. Sorry, Yeah, it's hot out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is all pretty Oklahoma so far.
Speaker 3: On February fourteenth, twenty twenty three, jud Levins narrowly won
Speaker 3: a seat on the Eden City Council, defeating the incumbent
Speaker 3: by just thirty six votes. His past ties the now
Speaker 3: defunct white supremacist group Identity Europa were no secret. Of course,
Speaker 3: by twenty twenty three, Identity Europa didn't exist anymore. So
Speaker 3: I don't blame you if you don't have a clear
Speaker 3: memory of exactly what kind of Nazi group they were.
Speaker 3: And I want to make it very clear, I don't
Speaker 3: want time, distance and white polo shirts to soften this
Speaker 3: Identity Europa was a neo Nazi organization.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. They were also just like the most infiltrated
Speaker 2: group of the Trump era. Like of all the Nazi
Speaker 2: orgs and the Trump era, I feel like they were
Speaker 2: the one where every week someone else got inside their comms.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess Blevin's maybe part to blame for that
Speaker 3: as the regional coordinator.
Speaker 2: Oh good, so he was doing a great job.
Speaker 3: But Identity Europa was modeled after the far right French
Speaker 3: Identitarian movement and sought the creation of a white ethno state.
Speaker 3: You will not replace us. Chance you remember from Unite
Speaker 3: the Right were actually popularized by Identity Europa at their
Speaker 3: rallies earlier that year, and, according to testimony from a
Speaker 3: former girlfriend, one time Identity Europa leader Elliot Klein considered
Speaker 3: himself quote an unironic exterminationist and he had violent fantasies
Speaker 3: about killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys
Speaker 3: hanging out right.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Identity Europa was founded in twenty sixteen by Nathan Dimigo,
Speaker 3: a former marine who went to prison after drunkenly pulling
Speaker 3: a gun on a cab driver for quote looking Iraqi.
Speaker 2: Well that gets at least he's honest.
Speaker 3: But while he was doing his time, he read David
Speaker 3: Duke's autobiography.
Speaker 2: Oh and he had.
Speaker 3: An awakening, right, he read My awakening and he had
Speaker 3: an awakening in prison?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, you go to prison for a hay crime,
Speaker 3: you read a little David Duke, you get some ideas.
Speaker 2: Man, it it's not a good book. Like that's my
Speaker 2: thing about having David Duke's autobiography be like your life
Speaker 2: changing event is a it's not even a good book, right,
Speaker 2: which I guess neither was mindcomp but I feel like
Speaker 2: everyone's lying about that one.
Speaker 3: So according to some this is so off the beaten path. Here,
Speaker 3: this is, I have to say it. According to some
Speaker 3: payments that came out in a divorce proceeding, David Duke
Speaker 3: made payments to Kevin Strome for ghostwriting it. Kevin Strom
Speaker 3: is the pedophile who actually said that thing that people
Speaker 3: think full Teraar said about the Jews.
Speaker 2: Oh cool, yeah great.
Speaker 3: So just something to think about when you're reading David
Speaker 3: Duke's autobiography in prison.
Speaker 2: I guess, I mean, I guess I had wondered what
Speaker 2: happens to pedophiles like when they're back out in the world, like,
Speaker 2: how do you.
Speaker 3: Get your wife?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: No, that was before that was yeah, No, he's got
Speaker 3: a kid now, so.
Speaker 2: Oh what, No, he shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, great, not allowed to live near a school, but
Speaker 3: I guess they can't stop you from procreating.
Speaker 2: We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Anyway, back to our friend Nate, Right, So Nathan Amigo
Speaker 3: gets out of prison, makes his own hate group. You
Speaker 3: may also remember him as the guy who bravely beat
Speaker 3: the shit out of a ninety five pound woman at
Speaker 3: the rally in Berkeley in April of twenty seventeen. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and they memed the hell out of that. They squeezed
Speaker 3: it for all it was worth that they used that
Speaker 3: image of him beating that woman in the street for
Speaker 3: promotion and recruitment. Dimigo himself touted a spike in membership applications,
Speaker 3: which he attributed to the popularity of the video. Identity
Speaker 3: Europa was heavily involved in the Summer of Hate, that
Speaker 3: rash of violent white supremacist rallies across the country in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. They were instrumental in planning as Unite the
Speaker 3: Right rally, But when the group's discord server was leaked
Speaker 3: in March of twenty nineteen and published in full by
Speaker 3: Unicorn Riot. Their leader at the time, Patrick Casey, quickly
Speaker 3: announced a rebrand, Identity Europa is no more. They were
Speaker 3: the American Identity Movement now, much to the displeasure of
Speaker 3: the American Indian Movement, whose acronym they stole. But the
Speaker 3: rebrand was not successful and the group died out completely
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, and Casey tried to protein the rebrand
Speaker 3: wasn't just an attempt to escape the fallout of the leak,
Speaker 3: but it really was the leak that killed Identity Europa.
Speaker 3: At least seven active duty military members were identified in
Speaker 3: the leak. A school resource officer at a high school
Speaker 3: in Virginia was suspended, a Minnesota National guardsman was recalled
Speaker 3: from basic training. So jud Levins was just one of
Speaker 3: dozens of members of the group to be identified in
Speaker 3: those chatlogs. The work of anti fascist researchers who identified
Speaker 3: Blevins and the leak chats was corroborated and published in
Speaker 3: an article on right Wing Watch by Jared Hult within weeks,
Speaker 3: and it's about as solid as an idea as you
Speaker 3: could hope for from a chatlog, or, depending on your position,
Speaker 3: the kind of idea you really don't want. A user
Speaker 3: called Conway was Identity Europa's regional coordinator for Oklahoma. He
Speaker 3: recruited and vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops
Speaker 3: and social events, and frequently posted pictures of the white
Speaker 3: supremacist propaganda he'd been putting up, encouraging others to do
Speaker 3: the same, and offering tips on how to create more
Speaker 3: effective visuals for the group's online accounts. In over eleven
Speaker 3: hundred posts over a nearly two new year period, he
Speaker 3: left a lot of clues. He posted a link to
Speaker 3: an article in his hometown paper, the Enid News and Eagle.
Speaker 3: He posted a photo of a relative's baby, details about
Speaker 3: his parents' lineage, his plans to move home to work
Speaker 3: for his father's business, and in the lead up to
Speaker 3: the Unite the Right rally, he excitedly shared the discord
Speaker 3: that he would be carrying the original flag of the
Speaker 3: state of Oklahoma, a red rectangle with the number forty
Speaker 3: six inside of a white star, and photos from the
Speaker 3: rallies show just one man carrying that distinctive flag that
Speaker 3: was designed by a member of the Daughters of the
Speaker 3: Confederacy jud Levins. As he grew into his role as
Speaker 3: regional coordinator for Identity Europa, he coordinated member meetups, getting
Speaker 3: several guys from Oklahoma to drive down to Texas for
Speaker 3: a get together. Conway posted about the meetup, and photos
Speaker 3: posted by other attendees show Blevins standing shoulder to shoulder
Speaker 3: with other members holding a large Identity Europa banner. Conway
Speaker 3: even posted about his appearance on a twenty eighteen episode
Speaker 3: of Identity Europa's podcast, where he emphas the importance of
Speaker 3: staying in the you will not replace us mindset. So
Speaker 3: by the time he announced his run for office in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, it had been over three years since
Speaker 3: he'd been out at his Conway the Hate Group member
Speaker 3: who attended the Unite the Right rally, and.
Speaker 2: You could see why he would think it would work, right,
Speaker 2: because that you will not replace us thing. It's become
Speaker 2: like the mainstream Republican politics, right like this, this ideology
Speaker 2: has at least one in the Republican Party, but it's
Speaker 2: also one divorced from these guys because even they are
Speaker 2: like they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans, like
Speaker 2: it's it's remarkable, but I also get why he thought
Speaker 2: this would work, and I think.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know what his connection remain to
Speaker 3: other members of IE after it dissolved, but towards the
Speaker 3: end of it, as it was dying, right, So under
Speaker 3: Elliott Klein, you know, Klein wanted to make a militia
Speaker 3: for Richard Spencer. He wanted to you know, build IE
Speaker 3: into a fighting force. But under Patrick Casey, they sort
Speaker 3: of moved back towards we should be trying to influence
Speaker 3: inside of politics. We should be going to colleges and
Speaker 3: getting you know, conservative students to become more base right.
Speaker 3: So this is a rational course of conduct, I think
Speaker 3: for where he was in twenty nineteen when Identity Europa died.
Speaker 3: But in any case, by twenty twenty two, anybody in
Speaker 3: Enid you could read his posts praising Hitler and celebrating
Speaker 3: Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart of the
Speaker 3: jew his words. You know, you could see pictures of
Speaker 3: him at Unite the Right, both on the morning of
Speaker 3: the twelfth in the park and the evening of the
Speaker 3: eleventh with a torch. You could see pictures of him
Speaker 3: going to Texas for ie meetups. You could see the
Speaker 3: dozens and dozens of photos he posted in the discord
Speaker 3: of Nazi posters and stickers he had put up on
Speaker 3: telephone polls and college bulletin boards across Oklahoma, and the
Speaker 3: posts where he reveled in the media coverage of the
Speaker 3: recruitment materials he left inside library books. His hometown newspaper,
Speaker 3: the News and Eagle, ran an article about the allegations,
Speaker 3: which he never denied. A month before the election, and
Speaker 3: without ever having to give a straight answer on the issue,
Speaker 3: he won, and that could have been the end of
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen this trend in the last few
Speaker 3: years of these radical right wing elements trying to melt
Speaker 3: into the mainstream Republican party. You know, we've got these
Speaker 3: horrible little gropers working in congressional staff positions, and you
Speaker 3: know Nazis going to cepack and not getting ejected. They're
Speaker 3: getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: An account tied to Blevins that he recently for the
Speaker 3: first time denied this was him. It's him. This has
Speaker 3: been widely reported. It was a Twitter account called at
Speaker 3: Abolish Journalism posted in twenty nineteen quote fists. I agree
Speaker 3: with the argument GOP cannot be changed from the bottom up. However,
Speaker 3: I do not believe in discouraging our guys from getting
Speaker 3: elected into smaller offices such as city council, county commissioner,
Speaker 3: or even state legislators, basically positions where one can fly
Speaker 3: under the radar yet still be effective. And that's what
Speaker 3: this is, right. This isn't a guy who got out
Speaker 3: of white nationalist organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became
Speaker 3: a local politician. No, he said years before he did
Speaker 3: this that this was a good idea that he had.
Speaker 3: You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions
Speaker 3: and beliefs. I regret bring an active recruiter for a
Speaker 3: hate group. He just changed the way he was doing it.
Speaker 3: And he said countless opportunities to be clear about what
Speaker 3: he believes today and whether that's different from the beliefs
Speaker 3: he espoused between twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, and he won't.
Speaker 3: He won't say I no longer identify with the posts
Speaker 3: I made when I was enthusiastically posting the fourteen words.
Speaker 3: And that's probably because he just found a better way
Speaker 3: to do it. But there were people in Enid, Oklahoma
Speaker 3: who saw right through that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where the story takes a turn that like,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It made me hopeful because the first
Speaker 2: time I ever met a klansman was in Oklahoma. It
Speaker 2: was the dad of a friend of mine, like he
Speaker 2: like that. This kid bragged about it, and I didn't
Speaker 2: know what a clansman was. And I had to go
Speaker 2: to my parents and like be like, hey, so you
Speaker 2: know so and so said this about his dad. What
Speaker 2: does that mean? And my mom was just like, well,
Speaker 2: you're not allowed to go to his house anymore. That's
Speaker 2: what that means. Juxes Jesus Christ. If this like, if
Speaker 2: this guy had like if shit had gone well for him,
Speaker 2: I guess that would have been my assumption. But that's
Speaker 2: that was my assumption based on me not giving a
Speaker 2: fair shake to Enid, Oklahoma, Right.
Speaker 3: I think that's you know what's so remarkable about this
Speaker 3: story is people didn't think Oklahoma could do it, But
Speaker 3: you know who can accomplish everything they set out to do?
Speaker 2: Uh huh, that's right. These sponsors, all of whom are
Speaker 2: available in Enid, Oklahoma, and we're back. Okay, alrighty, So
Speaker 2: I'm happy to hear. Yeah. The next part of this.
Speaker 3: Levins took office in May of twenty twenty three. Local
Speaker 3: election law requires a six month wait between being sworn
Speaker 3: in and when a recall attempt can be initiated, but
Speaker 3: the residents who opposed Levins didn't wait quietly. A group
Speaker 3: called the ENID Social Justice Committee protested his swearing in,
Speaker 3: with some protesters holding posters bearing a photo of Levins
Speaker 3: holding a torch at the August eleven, twenty seventeen Nazi
Speaker 3: march at the University of Virginia. And now this I
Speaker 3: didn't even think about it until I was writing this.
Speaker 3: That what an incredible coincidence of timing. Right, So May
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, he's being sworn into office. It was just,
Speaker 3: I think maybe two weeks before he was sworn in
Speaker 3: that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys who
Speaker 3: are now facing felony charges for participating in that torch mark.
Speaker 3: So it was we did an episode on this a
Speaker 3: little bit ago. But if you're not familiar that the
Speaker 3: guys who marched in that torch march at EVA in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, some of them are now being charged with
Speaker 3: a felony under Virginia law for burning an object with
Speaker 3: intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort of a law
Speaker 3: aimed at the Klan right, sort of a crossburning type law.
Speaker 3: But they were burning, They had these burning objects, and
Speaker 3: they were menacing people. It was racially motivated. So they're
Speaker 3: being charged with this felony for burning an object.
Speaker 2: It does feel like that's, yeah, a pretty good fit.
Speaker 3: But so right as he's being sworn in, you know,
Speaker 3: these people are protesting his swearing in with this photo
Speaker 3: of him with the torch, and a couple guys just
Speaker 3: showed up in jail here in Charlottesville on that charge.
Speaker 3: So it's it's just a remarkable cognitive dissonance, right to
Speaker 3: see these people. Some of his supporters in Enid downplaying
Speaker 3: the seriousness or even outright denying that Levin's attended this rally,
Speaker 3: but the guys he was standing next to that day
Speaker 3: are pleading guilty to felonies. You know, he's up there
Speaker 3: voting on resolutions and passing ordinances about you know, storm
Speaker 3: water management or whatever. I think one of his accomplishments
Speaker 3: in office was getting a Texas roadhouse in Enid.
Speaker 2: First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas
Speaker 2: roadhouse anywhere as a my job.
Speaker 3: Used to it might have been a sizzler, I can't
Speaker 3: remember something like that.
Speaker 2: I would be much more excited for a sizzler than
Speaker 2: a Texas fucking roadhouse, I'll say that much.
Speaker 3: But you know, he's up there getting a you know,
Speaker 3: affordable chain steak restaurant in edid But there's a non
Speaker 3: zero chance that he could be arrested at any time
Speaker 3: and extradited on a felony charge.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, if if there's one thing that's appropriate
Speaker 2: for the sizzler, it's knowing that the guy who put
Speaker 2: that sizzler there could be arrested on a felony charge
Speaker 2: at any moment.
Speaker 3: And you know, we don't know what the strategy is
Speaker 3: at the prosecutor's office. Obviously they're not going to charge
Speaker 3: everybody who is there. But it's on the table right
Speaker 3: Like he's on video at that march with the torch
Speaker 3: in his hand. He fits the criteria for the ten
Speaker 3: of guys that have already gone to jail for this.
Speaker 3: But in November of twenty twenty three, those six months
Speaker 3: had passed. Recalls on the table now and before the
Speaker 3: group made the final push to actually file for the recall,
Speaker 3: they made an offer of reconciliation. All Blevin's has to
Speaker 3: do is acknowledge the truth, denounce his past actions, just
Speaker 3: own up to it, start making amends. Just say yes
Speaker 3: I did that. No, I don't do it anymore. And
Speaker 3: he can't do it. Throughout this entire ordeal, he's never
Speaker 3: owned up to it. There are pictures and video and
Speaker 3: his own words across multiple online accounts. There's no plausible
Speaker 3: deniability here. There's no saying, well, maybe that's not him.
Speaker 3: You know it's him, so just admit it and say
Speaker 3: you're not that guy anymore. But he has consistently refused
Speaker 3: to even acknowledge it right on several occasions, you know,
Speaker 3: when really pressed. He dismisses that twenty nineteen article by
Speaker 3: Jared Holt as quote a hit piece posted four years
Speaker 3: ago by a George Soros funded leftist outline, it, calling
Speaker 3: it smears and slander.
Speaker 2: Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.
Speaker 3: I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.
Speaker 2: I'm being judged simply for the things I chose to do.
Speaker 3: I thought this was America. But he won't actually deny
Speaker 3: specific facts. You know, he won't say that isn't me
Speaker 3: in the photo, or I did not participate in that,
Speaker 3: or I did not post those nice things about Hitler.
Speaker 3: He just attacks the people saying it. And while Buvens
Speaker 3: has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of
Speaker 3: his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in
Speaker 3: November of last year, a woman speaking in support of
Speaker 3: Levin's said the allegations weren't credible as they came from
Speaker 3: organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear
Speaker 3: conservative Christians.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 3: First of all, the SPLC didn't publish it. It was
Speaker 3: Wright Wing Watch, Yeah, Huffington Post. But whenever Susan that
Speaker 3: same meeting that the council declined to even vote on
Speaker 3: a resolution to censure Blevins, the council was putting forth
Speaker 3: a resolution to say we don't agree with what that
Speaker 3: guy did. You know, it wasn't like punishing him. It
Speaker 3: didn't actually strip him of any powers. He didn't do
Speaker 3: anything except say the rest of us we don't like that.
Speaker 3: And they could, they wouldn't even vote on it. It got tabled,
Speaker 3: and at that meeting Commissioner Derwin Norwood, the only black
Speaker 3: member of Enid City Council, offered Blevins his forgiveness and
Speaker 3: gave him a big hug and told him he loved
Speaker 3: him great. Lens never apologized, right, you can't forgive someone
Speaker 3: who hasn't apologized. He had never and still has never apologized,
Speaker 3: and he was pretty clear on where he stands on apology, saying,
Speaker 3: I am not going to apologize for the lies that
Speaker 3: others tell. Yeah, it was a great meeting. I watched
Speaker 3: it from home. I had you know, I love a
Speaker 3: met I love a meeting.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, that's uh. I mean, I don't understand it,
Speaker 2: but I respect it.
Speaker 3: So, with their peace offering roundly rejected by an unapologetic Blevins,
Speaker 3: they moved forward the recall. The Enid Social Justice Committee
Speaker 3: gathered enough signatures to put it to a vote, and
Speaker 3: in January, Cheryl Patterson threw her hat into the ring
Speaker 3: to replace Blevins. And to be clear, this is still Enid, Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: where sixty percent of voters are registered Republicans. This wasn't
Speaker 3: some liberal coup. Patterson is also a lifelong Republican candidate
Speaker 3: formed the week before the election, Patterson was quick to say, like,
Speaker 3: right off the bat, the second shoe opened her mouth,
Speaker 3: she said, contrary to the rumor, I was not recruited
Speaker 3: by the Enid Social Justice Committee, And she said, you know,
Speaker 3: she'd been thinking about running for a while. She loves ENID,
Speaker 3: but she was pushed to action by her opponent's inability
Speaker 3: to clearly denounce his past involvement with a white supremacist group.
Speaker 3: And it is remarkable right to see conservative Republicans in
Speaker 3: the South saying like that Nazi stuff is too much
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's like, that's actually an important part
Speaker 2: of turning this shit back is getting these people who
Speaker 2: are otherwise conservative to draw a line and actually hold
Speaker 2: to it, because it it at least arrests that right
Speaker 2: word momentum to an extent. And we're just not going
Speaker 2: to get out of this unless we have some of
Speaker 2: that right.
Speaker 3: I'm not living in a you know, in a fantasy
Speaker 3: land where the city of Enid, Oklahoma is represented by
Speaker 3: a council of six socialists. Like that's not on the table.
Speaker 3: I accept that, But at least their Republicans can say, ah,
Speaker 3: the fourteen words is like not my vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, literally, participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is
Speaker 2: a line for us, and I'm glad there's a line.
Speaker 3: So you know, she says she was inspired to run
Speaker 3: for office because he not because of what he did,
Speaker 3: but because he couldn't even denounce it, right that, you know,
Speaker 3: people can grow and change. I pray that his heart moves,
Speaker 3: but he's unable to even denounce, and he really does
Speaker 3: seem incapable. The very first question at that forum the
Speaker 3: week before the election was about this. Obviously a lot
Speaker 3: of the questions were and he gave another non denial,
Speaker 3: right he said, this election is about the next three
Speaker 3: years of this city, not about organizations that disbanded five
Speaker 3: years ago. But he went on to say that he
Speaker 3: would quote gladly, plead guilty to speaking out against what
Speaker 3: is being done to this country and the anti white
Speaker 3: hatred in the media. So he tries to talk around
Speaker 3: the issue, saying, you know, he was just advocating for
Speaker 3: the same policies that got Donald Trump elected. But it's
Speaker 3: not like he was on the local Republican committee, right,
Speaker 3: He wasn't working on a GOP campaign. He was an
Speaker 3: organizer for a group that supported those policies of the
Speaker 3: Trump administration explicitly because they believe those policies were a
Speaker 3: stepping stone towards the full Nazification of American politics.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, the relationship between those two things troubling concerning.
Speaker 3: But you can't pretend there's no difference between voting Republican
Speaker 3: and holding a torch at the Nazi parade. And that's
Speaker 3: what he's trying to do here. He's trying to blur
Speaker 3: that lines. You know, I'm just being punished for being
Speaker 3: a proud conservative. And it's like, which which part right?
Speaker 3: People who's you know, people who want free speech, And
Speaker 3: it's like, well, which word do you want to say?
Speaker 3: And at no point during this recall campaign, from when
Speaker 3: they announced it in November to the election two weeks
Speaker 3: ago now, at no point during this recall campaign did
Speaker 3: he publicly denounce any of the white supremacists who supported him.
Speaker 3: Outlets like v Dare, a white nationalist publication run by
Speaker 3: an English born anti immigration race scientists who lives in
Speaker 3: a castle in West Virginia, wrote fawning editorials which were
Speaker 3: promoted by prominent white nationalists, including Identity Europa founder Nathan Dimigo.
Speaker 3: Fascist telegram channels provided guidance to subscribers about Oklahoma's campaign
Speaker 3: finance laws, which would allow them to donate to Blevins's
Speaker 3: campaign anonymously as long as they kept it under fifty dollars.
Speaker 3: According to reporting by Christmathias and Huntington Post, a man
Speaker 3: in Texas who runs a business with a known Patriot
Speaker 3: Front member donated nearly two thousand dollars to the campaign,
Speaker 3: which made up the bulk of the donated cash. And
Speaker 3: you might give him the benefit of the doubt and say, well,
Speaker 3: maybe he didn't know he was being endorsed by some
Speaker 3: of the largest elements in organized white supremacy in America.
Speaker 2: Sure, but he did.
Speaker 3: He did know. As a member of the city council.
Speaker 3: He definitely saw the letters that were addressed to the
Speaker 3: city Council in support of Blevins from the American Freedom Party,
Speaker 3: an explicitly white supremacist political party that occasionally runs a
Speaker 3: Nazi for president. But he said nothing. And when a constituent,
Speaker 3: father James Neil, asked him directly why his campaign was
Speaker 3: funded by members of Patriot Front, he told the priests
Speaker 3: to quote shut up again. He chose the company of
Speaker 3: neo Nazis, Holocaust deniers, white supremacists, white nationalists, and ethno
Speaker 3: state enthusiasts. How can you expect people to believe you're
Speaker 3: not that guy anymore when you have that their public praise,
Speaker 3: their endorsement, and their money in your pocket. But you
Speaker 3: know who does not have two thousand dollars in cash
Speaker 3: from Patriot Front in their pockets?
Speaker 2: No? No, they keep that shit in the back. I
Speaker 2: mean they don't have it. Here's here's our sponsors, and
Speaker 2: we're back.
Speaker 3: So on April second, that's two weeks ago now as
Speaker 3: we're recording, the people of Enid returned to the polls
Speaker 3: and jud Blevins was voted out of office as Ward
Speaker 3: one city commissioner by a vote of eight hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty nine to five sixty one. And I don't know
Speaker 3: if you're a math guy. I'm not a math guy.
Speaker 3: I can get a calculator out for this bad boy.
Speaker 3: But this turnout was significantly larger than the vote that
Speaker 3: put him into office. A seventy two percent increase in
Speaker 3: total votes. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot more
Speaker 3: people who showed up to an off cycle special election.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's specifically weird and.
Speaker 3: Unlike the slim margin of just thirty six votes that
Speaker 3: won him the twenty twenty three election. He lost the
Speaker 3: recall by nearly twenty points. That's hispankin. You know, it's
Speaker 3: hard to chalk a loss like that up to a
Speaker 3: lunatic fringe, right, That's that's the electorate speaking. But Matthew Giebert,
Speaker 3: a former State Department employee who lost his job for
Speaker 3: failing to disclose his active involvement in white supremacist organizing,
Speaker 3: noted in his telegram channel that while the loss is disappointing,
Speaker 3: an open white nationalist winning forty percent of the vote
Speaker 3: is quote nothing to despair over. And you never got
Speaker 3: a hand out to the guy who hosts a podcast
Speaker 3: about the joys of Nazi fatherhood or whatever. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: the numbers are what they are. You know, he did
Speaker 3: win forty percent of the vote, and this was after
Speaker 3: months of very public debate in the national spotlight that
Speaker 3: made it impossible not to know what the eye legations were.
Speaker 3: And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who
Speaker 3: would walk into the voting booth and put their checkmark
Speaker 3: next to wherever the letter R was. Right in this election,
Speaker 3: the other name on the ticket was a Republican too, Like,
Speaker 3: these were people who walked in there and knowingly and
Speaker 3: intentionally cast their vote for a guy who used to
Speaker 3: vet new members for a Nazi club. This isn't a
Speaker 3: fairy tale, it's reality, right. This wasn't an offensive win
Speaker 3: by progress or the left or what have you. This
Speaker 3: was an effective defense And I hope conservatives can see
Speaker 3: a little lesson here, right, Like the story is too
Speaker 3: often one of ever ratcheting extremism. You can only win
Speaker 3: if you go further, if you go wilder, if you're
Speaker 3: appealing to the people who are on the absolute extreme
Speaker 3: end of what's acceptable to say in the party. But
Speaker 3: this was a case where a fellow conservative said, hey,
Speaker 3: I want to take some books out of the library too.
Speaker 3: I'm not a liberal, but we just can't be out
Speaker 3: here saying the fourteen words, right. And I think some
Speaker 3: of the buzz around this story comes from people in
Speaker 3: bigger cities or bluer states. I mean, honestly, I'm guilty
Speaker 3: of this as well, who are shocked that, you know,
Speaker 3: purple haired liberals and progressive clergy even exist in a
Speaker 3: place like Enid, Oklahoma. But this red state blue state
Speaker 3: dichotomy is a myth. Most places are purple, most places
Speaker 3: are sixty forty. Even in places that reliably one hundred
Speaker 3: percent of the time vote Republican, there's still a large
Speaker 3: minority of people who are not represented by that. So
Speaker 3: even in a place like Enid, which is Republican at
Speaker 3: the polls, you have a pretty big chunk of the
Speaker 3: population isn't represented on that two colored map. That doesn't
Speaker 3: mean they don't care. And when I watch those Enid
Speaker 3: City council meetings, I saw Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I've gone to every city council meeting in Charletsville for
Speaker 3: the last seven years. Like, I know what it looks
Speaker 3: like for people in a town that size to show
Speaker 3: up and say, what the fuck, What the fuck are
Speaker 3: you doing to us? Right? Yeah, you know it looked
Speaker 3: it's like one of our meetings, you know. I saw
Speaker 3: regular people, moms and students and grandmas and teachers and
Speaker 3: ladies who bring muffins to the church bake sale. People
Speaker 3: who know that their town can do better than to
Speaker 3: be represented by a guy who won't apologize for attending
Speaker 3: the largest Nazi rally on US soil in our lifetimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I feel a lot for the folks who
Speaker 2: are kind of not represented by either of the two
Speaker 2: big lines on the political map, and maybe most of
Speaker 2: the time feel like I don't know what the fuck
Speaker 2: I can actually do or should do, but I know
Speaker 2: this Nazi shouldn't be in office.
Speaker 3: So these were just these were just regular people. These
Speaker 3: weren't party apperatics or you know, this wasn't the Democrat
Speaker 3: Party doing this, as wasn't the Republican Party doing this.
Speaker 3: These were just people who didn't think that a Nazi
Speaker 3: should be their city commissioner. And that's I think another
Speaker 3: myth at clay here, right, is that activist is some
Speaker 3: sort of separate class of person, that there is some
Speaker 3: portion of the population whose only goal in life is
Speaker 3: this nebulous, nefarious thing called activism. That you know, it's
Speaker 3: sort of this boogeyman of the professional troublemaker. And throughout
Speaker 3: this process, Blevins and his supporters have smeared the group
Speaker 3: organizing the recall, the Inned Social Justice Committee, is some
Speaker 3: kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks. They're
Speaker 3: not like us. Yeah, they're you know, they're coming for
Speaker 3: our children. His recall campaign website called the petitioners an
Speaker 3: unhinged group of left wing fringe activists. And the campaign
Speaker 3: website didn't say what he could do for you. It
Speaker 3: attacked the petitioners and said this is what they will
Speaker 3: do to you. And I've seen this in my own
Speaker 3: city council meetings, right, this sort of bizarre tendency of
Speaker 3: those in power to write off the people they don't
Speaker 3: want to hear from as activists. Well, those those are
Speaker 3: people we need to listen to. Those are activists. That's
Speaker 3: a different kind of person. Anyone who's asking for something
Speaker 3: they don't want to do, something that's uncomfortable, something that
Speaker 3: requires them to look inward or look at the structures
Speaker 3: they're upholding. They undergo this instant metamorphosis from constituent to activist.
Speaker 3: This is no longer a voter or a constituent. This
Speaker 3: is a crazy person. This person isn't your neighbor anymore.
Speaker 3: They're an activist. Yeah, I think you know, there are
Speaker 3: people who wear that mantle proudly, and why shouldn't they.
Speaker 3: It's a usually positive thing. But the use of the
Speaker 3: word as some sort of delegitimizing cudgel is so consistent
Speaker 3: that I think it's worth thinking about. When it gets
Speaker 3: used against the recipient's will. Yeah, and there's no ending
Speaker 3: to this story, right, because this is never really over.
Speaker 3: It is happening here, it is happening there. And I
Speaker 3: don't know what's next for Blevins. Maybe he just smelts
Speaker 3: quietly back into society and puts roofs on houses. A
Speaker 3: week after the recall, he filed paperwork to change the
Speaker 3: name of his dad's contracting business from Invincible Contracting to
Speaker 3: Great Planes Roofing. The paperwork filed shows that the company
Speaker 3: is now registered. The company is now registered. His address
Speaker 3: a house in Ena that he bought Lae summer with
Speaker 3: a VA loan. But now that he's free of the
Speaker 3: self imposed restraint of running for office, maybe he leans
Speaker 3: into it and becomes this guy.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to and
Speaker 3: he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he
Speaker 3: goes full throttle and tries to get back into movement organizing.
Speaker 3: I think his failure to come out and really celebrate
Speaker 3: the movement and really own it and say yes, I
Speaker 3: said that stuff and it's good. I think that failure
Speaker 3: as they would perceive it, would hurt him a little
Speaker 3: bit if he tries to re enter the movement, but
Speaker 3: not so badly that he couldn't do it. You know,
Speaker 3: they're so desperate for new material that they would probably
Speaker 3: embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of
Speaker 3: the month.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then
Speaker 2: the falling off the roof thing, and then.
Speaker 3: You know he's that they're doing the work himself. He
Speaker 3: doesn't even have a contracting license. I checked.
Speaker 2: I hope he hires someone who is like a very
Speaker 2: large person and they fall off and are okay because
Speaker 2: they land on him. That's that's I think where I'm.
Speaker 3: Going here, And to be clear, that's Robert speaking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is, But that is also the official
Speaker 2: opinion of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3: Mean, I don't know that he's he's made any great pronouncements.
Speaker 3: He hasn't showed up on any Nazi podcast yet. I
Speaker 3: will put ten dollars on a bet that says he will.
Speaker 3: He'll be on somebody's podcast by the end of the month.
Speaker 3: I don't doubt it. But hopefully he just does roofing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stick to roofing.
Speaker 3: As for ENID, you know, they want a battle that
Speaker 3: they shouldn't have had to fight. It should be kind
Speaker 3: of a no brainer that we don't elect guys like this.
Speaker 3: That's becoming less certain every day, Like the fact that
Speaker 3: there was any question about how the recall might go
Speaker 3: is concerning. We shouldn't be in a position of wondering
Speaker 3: will people vote for the guy who won't deny he
Speaker 3: loves Hitler. But I think we can applaud the tenacity
Speaker 3: of the folks in Enan who did what was necessary
Speaker 3: in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: and there's there's lessons to be learned here. Go to
Speaker 3: the meetings, get a seed in city council chambers, go
Speaker 3: to the library board meeting, go to the school board meeting.
Speaker 3: You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means,
Speaker 3: but be in the room because nobody's going to change
Speaker 3: the world on their own. And maybe changing the world
Speaker 3: isn't even a meaningful objective. I don't know what that means. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but today, maybe there's something you can do with your
Speaker 3: neighbors to stop the rising tide in your town. You
Speaker 3: can't change the weather, but you can put down some sandbags,
Speaker 3: and there are jud blevins is everywhere, hiding behind mealymouthed
Speaker 3: rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your local institutions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's doable fighting the juds Blevin of I
Speaker 2: chose a different way to Pluraliza's name of your wherever
Speaker 2: you live, your state, your city. Like is doable, And
Speaker 2: it's doable if you stick to this very simple platform
Speaker 2: of like, but not a Nazi. Right, we can agree
Speaker 2: not a Nazi.
Speaker 3: You know, if conservatives have any if conservatives had any sense,
Speaker 3: they could retake a lot of ground by saying, like,
Speaker 3: you know, we love all the stuff you love, fellow conservatives,
Speaker 3: but we're not that guy, right, Like, if they had
Speaker 3: any if they had any pride, they would stop pandering
Speaker 3: to the lunatic fringe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is just kind of looking at how
Speaker 2: congressional race is shaping up, where it seemed like it
Speaker 2: should have been pretty easy for them to retake the House.
Speaker 2: But you know, now they're kind of like flailing a
Speaker 2: little bit, in part because they keep backing these maniacs
Speaker 2: who just aren't good.
Speaker 3: I don't really believe that those ideas are popular. They
Speaker 3: just have fallen into this trap of thinking like this
Speaker 3: is the only way to win. So I guess I
Speaker 3: have to do it.
Speaker 2: But you trying to send it not that house anyway, whatever,
Speaker 2: We'll cut that.
Speaker 3: Who cares about those guys? Yeah, but you don't have
Speaker 3: to do it, right, Be the Sheeryl Batterson you want
Speaker 3: to see in the world. Yeah, and just be a
Speaker 3: milk toast Republican and be the Nazi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least. I don't know. I'm mixed because, like
Speaker 2: I do, I do like it when the Republicans fail
Speaker 2: over much, but I also feel like it's bad to
Speaker 2: take the bet of like, well, if we hope for
Speaker 2: more Nazis that push people away from the Republicans, maybe
Speaker 2: it'll work for us in the long run statistically that
Speaker 2: that kind of gamble is real dangerous. That's yeah. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's Enid. That's ined baby.
Speaker 3: Good work in Congratulations to the end Social Justice Committee. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I'm yeah, very impressed.
Speaker 2: You get our our coveted Oklahoma City of the Month award,
Speaker 2: which is confusing because you are very near Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2: But they shouldn't have named it that. Oh that's all I.
Speaker 3: Got, That's all I got. Yeah, I was just trying
Speaker 3: to put a button. I'm trying to put a button
Speaker 3: on that bad boy. But uh yeah that's Oklahoma, baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you, Good for Oklahoma.
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