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