September 4, 2025 • 43 mins
In 2017, Judd Blevins marched in Charlottesville with men chanting 'you will not replace us.' In 2024, voters in Enid, Oklahoma replaced him - a recall election removed him from office as a city commissioner. During his short time in office, members of the American Freedom Party rallied to support him.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello listeners, Molly here. This isn't exactly a new new
episode strictly speaking, but you probably haven't heard it before,
and it does tie into the story from last week
and the episode you'll hear next week. I had a
minor family emergency this week. Everything's fine, no need to worry.
(00:31):
It just meant that the timing didn't quite work out
on the episode that I thought you'd be listening to
this week. Plus, if you're listening to this the day
it showed up in your feed, it's my birthday today,
so you can't be mad at me. The story you're
going to hear today was originally an episode of another show.
(00:52):
It could happen here. I recorded it back in April
of twenty twenty four, so a year and a half
ago before the first episode of Weird Little Guys even existed,
although listening back to it now, we must have already
named the show by that point, because you'll hear Robert
make a joke about it. Time flies, I guess. The
(01:15):
subject of this story is a man named Judd Blevins,
a one time regional organizer in the now defunct white
supremacist organization Identity Europa. Blevins won a seat on the Enid,
Oklahoma City Council in twenty twenty three, and then he
lost that seat in a recall election in the spring
of twenty twenty four, and you'll hear about that in
(01:36):
the episode. But the tie in here, the reason I'm
replaying this old episode on this show this week is
one brief, tiny mention. About two thirds of the way
through the episode, when a resolution came before the Enid
City Council to censure Blevins, a group called the American
(01:58):
Freedom Party encouraged its members to write letters to the
other Enid City commissioners expressing their support for Blevins. But
what's not there in this episode is just how vocal
the American Freedom Party was and their support. The executive
director of the party shared information about how to call
(02:19):
into the city's public meetings to speak in support of Blevins.
The party's board of directors issued an official statement supporting Blevins.
The last two episodes of this show have been about
Marilyn Miller's twenty twelve run for president as the candidate
for the American Third Position Party. Almost immediately after that election,
(02:41):
the party rebranded and they've been called the American Freedom
Party ever since. And when I left you last week,
I said the group was pretty inactive for a few years,
but they've recently been trying to make a comeback. And
as I was doing the research to tell that part
of the story, I listened to hours of interviews the
(03:03):
party's current executive director has given on White Nationalists podcasts
over the last few years. Their current quest for relevance
has come with a bit of a strategy shift. The
face of the party is now a young man calling
himself John Faspender. That's not his real name, but we'll
get to that. In several podcast appearances Fastpender made in
(03:27):
twenty twenty three, so shortly after jud Blevens was elected,
he's talking a big game about how the party plans
to run candidates for state and local offices all over
the country. They didn't. That was two years ago. I
can tell you now that didn't happen. And in those
interviews he never gives any names. He never says what
(03:50):
cities or states this is going to happen in. He
never even names a particular office a party member plans
to run for. The only name he ever uses is
jud Blevins. Although Blevins was elected as a Republican, and
Fassbender occasionally remembers to mention that Blevins is not a
(04:11):
member of the American Freedom Party, but he is a
personal friend. The pair had known each other for years,
and they met when they were both members of Identity Europa.
That sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole
looking at the surprisingly close relationship between the American Freedom
(04:34):
Party and Identity Europa. But again, we'll get to that
for now. This week. Here's a little side story I
would otherwise have tried to shoehorn into an episode that
undoubtedly will already have too many tangents. See you next week.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Welcome back to It Could Happen Here a podcast about
things falling apart. And when things fall apart, one of
the things that happens is you get a bunch of
a lot of opportunities for a lot of weird little guys,
a lot of a lot of Nazis and other kinds
of scums start, you know, sliding up to the surface
in the hopes that they can get some of the sweet,
(05:19):
sweet oxygen of collapse. And that's why we've brought onto
the program and are bringing into the network our good
friend Molly Conger for a little recurrence series. I like
to call look who's stalking? That was the That was
the stocking joke. I'm wanted to open the episode with
my own journey.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I'm not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That
is a crime. This is reporting.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
It is reporting, and the line between reporting and stalking
always clear, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I think it's it's on the publication. Yeah, yeah, so, Robert,
Today's topic is such a perfect mashup of so many
of my favorite things. It couldn't be more my speed
unless this whole story took place on a Wiener dog ranch. Right.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This story has city council meetings that got rowdy. It
has unite the right attendee getting docks. It has the
internal calms of a hate group getting leaked. It has
regular ass people putting their foot down about hate in
their town. It is a year's long arc of one
man's journey from fucking around to finding out his evolution,
from chanting you will not replace us to getting replaced
(06:28):
at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid, Oklahoma,
Ward one City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh my god, Ah we're going back to my old home.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's why you spent some time in Oklahoma as a kid.
So so, jud Levins was raised in the town of
en in Oklahoma, and the listener, you'd be forgiven for
thinking this is the story of a small town. And
I'll be honest, I did. I'd never heard of Enid,
but you grew up in the area. Do you have
any sort of pre existing notions of Garfield County? Uh?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, I mean Enid was like a bigger play. I
grew up in Ida Bell, which was really out in
the sticks, so kind of everywhere was more civilization than
Ida Bell, but Enid certainly was, although not much. No
one would no one would accuse it of much civilization.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It is apparently the ninth largest city in Oklahoma, which
was surprising to me. It's an hour and a half
outside of Oklahoma City, seventy six percent white, sixty percent Republican,
and according to a twenty twenty one article on Yahoo
News that reads like it was written by an intoxicated chatbot,
it is ranked one of the most conservative cities in
the country.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, that all scans for Enid, Jared, Now that scans
for a lot of cities in Oklahoma, mind you.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right, they could have named any of them. Yeah, but
it has a population of about fifty thousand, which is
actually the same size as Charlottesville, my hometown and a
city that Johnson Blevins happened to visit in the summer
of twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, the former US Marine
moved back to his hometown to work at his father's
roofing business. In twenty nineteen, he was publicly identified as
(08:05):
a regional leader in a white supremacist organization, and in
twenty twenty two he announced he was running for office.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I mean that all that's a very Oklahoma politician route.
It's also like a not a white like from from
roofing to white supremacy, not a wildly uncommon route for
people to take in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Now he's still doing both.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh good. I mean, you never want to give up
on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Although some of his supporters have pointed out that he
hires lots of non white people to do manual labor,
so how could he be racist?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, I mean, you don't want to get up on
those roofs yourself. That's dangerous. It's Harry. Yeah, it's hot out. Yeah,
this is all pretty Oklahoma so far.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
On February fourteenth, twenty twenty three, jud Levins narrowly won
a seat on the Eden City Council, defeating the incumbent
by just thirty six votes. His past ties the now
defunct white supremacist group Identity Europa were no secret. Of course,
by twenty twenty three, Identity Eurooba didn't exist anymore. So
I don't blame you if you don't have a clear
memory of exactly what kind of Nazi group they were.
(09:08):
And I want to make it very clear. I don't
want time distance and white polo shirts to soften this.
Identity Europa was a neo Nazi organization.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Oh yeah. They were also just like the most infiltrated
group of the Trump era. Like of all the Nazi
orgs and the Trump era, I feel like they were
the one where every week someone else got inside their coms.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, I guess Bluvin's maybe part to blame for that
as the regional coordinator.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Oh good, so he was doing a great job.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But Identity Europa was modeled after the far right French
identitarian movement and sought the creation of a white ethno state.
You will not replace us. Chance you remember from Unite
the Right were actually popularized by Identity Europa at their
rallies earlier that year, and, according to testimony from a
former girlfriend, one time Identity Europa leader Elliot Klein considered
himself quote an unironic exterminationist. He had violent fantasies about
(10:02):
killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys hanging
out right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Identity Europa was founded in twenty sixteen by Nathan Dimigo,
a former marine who went to prison after drunkenly pulling
a gun on a cab driver for quote looking iraqi.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well that gets at least he's honest.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
But while he was doing his time, he read David
Duke's autobiography.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh and he had an.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Awakening, right, he read My Awakening and he had an
awakening in prison?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Know, you go to prison for a hay crime, you
read a little David Duke, you get some ideas.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Man, it it's not a good book. Like, that's my
thing about having David Duke's autobiography be like your life
changing event is a It's not even a good book. Right,
which I guess neither was mind comp but I feel
like everyone's lying about that one.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So according to some this is so off the beaten path.
Here this is, I have to say it. According to
some payments that came out in a divorce proceeding, David
Duke made payments to Kevin Strome for ghostwriting it. Kevin
Strome is the pedophile who actually said that thing that
people think full terror said about the Jews.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh cool, yeah great.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So just something to think about when you're reading David
Duke's autobiography in prison.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I guess, I mean, I guess I had wondered what
happens to pedophiles, like when they're back out in the world,
like how do you get.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Wife?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No that was before that was yeah, no he's got
a kid now, so.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Oh what, No, he shouldn't do that. Okay, great, not a.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Loved to live near a school. But I guess they
can't stop you from procreating.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Anyway, back to our friend Nate. Right, So, Nathan Amigo
gets out of prison, makes his own hate group. You
may also remember him as the guy who bravely beat
the shit out of a ninety five pound woman at
the rally in Berkeley in April of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Oh yeah, and they memed.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
The hell out of that. They squeezed it for all
it was worth that they used that image of him
beating that woman in the street for promotion and recruitment.
Dimigo himself touted a spike in membership applications, which he
attributed to the popularity of the video. Identity Europa was
heavily involved in the Summer of Hate, that rash of
violent white supremacist rallies across the country in twenty seventeen.
They were instrumental in planning as Unite the Right rally.
(12:30):
But when the group's discord server was leaked in March
of twenty nineteen and published in full by Unicorn Riot,
their leader at the time, Patrick Casey, quickly announced a rebrand,
Identity Europa is no more. They were the American Identity
Movement now, much to the displeasure of the American Indian Movement,
whose acronym they stole. But the rebrand was not successful
and the group died out completely in twenty twenty, and
(12:52):
Casey tried to pretend the rebrand wasn't just an attempt
to escape the fallout of the leak, but it really
was the leak that killed Identity Europa. At least seven
active duty military members were identified in the league. A
school resource officer at a high school in Virginia was suspended,
a Minnesota National Guardsman was recalled from basic training. So
jud Levins was just one of dozens of members of
the group to be identified in those chatlogs. The work
(13:15):
of anti fascist researchers who identified Blevins and the leak
chats was corroborated and published in an article on right
Wing Watch by Jared Hult within weeks, and it's about
as solid as an idea as you could hope for
from a chatlog, or, depending on your position, the kind
of idea you really don't want. A user called Conway
was Identity Europa's regional coordinator for Oklahoma. He recruited and
(13:36):
vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops and social events,
and frequently posted pictures of the white supremacist propaganda he'd
been putting up, encouraging others to do the same, and
offering tips on how to create more effective visuals for
the group's online accounts in over eleven hundred posts over
a nearly two year period, he left a lot of clues.
(13:57):
He posted a link to an article in his hometown paper,
the Enid News and Eagle. He posted a photo of
a relative's baby, details about his parents' lineage, his plans
to move home to work for his father's business, and
in the lead up to the Unite the Right rally,
he excitedly shared the discord that he would be carrying
the original flag of the state of Oklahoma, a red
rectangle with the number forty six inside of a white star,
(14:19):
and photos from the rally show just one man carrying
that distinctive flag that was designed by a member of
the Daughters of the Confederacy, jud Levins. As he grew
into his role as regional coordinator for Identity Europa, he
coordinated member meetups, getting several guys from Oklahoma to drive
down to Texas for a get together. Conway posted about
the meetup, and photos posted by other attendees show Blevins
(14:42):
standing shoulder to shoulder with other members holding a large
Identity Europa banner. Conway even posted about his appearance on
a twenty eighteen episode of Identity Europa's podcast, where he
emphasized the importance of staying in the you will not
replace us mindset. So by the time he announced his
run for office twenty two, it had been over three
years since he'd been out at as Conway, the Hate
(15:04):
Group member who attended the Unite the Right rally.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And you could see why he would think it would work, right,
because that you will not replace us thing. It's become
like the mainstream Republican politics, right like this this ideology
has at least one in the Republican Party, but it's
also one divorced from these guys because even they are
(15:28):
like they're they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans,
like it's it's it's remarkable. But I also get why
he thought this would work.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I think, I mean, I don't know what his
connection remained to other members of IE after it dissolved,
but towards the end of it, as it was dying, right,
So under Elliott Klein, you know, Klein wanted to make
a militia for Richard Spencer. He wanted to you know,
build IE into a fighting force. But under Patrick Casey,
they sort of moved back towards we should be trying
(15:58):
to influence inside of politics. We should be going to
colleges and getting, you know, conservative students to become more
base right. So this is a rational course of conduct,
I think for where he was in twenty nineteen when
Identity Europa died, But in any case, by twenty twenty two,
anybody in Enid you could read his posts praising Hitler
(16:21):
and celebrating Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart
of the jew his words. You could see pictures of
him at Unite the Right, both on the morning of
the twelfth in the park and the evening of the
eleventh with a torch. You could see pictures of him
going to Texas for Ie meetups. You could see the
dozens and dozens of photos he posted in the discord
of Nazi posters and stickers he had put up on
(16:42):
telephone polls and college bulletin boards across Oklahoma, and the
posts where he reveled in the media coverage of the
recruitment materials he left inside library books. His hometown newspaper,
the Enid News and Eagle, ran an article about the allegations,
which he never denied, a month before the election, and
without ever having to give a straight answer on the issue.
(17:03):
He won, and that could have been the end of
the story. Right. You know, we've seen this trend in
the last few years of these radical right wing elements
trying to melt into the mainstream Republican party. You know,
we've got these horrible little gropers working in congressional staff positions,
and you know nazis going to spack and not getting ejected.
They're getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
An account tied to Blevins that he recently for the
first time denied this was him. It's him. This has
been widely reported. It was a Twitter account called at
Abolish Journalism posted in twenty nineteen quote Stets. I agree
with the argument GOP cannot be changed from the bottom up. However,
I do not believe in discouraging our guys from getting
(17:48):
elected into smaller offices such as city council, county commissioner,
or even state legislators. Basically positions where one can fly
under the radar yet still be effective. And that's what
this is. Right, This isn't a guy who got out
of White Nationals organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became
a local politician. No, he said years before he did
(18:11):
this that this was a good idea that he had.
You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions
and beliefs. I regret bringing an active recruiter for a
hate group. He just changed the way he was doing it.
And he said countless opportunities to be clear about what
he believes today and whether that's different from the beliefs
he espoused between twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, and he won't.
He won't say I no longer identify with the posts
(18:33):
I made when I was enthusiastically posting the fourteen words.
And that's probably because he just found a better way
to do it. But there were people in Enid, Oklahoma
who saw right through that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, this is where the story takes a turn that like,
I don't know, it made me hopeful because the first
time I ever met a klansman was you know, in Oklahoma.
It was the dad of a friend of mine, Like
he liked that this kid aged about it, and I
didn't know what a klansman was. And I had to
go to my parents and like be like, hey, so
(19:05):
you know, so and so said this about his dad,
what does that mean? And my mom was just like, well,
you're not allowed to go to his house anymore. That's
what that means.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Uses Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
If this like, if this guy had like if shit
had gone well for him, I guess that would have
been my assumption. But that's that was my assumption based
on me not giving a fair shake to Enid, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Right, And I think that's you know, what's what's so
remarkable about this story is people didn't think Oklahoma could
do it, But you know who can accomplish everything they
set out to do?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Uh huh. That's right, these sponsors, all of whom are
available in Enid, Oklahoma, and we're back. Okay, alrighty, so
(20:01):
I'm happy to hear. Yeah. The next part of this.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Levins took office in May of twenty twenty three. Local
election law requires a six month wait between being sworn
in and when a recall attempt can be initiated, but
the residents who opposed Levins didn't wait quietly. A group
called the Enid Social Justice Committee protested his swearing in,
with some protesters holding posters bearing a photo of Blevins
(20:26):
holding a torch. At the August eleven, twenty seventeen Nazi
march at the University of Virginia. And now this I
didn't even think about it until I was writing this.
That what an incredible coincidence of timing. Right, So May
twenty twenty three, he's being sworn into office. It was
just I think maybe two weeks before he was sworn
in that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys
(20:49):
who are now facing felony charges for participating in that
torch march. Right, so it was we did an episode
on this a little bit ago. But if you're not
familiar that the guys who marched in that torch march
at EVA in twenty seventeen, some of them are now
being charged with a felony under Virginia law for burning
an object with intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort
of a law aimed at the Klan right, sort of
(21:12):
a crossburning type law. But they were burning, they have
these burning objects, and they were menacing people. It was
racially motivated. So they're being charged with this felony for
burning an object.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It does feel like that's yeah, a pretty good fit.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But so right as he's being sworn in you know,
these people are protesting his swearing in with this photo
of him with the torch, and a couple guys just
showed up in jail here in Charlottesville on that charge.
So it's it's just a remarkable cognitive dissonance, right to
see these people. Some of his supporters in Enid downplaying
the seriousness or even outright denying that Levin's attended this rally,
(21:49):
But the guys he was standing next to that day
are pleading guilty to felonies. You know, he's up there
voting on resolutions and passing ordinances about you know, storm
water management or whatever. I think one of his accomplishments
in office was getting a Texas roadhouse in Enid.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas
roadhouse anywhere as a my job.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Used to it might have been a Sizzler, I can't
remember something like that.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I would be much more excited for a Sizzler than
a Texas fucking roadhouse, I'll say that much.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
But you know he's up there getting a you know,
affordable chain steak restaurant and edid. But there's a non
zero chance that he could be arrested at any time
and extradited on a felony charge.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I mean, look, if if there's one thing that's appropriate
for the sizzler, it's knowing that the guy who put
that sizzler there could be arrested on a felony charge
at any moment.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You know, we don't know what the strategy is at
the prosecutor's office. Obviously they're not going to charge everybody
who is there. But it's on the table right Like
he's on video at that march with the torch in
his hand. He fits the criteria for the ten other
guys that have already gone to jail for this. But
in November of twenty twenty three, those six months had passed,
recalls on the table now and before the group made
(23:03):
the final push to actually file for the recall, they
made an offer of reconciliation. All Blevin's has to do
is acknowledge the truth, denounce his past actions, just own
up to it, start making amends. Just say yes I
did that, No, I don't do it anymore. And he
can't do it. Throughout this entire ordeal, he's never owned
(23:24):
up to it. There are pictures and video and his
own words across multiple online accounts. There's no plausible deniability here.
There's no saying, well, maybe that's not him. You know
it's him, so just admit it and say you're not
that guy anymore. But he has consistently refused to even
acknowledge it right on several occasions, you know, when really pressed,
(23:45):
he dismisses that twenty nineteen article by Jared Holt as
quote a hit piece posted four years ago by a
George Soros funded leftist outlet, calling it smears and slander.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I'm being judged simply for the things I chose to do.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I thought this was America. But he won't actually deny
specific facts. You know, he won't say that isn't me
in the photo, or I did not participate in that,
or I did not post those nice things about Hitler.
He just attacks the people saying it. And while Levens
has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of
his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in
(24:30):
November of last year, a woman speaking in support of
Levins said the allegations weren't credible as they came from
organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear
conservative Christians.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
First of all, the SPLC didn't publish it. It was
right wing Watch Yah, Huffington Post, but whenever Susan And
it was at that same meeting that the council declined
to even vote on a resolution to censure Blevins. The
council was putting forth the resolute to say we don't
agree with what that guy did. You know, it wasn't
like punishing him. It didn't actually strip him any powers.
(25:07):
He didn't do anything except say the rest of us
we don't like that. And they could, they wouldn't even
vote on it. It got tabled. And at that meeting, Commissioner
Derwin Norwood, the only black member of Enid City Council,
offered Blevins his forgiveness and gave him a big hug
and told him he loved him great. Levins never apologized, right,
(25:28):
you can't forgive someone who hasn't apologized. He had never
and still has never apologized. And he was pretty clear
on where he stands on apology, saying, I am not
going to apologize for the lies that others tell yeah,
it was a great meeting. I watched it from home.
I had you know, I love I love a meeting.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Oh yeah, no, that's uh. I mean, I don't understand it,
but I respect it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So, with their peace offering roundly rejected by an unapologetic Blevins,
they moved forward the recall. The Enid Social Justice Committee
gathered enough signatures to put it to a vote, and
in January, Cheryl Patterson threw her hat into the ring
to replace Blevins. And to be clear, this is still Enid, Oklahoma,
where sixty percent of voters are registered Republicans. This wasn't
(26:16):
some liberal coup. Patterson is also a lifelong Republican candidate
formed the week before the election, Patterson was quick to
say like right off the bat, the second she opened
her mouth, she said, contrary to the rumor, I was
not recruited by the Enid Social Justice Committee. And she said,
you know, she'd been thinking about running for a while.
She loves Enid, but she was pushed to action by
(26:37):
her opponent's inability to clearly denounce his past involvement with
a white supremacist group. And it is remarkable right to
see conservative Republicans in the South saying like that Nazi
stuff is too much for me.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, I mean, and that's like, that's actually an important
part of turning this shit back is get it these
people who are otherwise conservative to draw a line and
actually hold to it, because it at least arrests that
right word momentum to an extent. And we're just not
going to get out of this unless we have some
(27:13):
of that right.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I'm not living in a you know, in a fantasy
land where the city of Enid, Oklahoma is represented by
a council of six socialists, Like that's not on the table.
I accept that, but at least their Republicans can say, ah,
the fourteen words is like not my vibe.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, literally, participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is
a line for us, and I'm glad there's a line.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So you know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
She says she was inspired to run for office because
he not because of what he did, but because he
couldn't even denounce it, right that, you know, people can
grow and change. I pray that his heart moves, but
he's unable to even denounce it, and he really does
seem incapable. The very first question at that forum the
week before the election is about this Obviously a lot
(28:02):
of the questions were, and he gave another non denial, right,
he said, this election is about the next three years
of this city, not about organizations that disbanded five years ago.
But he went on to say that he would quote
gladly plead guilty to speaking out against what is being
done to this country and the anti white hatred in
the media. So he tries to talk around the issue, saying,
(28:26):
you know, he was just advocating for the same policies
that got Donald Trump elected. But it's not like he
was on the local Republican committee, right, He wasn't working
on a GOP campaign. He was an organizer for a
group that supported those policies of the Trump administration explicitly
because they believe those policies were a stepping stone towards
the full Nazification of American politics.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You know, the relationship between those two things troubling concerning.
But you can't pretend there's no difference between voting Republican
and holding a torch at the Nazi parade. And that's
what he trying to do here. He's trying to blur
that lines. You know, I'm just being punished for being
a proud conservative, and it's like, which which part right?
(29:09):
People who's you know? People who want free speech, and
it's like, well, which word do you want to say?
And at no point during this recall campaign, from when
they announced it in November to the election two weeks
ago now, at no point during this recall campaign did
he publicly denounce any of the white supremacists who supported him.
Outlets like v Dare, a white nationalist publication run by
(29:30):
an English born anti immigration race scientists who lives in
a castle in West Virginia, wrote fawning editorials which were
promoted by prominent white nationalists, including Identity Europa founder Nathan Dimigo.
Fascist telegram channels provided guidance to subscribers about Oklahoma's campaign
finance laws, which would allow them to donate to Blevins's
campaign anonymously as long as they kept it under fifty dollars.
(29:55):
According to reporting by Christmathias and Huntington Post, a man
in Texas who runs a business with a known Patriot
Front member donated nearly two thousand dollars to the campaign,
which made up the bulk of the donated cash. And
you might give him the benefit of the doubt and say, well,
maybe he didn't know he was being endorsed by some
of the largest elements in organized white supremacy in America.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Sure, but he did. He did know.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
As a member of the city council. He definitely saw
the letters that were addressed to the city Council in
support of Blevins from the American Freedom Party, an explicitly
white supremacist political party that occasionally runs a Nazi for president.
But he said nothing. And when a constituent, father James Neil,
asked him directly why his campaign was funded by members
of Patriot Front, he told the priest to quote, shut
(30:41):
up again. He chose the company of neo Nazis, Holocaust deniers,
white supremacists, white nationalists, and ethno state enthusiasts. How can
you expect people to believe you're not that guy anymore
when you have their public praise, their endorsement, and their
money in your pocket. But you know who does not
have two thousand dollars in cash from Patriot Front in
(31:03):
their pockets?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
No, Now, they keep that shit in the back. I mean,
they don't have it. Here's here's our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
So on April second, that's two weeks ago now as
we're recording, the people of Enid returned to the polls
and jud Blevins was voted out of office as Ward
one city commissioner by a vote of eight hundred and
twenty nine to five sixty one. And I don't know
if you're a math guy. I'm not a math guy.
I a calculator out for this bad boy. But this
turnout was significantly larger than the vote that put him
(31:46):
into office. A seventy two percent increase in total votes.
That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot more people who
showed up to you know, an off cycle special election.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's specific weird.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And unlike the slim margin of just thirty six votes
that won him the twenty twenty three election, he lost
the recall by nearly twenty points. That's his spankin. You know,
it's hard to chalk a loss like that up to
a lunatic fringe, right, That's that's the electorate speaking. But
Matthew Gibert, a former State Department employee who lost his
job for failing to disclose his active involvement in white
(32:22):
supremacist organizing, noted in his Telegram Channel that while the
loss is disappointing, an open white nationalist winning forty percent
of the vote is quote nothing to despair over. And
you never got a hand out to the guy who
hosts a podcast about the joys of Nazi fatherhood or whatever. Yeah,
but the numbers are what they are. You know, he
(32:44):
did win forty percent of the vote, and this was
after months of very public debate in the national spotlight
that made it impossible not to know what the allegations were.
And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who
would walk into the voting booth and put their check
mark next to wherever the letter R was. Right in
this election, the other name on the ticket was a
(33:06):
Republican too, Like, these were people who walked in there
and knowingly and intentionally cast their vote for a guy
who used to vet new members for a Nazi club.
This isn't a fairy tale, it's reality, right. This wasn't
an offensive win by progress or the left or what
have you. This was an effective defense and I hope
(33:26):
conservatives can see a little lesson here, right, Like the
story is too often one of ever ratcheting extremism. You
can only win if you go further, if you go wilder,
if you're appealing to the people who are on the
absolute extreme end of what's acceptable to say in the party.
But this was a case where a fellow conservative said, Hey,
I want to take some books out of the library too.
I'm not a liberal, but we just can't be out
(33:48):
here saying the fourteen words, right. And I think some
of the buzz around this story comes from people in
bigger cities or bluer states. I mean, honestly, I'm guilty
of this as well, who were shocked that, you know,
purple haired liberals and progressive clergy even exist in a
place like Enid, Oklahoma. But this red state blue state
dichotomy is a myth. Most places are purple, most places
(34:13):
are sixty forty. Even in places that reliably one hundred
percent of the time vote Republican, there's still a large
minority of people who are not represented by that. So
even in a place like Enid, which is Republican at
the polls, you have a pretty big chunk of the
population isn't represented on that two colored map. That doesn't
(34:33):
mean they don't care. And when I watched those Enid
City Council meetings. I saw Charlottesville, right, I've gone to
every city council meeting in Charlesville for the last seven years. Like,
I know what it looks like for people in a
town that size to show up and say, what the fuck,
what the fuck are you doing to us?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, you know it looked like one of our meetings.
You know. I saw regular people, moms and students and
grandmas and teachers and ladies who bring up to the
church bake sale, people who know that their town can
do better than to be represented by a guy who
won't apologize for attending the largest Nazi rally on US
soil in our lifetimes.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Yeah, and I feel a lot for the folks who
are kind of not represented by either of the two
big lines on the political map, and maybe most of
the time feel like I don't know what the fuck
I can actually do or should do, but I know
this Nazi shouldn't be in office.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So these were just these were just regular people. These
weren't party apperatics or you know, this wasn't the Democrat
Party doing this, as wasn't the Republican Party doing this.
These were just people who didn't think that a Nazi
should be their city commissioner. And that's I think another
myth at clay here, right, is that that activist is
some sort of separate class of person, that there is
(35:49):
some portion of the population whose only goal in life
is this nebulous, nefarious thing called activism. That you know,
it's sort of this boogeyman of the professional troublemaker. And
throughout this process, Levin's and his supporters have smeared the
group organizing the recall, the Ined Social Justice Committee, is
some kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks,
They're not like us. They're coming for our children. His
(36:12):
recall campaign website called the petitioners an unhinged group of
left wing fringe activists. And the campaign website didn't say
what he could do for you. It attacked the petitioners
and said this is what they will do to you.
And I've seen this in my own city council meetings, right,
this sort of bizarre tendency of those in power to
write off the people they don't want to hear from
(36:34):
as activists. Well, those those are people we need to
listen to. Those are activists. That's a different kind of
person anyone who's asking for something they don't want to do,
something that's uncomfortable, something that requires them to look inward
or look at the structures they're upholding. They undergo this
instant metamorphosis from constituent to activists. This is no longer
(36:55):
a voter or a constituent. This is a crazy person.
This person isn't your nigh anymore. They're an activist.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I think you know, there are people who wear that
mantle proudly, and why shouldn't they. It's a usually positive thing.
But the use of the word as some sort of
delegitimizing cudgel is so consistent that I think it's worth
thinking about when it gets used against the recipient's will. Yeah,
and there's no ending to this story, right, because this
(37:27):
is never really over. It is happening here, it is
happening there. And I don't know what's next for Blevins.
Maybe he just smelts quietly back into society and puts
roofs on houses. A week after the recall, he filed
paperwork to change the name of his dad's contracting business
from Invincible Contracting to Great Planes Roofing. The paperwork filed
(37:47):
shows that the company is now registered the company is
now registered. His address a house in Enid that he
bought last summer with a VA loan. But now that
he's free of the self imposed restraint of running for office,
maybe he leans into it and becomes this guy. Right,
Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to, and
he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he
(38:10):
goes full throttle and tries to get back into movement organizing.
I think his failure to come out and really celebrate
the movement and really own it and say yes, I
said that stuff and it's good. I think that failure
as they would perceive it, would hurt him a little
bit if he tries to re enter the movement, but
not so badly that he couldn't do it. You know,
(38:31):
they're so desperate for new material that they would probably
embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of
the month. Yeah, hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then
the falling off the roof thing, and then you.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Know he's that they're doing the work himself. He doesn't
even have a contracting license. I checked.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I hope he hires someone who is like a very
large person and they fall off and are okay because
they land on him. That's I think where I'm going here.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
And to be clear, that's Robert speaking.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, that is, but that is also the official
opinion of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
But I don't know that he's he's made any great pronouncements.
He hasn't showed up on any Nazi podcast yet. I
will put ten dollars on a bet that says he will.
He'll be on somebody's podcast by the end of the month.
I don't doubt it. But hopefully he just does roofing.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, stick to roofing.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
As for ENID, you know, they want a battle that
they shouldn't have had to fight. It should be kind
of a no brainer that we don't elect guys like this.
That's becoming less certain every day, Like the fact that
there was any question about how the recall might go
is concerning. We shouldn't be in a position of wondering
will people vote for the guy who won't deny he
loves Hitler. But I think we can applaud the tenacity
(39:49):
of the folks in ENID who did what was necessary
in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know,
and there's lessons to be learned here. Go to the meetings,
get a seed in city council chambers, go to the
line ibory board meeting, go to the school board meeting.
You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means,
but being the new because nobody's going to change the
world on your own, and maybe changing the world is
(40:12):
even a meaningful objective. I don't know what that means. Yeah,
but today, maybe there's something you can do with your
neighbors to stop the rising tide in your town. You
can't change the weather, but you can put down some sandbags.
And there are jud blevins Is everywhere, hiding behind mealy
mouthed rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your
(40:36):
local institutions.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, so it's doable, fighting the juds Blevin of I
chose a different way to pluralize's name of your wherever
you live, your state, your city. Like is doable, and
it's doable if you stick to this very simple platform
of like. But not a nazi? Right an agree? Not
(41:00):
a nazi?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
You know, if conservatives have any if conservatives had any sense,
they could retake a lot of ground by saying, like,
you know, we love all the stuff you love, fellow conservatives,
but we're not that guy, right, Like, if they had
any if they had any pride, they would stop pandering
to the lunatic fringe.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah, and it is just kind of looking at how
congressional race is shaping up, where it seemed like it
should have been pretty easy for them to retake the House.
But you know, now they're kind of like flailing a
little bit, in part because they keep backing these maniacs
who just aren't good. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I don't really believe that those ideas are popular. They
just have fallen into this trap of thinking like this
is the only way to win. So I guess I
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
But you'll send it not that house anyway, whatever, we'll
cut that.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Who cares about those guys? Yeah, but you don't have
to do it, right, Be the Sheeryl Batterson you want
to see in the world. Yeah, and just be a
milk toast Republican and be the Nazi.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, at least, I don't know. I'm mixed because, like
I do, I do like it when the Republicans fail
over much, but I also feel like it's bad to
take the bet of like, well, if we hope for
more Nazis that push people away from the Republicans, maybe
it'll work for us in the long run. Statistically that
(42:29):
that kind of gamble is real dangerous. Yeah, yeah, that's Enid,
that's inened baby, good working.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Congratulations to the end Social Justice Committee. Honestly, I'm yeah
very impressed.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
You get our coveted Oklahoma City of the Month award,
which is confusing because you are very near Oklahoma City.
But they shouldn't have named it that. Well, that's all
I got. That's all I got.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, I was I was just trying to put a button.
I'm trying to put a button on that bad boy.
But uh yeah that's Oklahoma baby.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah, good for you, Good for Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello listeners, Molly here. This isn't exactly a new new
episode strictly speaking, but you probably haven't heard it before,
and it does tie into the story from last week
and the episode you'll hear next week. I had a
minor family emergency this week. Everything's fine, no need to worry.
(00:31):
It just meant that the timing didn't quite work out
on the episode that I thought you'd be listening to
this week. Plus, if you're listening to this the day
it showed up in your feed, it's my birthday today,
so you can't be mad at me. The story you're
going to hear today was originally an episode of another show.
(00:52):
It could happen here. I recorded it back in April
of twenty twenty four, so a year and a half
ago before the first episode of Weird Little Guys even existed,
although listening back to it now, we must have already
named the show by that point, because you'll hear Robert
make a joke about it. Time flies, I guess. The
(01:15):
subject of this story is a man named Judd Blevins,
a one time regional organizer in the now defunct white
supremacist organization Identity Europa. Blevins won a seat on the Enid,
Oklahoma City Council in twenty twenty three, and then he
lost that seat in a recall election in the spring
of twenty twenty four, and you'll hear about that in
(01:36):
the episode. But the tie in here, the reason I'm
replaying this old episode on this show this week is
one brief, tiny mention. About two thirds of the way
through the episode, when a resolution came before the Enid
City Council to censure Blevins, a group called the American
(01:58):
Freedom Party encouraged its members to write letters to the
other Enid City commissioners expressing their support for Blevins. But
what's not there in this episode is just how vocal
the American Freedom Party was and their support. The executive
director of the party shared information about how to call
(02:19):
into the city's public meetings to speak in support of Blevins.
The party's board of directors issued an official statement supporting Blevins.
The last two episodes of this show have been about
Marilyn Miller's twenty twelve run for president as the candidate
for the American Third Position Party. Almost immediately after that election,
(02:41):
the party rebranded and they've been called the American Freedom
Party ever since. And when I left you last week,
I said the group was pretty inactive for a few years,
but they've recently been trying to make a comeback. And
as I was doing the research to tell that part
of the story, I listened to hours of interviews the
(03:03):
party's current executive director has given on White Nationalists podcasts
over the last few years. Their current quest for relevance
has come with a bit of a strategy shift. The
face of the party is now a young man calling
himself John Faspender. That's not his real name, but we'll
get to that. In several podcast appearances Fastpender made in
(03:27):
twenty twenty three, so shortly after jud Blevens was elected,
he's talking a big game about how the party plans
to run candidates for state and local offices all over
the country. They didn't. That was two years ago. I
can tell you now that didn't happen. And in those
interviews he never gives any names. He never says what
(03:50):
cities or states this is going to happen in. He
never even names a particular office a party member plans
to run for. The only name he ever uses is
jud Blevins. Although Blevins was elected as a Republican, and
Fassbender occasionally remembers to mention that Blevins is not a
(04:11):
member of the American Freedom Party, but he is a
personal friend. The pair had known each other for years,
and they met when they were both members of Identity Europa.
That sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole
looking at the surprisingly close relationship between the American Freedom
(04:34):
Party and Identity Europa. But again, we'll get to that
for now. This week. Here's a little side story I
would otherwise have tried to shoehorn into an episode that
undoubtedly will already have too many tangents. See you next week.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Welcome back to It Could Happen Here a podcast about
things falling apart. And when things fall apart, one of
the things that happens is you get a bunch of
a lot of opportunities for a lot of weird little guys,
a lot of a lot of Nazis and other kinds
of scums start, you know, sliding up to the surface
in the hopes that they can get some of the sweet,
(05:19):
sweet oxygen of collapse. And that's why we've brought onto
the program and are bringing into the network our good
friend Molly Conger for a little recurrence series. I like
to call look who's stalking? That was the That was
the stocking joke. I'm wanted to open the episode with
my own journey.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I'm not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That
is a crime. This is reporting.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
It is reporting, and the line between reporting and stalking
always clear, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I think it's it's on the publication. Yeah, yeah, so, Robert,
Today's topic is such a perfect mashup of so many
of my favorite things. It couldn't be more my speed
unless this whole story took place on a Wiener dog ranch. Right.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
This story has city council meetings that got rowdy. It
has unite the right attendee getting docks. It has the
internal calms of a hate group getting leaked. It has
regular ass people putting their foot down about hate in
their town. It is a year's long arc of one
man's journey from fucking around to finding out his evolution,
from chanting you will not replace us to getting replaced
(06:28):
at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid, Oklahoma,
Ward one City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Oh my god, Ah we're going back to my old home.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's why you spent some time in Oklahoma as a kid.
So so, jud Levins was raised in the town of
en in Oklahoma, and the listener, you'd be forgiven for
thinking this is the story of a small town. And
I'll be honest, I did. I'd never heard of Enid,
but you grew up in the area. Do you have
any sort of pre existing notions of Garfield County? Uh?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, I mean Enid was like a bigger play. I
grew up in Ida Bell, which was really out in
the sticks, so kind of everywhere was more civilization than
Ida Bell, but Enid certainly was, although not much. No
one would no one would accuse it of much civilization.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It is apparently the ninth largest city in Oklahoma, which
was surprising to me. It's an hour and a half
outside of Oklahoma City, seventy six percent white, sixty percent Republican,
and according to a twenty twenty one article on Yahoo
News that reads like it was written by an intoxicated chatbot,
it is ranked one of the most conservative cities in
the country.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, that all scans for Enid, Jared, Now that scans
for a lot of cities in Oklahoma, mind you.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Right, they could have named any of them. Yeah, but
it has a population of about fifty thousand, which is
actually the same size as Charlottesville, my hometown and a
city that Johnson Blevins happened to visit in the summer
of twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, the former US Marine
moved back to his hometown to work at his father's
roofing business. In twenty nineteen, he was publicly identified as
(08:05):
a regional leader in a white supremacist organization, and in
twenty twenty two he announced he was running for office.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I mean that all that's a very Oklahoma politician route.
It's also like a not a white like from from
roofing to white supremacy, not a wildly uncommon route for
people to take in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Now he's still doing both.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh good. I mean, you never want to give up
on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Although some of his supporters have pointed out that he
hires lots of non white people to do manual labor,
so how could he be racist?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, I mean, you don't want to get up on
those roofs yourself. That's dangerous. It's Harry. Yeah, it's hot out. Yeah,
this is all pretty Oklahoma so far.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
On February fourteenth, twenty twenty three, jud Levins narrowly won
a seat on the Eden City Council, defeating the incumbent
by just thirty six votes. His past ties the now
defunct white supremacist group Identity Europa were no secret. Of course,
by twenty twenty three, Identity Eurooba didn't exist anymore. So
I don't blame you if you don't have a clear
memory of exactly what kind of Nazi group they were.
(09:08):
And I want to make it very clear. I don't
want time distance and white polo shirts to soften this.
Identity Europa was a neo Nazi organization.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Oh yeah. They were also just like the most infiltrated
group of the Trump era. Like of all the Nazi
orgs and the Trump era, I feel like they were
the one where every week someone else got inside their coms.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, I guess Bluvin's maybe part to blame for that
as the regional coordinator.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Oh good, so he was doing a great job.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But Identity Europa was modeled after the far right French
identitarian movement and sought the creation of a white ethno state.
You will not replace us. Chance you remember from Unite
the Right were actually popularized by Identity Europa at their
rallies earlier that year, and, according to testimony from a
former girlfriend, one time Identity Europa leader Elliot Klein considered
himself quote an unironic exterminationist. He had violent fantasies about
(10:02):
killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys hanging
out right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
No.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Identity Europa was founded in twenty sixteen by Nathan Dimigo,
a former marine who went to prison after drunkenly pulling
a gun on a cab driver for quote looking iraqi.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Well that gets at least he's honest.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
But while he was doing his time, he read David
Duke's autobiography.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Oh and he had an.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Awakening, right, he read My Awakening and he had an
awakening in prison?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Know, you go to prison for a hay crime, you
read a little David Duke, you get some ideas.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Man, it it's not a good book. Like, that's my
thing about having David Duke's autobiography be like your life
changing event is a It's not even a good book. Right,
which I guess neither was mind comp but I feel
like everyone's lying about that one.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
So according to some this is so off the beaten path.
Here this is, I have to say it. According to
some payments that came out in a divorce proceeding, David
Duke made payments to Kevin Strome for ghostwriting it. Kevin
Strome is the pedophile who actually said that thing that
people think full terror said about the Jews.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh cool, yeah great.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
So just something to think about when you're reading David
Duke's autobiography in prison.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I guess, I mean, I guess I had wondered what
happens to pedophiles, like when they're back out in the world,
like how do you get.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Wife?
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
No that was before that was yeah, no he's got
a kid now, so.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Oh what, No, he shouldn't do that. Okay, great, not a.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Loved to live near a school. But I guess they
can't stop you from procreating.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Anyway, back to our friend Nate. Right, So, Nathan Amigo
gets out of prison, makes his own hate group. You
may also remember him as the guy who bravely beat
the shit out of a ninety five pound woman at
the rally in Berkeley in April of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Oh yeah, and they memed.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
The hell out of that. They squeezed it for all
it was worth that they used that image of him
beating that woman in the street for promotion and recruitment.
Dimigo himself touted a spike in membership applications, which he
attributed to the popularity of the video. Identity Europa was
heavily involved in the Summer of Hate, that rash of
violent white supremacist rallies across the country in twenty seventeen.
They were instrumental in planning as Unite the Right rally.
(12:30):
But when the group's discord server was leaked in March
of twenty nineteen and published in full by Unicorn Riot,
their leader at the time, Patrick Casey, quickly announced a rebrand,
Identity Europa is no more. They were the American Identity
Movement now, much to the displeasure of the American Indian Movement,
whose acronym they stole. But the rebrand was not successful
and the group died out completely in twenty twenty, and
(12:52):
Casey tried to pretend the rebrand wasn't just an attempt
to escape the fallout of the leak, but it really
was the leak that killed Identity Europa. At least seven
active duty military members were identified in the league. A
school resource officer at a high school in Virginia was suspended,
a Minnesota National Guardsman was recalled from basic training. So
jud Levins was just one of dozens of members of
the group to be identified in those chatlogs. The work
(13:15):
of anti fascist researchers who identified Blevins and the leak
chats was corroborated and published in an article on right
Wing Watch by Jared Hult within weeks, and it's about
as solid as an idea as you could hope for
from a chatlog, or, depending on your position, the kind
of idea you really don't want. A user called Conway
was Identity Europa's regional coordinator for Oklahoma. He recruited and
(13:36):
vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops and social events,
and frequently posted pictures of the white supremacist propaganda he'd
been putting up, encouraging others to do the same, and
offering tips on how to create more effective visuals for
the group's online accounts in over eleven hundred posts over
a nearly two year period, he left a lot of clues.
(13:57):
He posted a link to an article in his hometown paper,
the Enid News and Eagle. He posted a photo of
a relative's baby, details about his parents' lineage, his plans
to move home to work for his father's business, and
in the lead up to the Unite the Right rally,
he excitedly shared the discord that he would be carrying
the original flag of the state of Oklahoma, a red
rectangle with the number forty six inside of a white star,
(14:19):
and photos from the rally show just one man carrying
that distinctive flag that was designed by a member of
the Daughters of the Confederacy, jud Levins. As he grew
into his role as regional coordinator for Identity Europa, he
coordinated member meetups, getting several guys from Oklahoma to drive
down to Texas for a get together. Conway posted about
the meetup, and photos posted by other attendees show Blevins
(14:42):
standing shoulder to shoulder with other members holding a large
Identity Europa banner. Conway even posted about his appearance on
a twenty eighteen episode of Identity Europa's podcast, where he
emphasized the importance of staying in the you will not
replace us mindset. So by the time he announced his
run for office twenty two, it had been over three
years since he'd been out at as Conway, the Hate
(15:04):
Group member who attended the Unite the Right rally.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
And you could see why he would think it would work, right,
because that you will not replace us thing. It's become
like the mainstream Republican politics, right like this this ideology
has at least one in the Republican Party, but it's
also one divorced from these guys because even they are
(15:28):
like they're they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans,
like it's it's it's remarkable. But I also get why
he thought this would work.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I think, I mean, I don't know what his
connection remained to other members of IE after it dissolved,
but towards the end of it, as it was dying, right,
So under Elliott Klein, you know, Klein wanted to make
a militia for Richard Spencer. He wanted to you know,
build IE into a fighting force. But under Patrick Casey,
they sort of moved back towards we should be trying
(15:58):
to influence inside of politics. We should be going to
colleges and getting, you know, conservative students to become more
base right. So this is a rational course of conduct,
I think for where he was in twenty nineteen when
Identity Europa died, But in any case, by twenty twenty two,
anybody in Enid you could read his posts praising Hitler
(16:21):
and celebrating Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart
of the jew his words. You could see pictures of
him at Unite the Right, both on the morning of
the twelfth in the park and the evening of the
eleventh with a torch. You could see pictures of him
going to Texas for Ie meetups. You could see the
dozens and dozens of photos he posted in the discord
of Nazi posters and stickers he had put up on
(16:42):
telephone polls and college bulletin boards across Oklahoma, and the
posts where he reveled in the media coverage of the
recruitment materials he left inside library books. His hometown newspaper,
the Enid News and Eagle, ran an article about the allegations,
which he never denied, a month before the election, and
without ever having to give a straight answer on the issue.
(17:03):
He won, and that could have been the end of
the story. Right. You know, we've seen this trend in
the last few years of these radical right wing elements
trying to melt into the mainstream Republican party. You know,
we've got these horrible little gropers working in congressional staff positions,
and you know nazis going to spack and not getting ejected.
They're getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
An account tied to Blevins that he recently for the
first time denied this was him. It's him. This has
been widely reported. It was a Twitter account called at
Abolish Journalism posted in twenty nineteen quote Stets. I agree
with the argument GOP cannot be changed from the bottom up. However,
I do not believe in discouraging our guys from getting
(17:48):
elected into smaller offices such as city council, county commissioner,
or even state legislators. Basically positions where one can fly
under the radar yet still be effective. And that's what
this is. Right, This isn't a guy who got out
of White Nationals organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became
a local politician. No, he said years before he did
(18:11):
this that this was a good idea that he had.
You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions
and beliefs. I regret bringing an active recruiter for a
hate group. He just changed the way he was doing it.
And he said countless opportunities to be clear about what
he believes today and whether that's different from the beliefs
he espoused between twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, and he won't.
He won't say I no longer identify with the posts
(18:33):
I made when I was enthusiastically posting the fourteen words.
And that's probably because he just found a better way
to do it. But there were people in Enid, Oklahoma
who saw right through that.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, this is where the story takes a turn that like,
I don't know, it made me hopeful because the first
time I ever met a klansman was you know, in Oklahoma.
It was the dad of a friend of mine, Like
he liked that this kid aged about it, and I
didn't know what a klansman was. And I had to
go to my parents and like be like, hey, so
(19:05):
you know, so and so said this about his dad,
what does that mean? And my mom was just like, well,
you're not allowed to go to his house anymore. That's
what that means.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Uses Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
If this like, if this guy had like if shit
had gone well for him, I guess that would have
been my assumption. But that's that was my assumption based
on me not giving a fair shake to Enid, Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Right, And I think that's you know, what's what's so
remarkable about this story is people didn't think Oklahoma could
do it, But you know who can accomplish everything they
set out to do?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Uh huh. That's right, these sponsors, all of whom are
available in Enid, Oklahoma, and we're back. Okay, alrighty, so
(20:01):
I'm happy to hear. Yeah. The next part of this.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Levins took office in May of twenty twenty three. Local
election law requires a six month wait between being sworn
in and when a recall attempt can be initiated, but
the residents who opposed Levins didn't wait quietly. A group
called the Enid Social Justice Committee protested his swearing in,
with some protesters holding posters bearing a photo of Blevins
(20:26):
holding a torch. At the August eleven, twenty seventeen Nazi
march at the University of Virginia. And now this I
didn't even think about it until I was writing this.
That what an incredible coincidence of timing. Right, So May
twenty twenty three, he's being sworn into office. It was
just I think maybe two weeks before he was sworn
in that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys
(20:49):
who are now facing felony charges for participating in that
torch march. Right, so it was we did an episode
on this a little bit ago. But if you're not
familiar that the guys who marched in that torch march
at EVA in twenty seventeen, some of them are now
being charged with a felony under Virginia law for burning
an object with intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort
of a law aimed at the Klan right, sort of
(21:12):
a crossburning type law. But they were burning, they have
these burning objects, and they were menacing people. It was
racially motivated. So they're being charged with this felony for
burning an object.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
It does feel like that's yeah, a pretty good fit.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
But so right as he's being sworn in you know,
these people are protesting his swearing in with this photo
of him with the torch, and a couple guys just
showed up in jail here in Charlottesville on that charge.
So it's it's just a remarkable cognitive dissonance, right to
see these people. Some of his supporters in Enid downplaying
the seriousness or even outright denying that Levin's attended this rally,
(21:49):
But the guys he was standing next to that day
are pleading guilty to felonies. You know, he's up there
voting on resolutions and passing ordinances about you know, storm
water management or whatever. I think one of his accomplishments
in office was getting a Texas roadhouse in Enid.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas
roadhouse anywhere as a my job.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Used to it might have been a Sizzler, I can't
remember something like that.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I would be much more excited for a Sizzler than
a Texas fucking roadhouse, I'll say that much.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
But you know he's up there getting a you know,
affordable chain steak restaurant and edid. But there's a non
zero chance that he could be arrested at any time
and extradited on a felony charge.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I mean, look, if if there's one thing that's appropriate
for the sizzler, it's knowing that the guy who put
that sizzler there could be arrested on a felony charge
at any moment.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You know, we don't know what the strategy is at
the prosecutor's office. Obviously they're not going to charge everybody
who is there. But it's on the table right Like
he's on video at that march with the torch in
his hand. He fits the criteria for the ten other
guys that have already gone to jail for this. But
in November of twenty twenty three, those six months had passed,
recalls on the table now and before the group made
(23:03):
the final push to actually file for the recall, they
made an offer of reconciliation. All Blevin's has to do
is acknowledge the truth, denounce his past actions, just own
up to it, start making amends. Just say yes I
did that, No, I don't do it anymore. And he
can't do it. Throughout this entire ordeal, he's never owned
(23:24):
up to it. There are pictures and video and his
own words across multiple online accounts. There's no plausible deniability here.
There's no saying, well, maybe that's not him. You know
it's him, so just admit it and say you're not
that guy anymore. But he has consistently refused to even
acknowledge it right on several occasions, you know, when really pressed,
(23:45):
he dismisses that twenty nineteen article by Jared Holt as
quote a hit piece posted four years ago by a
George Soros funded leftist outlet, calling it smears and slander.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
I'm being judged simply for the things I chose to do.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I thought this was America. But he won't actually deny
specific facts. You know, he won't say that isn't me
in the photo, or I did not participate in that,
or I did not post those nice things about Hitler.
He just attacks the people saying it. And while Levens
has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of
his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in
(24:30):
November of last year, a woman speaking in support of
Levins said the allegations weren't credible as they came from
organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear
conservative Christians.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
First of all, the SPLC didn't publish it. It was
right wing Watch Yah, Huffington Post, but whenever Susan And
it was at that same meeting that the council declined
to even vote on a resolution to censure Blevins. The
council was putting forth the resolute to say we don't
agree with what that guy did. You know, it wasn't
like punishing him. It didn't actually strip him any powers.
(25:07):
He didn't do anything except say the rest of us
we don't like that. And they could, they wouldn't even
vote on it. It got tabled. And at that meeting, Commissioner
Derwin Norwood, the only black member of Enid City Council,
offered Blevins his forgiveness and gave him a big hug
and told him he loved him great. Levins never apologized, right,
(25:28):
you can't forgive someone who hasn't apologized. He had never
and still has never apologized. And he was pretty clear
on where he stands on apology, saying, I am not
going to apologize for the lies that others tell yeah,
it was a great meeting. I watched it from home.
I had you know, I love I love a meeting.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Oh yeah, no, that's uh. I mean, I don't understand it,
but I respect it.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So, with their peace offering roundly rejected by an unapologetic Blevins,
they moved forward the recall. The Enid Social Justice Committee
gathered enough signatures to put it to a vote, and
in January, Cheryl Patterson threw her hat into the ring
to replace Blevins. And to be clear, this is still Enid, Oklahoma,
where sixty percent of voters are registered Republicans. This wasn't
(26:16):
some liberal coup. Patterson is also a lifelong Republican candidate
formed the week before the election, Patterson was quick to
say like right off the bat, the second she opened
her mouth, she said, contrary to the rumor, I was
not recruited by the Enid Social Justice Committee. And she said,
you know, she'd been thinking about running for a while.
She loves Enid, but she was pushed to action by
(26:37):
her opponent's inability to clearly denounce his past involvement with
a white supremacist group. And it is remarkable right to
see conservative Republicans in the South saying like that Nazi
stuff is too much for me.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Yeah, I mean, and that's like, that's actually an important
part of turning this shit back is get it these
people who are otherwise conservative to draw a line and
actually hold to it, because it at least arrests that
right word momentum to an extent. And we're just not
going to get out of this unless we have some
(27:13):
of that right.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I'm not living in a you know, in a fantasy
land where the city of Enid, Oklahoma is represented by
a council of six socialists, Like that's not on the table.
I accept that, but at least their Republicans can say, ah,
the fourteen words is like not my vibe.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, literally, participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is
a line for us, and I'm glad there's a line.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
So you know.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
She says she was inspired to run for office because
he not because of what he did, but because he
couldn't even denounce it, right that, you know, people can
grow and change. I pray that his heart moves, but
he's unable to even denounce it, and he really does
seem incapable. The very first question at that forum the
week before the election is about this Obviously a lot
(28:02):
of the questions were, and he gave another non denial, right,
he said, this election is about the next three years
of this city, not about organizations that disbanded five years ago.
But he went on to say that he would quote
gladly plead guilty to speaking out against what is being
done to this country and the anti white hatred in
the media. So he tries to talk around the issue, saying,
(28:26):
you know, he was just advocating for the same policies
that got Donald Trump elected. But it's not like he
was on the local Republican committee, right, He wasn't working
on a GOP campaign. He was an organizer for a
group that supported those policies of the Trump administration explicitly
because they believe those policies were a stepping stone towards
the full Nazification of American politics.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You know, the relationship between those two things troubling concerning.
But you can't pretend there's no difference between voting Republican
and holding a torch at the Nazi parade. And that's
what he trying to do here. He's trying to blur
that lines. You know, I'm just being punished for being
a proud conservative, and it's like, which which part right?
(29:09):
People who's you know? People who want free speech, and
it's like, well, which word do you want to say?
And at no point during this recall campaign, from when
they announced it in November to the election two weeks
ago now, at no point during this recall campaign did
he publicly denounce any of the white supremacists who supported him.
Outlets like v Dare, a white nationalist publication run by
(29:30):
an English born anti immigration race scientists who lives in
a castle in West Virginia, wrote fawning editorials which were
promoted by prominent white nationalists, including Identity Europa founder Nathan Dimigo.
Fascist telegram channels provided guidance to subscribers about Oklahoma's campaign
finance laws, which would allow them to donate to Blevins's
campaign anonymously as long as they kept it under fifty dollars.
(29:55):
According to reporting by Christmathias and Huntington Post, a man
in Texas who runs a business with a known Patriot
Front member donated nearly two thousand dollars to the campaign,
which made up the bulk of the donated cash. And
you might give him the benefit of the doubt and say, well,
maybe he didn't know he was being endorsed by some
of the largest elements in organized white supremacy in America.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Sure, but he did. He did know.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
As a member of the city council. He definitely saw
the letters that were addressed to the city Council in
support of Blevins from the American Freedom Party, an explicitly
white supremacist political party that occasionally runs a Nazi for president.
But he said nothing. And when a constituent, father James Neil,
asked him directly why his campaign was funded by members
of Patriot Front, he told the priest to quote, shut
(30:41):
up again. He chose the company of neo Nazis, Holocaust deniers,
white supremacists, white nationalists, and ethno state enthusiasts. How can
you expect people to believe you're not that guy anymore
when you have their public praise, their endorsement, and their
money in your pocket. But you know who does not
have two thousand dollars in cash from Patriot Front in
(31:03):
their pockets?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
No, Now, they keep that shit in the back. I mean,
they don't have it. Here's here's our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
So on April second, that's two weeks ago now as
we're recording, the people of Enid returned to the polls
and jud Blevins was voted out of office as Ward
one city commissioner by a vote of eight hundred and
twenty nine to five sixty one. And I don't know
if you're a math guy. I'm not a math guy.
I a calculator out for this bad boy. But this
turnout was significantly larger than the vote that put him
(31:46):
into office. A seventy two percent increase in total votes.
That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot more people who
showed up to you know, an off cycle special election.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's specific weird.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And unlike the slim margin of just thirty six votes
that won him the twenty twenty three election, he lost
the recall by nearly twenty points. That's his spankin. You know,
it's hard to chalk a loss like that up to
a lunatic fringe, right, That's that's the electorate speaking. But
Matthew Gibert, a former State Department employee who lost his
job for failing to disclose his active involvement in white
(32:22):
supremacist organizing, noted in his Telegram Channel that while the
loss is disappointing, an open white nationalist winning forty percent
of the vote is quote nothing to despair over. And
you never got a hand out to the guy who
hosts a podcast about the joys of Nazi fatherhood or whatever. Yeah,
but the numbers are what they are. You know, he
(32:44):
did win forty percent of the vote, and this was
after months of very public debate in the national spotlight
that made it impossible not to know what the allegations were.
And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who
would walk into the voting booth and put their check
mark next to wherever the letter R was. Right in
this election, the other name on the ticket was a
(33:06):
Republican too, Like, these were people who walked in there
and knowingly and intentionally cast their vote for a guy
who used to vet new members for a Nazi club.
This isn't a fairy tale, it's reality, right. This wasn't
an offensive win by progress or the left or what
have you. This was an effective defense and I hope
(33:26):
conservatives can see a little lesson here, right, Like the
story is too often one of ever ratcheting extremism. You
can only win if you go further, if you go wilder,
if you're appealing to the people who are on the
absolute extreme end of what's acceptable to say in the party.
But this was a case where a fellow conservative said, Hey,
I want to take some books out of the library too.
I'm not a liberal, but we just can't be out
(33:48):
here saying the fourteen words, right. And I think some
of the buzz around this story comes from people in
bigger cities or bluer states. I mean, honestly, I'm guilty
of this as well, who were shocked that, you know,
purple haired liberals and progressive clergy even exist in a
place like Enid, Oklahoma. But this red state blue state
dichotomy is a myth. Most places are purple, most places
(34:13):
are sixty forty. Even in places that reliably one hundred
percent of the time vote Republican, there's still a large
minority of people who are not represented by that. So
even in a place like Enid, which is Republican at
the polls, you have a pretty big chunk of the
population isn't represented on that two colored map. That doesn't
(34:33):
mean they don't care. And when I watched those Enid
City Council meetings. I saw Charlottesville, right, I've gone to
every city council meeting in Charlesville for the last seven years. Like,
I know what it looks like for people in a
town that size to show up and say, what the fuck,
what the fuck are you doing to us?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah, you know it looked like one of our meetings.
You know. I saw regular people, moms and students and
grandmas and teachers and ladies who bring up to the
church bake sale, people who know that their town can
do better than to be represented by a guy who
won't apologize for attending the largest Nazi rally on US
soil in our lifetimes.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Yeah, and I feel a lot for the folks who
are kind of not represented by either of the two
big lines on the political map, and maybe most of
the time feel like I don't know what the fuck
I can actually do or should do, but I know
this Nazi shouldn't be in office.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So these were just these were just regular people. These
weren't party apperatics or you know, this wasn't the Democrat
Party doing this, as wasn't the Republican Party doing this.
These were just people who didn't think that a Nazi
should be their city commissioner. And that's I think another
myth at clay here, right, is that that activist is
some sort of separate class of person, that there is
(35:49):
some portion of the population whose only goal in life
is this nebulous, nefarious thing called activism. That you know,
it's sort of this boogeyman of the professional troublemaker. And
throughout this process, Levin's and his supporters have smeared the
group organizing the recall, the Ined Social Justice Committee, is
some kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks,
They're not like us. They're coming for our children. His
(36:12):
recall campaign website called the petitioners an unhinged group of
left wing fringe activists. And the campaign website didn't say
what he could do for you. It attacked the petitioners
and said this is what they will do to you.
And I've seen this in my own city council meetings, right,
this sort of bizarre tendency of those in power to
write off the people they don't want to hear from
(36:34):
as activists. Well, those those are people we need to
listen to. Those are activists. That's a different kind of
person anyone who's asking for something they don't want to do,
something that's uncomfortable, something that requires them to look inward
or look at the structures they're upholding. They undergo this
instant metamorphosis from constituent to activists. This is no longer
(36:55):
a voter or a constituent. This is a crazy person.
This person isn't your nigh anymore. They're an activist.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
I think you know, there are people who wear that
mantle proudly, and why shouldn't they. It's a usually positive thing.
But the use of the word as some sort of
delegitimizing cudgel is so consistent that I think it's worth
thinking about when it gets used against the recipient's will. Yeah,
and there's no ending to this story, right, because this
(37:27):
is never really over. It is happening here, it is
happening there. And I don't know what's next for Blevins.
Maybe he just smelts quietly back into society and puts
roofs on houses. A week after the recall, he filed
paperwork to change the name of his dad's contracting business
from Invincible Contracting to Great Planes Roofing. The paperwork filed
(37:47):
shows that the company is now registered the company is
now registered. His address a house in Enid that he
bought last summer with a VA loan. But now that
he's free of the self imposed restraint of running for office,
maybe he leans into it and becomes this guy. Right,
Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to, and
he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he
(38:10):
goes full throttle and tries to get back into movement organizing.
I think his failure to come out and really celebrate
the movement and really own it and say yes, I
said that stuff and it's good. I think that failure
as they would perceive it, would hurt him a little
bit if he tries to re enter the movement, but
not so badly that he couldn't do it. You know,
(38:31):
they're so desperate for new material that they would probably
embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of
the month. Yeah, hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then
the falling off the roof thing, and then you.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Know he's that they're doing the work himself. He doesn't
even have a contracting license. I checked.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I hope he hires someone who is like a very
large person and they fall off and are okay because
they land on him. That's I think where I'm going here.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
And to be clear, that's Robert speaking.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, yeah, that is, but that is also the official
opinion of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
But I don't know that he's he's made any great pronouncements.
He hasn't showed up on any Nazi podcast yet. I
will put ten dollars on a bet that says he will.
He'll be on somebody's podcast by the end of the month.
I don't doubt it. But hopefully he just does roofing.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, stick to roofing.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
As for ENID, you know, they want a battle that
they shouldn't have had to fight. It should be kind
of a no brainer that we don't elect guys like this.
That's becoming less certain every day, Like the fact that
there was any question about how the recall might go
is concerning. We shouldn't be in a position of wondering
will people vote for the guy who won't deny he
loves Hitler. But I think we can applaud the tenacity
(39:49):
of the folks in ENID who did what was necessary
in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know,
and there's lessons to be learned here. Go to the meetings,
get a seed in city council chambers, go to the
line ibory board meeting, go to the school board meeting.
You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means,
but being the new because nobody's going to change the
world on your own, and maybe changing the world is
(40:12):
even a meaningful objective. I don't know what that means. Yeah,
but today, maybe there's something you can do with your
neighbors to stop the rising tide in your town. You
can't change the weather, but you can put down some sandbags.
And there are jud blevins Is everywhere, hiding behind mealy
mouthed rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your
(40:36):
local institutions.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah, so it's doable, fighting the juds Blevin of I
chose a different way to pluralize's name of your wherever
you live, your state, your city. Like is doable, and
it's doable if you stick to this very simple platform
of like. But not a nazi? Right an agree? Not
(41:00):
a nazi?
Speaker 2 (41:01):
You know, if conservatives have any if conservatives had any sense,
they could retake a lot of ground by saying, like,
you know, we love all the stuff you love, fellow conservatives,
but we're not that guy, right, Like, if they had
any if they had any pride, they would stop pandering
to the lunatic fringe.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah, and it is just kind of looking at how
congressional race is shaping up, where it seemed like it
should have been pretty easy for them to retake the House.
But you know, now they're kind of like flailing a
little bit, in part because they keep backing these maniacs
who just aren't good. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I don't really believe that those ideas are popular. They
just have fallen into this trap of thinking like this
is the only way to win. So I guess I
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
But you'll send it not that house anyway, whatever, we'll
cut that.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Who cares about those guys? Yeah, but you don't have
to do it, right, Be the Sheeryl Batterson you want
to see in the world. Yeah, and just be a
milk toast Republican and be the Nazi.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, at least, I don't know. I'm mixed because, like
I do, I do like it when the Republicans fail
over much, but I also feel like it's bad to
take the bet of like, well, if we hope for
more Nazis that push people away from the Republicans, maybe
it'll work for us in the long run. Statistically that
(42:29):
that kind of gamble is real dangerous. Yeah, yeah, that's Enid,
that's inened baby, good working.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Congratulations to the end Social Justice Committee. Honestly, I'm yeah
very impressed.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
You get our coveted Oklahoma City of the Month award,
which is confusing because you are very near Oklahoma City.
But they shouldn't have named it that. Well, that's all
I got. That's all I got.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Yeah, I was I was just trying to put a button.
I'm trying to put a button on that bad boy.
But uh yeah that's Oklahoma baby.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah, good for you, Good for Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Conger
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