James Allsup’s political career should have been over before it began. The prolific far-right YouTuber was forced to resign from his position as president of the College Republicans at Washington State University after a video surfaced of him marching in the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The national College Republicans denounced Allsup, and students in his own chapter complained that it had been “radicalized” since Allsup’s election in 2015.
But Allsup, a member of the far-right white nationalist group Identity Evropa, wasn’t done with Republican politics.
In June 2018, Allsup was elected as a precinct committee officer for the Republican Party in Whitman County, Washington State, a two-year position that involves building ties between the party and voters. This caused a rift among Washington State Republicans. While some vowed to prevent him from performing the duties of his office, then-Spokane County GOP Chair Cecily Wright spoke publicly on Allsup’s behalf and hosted an event for him.
Months later the Whitman County Republican Committee voted to strip Allsup’s position of all its duties and responsibilities, rendering it essentially meaningless. But, as of presstime, Allsup remains an elected official of the Washington State GOP, even if his office is now merely symbolic.
These days, Allsup is mostly focused on growing his audience on YouTube, where he concentrates on national issues and rarely mentions politics in his home state. Forbes magazine highlighted Allsup in an article profiling conservatives making a living largely on YouTube. YouTube recently demonetized Allsup’s channel, making it much more difficult for him to profit from his videos. (Full disclosure: Allsup has made two videos about me, which I have not watched.)
Allsup is not an outlier but part of a broader movement by white nationalists and male supremacists to build political power in America through the Republican Party. It would be easy to dismiss him as a basement-dweller making YouTube videos and podcasts; but Allsup is part of a larger far-right movement that has made significant inroads in taking over the GOP, aided by a President who treats neo-Nazis and white nationalists as a valued political constituency group.
Identity Evropa, classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, counts Allsup as a member and supporter. The group, which recently tried to rebrand itself as the American Identity Movement, is known for targeting college-age white men for recruitment. It urges its members to become involved in local Republican politics and try to take over local GOP organizations at the ground level.
Patrick Casey, Identity Evropa’s current leader, posted about his involvement with his local party in 2017, encouraging members to follow his lead. Here’s what Casey, who goes by the handle Reinhard Wolff, had to say:
Today I decided to get involved with my county’s Republican party. Everyone can do this without fear of getting doxed. The GOP is essentially the White man’s party at this point (it gets Whiter every election cycle), so it makes far more sense for us to subvert it than to create our own party.
If we’re going to win this, it’s going to take time, effort, and sacrifice. If you’re unable to do activism for various reasons, I’d like to encourage you to join your local Republican party. Present as a Trump supporter/nationalist. No need to broadcast your radical views.
It’s actually quite easy to run for and win local offices. Let’s make this happen!
And that is what’s happening—not just in Washington State but in communities across the country.
The Republican Party is at risk of being taken over by a combination of far-right militia separatists, evangelical Christians, and Internet trolls in the Allsup mold. It is a development that puts American democracy in danger, makes America vulnerable to attack from hostile foreign actors, and leaves the American public less safe.
It’s impossible to talk about white nationalism and male supremacy without talking about domestic terrorism. Violence from the far-right is on the rise in America, and the federal government has done little to stop it.
Wrote The Washingon Post, “Over the past decade, attackers motivated by rightwing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings, and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist.”
President Donald Trump has said he doesn’t believe white nationalist terrorism is a growing threat, though his FBI Director Christopher Wray disagrees with that assessment. In April, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, held a Congressional hearing on hate crimes, white nationalism, and the role of social media. The Republicans called two witnesses to testify. One was far-right personality and then-communications director of Turning Point USA, Candace Owens.
Like Identity Evropa, Turning Point USA aims to recruit younger members. It’s a student organization that touts high school and college chapters across the country. Though both Owens and founder Charlie Kirk have lengthy histories of making racist statements, Turning Point attempts to brand itself as a mainstream Republican organization (as opposed to Identity Evropa) and distance itself from the label of alt-right.
A broad coalition of far-right groups and personalities has built significant political influence under the Trump Administration and Republican elected officials across the country.
A broad coalition of far-right groups and personalities has built significant political influence under the Trump Administration and Republican elected officials across the country. Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group, spoke at a GOP fundraiser last fall, telling attendees, “You need us foot soldiers.” In April 2017, two alt-right journalists were invited to the White House and allowed to pose for pictures in a briefing room, where they stood behind a podium and made a hand sign that can be meant to signify white power. And Trump regularly retweets known white supremacist figures on his Twitter account.
These are all signs of a systemic radicalization of the Republican Party. The GOP’s roster of candidates and elected officials includes an array of far-right extremists and those happy to entertain extremist ideas and figures. The most notorious elected extremist is Steve King of Iowa, a longtime member of Congress with an even longer history of racism and associating with extremist figures. He was stripped of his committee appointments a few months back after telling The New York Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”
But King is hardly the only extremist Republican in the Capitol. Former Representative Dave Brat of Virginia has appeared on Infowars, the notorious rightwing conspiracy outlet. Representative Duncan Hunter of California ran a campaign ad featuring a conspiracy theorist who had claimed immigrants are diseased and Muslims are trying to secretly take over America. A book written by then-Representative Scott Taylor of Virginia was blurbed by a prominent anti-Muslim writer. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida has appeared on Infowars and invited Holocaust denier Chuck C. Johnson to be his guest at the 2018 State of the Union. This January, two other Congressmen, Phil Roe of Tennessee and Andy Harris of Maryland, were caught by reporters meeting with Johnson as well.
The 2018 election cycle saw a host of extremists running for office as Republicans, many of whom won the party’s nomination via primary. The most prominent example is white supremacist Corey Stewart, who won the GOP primary for a Virginia Senate seat in 2018 after nearly becoming the state’s Republican nominee for governor in 2017. Kelli Ward, a notorious far-right figure who ran for Senate in Arizona, was endorsed by Sean Hannity. Ward and her husband ran a racist conspiracy Facebook group. Toward the end of her campaign, Ward did a bus tour with infamous conspiracy theorist and far-right personality Mike Cernovich—incidentally one of the two journalists who previously made white power hand signs in the White House.
Post-election, the news site Vox noted that candidates who self-defined as Nazis did poorly but that “candidates linked to white supremacist groups did quite well.”
Matt Shea has served in the Washington State legislature since 2008, representing his native Spokane Valley. Shea made international news this year when his messages with far-right figures on a chat site were leaked by a former political ally who had fallen out with him. According to The Guardian, Shea “took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, ‘psyops,’ and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies.”
One commenter on this chat site, far-right radio host Jack Robertson, suggested this response to a specific female resident of Spokane: “Fist full of hair, and face slam, to a Jersey barrier. Treat em like communist revolutionaries. Then shave her bald with a K-Bar USMC field knife.”
All of the chat group’s participants used aliases to mask their identities. Shea’s was “Verum Bellator,” which is Latin for “true warrior.”
But Shea isn’t just engaging with the far-right anonymously on social media. He has built a political organization, Liberty State, to advocate for the eastern half of Washington State seceding and forming a fifty-first state. In a presentation on the organization’s YouTube channel, Shea said secession is ultimately about “protecting our Christian culture and heritage.”
Liberty State has held rallies, supported candidates for local office, and held a May 23 fundraiser where, according to The Spokesman-Review, the speakers included “Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan; Spokane City Council candidate Tim Benn; and Loren Culp, the police chief in Republic, Washington, who made national headlines when he pledged not to enforce a controversial gun control initiative that voters passed in November.”
At the event, Shea’s legislative assistant, Rene’ Holaday, framed the choice facing Washington State succinctly: “It’s either going to be bloodshed or Liberty State.” The event was interrupted by a small group of former Shea allies who have come to regard his views as dangerous. Sheriff’s deputies escorted them off the premises.
It’s worth noting that Shea, despite winning reelection multiple times, isn’t universally popular among area Republicans. Multiple sources in Spokane Valley told The Progressive about in-fighting between Shea and other Republicans in the Spokane Valley area. Kent Rinne, a volunteer with Indivisible and a longtime Spokane Valley resident, says of Shea’s Liberty State organization: “It doesn’t come out of the Republican Party. It’s a real splinter group. They actually hate Republicans as much as they hate everybody else.”
The most vocal of Shea’s Republican opponents is Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, who has given multiple interviews about Matt Shea and the danger he believes Shea poses to the Spokane Valley area. In a local radio interview, Knezovich says, “If you get on the wrong side of Mr. Shea, you suddenly become his enemy and he does come after you. I’ve watched it happen to many people. It’s happened to me.”
But Shea’s Republican colleagues in the state legislature have declined to expel him as a member of their caucus, despite promises to do so. Tina Podlodowski, chair of the Washington State Democratic Party, says via email: “Washington GOP’s failure to effectively excise him from their caucus is one of the most disappointing things about how they run their organization.” [Editor's note: The print version of this story incorrectly reported that Shea has not been removed from his leadership position. He was removed as caucus chair last fall.]
Last fall, Shea acknowledged having distributed a four-page manifesto titled “Biblical Basis for War,” which declares that “God is a Warrior” and that a “Holy Army” is needed to put an end to abortion, communism, and same-sex marriage. Podlodowski noted that the state GOP promised to investigate but “we’ve seen no proof that such an investigation is underway or that the Washington GOP is taking this issue seriously.”
Matt Shea isn’t just a one-man operation. He’s building political support for his extremist views. Podlodowski says that Shea, who served as the Republican state caucus chair in the statehouse until last November, is now “promoting candidates to try and take over the Spokane City Council.”
The Progressive has also obtained a video of Shea interviewing a small group of young men who talk to him about preparing for “Christian Warfare” and physical training with firearms. The video was recorded at an annual event held by Marble Country, an anti-Semitic and racist Christian Identity group in northeastern Washington State at which Shea has been a featured speaker in the past.
“Sometimes I think, ‘Why pay attention to the guy?’ But I have to, because he’s a legislator. He’s worked his way into our politics and he’s helping create a nasty, ugly political environment here.”
Rinne, the Indivisible volunteer, speaking of Shea’s impact on politics in Washington State, tells me, “Sometimes I think, ‘Why pay attention to the guy?’ But I have to, because he’s a legislator. He’s worked his way into our politics and he’s helping create a nasty, ugly political environment here.”
Podlodowski calls for the same vigilance by people in other states who are dealing with white supremacist elected officials and political organizing.
“It’s important to view these folks as part of a nationwide problem, not isolated pockets of extremists,” she tells me. “The Internet has made organizing and radicalizing people in small communities across the country easier than ever before. We need a collective response from everyone who wants to defeat white supremacy and create an inclusive society.”
Sidebar: See No Evil: Congress Gives the Alt-RIGHT a Star Turn
One sign of the alt-right’s influence within the Republican Party was the derailing of an April 9 House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism and domestic terrorism. The event devolved into a circus, with some GOP committee members openly questioning whether white supremacy is even a thing.
Gage Skidmore
Candace Owens
Candace Owens
The hearing’s star invited witness was Candace Owens, an Infowars and Fox News contributor who had recently remarked that Hitler would have been “fine” had he stuck to being a nationalist in Germany.
Owens’s only qualification to be a witness is that she’d been recently name-checked in the New Zealand mosque shooter’s so-called manifesto as one of his influences. By including Owens as a witness—alongside Eileen Hershenov of the Anti-Defamation League, Eva Paterson of the Equal Justice Society, and Facebook’s Public Policy Director Neil Potts—House Republicans ensured that most of the press coverage of the hearing would revolve around Owens’s antics, rather than the threat of domestic terrorism inspired by white nationalist ideology.
Owens’s inclusion also ensured that the manifesto received another round of media attention, something extremism researchers have warned will likely inspire other white nationalists to commit violent acts. Considering that Trump aide Kellyanne Conway recently encouraged Fox News viewers to read the document in full, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if the point of Owens’s appearance before the committee was not to combat the threat of white nationalism, but to amplify it.