April 17, 2024 • 38 mins
Molly and Robert discuss the successful effort to remove Judd Blevins from the Enid, OK city council after his refusal to acknowledge his ties to a white supremacist group.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
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 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
(00:26):
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 ow journey.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'm not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That
is a crime. This is reporting.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It is reporting, and the line between reporting and stalking
always clear, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
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, Yeah,
this story has city council meetings that got rowdy. It
has unite the right attendee getting docks. It has the
(01:18):
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
at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid, Oklahoma.
(01:38):
Ward one City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh my god, Ah, we're going back to my old home.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
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 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 2 (02:06):
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 3 (02:23):
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 2 (02:43):
Yeah that all scans for enid share. Now that scans
for a lot of cities in Oklahoma, mind you right.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
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 Judson 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 a regional
(03:12):
leader in a white supremacist organization, and in twenty twenty
two he announced he was running for office.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I mean that all that's a very Oklahoma politician. Route
it's also like a not a white like. From roofing
to white supremacy not a wildly uncommon route for people
to take in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Now he's still doing both.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh good. I mean, you never want to give up
on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
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 1 (03:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I mean you don't want to get up on those
roofs yourself. That's dangerous. Sorry, Yeah, it's hot out. Yeah,
this is all pretty Oklahoma so far.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
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 Europa 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.
(04:14):
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 2 (04:22):
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 comms.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, I guess Blevin's maybe part to blame for that
as the regional coordinator.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh good, so he was doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
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 and he had violent fantasies
(05:08):
about killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys
hanging out right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
No.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
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 2 (05:25):
Well that gets at least he's honest.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But while he was doing his time, he read David
Duke's autobiography.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Oh and he had.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
An awakening, right, he read My awakening and he had
an awakening in prison?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
You know, you go to prison for a hay crime,
you read a little David Duke, you get some ideas.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
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 mindcomp but I feel like
everyone's lying about that one.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
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 Strom
is the pedophile who actually said that thing that people
think full Teraar said about the Jews.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh cool, yeah great.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So just something to think about when you're reading David
Duke's autobiography in prison.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Get your wife?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
No, that was before that was yeah, No, he's got
a kid now, so.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh what, No, he shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Okay, great, not allowed to live near a school, but
I guess they can't stop you from procreating.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
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. Oh yeah,
and they memed 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
(07:19):
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, But when the group's discord server was leaked
in March of twenty nineteen and published in full by
(07:41):
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 Casey tried to protein the rebrand
wasn't just an attempt to escape the fallout of the leak,
(08:03):
but it really was the leak that killed Identity Europa.
At least seven active duty military members were identified in
the leak. 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 of anti fascist researchers who identified
Blevins and the leak chats was corroborated and published in
(08:26):
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 vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops
and social events, and frequently posted pictures of the white
(08:48):
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 new year period, he
left a lot of clues. 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
(09:11):
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, and photos from the
rallies show just one man carrying that distinctive flag that
was designed by a member of the Daughters of the
(09:32):
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 standing shoulder to shoulder
with other members holding a large Identity Europa banner. Conway
(09:55):
even posted about his appearance on a twenty eighteen episode
of Identity Europa's podcast, where he emphas the importance of
staying in the you will not replace us mindset. So
by the time he announced his run for office in
twenty twenty two, it had been over three years since
he'd been out at his Conway the Hate Group member
who attended the Unite the Right rally, and.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
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
(10:34):
like they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans, like
it's it's remarkable, but I also get why he thought
this would work, and I think.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I mean, I don't know what his connection remain 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 to influence
(11:05):
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 and celebrating
(11:28):
Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart of the
jew his words. You know, 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
(11:48):
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 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,
(12:10):
he won, and that could have been the end of
the story.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
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 cepack and not getting ejected. They're
getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
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 fists. I agree
with the argument GOP cannot be changed from the bottom up. However,
I do not believe in discouraging our guys from getting
(12:54):
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 nationalist organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became
a local politician. No, he said years before he did
(13:17):
this that this was a good idea that he had.
You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions
and beliefs. I regret bring 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
(13:39):
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 2 (13:50):
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 in Oklahoma. It
was the dad of a friend of mine, like he
like that. This kid bragged about it, and I didn't
know what a clansman was. And I had to go
to my parents and like be like, hey, so you
(14:12):
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. Juxes Jesus Christ. 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
(14:33):
fair shake to Enid, Oklahoma, Right.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I think that's you know 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 2 (14:47):
Uh huh, that's right. These sponsors, all of whom are
available in Enid, Oklahoma, and we're back. Okay, alrighty, So
(15:08):
I'm happy to hear. Yeah. The next part of this.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
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 Levins
(15:32):
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
(15:52):
that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys who
are now facing felony charges for participating in that torch mark.
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
(16:13):
intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort of a law
aimed at the Klan right, sort of a crossburning type law.
But they were burning, They had 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 2 (16:29):
It does feel like that's, yeah, a pretty good fit.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
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,
(16:55):
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 2 (17:10):
First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas
roadhouse anywhere as a my job.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Used to it might have been a sizzler, I can't
remember something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I would be much more excited for a sizzler than
a Texas fucking roadhouse, I'll say that much.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
But you know, he's up there getting a you know,
affordable chain steak restaurant in edid But there's a non
zero chance that he could be arrested at any time
and extradited on a felony charge.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
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 3 (17:48):
And 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
of 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
(18:09):
group made 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
(18:30):
owned 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. He dismisses that twenty nineteen article by
(18:54):
Jared Holt as quote a hit piece posted four years
ago by a George Soros funded leftist outline, it, calling
it smears and slander.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I'm being judged simply for the things I chose to do.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
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 Buvens
has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of
his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in
(19:37):
November of last year, a woman speaking in support of
Levin's said the allegations weren't credible as they came from
organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear
conservative Christians.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
First of all, the SPLC didn't publish it. It was
Wright Wing Watch, Yeah, Huffington Post. But whenever Susan that
same meeting that the council declined to even vote on
a resolution to censure Blevins, the council was putting forth
a resolution 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 of any powers. He didn't do
(20:14):
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. Lens never apologized, right, you can't forgive someone
(20:35):
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 a
met I love a meeting.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Oh yeah, no, that's uh. I mean, I don't understand it,
but I respect it.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
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
(21:22):
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 shoe 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,
(21:42):
but she was pushed to action by 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 2 (21:59):
Yeah, I mean that's like, that's actually an important part
of turning this shit back is getting these people who
are otherwise conservative to draw a line and actually hold
to it, because it 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 of
(22:20):
that right.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
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 2 (22:37):
Yeah, literally, participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is
a line for us, and I'm glad there's a line.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
So you know, 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, and he really does
seem incapable. The very first question at that forum the
week before the election was about this. Obviously a lot
(23:08):
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
(23:31):
the issue, saying, 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 2 (23:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
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's 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?
(24:16):
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
(24:37):
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.
(25:01):
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 2 (25:22):
Sure, but he did.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He did know. 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 priests
(25:46):
to quote shut 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 that their public praise,
their endorsement, and their money in your pocket. But you
know who does not have two thousand dollars in cash
(26:08):
from Patriot Front in their pockets?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No? No, 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 3 (26:30):
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 can get a calculator out for this bad boy.
But this turnout was significantly larger than the vote that
(26:52):
put him 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 an off cycle special election.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah. Yeah, that's specifically weird and.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
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 hispankin. 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 Giebert,
a former State Department employee who lost his job for
failing to disclose his active involvement in white supremacist organizing,
(27:30):
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 did
(27:50):
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 eye legations were.
And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who
would walk into the voting booth and put their checkmark
next to wherever the letter R was. Right in this election,
(28:11):
the other name on the ticket was a 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 conservatives can see
(28:33):
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
(28:54):
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 are 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
(29:19):
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
(29:39):
mean they don't care. And when I watch those Enid
City council meetings, I saw Charlottesville.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
I've gone to every city council meeting in Charletsville 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? Right? Yeah, you know it looked
it's like one of our meetings, you know. I saw
regular people, moms and students and grandmas and teachers and
ladies who bring muffins to the church bake sale. People
(30:08):
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 2 (30:16):
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 3 (30:34):
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 activist is some
sort of separate class of person, that there is some
(30:55):
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, Blevins and his supporters have smeared the group
organizing the recall, the Inned Social Justice Committee, is some
kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks. They're
not like us. Yeah, they're you know, they're coming for
(31:17):
our children. His 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
(31:37):
those in power to write off the people they don't
want to hear from 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 activist.
(32:00):
This is no longer a voter or a constituent. This
is a crazy person. This person isn't your neighbor anymore.
They're an activist. Yeah, 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
(32:22):
used against the recipient's will. Yeah, and there's no ending
to this story, right, because this 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
(32:44):
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 shows that the company
is now registered. The company is now registered. His address
a house in Ena that he bought Lae summer with
a VA loan. But now that he's free of the
self imposed restraint of running for office, maybe he leans
(33:07):
into it and becomes this guy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to and
he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he
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
(33:30):
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,
they're so desperate for new material that they would probably
embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of
the month.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then
the falling off the roof thing, and then.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
You know he's that they're doing the work himself. He
doesn't even have a contracting license. I checked.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
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 that's I think where I'm.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Going here, And to be clear, that's Robert speaking.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, yeah, that is, But that is also the official
opinion of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Mean, 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 2 (34:31):
Yeah, stick to roofing.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
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
(34:56):
of the folks in Enan who did what was necessary
in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know,
and there's there's lessons to be learned here. Go to
the meetings, get a seed in city council chambers, go
to the library board meeting, go to the school board meeting.
You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means,
but be in the room because nobody's going to change
the world on their own. And maybe changing the world
(35:18):
isn't 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 mealymouthed
(35:39):
rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your local institutions.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, so it's doable fighting the juds Blevin of I
chose a different way to Pluraliza'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, we can agree
(36:06):
not a Nazi.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
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 2 (36:29):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
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 2 (37:00):
But you trying to send it not that house anyway, whatever,
We'll cut that.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
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 2 (37:14):
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
(37:35):
that kind of gamble is real dangerous. That's yeah. But yeah,
that's Enid. That's ined baby.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Good work in Congratulations to the end Social Justice Committee. Honestly,
I'm yeah, very impressed.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You get our 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. Oh that's all I.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Got, That's all I got. Yeah, 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 2 (38:13):
Yeah, good for you, Good for Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
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 cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
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 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
(00:26):
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 ow journey.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I'm not stalking anyone. I would never do that. That
is a crime. This is reporting.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
It is reporting, and the line between reporting and stalking
always clear, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
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, Yeah,
this story has city council meetings that got rowdy. It
has unite the right attendee getting docks. It has the
(01:18):
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
at the ballot box. This is the story of Enid, Oklahoma.
(01:38):
Ward one City Commissioner Judson Gannon Blevins.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Oh my god, Ah, we're going back to my old home.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
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 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 2 (02:06):
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 3 (02:23):
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 2 (02:43):
Yeah that all scans for enid share. Now that scans
for a lot of cities in Oklahoma, mind you right.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
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 Judson 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 a regional
(03:12):
leader in a white supremacist organization, and in twenty twenty
two he announced he was running for office.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I mean that all that's a very Oklahoma politician. Route
it's also like a not a white like. From roofing
to white supremacy not a wildly uncommon route for people
to take in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Now he's still doing both.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh good. I mean, you never want to give up
on your passion for roofing. That would have made me sad.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
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 1 (03:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I mean you don't want to get up on those
roofs yourself. That's dangerous. Sorry, Yeah, it's hot out. Yeah,
this is all pretty Oklahoma so far.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
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 Europa 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.
(04:14):
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 2 (04:22):
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 comms.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, I guess Blevin's maybe part to blame for that
as the regional coordinator.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Oh good, so he was doing a great job.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
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 and he had violent fantasies
(05:08):
about killing Jewish people himself. So it's not just guys
hanging out right.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
No.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
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 2 (05:25):
Well that gets at least he's honest.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
But while he was doing his time, he read David
Duke's autobiography.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Oh and he had.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
An awakening, right, he read My awakening and he had
an awakening in prison?
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
You know, you go to prison for a hay crime,
you read a little David Duke, you get some ideas.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
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 mindcomp but I feel like
everyone's lying about that one.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
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 Strom
is the pedophile who actually said that thing that people
think full Teraar said about the Jews.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Oh cool, yeah great.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So just something to think about when you're reading David
Duke's autobiography in prison.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Get your wife?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Now?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
No, that was before that was yeah, No, he's got
a kid now, so.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh what, No, he shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Okay, great, not allowed to live near a school, but
I guess they can't stop you from procreating.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We should evaluate some of that. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
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. Oh yeah,
and they memed 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
(07:19):
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, But when the group's discord server was leaked
in March of twenty nineteen and published in full by
(07:41):
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 Casey tried to protein the rebrand
wasn't just an attempt to escape the fallout of the leak,
(08:03):
but it really was the leak that killed Identity Europa.
At least seven active duty military members were identified in
the leak. 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 of anti fascist researchers who identified
Blevins and the leak chats was corroborated and published in
(08:26):
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 vetted new members, organized outings for banner drops
and social events, and frequently posted pictures of the white
(08:48):
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 new year period, he
left a lot of clues. 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
(09:11):
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, and photos from the
rallies show just one man carrying that distinctive flag that
was designed by a member of the Daughters of the
(09:32):
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 standing shoulder to shoulder
with other members holding a large Identity Europa banner. Conway
(09:55):
even posted about his appearance on a twenty eighteen episode
of Identity Europa's podcast, where he emphas the importance of
staying in the you will not replace us mindset. So
by the time he announced his run for office in
twenty twenty two, it had been over three years since
he'd been out at his Conway the Hate Group member
who attended the Unite the Right rally, and.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
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
(10:34):
like they're too toxic for even the modern Republicans, like
it's it's remarkable, but I also get why he thought
this would work, and I think.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I mean, I don't know what his connection remain 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 to influence
(11:05):
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 and celebrating
(11:28):
Identity Europa for striking fear into the heart of the
jew his words. You know, 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
(11:48):
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 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,
(12:10):
he won, and that could have been the end of
the story.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
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 cepack and not getting ejected. They're
getting out of the streets and into the meeting rooms.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
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 fists. I agree
with the argument GOP cannot be changed from the bottom up. However,
I do not believe in discouraging our guys from getting
(12:54):
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 nationalist organizing and in an unrelated fashion, became
a local politician. No, he said years before he did
(13:17):
this that this was a good idea that he had.
You know, he never said I renounced my previous actions
and beliefs. I regret bring 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
(13:39):
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 2 (13:50):
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 in Oklahoma. It
was the dad of a friend of mine, like he
like that. This kid bragged about it, and I didn't
know what a clansman was. And I had to go
to my parents and like be like, hey, so you
(14:12):
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. Juxes Jesus Christ. 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
(14:33):
fair shake to Enid, Oklahoma, Right.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I think that's you know 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 2 (14:47):
Uh huh, that's right. These sponsors, all of whom are
available in Enid, Oklahoma, and we're back. Okay, alrighty, So
(15:08):
I'm happy to hear. Yeah. The next part of this.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
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 Levins
(15:32):
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
(15:52):
that the first indictment was unsealed against the guys who
are now facing felony charges for participating in that torch mark.
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
(16:13):
intent to intimidate. It's obviously a sort of a law
aimed at the Klan right, sort of a crossburning type law.
But they were burning, They had 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 2 (16:29):
It does feel like that's, yeah, a pretty good fit.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
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,
(16:55):
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 2 (17:10):
First off, you shouldn't be proud of having a Texas
roadhouse anywhere as a my job.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Used to it might have been a sizzler, I can't
remember something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I would be much more excited for a sizzler than
a Texas fucking roadhouse, I'll say that much.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
But you know, he's up there getting a you know,
affordable chain steak restaurant in edid But there's a non
zero chance that he could be arrested at any time
and extradited on a felony charge.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
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 3 (17:48):
And 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
of 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
(18:09):
group made 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
(18:30):
owned 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. He dismisses that twenty nineteen article by
(18:54):
Jared Holt as quote a hit piece posted four years
ago by a George Soros funded leftist outline, it, calling
it smears and slander.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Nothing smears somebody like their own words and actions.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I'm being defamed by this photograph of me.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I'm being judged simply for the things I chose to do.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
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 Buvens
has never denied the truth of the allegations, some of
his supporters do. At one of those council meetings in
(19:37):
November of last year, a woman speaking in support of
Levin's said the allegations weren't credible as they came from
organizations like the SPLC that quote only exist to smear
conservative Christians.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
First of all, the SPLC didn't publish it. It was
Wright Wing Watch, Yeah, Huffington Post. But whenever Susan that
same meeting that the council declined to even vote on
a resolution to censure Blevins, the council was putting forth
a resolution 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 of any powers. He didn't do
(20:14):
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. Lens never apologized, right, you can't forgive someone
(20:35):
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 a
met I love a meeting.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Oh yeah, no, that's uh. I mean, I don't understand it,
but I respect it.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
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
(21:22):
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 shoe 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,
(21:42):
but she was pushed to action by 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 2 (21:59):
Yeah, I mean that's like, that's actually an important part
of turning this shit back is getting these people who
are otherwise conservative to draw a line and actually hold
to it, because it 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 of
(22:20):
that right.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
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 2 (22:37):
Yeah, literally, participating in a white supremacist terrorist action is
a line for us, and I'm glad there's a line.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
So you know, 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, and he really does
seem incapable. The very first question at that forum the
week before the election was about this. Obviously a lot
(23:08):
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
(23:31):
the issue, saying, 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 2 (23:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
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's 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?
(24:16):
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
(24:37):
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.
(25:01):
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 2 (25:22):
Sure, but he did.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He did know. 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 priests
(25:46):
to quote shut 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 that their public praise,
their endorsement, and their money in your pocket. But you
know who does not have two thousand dollars in cash
(26:08):
from Patriot Front in their pockets?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
No? No, 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 3 (26:30):
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 can get a calculator out for this bad boy.
But this turnout was significantly larger than the vote that
(26:52):
put him 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 an off cycle special election.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah. Yeah, that's specifically weird and.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
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 hispankin. 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 Giebert,
a former State Department employee who lost his job for
failing to disclose his active involvement in white supremacist organizing,
(27:30):
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 did
(27:50):
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 eye legations were.
And it's not like these were just diehard conservatives who
would walk into the voting booth and put their checkmark
next to wherever the letter R was. Right in this election,
(28:11):
the other name on the ticket was a 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 conservatives can see
(28:33):
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
(28:54):
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 are 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
(29:19):
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
(29:39):
mean they don't care. And when I watch those Enid
City council meetings, I saw Charlottesville.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
I've gone to every city council meeting in Charletsville 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? Right? Yeah, you know it looked
it's like one of our meetings, you know. I saw
regular people, moms and students and grandmas and teachers and
ladies who bring muffins to the church bake sale. People
(30:08):
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 2 (30:16):
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 3 (30:34):
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 activist is some
sort of separate class of person, that there is some
(30:55):
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, Blevins and his supporters have smeared the group
organizing the recall, the Inned Social Justice Committee, is some
kind of fringe radical group. They're Antifa, they're freaks. They're
not like us. Yeah, they're you know, they're coming for
(31:17):
our children. His 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
(31:37):
those in power to write off the people they don't
want to hear from 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 activist.
(32:00):
This is no longer a voter or a constituent. This
is a crazy person. This person isn't your neighbor anymore.
They're an activist. Yeah, 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
(32:22):
used against the recipient's will. Yeah, and there's no ending
to this story, right, because this 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
(32:44):
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 shows that the company
is now registered. The company is now registered. His address
a house in Ena that he bought Lae summer with
a VA loan. But now that he's free of the
self imposed restraint of running for office, maybe he leans
(33:07):
into it and becomes this guy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Maybe he's just the guy that this happens to and
he goes on the cancel culture grievance circuit. Maybe he
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
(33:30):
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,
they're so desperate for new material that they would probably
embrace him if he wanted to be the figurehead of
the month.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Hopefully he just does the roofing thing though.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, yeah, hopefully he does the roofing thing and then
the falling off the roof thing, and then.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
You know he's that they're doing the work himself. He
doesn't even have a contracting license. I checked.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
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 that's I think where I'm.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Going here, And to be clear, that's Robert speaking.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, yeah, that is, But that is also the official
opinion of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Mean, 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 2 (34:31):
Yeah, stick to roofing.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
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
(34:56):
of the folks in Enan who did what was necessary
in a place where it wasn't easy. Yeah, you know,
and there's there's lessons to be learned here. Go to
the meetings, get a seed in city council chambers, go
to the library board meeting, go to the school board meeting.
You don't have to be an activist, whatever that means,
but be in the room because nobody's going to change
the world on their own. And maybe changing the world
(35:18):
isn't 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 mealymouthed
(35:39):
rhetoric of conservatism and quietly chipping away at your local institutions.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, so it's doable fighting the juds Blevin of I
chose a different way to Pluraliza'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, we can agree
(36:06):
not a Nazi.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
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 2 (36:29):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
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 2 (37:00):
But you trying to send it not that house anyway, whatever,
We'll cut that.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
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 2 (37:14):
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
(37:35):
that kind of gamble is real dangerous. That's yeah. But yeah,
that's Enid. That's ined baby.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Good work in Congratulations to the end Social Justice Committee. Honestly,
I'm yeah, very impressed.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You get our 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. Oh that's all I.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Got, That's all I got. Yeah, 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 2 (38:13):
Yeah, good for you, Good for Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
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You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
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