Oklahoma Coordinator For The “Unite The Right” White Supremacist Rally In Charlottesville...

...Was Elected To Office And Is Now Facing A Recall

Once you get past Oklahoma City and Tulsa, it’s a bit of a stretch to be calling other places in Oklahoma “cities” rather than towns. But, by population (50,961), Enid is the 9th largest city in the state. The Garfield County seat, it’s about 76% white, 15% Hispanic and around two and a half percent Native America and the same number of Blacks. With over 60% of the voters registered Republicans, it was named one of 10 most conservative cities in America in 2021. In 2020 just 22% of the Garfield County voters, pulled the lever for Joe Biden, 2% more than those who voted for Hillary 4 years earlier.

In 2019, Right Wing Watch introduced us to a neo-Nazi from Enid, Judd Blevins, who coordinated Oklahomans’ participation in the 2017 violent fascist riot in Charlottesville. At the time, Jarod Holt wrote that “Oklahoma has been a hotspot of activity for the white nationalist organization Identity Evropa, which last month rebranded itself as the ‘American Identity Movement’ after its chat logs were leaked by the independent media organization Unicorn Riot.  Right Wing Watch has learned the identity of the state’s coordinator, who, prior to the publication of this article, anonymously organized and recruited young men to the group and its white nationalist ideology. Identity Evropa is the original name of an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has recognized as a white nationalist hate group. The Anti-Defamation League describes the organization as ‘a white supremacist group focused on the preservation of white American culture and promoting white European identity.’ It was founded in 2016 by Nathan Damigo, a racist former felon who is currently a defendant in a federal civil lawsuit pertaining to the violence at the 2017 Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia. In November 2017, Patrick Casey took over leadership of Identity Evropa, and is the current leader of the effort now calling itself the American Identity Movement. The group heavily focuses on recruiting young, college-aged men to its ranks and constructs its messaging to resemble that of the European identitarian movement. Until Unicorn Riot published the group’s leaked chat logs, Identity Evropa operated under a veil of secrecy… Its conferences were invitation-only and closed to the press. Today, Right Wing Watch is identifying a man who was working on behalf of the group in Oklahoma… A man in his late 30s working in secret to build the ranks of a racist extremist movement in America, [h]is name is Judson Gannon Blevins. He was Identity Evropa’s Oklahoma state coordinator... Blevins has praised neo-Confederate leaders including Brad Griffin (‘Hunter Wallace’) of the League of the South, has targeted reporters and activists combating hate in the United States, and celebrated Paul Nehlen, a neo-Nazi candidate who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Wisconsin.”

Then Blevins ran for office himself— and won, even after he was exposed as a white nationalist. In February, 2023, he ousted City Commissioner Jerry Allen (R), 422 (52.2%) to 386 (47.8%). Let’s face it, they like white nationalists in Enid, although a greasy, far right local political-minister, Wade Burleson, insisted on Facebook that Blevins “loves Jesus and his country and has not one racist bone in his body.”

Yesterday, NBC News reported that there’s a recall election next month and that there’s a photo of Blevins holding a tiki torch in Charlottesville “marching alongside an angry mob— a crowd of men recorded throughout the night spitting and shouting ‘Jews will not replace us!’” NBC claims “It’s not clear how many voters knew about Blevins’ white nationalist ties. There was an article in the local paper, which Blevins labeled “a hit piece,” but… it just wasn’t talked about. Blevins wasn’t asked about it at campaign events or forums and his opponent never brought it up.”

Blevins’ win didn’t sit well with many in Enid. It marked the beginning of a fight to expel Blevins from the City Council— a fight for the very soul of Enid that would unite a coalition of its most progressive residents, divide its conservatives and show the power of community organizing. 

Over the next year, grandmothers would be branded antifa radicals, local organizers would be accused of attempted murder, and a national white power movement would stake its claim on the City Council. And for a growing number of state and local governments confronting extremism in their ranks, the outcome of that fight— Blevins’ recall election on April 2— will serve either as a model or a warning.

Blevins has declined multiple interview requests. (In response to questions about his white nationalist ties, he told a reporter, “I hope you find God.”) So when, how and why Blevins got involved with a white supremacist movement may never be known.  

What is clear is that from at least 2017 to 2019, Blevins was an active leader in Identity Evropa, one of the largest among the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups that collectively made up the alt-right. 

In public, Identity Evropa eschewed the racist label, opting instead for sanitized descriptors like “identitarians” who were focused on “preserving Western culture.” But privately, in secret meetings and internal online chat groups, members were clear about their motivations and beliefs. In posts that praised Nazis, denigrated racial minorities and professed the superiority of white people, pseudonymous Identity Evropa members spoke candidly about their goal of normalizing racist ideologies and infiltrating conservative politics. 

…The credit— or the blame— for Blevins’ victory depends on whom you ask. Some say it was name recognition; Blevins shares a last name, but is no relation, to the beloved owners of the only locally operated grocery store, Jumbo Foods. Most credit a local conservative activist who managed his campaign and his supporters from the Enid Freedom Fighters, a Facebook group-turned-political force that warred against mask mandates and then certain library books. Blevins’ campaign materials, which leaned into this hard-right Republican identity, were unprecedented in an Enid City Council election— which had always been nonpartisan. 

Blevins’ win represented the kind of quiet progress white power groups had been preaching. As the alt-right splintered after Charlottesville, leaders urged their members to log off the internet, remove their masks and get involved in the political establishment. 

“The Republican Party is comprised largely of white, aging baby boomers,” white supremacist James Allsup told Identity Evropa conferencegoers in 2018. “As baby boomers age out, the positions they hold will become vacant all throughout society and somebody will have to fill them.”

Most of the avowed white supremacists who ran for office in 2018 lost. Increasingly, though, far-right activists and extremists, including those espousing white supremacist beliefs, are faring better. In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism identified more than 100 right-wing extremists running for office nationwide. Nineteen won. 

The fallout from these local elections has rocked communities from Florida to Idaho. Christian nationalists in Ottawa County, Michigan, pushed out their moderate Republican counterparts in 2023 and took over a county board. The same happened with far-right activists the year before in conservative Shasta County, California. 

In Enid, Blevins’ election galvanized an opposition. In March 2023, around 100 people, including Vickers and Presnall, met at a community center. By the end of the evening, they had formed the Enid Social Justice Committee [ESJC] and decided on its first order of business: recalling Judd Blevins. 

… Blevins’ record in the council— apart from the chaos— has been mostly without incident. He’s voted with the rest of the council, and attended veteran’s events at the base and store openings. 

His hard-right posturing has won Blevins supporters who signed up for public comment to counter the “mob of weirdos and miscreants” at the ESJC and compare Blevins to venerated conservative figures like Ronald Reagan. A woman with a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt beseeched the council to look inside their own hearts and ask whether their pasts included anything they “wouldn’t want known.” Another man with a long ginger beard commended Blevins for his courage in attending the Charlottesville rally, which he called a “demonstration to protect American history.” 

Outside the council, too, Enid’s conservatives were rallying. 

Wade Burleson, former president of the Southern Baptists of Oklahoma and a retired pastor of Enid’s largest church, was an early supporter of Blevins on Facebook. Burleson, who also sits on the faith advisory committee of the state’s controversial school Superintendent Ryan Walters, said attempts to unseat Blevins are a “race-bait trap,” an attempt by “communists” and the “mainstream media” to “divide the world over race.” 

From the office of his new ministry, an old Pizza Hut remodeled by his wife, Burleson explained that Blevins’ time with white nationalism was a response to his service in the Marines and a reaction to the Black Lives Matter movement.

“He made some mistakes,” Burleson said, “but he’s not a racist.”  

By the fall, organizers with the Enid Social Justice Committee were knocking on doors in Ward 1, collecting signatures. But committee members agreed they would forgo a recall if Blevins acknowledged his white nationalist activities and associations, renounce them and apologize. Blevins refused. 

Behind closed doors, Enid Mayor David Mason said Blevins was more forthcoming. 

“He admitted it,” said Mason, an insurance executive who was elected the same time as Blevins. Mason has a way of wearing his exasperation on his face during heated council meetings: he whips off his glasses, breathes in deeply and leans back in his swivel chair. He’s concerned about what Blevins’ ties with hate groups will do for business in a city he’s desperate to grow. “Every time you Google Enid, Oklahoma, that's what comes up,” Mason said.