Author: Atlanta Antifa

On August 15, 2020, racists and the far-Right vow to rally at Stone Mountain outside Atlanta.  

An earlier alert discussed the upcoming rally and Stone Mountain Park’s history. We noted how two projects promoting the August 15 rallies – Protect the South and American Patriots USA – have their roots in neo-Nazi organizing. Both projects now try to build broader alliances through coded messaging.

We also mentioned the “Defending Stone Mountain” call to action from leaders of the Confederate States III% militia (CSIII%). CSIII% is a nominally non-racist far-Right group. In this update, we focus on these “Defending Stone Mountain” organizers and their ties to white nationalist networks. 

At the end of this update, we discuss a new white supremacist project from a long-familiar face who is also trying to agitate around the Confederate carvings on Stone Mountain.

“Heritage Not Hate”

The “Defending Stone Mountain” Facebook event is operated by a couple in Arkansas, Debbie Guin (“Dab Demere”) and Rodney Huffman. They claim to have been provided a permit for August 15 by Stone Mountain Park. A Facebook page for the couple, “Dab Demere/Rodney Huffman, Cs/hnh”, provides their affiliations: the CSIII% militia and “Heritage Not Hate” (HNH). Each of these projects has a separate private Facebook group. Under different titles, the “CS III% Recruiting page” was formed in November 2016 and “Heritage Not Hate main page” was created in January 2018. Guin and Huffman are listed as administrators for both groups. There is significant overlap between the two Facebook groups.

“Defending Stone Mountain” has claimed to be a show of opposition to the “Not Fucking Around Coalition” (NFAC), an armed Black militia that protested in Stone Mountain on July 4. However, the organizers of “Defending Stone Mountain” have a broader agenda against Black protest. For example, Guin posted to her Facebook page in June with an image referring to Black Lives Matter as “Burn Loot Murder”. Guin then commented: “The BLM is no better then [sic] the KKK. […] BLM want to wipe the white race out”. When one of her contacts replied that “The blacks are worse [than the KKK]”, she liked the comment.

Portraying Black anti-racist protest movements as violently racist and white people as under attack is classic racism. However, by pretending that the shrinking Ku Klux Klan sets the limits of actual white supremacy, Guin claims her group is not racist. This strategy provides mainstream cover while still attracting the support of more virulent racists. Little more than two weeks after these comments, Guin launched the “Defending Stone Mountain” event page which soon gained white supremacist interest. Recent commenters on that event page include Randall Wiley Smith, a Georgia former member of the Southern White Knights of the KKK who more recently helped lead the short-lived “Aryan Nations Worldwide”.  

The “Heritage Not Hate” private Facebook group maintained by Guin, her fiancé, and some helpers has a membership list that includes unambiguous white nationalists. This is despite HNH administrators asking for hate group members to identify themselves when joining. HNH leaders Guin and Huffman, plus at least one other HNH administrator, are personally connected to white nationalists on Facebook. The overall pattern of connections suggests affinity between “Heritage Not Hate” and the white power scene, with clear bridges between the two.

(a)    Amanda and Charles Eli Belcher

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Amanda (maiden name Lawson) and Charles Eli Belcher of Tennessee are well-connected white nationalists who have promoted the fractured Aryan Nations (AN). Charles Belcher, who goes by “Eli Belcher” online, joined the HNH Facebook group in June 2018, while his wife Amanda was added to the group by HNH leader Debbie Guin in March this year. Both the Belchers are also connected to another member of the HNH admin team named Chuck Steiner. 

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In Tennessee, there is a white prison gang named “Aryan Nations”, whose name stems from the earlier white supremacist group of the same name. Two of Amanda Belcher’s Facebook profiles have posts stating: “114%”. This is short for the first and fourteenth letters of the alphabet, or A.N. for Aryan Nations. This code is used by the Tennessee gang. The Belchers are linked to obvious white prison gang members on their social media.

However, there are clear links between the Belchers and a faction of the original Aryan Nations, rather than the prison gang named in tribute. Five years ago, a secondary account for Charles Belcher was connected to a leader for one AN faction, Morris Gulett. Charles Belcher also advertised the Gulett AN faction on Facebook the same year. This January, Charles Belcher was Facebook friends with the now-deleted “Windel Winkler” account for Shaun Winkler. Winker is a longtime white supremacist who once operated the “Aryan Nations Knights” Klan group of Gulett’s AN. Shaun Winkler’s wife, Shealyn, was connected on the VKontakte (VK) social networking site to Amanda Belcher, but Amanda Belcher’s account has now been removed for violating VK’s terms of service. 

At the time of writing, the original AN is in disarray. Individuals claim its legacy, yet all major factions have collapsed. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which compiles an annual “Hate Map”, listed no Aryan Nations groups in its most recent 2019 report. Although the Belchers may have ties to the Tennessee prison gang, they also have historic ties to the better-known white supremacist group. Amanda Belcher’s online boasts of “AN” affiliation suggest that she sees herself as continuing the white supremacist group’s efforts, hoping for a revival.

(b)    Charles Edward
Lincoln

Charles Edward Lincoln III is a disbarred former attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana. Over the last several years, Lincoln has become increasingly vocal in efforts to preserve Confederate monuments. Lincoln is also embedded within the white nationalist movement. In 2017, Lincoln appeared on broadcasts for The Daily Kenn, a racist website. Lincoln spoke at 2018’s “Unite the Right 2” in Washington, DC, the sequel to the violent 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

In early 2019, white nationalists tried to hold a rally at Stone Mountain, but their permit was denied by the Park and their organizing collapsed. Lincoln covered this failure in video broadcasts featuring the rally’s organizers, John Michael Estes and Michael Carothers (AKA Michael Weaver), who had fallen out with each other. In 2019, Lincoln was also listed as the Treasurer for the National Committee of the American Freedom Party, a white nationalist and antisemitic party. By the end of the year, Lincoln was replaced. Lincoln traveled to speak at a far-Right rally in Dahlonega, north Georgia, in September 2019. The rally was hosted by Chester Doles, whose involvement in the white power movement spans decades. Lincoln and Doles have kept in contact since the Dahlonega rally.

Lincoln appears in both the Confederate States III% private Facebook group and the “Heritage Not Hate” main group. He is friends on Facebook with “Defending Stone Mountain” organizers Debbie Guin and Rodney Huffman, as well as a third HNH administrator, Chuck Steiner.

Heritage and Hate

The web of associations we have
traced suggests that white nationalists are closely following the “Heritage Not
Hate” scene. Through friendships on Facebook and by joining the HNH private
group, they express sympathy and support. 

Heritage Not Hate organizers may not know every detail of their online associates’ histories and agenda, but this likely would not matter. For example, CSIII%/HNH leader Debbie Guin is Facebook friends with Joseph Slonecki of Pennsylvania. Slonecki’s Facebook cover image is propaganda about “diversity” being forced on white countries and is unmissable by anyone connected to him. HNH admin Steiner is also friends with Slonecki. The numerous threats in the (HNH-alligned) CSIII% private group about shooting Black Lives Matter protesters further suggest that these groups are petri dishes for racism.

In mapping the links between HNH and white nationalists such as the Belchers and Lincoln, our point is not that we know these individuals’ plans for August 15^th. Rather, our view is that HNH is intertwined with active white nationalists and provides a welcoming space for them. As a result, white nationalists will surely bring their crowd on the day. This would be the case even without other projects that have clear white power ties – such as “Protect the South” and “American Patriots USA” – also promoting August 15^th.

The map of relationships also shows how close the CSIII%/HNH “Defending Stone Mountain” organizers are to one planner for 2019’s “Rock Stone Mountain II” white power rally. That white nationalist rally was announced for Stone Mountain on Superbowl Saturday, 2019, but fell apart before the day. 

The organizer in question is Michael Carothers, also known as Michael Weaver. Carothers operates the racist White Information Network blog. For several years, Carothers was a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group. He continues to support the National Alliance’s politics if not the current state of that organization. Carothers was a Rock Stone Mountain II spokesman and publicist. In our previous article about August 15, we noted that Carothers W.I.N. blog recently alluded to further protest at Stone Mountain.

Until recently, Carothers seemed to be two degrees removed from the CSIII%/HNH organizers, since he was not in direct contact but rather connected to other white nationalists that kept in contact with the HNH leaders. Carothers, however, has now befriended “Defending Stone Mountain” organizer Rodney Huffman on Facebook. We know that this is a recent development because “Michael Weaver” still appeared in Huffman’s “recently added” Facebook friends in late July. 

Both Carothers and Charles Lincoln are close to Chester Doles, the founder and leader of American Patriots USA, which is also calling for August 15 rallies on Stone Mountain. Carothers has known Doles for two decades, from the time Doles led the Georgia unit of the National Alliance. Last year, Carothers served as a behind-the-scenes networker and promoter for Doles’ September 14 rally in Dahlonega. Carothers was a member of American Patriots USA starting from its first meeting in December, although the organization now claims he has stepped away. Chester Doles is banned from Facebook but was connected with both Carothers and Amanda Belcher on VKontakte until those two had their accounts blocked for violations of VK’s terms of service.

“Monumental Patriots”

HNH also features another familiar
face.

In mid-July, John Michael Estes joined the “Heritage Not Hate” private group operated by Guin and Huffman. Estes is the white supremacist who organized the “Rock Stone Mountain” rally at Stone Mountain in April 2016 with help from Klansman Gregory Todd Calhoun. Estes also spearheaded the later “Rock Stone Mountain II” attempt.

Estes’ only post in HNH so far has been to promote his new Facebook page, “Monumental Patriots” which started in late June. The page is unmistakably Estes’ work, continually repeating the same slogan about white replacement that Estes used to promote his racist rallies. The “Monumental Patriots” page stokes antisemitism, shares white nationalist content, and celebrates the founder of the American Nazi Party as a “great man.” The page features half a dozen posts about Stone Mountain, including complaints about John Bankhead of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. Estes has not yet called his page’s followers to join the August 15^th protests or directly addressed the upcoming rallies, although he highlighted the July 4 NFAC protest at Stone Mountain as evidence that the Park was bowing to “communists”. 

Estes would not have joined Heritage Not Hate unless he was interested in HNH organizing and hoped to politically gain from it. When Estes shared a “Monumental Patriots” post dog-whistling the theme of white genocide to the HNH private group, nobody there raised an eyebrow. 

Conclusion 

Debbie Guin and Robert Huffman are behind a main call for far-Right protests at Stone Mountain on August 15^th. They are affiliated with the Confederate States III% militia as well as “Heritage Not Hate”. HNH is a misleading name, since the couple amplify racism and are closely intertwined with the white nationalist scene. August 15^th has also been promoted by different projects, which have their own ties to white nationalism.

Stone Mountain’s Confederate carvings are a tribute to white supremacy and a focal point for racist organizing. Under the perverse banner of “Heritage Not Hate”, the CSIII%/HNH organizers have issued a call to action that begs for white nationalist participation. When white supremacist movements are helped to recruit and grow, they leave terror in their wake. They must be opposed strongly and from the start. 

This article supplements our earlier overview of far-Right organizing for August 15. For information on anti-racist community responses on the day, see the FrontLine Organizations Working to End Racism (FLOWER) coalition. Please spread the word in your place of worship, political organization, or community group and show up on August 15^th.

If you have further information on the far-Right organizers mentioned in this report, please get in touch.

Mark Bryant of Marietta, Georgia is, at first glance, an average member of his community. He is a parent, active in his church, and a practicing Certified Public Accountant. However, this accountant has for decades been active on the far-Right fringes. Bryant combines his profession with his politics by providing accounting services for white supremacists and white nationalists.

Bryant appears as the accountant for the National Policy Institute (NPI) – the white nationalist think tank largely responsible for the birth and promotion of the “Alt-Right” – from NPI’s 2008 tax filings until 2015, the most recent year for which filings are available. (Raw summary data is also available for 2016, but the filing itself with the preparer’s name has not yet been posted.)

In addition, from 2007 to 2012 Bryant appeared as the accountant for the secretive Charles Martel Society (CMS), which publishes the racist, pseudo-academic Occidental Quarterly and provided seed money for the NPI. For the last three of those years, Bryant provided various mailing addresses linked to himself as the contact for CMS.

Bryant’s History

Mark Christian Bryant grew up in Dunwoody, Georgia, where he attended Dunwoody High School. According to an arrest record, he was born in Texas. Bryant graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Accounting in 1993. 

Mark Bryant appeared on filings for the Populist Party of Georgia, Inc. a Georgia Domestic Non-Profit Corporation in 1999 and 2000, where Bryant was listed as Chief Financial Officer. According to records with the Georgia Secretary of State, the Populist Party of Georgia was founded in 1993. No records for the years 1994 to 1998 are available online, so it is unclear when Bryant began his involvement. Bryant’s name does not feature on the 1993 filing. The Populist Party of Georgia was administratively dissolved by the Secretary of State in 2002, after no filings were made the year prior. 

Of particular note on the Populist Party of Georgia filings is James H. Yarbrough, who appeared as Agent and Secretary in the 1999 and 2000 filings, and also appeared in its founding documents. Yarbrough was heavily involved with the state chapter of the Populist Party. The resurrected Populist Party was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s, serving as a vehicle for some of David Duke’s runs for President. The Georgia chapter also campaigned to keep the Confederate battle flag on the old Georgia state flag. Leonard Zeskind’s Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream, placed Yarbrough at a 1988 meeting for David Duke in the Atlanta suburbs that was also attended by Atlanta-area white power leader Sam Dickson. (1) A 2002 schedule for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens’ national conference listed Dickson as CofCC’s Georgia director, and Yarbrough as a “Georgia C of CC activist”.

This association between Yarbrough and Dickson is significant, since Mark Bryant went on to help the racist Charles Martel Society – of which Dickson is a key personality – after working with Yarbrough in the Populist Party of Georgia. The connection to the National Policy Institute was likely also made through Dickson or Dickson’s circles. However, relations between Dickson’s circles and Richard Spencer/the NPI have deteriorated following the disastrous “Unite the Right”.

Bryant Today

Bryant provided accountancy services to the National Policy Institute, the white supremacist think tank headed by Richard Spencer, up to its most recent available tax filing (2015), which Bryant submitted in December 2016.

On social media, Bryant keeps in touch with John Weatherman, an Atlanta antisemite active in Sam Dickson’s network. Bryant is also connected to John C. Hall, a Dublin, Georgia, white supremacist who also works as an accountant.

Bryant appears to be a strong supporter of the right-wing Traditionalist Catholic movement. On Facebook, Bryant likes “Defeat Modernism”, a Traditionalist Catholic page featuring antisemitic materials.

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Bryant’s wife, Suzanna Price Bryant, died in early March. Suzanna Bryant was also a firm supporter of Traditionalist Catholicism. On social media, she liked the pages for the German Defense League, the Norwegian Defense League, and the European Defense League. All are spin-offs of the parent group, the English Defense League, a far-Right Islamophobic organization.

What should be done?

If you live in or near Marietta, Georgia, please share this article widely so that Mark Bryant’s neighbors can know of his work with far-Right and white nationalist networks. 

Please also share this article to
anyone who may use Bryant for accountancy work. They should know who they are
supporting.

Bryant’s business suite is in the 1755 The Exchange building in Atlanta. If you are concerned about them renting to Bryant, reach out to the rental manager here.

An archived version of Bryant’s business website is available here.

If you have more information regarding Mark Bryant’s work for the far-Right and white nationalists, please get in touch.

Note

(1) From Zeskind’s Blood and
Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the
Mainstream (p.138):

With the Populist Party still fixated on making [George] Hansen its [presidential] candidate, David Duke went to an Atlanta suburb and announced a campaign for the Democratic Party primaries still seven months away. For the occasion, on June 8, he secured a meeting hall at the Marriott Hotel. Before the event actually started, attorney Sam Dickson strolled by in earnest conversation with Don Black, both dressed handsomely in dark suits. Outside the room’s double-doors two thickset biker Klan goons stood guard […]

After the doors closed, Jim Yarborough arrived. Tall, balding, and bland, Yarborough was from the same generation as Willis Carto and lived in Gainesville, Georgia, just a fifteen-minute jump down the roadway from Forsyth County. Yarborough was then the national vice chairman of the Populist Party, the latest in a series of posts he held whenever Carto controlled the party’s apparatus.

8/10/2020: update on Matt Gurtler and Marjorie Taylor Greene here.

As this report was being prepared for publication Thursday evening, far-Right militiaman and 9th Congressional District candidate Michael Boggus released a video on Facebook, stating that he is the new State Director for American Patriots USA. Since neo-Nazi Chester Doles and the white supremacists around Doles remain in the organization, we assume this is a shell game.

Summary: American Patriots USA (APUSA) was formed last year in north Georgia by Chester Doles, a longtime neo-Nazi. As documented in this and earlier reports, the organization is a thinly disguised front group for white supremacists. APUSA has spent the last few months building a broader front of “constitutionalist” Republican candidates, including several people of color, which it uses to mask its agenda. The white power organization even hosted a current State House Representative, Matthew Gurtler, at their March meeting. We document APUSA’s “Trojan horse” effort and highlight the complicity of GOP candidates and networks in normalizing white supremacist organizing.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Recent APUSA Meetings and Networking
• 2.1 February Meeting
• 2.2 February 29 Networking
• 2.3 March Meeting
• 2.4 May Meeting
3. APUSA Candidates
• 3.1 The Militiamen: Michael Boggus, Jonathan Garcia, Mack McGregor
• 3.2 Who’s In: Johsie Cruz, Danny Ellyson, Derrick Grayson
• 3.3 Who’s Out: Matthew Gurtler, Eugene Yu, Hubert Owens, Doug Collins
4. APUSA Members
• 4.1 The Minions: Sean Keena, Robert Timothy Dickenson, Josh Mote, Christy Howle
• 4.2 The Shadow Member: Michael Carothers/Weaver
• 4.3 The Leader: Chester Doles
5. Strategy Notes: What’s Going On?
6. Conclusion

Introduction

In late December 2019, a new organization in north Georgia named American Patriots USA (APUSA) announced its first political endorsement. On the racist White Information Network blog, APUSA announced: “Cody Cantrell for Sheriff of White County.” Cantrell is by his own admission “affiliated” with the Ku Klux Klan. Less than a month after the announcement, Cantrell’s campaign had collapsed as the community discovered Cantrell’s KKK ties. APUSA provided contradictory accounts in the aftermath. White Information Network eventually removed the “Cantrell for Sheriff” announcement. 

American Patriots USA continues to act as a front group for neo-Nazis and other ideological racists. Since the Cody Cantrell debacle, APUSA has altered their electoral strategy by pursuing support among Republican fringe candidates who, in contrast to Cantrell, are not affiliated with the KKK. APUSA currently endorses seven candidates, with more than half being rightwing people of color. One of these candidates has now claimed he was unaware of the APUSA endorsement, but the rest have talked to the group’s meetings. Another candidate endorsed by APUSA, white militiaman Michael Boggus, has effectively folded his campaign for Congress in Georgia’s 9^th District into APUSA. Boggus co-administrates a new Facebook page for APUSA and promoted this page on a campaign radio advertisement. APUSA plans to host a fundraising event for Boggus on Saturday, May 16. The venue was initially Johnny B’s bar in Dahlonega – a symbolic choice, since this was where just years earlier APUSA founder Chester Doles and Hammerskin gang members attacked the family and friends of an interracial couple. The venue was changed less than two days before the event to the Auraria Community Club, after Bikers for Trump allegedly said they would attend.

In its recent outreach to Republicans, APUSA was even able to get current Georgia State House Representative Matthew Gurtler (8^th district) to speak to its March meeting in Dahlonega. Relations between Gurtler and APUSA appear to have later soured.

In this report, we discuss APUSA’s activities from late February to mid-May as it built support within grassroots Republican circles in Georgia. We discuss the candidates currently being promoted by APUSA. Then, we recap core members of APUSA who have stuck with the organization since its founding last year. We highlight the behind-the-scenes involvement of neo-Nazi Michael Carothers (AKA Michael Weaver) in the organization. Carothers knows APUSA head Chester Doles since Doles led the Georgia unit of the National Alliance in the early 2000s. At the time, the National Alliance was the largest neo-Nazi organization in North America. We conclude with some thoughts on why it is useful for a group guided by clear white supremacists to build a broader multiracial and “constitutionalist” front.

2. Recent APUSA Meetings and
Networking 

In an earlier article, we discussed APUSA’s efforts up to but not including its February 22 meeting. As we documented, in early February Chester Doles continued to broadcast his neo-Nazi affiliations on social media, for example with a post referencing “14/88”: the “fourteen words” white power slogan in combination with alphanumeric code for “H.H.” or “Heil Hitler.” In early February, Doles remained in touch with Billy Roper, a white supremacist who Doles had organized with in the National Alliance. 

2.1 February Meeting

APUSA’s February meeting took place on the 22^nd, having been canceled due to snow a couple of weeks earlier. In a sign of things to come, the organization had invited Eugene Yu, a Republican candidate in the primary for Georgia’s 7^th Congressional District, to address the meeting. After being alerted to APUSA’s politics, Yu canceled.

The meeting at the Lumpkin County Parks and Recreation Community Center featured three speakers: Josh Mote, Chester Doles, and Sean Keena. Mote had been Klansman Cody Cantrell’s “campaign manager” just one month earlier. In February, Mote established a Facebook page, “Say What You Want in Dahlonega?”, to promote APUSA’s activities. Early in the meeting, Mote was promoted to APUSA’s “Lumpkin County Coordinator”. As Doles explained to attendees later, Mote would serve as a public face for APUSA because “They [antifascists] can’t find nothing on him”. 

Before giving his prepared speech, Mote insisted: “We are nothing of the Ku Klux Klan, we are nothing of a neo-Nazi group” but an organization of patriotic Americans. Mote discussed plans for future events and his campaigning for APUSA’s “2^nd Amendment Sanctuary County” initiative, which at the time was the group’s main focus. Mote stated that Lumpkin County Sheriff Stacy Jarrard was “completely on board” with APUSA’s 2^nd Amendment Sanctuary organizing, and that Jarrard had purchased “many raffle tickets” for the organization’s fundraising AR-15 raffle. Mote’s formal speech framed gun control as a plot by “Anti-American Socialist[s] that are trying to dismantle America”.

Chester Doles took the podium and delivered a tearful speech. The individuals who had founded American Patriots USA just two months prior had experienced “a profound change of heart, soul and mind” due to “divine intervention from a loving and forgiving God.” “God turned me upside down and shook me out”, claimed Doles, causing Doles to abandon his white supremacist past. Doles insisted:

The one thing we [APUSA] have not been is a racist, white supremacist, Nazi or KKK ‘front group’ or otherwise. The only memberships we have ever had to revoke has been of members that did have continuing ties with these groups.

Doles’ speech as well as Mote’s were later published on APUSA’s website. Doles continues to circulate white nationalist materials on his social media, network with militant racists, and like their posts calling for violence. In a later section (4.3), we discuss Doles’ online activity since his February performance. Nothing has changed.

The final speech of the February meeting was from Sean Keena, whose antisemitism we have highlighted before. When he introduced Keena, Doles stated: “I’ve known Sean for the past twenty years, [we’ve] been through a whole bunch of stuff.” This means that Keena and Doles knew each other since the early 2000s, when Doles led the National Alliance unit in Georgia.

In his rambling speech, Sean Keena suggested that Bernie Sanders was a political successor of Lenin and Trotsky, then continued:

Look: I’m not an antisemite. This is not about race, but the problem is: Benjamin Disraeli, he was a British statesman about a hundred and fifty years ago in England. […] Anyway, he was a Jewish statesman. He said: ‘The foundation of all politics is race.’

It just so happens [Michael] Bloomberg – and I’ve had it up to here too with Bloomberg – and Bernie [Sanders] are both, um… ‘Chosen’. The self-proclaimed Chosen Ones.

Keena misquoted Disraeli. However, the actual quote (“All is race, there is no other truth”) is used as an epigraph in My Awakening and is also quoted in Jewish Supremacism, both books by neo-Nazi and former Klan leader David Duke. In our earlier article, we noted Keena’s praise for David Duke. 

After Keena’s Jew-baiting, his
remarks became even less coherent. He received polite applause, and then the
meeting wound down with everyone watching a speech by Trump.

2.2   February 29 Networking
Events 

The following Saturday, Doles, Mote and other APUSA members attended rallies to promote their organization. At the “Bartow County 2A and Trump Rally” hosted in Adairsville by the Presidents Team nonprofit, Doles and his teenage daughter prominently displayed an APUSA banner. William Tex Simmons and other members of the American Brotherhood of Patriots, the militia that provides armed security for APUSA meetings, also attended the Adairsville event.

From Adairsville, the APUSA contingent went on to Villanow (near LaFayette), Georgia for a “Georgia Second Amendment Sanctuary Rally” at a local community center. At the Villanow event, the APUSA group posed for a photo with the event’s main speaker, Islamophobe and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is running for Congress as a Republican in the Georgia’s 14^th District. Also in the group photo was Lucretia Hughes, a Black pro-Trump commentator and energetic rightwing networker who talked at Chester Doles’ September 14 far-Right rally in Dahlonega.

2.3 March Meeting

The March 14 meeting for APUSA was their last at the Parks and Recreation Community Center before the coronavirus pandemic suspended operations. The event introduced several candidates running as Republicans to APUSA. Doles opened the meeting with comments about the delays and difficulties faced by his Lumpkin County “2^nd Amendment Sanctuary” efforts. He told an unverifiable story about having sat down with FBI agents about the problem of antifascists. With introductory remarks out of the way, Doles introduced the first guest, State House Representative Matthew Gurtler (8^th GA House district).

Matthew Gurtler stated to Doles that “I’m right there with ya”, portraying APUSA and similar groups as organic responses to big government and “socialism on the rise”. He referenced his track record of being the most conservative member of Georgia’s state House and promoted his current campaign for the congressional spot in Georgia’s 9^th Congressional District. Gurtler asserted that it was time to push back against the “rise of socialism” from the media, academia, and Hollywood.

The meeting featured four other
speakers: three militia figures with long shot political ambitions, and an
impromptu speech by APUSA’s webmaster. Between speakers, Doles offered
additional comments, for example mentioning a recent failed attempt by APUSA to
harass a local progressive group that has long been a target for Doles. Doles
reminded everyone that he had “renounced hate” and found common ground with
Lucretia Hughes. 

Jonathan Garcia, Mack McGregor, and Michael Boggus are all militia supporters who promote each other’s efforts. Garcia aims to run for Governor in 2022, with McGregor running an accompanying campaign for Lieutenant Governor. Michael Boggus is a former member of the Georgia Security Force III% militia. He is currently running for the Republican nomination for Georgia’s 9^th Congressional District, where he is competing against Matthew Gurtler among others.

In a rambling speech, Garcia railed against “Commie-crats” and stressed his “strict constitutionalist” principles. His talk included common far-Right rallying cries, from Ruby Ridge to the more recent militia martyr LaVoy Finicum. (Garcia stated that he had met Finicum’s wife.) Garcia favorably cited Robert Welch, the conspiracy theorist co-founder of the John Birch Society. Garcia, who is Black and Latino, told the audience: “I am what Martin Luther King talked about […] Call me a racist, I dare you.”

McGregor believes that the
Democratic Party is a socialist and communist organization dedicated to gun
confiscation. He expressed nostalgia for the days when mentioning socialism
meant “you got curb stomped”. McGregor encouraged the audience to “push these
people [Democrats and others considered socialist] back where they belong […]
drag ‘em out, do away with ‘em”.

Michael Boggus’ speech focused on
his main qualifications for the Congressional spot in Georgia’s 9^th
District this year: “I’m definitely no politician and I’m not politically
correct”. Boggus talked about candidates such as himself as the alternative to
civil war: “We can do it now [change by political means] or we can wait and let
Boogaloo happen.” While Boggus claimed “Boogaloo [a far-Right term for civil
war] is fun”, he would rather win through the ballot and change the
establishment.   

Following Boggus’ talk, APUSA webmaster Christy Howle gave an impromptu speech in which she fantasized about building gallows for “traitors”. Howle characterized undocumented immigration as an “invasion” and labeled immigrants as “the enemy”. She speculated that coronavirus shutdowns had been orchestrated because no shots were fired at the Richmond, Virginia anti-gun control rally two months earlier, which would have otherwise been the pretext for a clampdown. 

An unfocused discussion of Doles’ favorite organizing issue, immigration, followed. After briefly speaking again, Matthew Gurtler made his excuses but posed for a group photo before leaving.

(d)    May Meeting

Georgia was under a shelter-in-place order from April 3 to April 30. During this time APUSA held no public meeting. On the first day of the shelter-in-place order, Doles shared an APUSA image endorsing four fringe GOP candidates: Boggus, Garcia, McGregor, as well as Hubert Owens Jr., who is running as a Republican in State House District 93. On April 20, Doles circulated a new image adding two more candidates on the APUSA “We the People Dream Team”. These two additional endorsements were: Johsie Cruz, running as a Republican for Congress in Georgia’s 4^th District, and Danny Ellyson, running for in Georgia’s 8^th Congressional District. 

APUSA members also mentioned Derrick Grayson, running as a Republican in the special election to the US Senate for Georgia, as billed to speak at an upcoming meeting. Grayson however was not officially endorsed by Doles and APUSA until the day after their May 9 meeting, held at the organization’s new clubhouse.

Only sections of the May 9 meeting were posted online. Candidates who presented at the small clubhouse gathering were: Johsie Cruz, Derrick Grayson, Danny Ellyson, Michael Boggus and Jonathan Garcia. As well as Doles, key APUSA members attending were Lumpkin County Coordinator Josh Mote; KKK supporter and APUSA Chaplain Robert Timothy Dickenson (visible in footage); and Nazi-supporting Doles associate, Sean Charles Keena (audible in recordings). The speaker’s podium was draped with an “Anti-Antifa” scarf featuring a white nationalist celtic cross symbol on either end. APUSA later characterized having people of color framed by the white nationalist accessory as a “laugh” at antifascists’ expense. 

Johsie Cruz, who emigrated to the US from Venezuela, portrayed antifascists as the true Nazis. Video of Derrick Grayson’s speech was briefly posted, but soon went offline. We do not know its content except that according to Chester Doles, Grayson criticized RINOs (“Republicans in Name Only”). Doles officially endorsed Grayson’s Senate run the following day. Danny Ellyson stressed his military experience and portrayed himself as a strict constitutionalist. He congratulated APUSA for trying to “bridge a gap” and characterized anti-fascist criticism as “When you do right things, people try to attack you”. Most of Boggus’ talk is not available, but online footage shows a meandering conversation involving APUSA core member Sean Keena. At one point, Boggus commented that he was in Michigan last year, to challenge “No Go Zones” – a reference to an anti-Muslim protest he attended, and the myth that parts of Dearborn, Michigan are under Sharia law. Jonathan Garcia’s speech insisted that “outside organizations” such as the World Health Organization were undermining sovereignty. Garcia also stressed his unhyphenated American identity, which he perceives as under threat.

3. APUSA Candidates

By summarizing APUSA’s recent
meetings, we also covered most of its endorsed candidates.

3.1 The Militiamen: Michael Boggus,
Jonathan Garcia, Mack McGregor

Militia supporters Jonathan Garcia and Mack McGregor aim to run for Georgia Governor and Lieutenant Governor respectively in 2022. They currently support Michael Boggus’ campaign in the Republican primary for the 9^th Congressional District. Boggus is now deeply involved with American Patriots USA. APUSA are using a “Bikers for Boggus” fundraising event on May 16^th – a bike run leaving from the Auraria Community Center in Dahlonega and returning for music and speakers – to further claim Dahlonega as their turf.

Boggus’ close relationship with APUSA is not the first time he has sided with white nationalists. Sidney Horton, a Georgia white nationalist who authored antisemitic propaganda about “The Jewish Question”, also works closely with Boggus.

3.2 Who’s In: Johsie Cruz, Danny
Ellyson, Derrick Grayson

Three more candidates talked for the first time at APUSA’s May 9 meeting: Johsie Cruz (for Congress, GA04), Danny Ellyson (for Congress, GA08), and Derrick Grayson (for US Senate). Grayson was not included in APUSA’s April “We the People Dream Team” promotional image but was endorsed following the May 9 meeting.

APUSA informally promotes QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene (for Congress, GA09) who posed for a photo with group members in February and who Doles calls “our friend”.

3.3 Who’s Out: Matthew Gurtler, Eugene
Yu, Hubert Owens, Doug Collins

Despite State House Representative Gurtler talking at the March APUSA meeting and voicing support for the organization’s efforts, APUSA is supporting Michael Boggus over Gurtler and other candidates in the 9^th Congressional District Republican primary. APUSA appears to have fallen out with Gurtler, with Christy Howle selling an APUSA t-shirt which portrays Gurtler as “nutless & gutless”.

As we discussed earlier, Eugene Yu (for
Congress, GA07) pulled out of an APUSA meeting in February.

Hubert Owens, Jr. was one of the earliest candidates endorsed by APUSA, having been promoted by the organization alongside Boggus, McGregor and Garcia on April 3. Owens is a Republican running for State House District 93. He previously ran in a 2018 GOP primary for a Congressional spot in Maryland. Owens now claims not to have been aware of the APUSA endorsement and his Facebook post thanking APUSA for its support has vanished. Christy Howle continues to sell tank tops and posters of the APUSA “We the People Dream Team” featuring an image of Owens along with the other five candidates that APUSA had endorsed by the end of April. 

Incumbent 9th District Congressman Doug Collins had already disassociated himself from Chester Doles shortly before the formation of APUSA, by issuing a statement disavowing white nationalism and saying that he would not attend Doles’ September 2019 rally in Dahlonega, after having his name listed as “invited” on the initial flyer. The White Information Network blog complained that GOP Congressman Collins had “come out against pro-white activists.”

4. APUSA Members

With five out of the seven candidates promoted by APUSA being people of color – four of them Black – it is easy to be distracted from the white nationalist nature of the project. APUSA is still controlled by Chester Doles and his close associates. Doles’ VKontakte (VK) social media account remains part of online groups for “Mein Kampf” and the National Alliance, among others. Scrolling down more than a few days on his VK account predictably leads to white nationalist content. See Section 4.3 for more counterevidence to Doles’ claim of rejecting “hate”.

4.1 The Minions: Sean Keena, Robert
Timothy Dickenson, Josh Mote, Christy Howle

Apart from Joshua Mote, who is the “clean” public face of APUSA, the two most frequent attendees at APUSA meetings are Sean Keena, a Nazi sympathizer and longtime friend of Doles, as well as Robert Timothy Dickenson, a Klan supporter who Chester Doles identified as APUSA’s Chaplain. The organization’s webmaster, Christy Howle, is close with racist Paul Lovett, who operates the racist “Nationalist Liberty Union” in the Augusta metro area. 

With the January commotion over Cody Cantrell’s attempted run for White County Sheriff, Cantrell and other members of his SCK Klan group may have indeed left APUSA. However, APUSA’s official explanation – after dropping their initial lie about antifascist hackers – makes no sense. If APUSA removed bigots, figures such as the Holocaust-mocking Sean Keena would also have to go.

Following APUSA’s first meeting in December, members celebrated at Johnny B’s in Dahlonega. A group photo showed eight people, including Cantrell and three more SCK-KKK members, one of them giving a Klan salute. The four remaining figures were Doles, Keena and Dickson – ideological racists and key APUSA members – as well as one other person, Michael Carothers AKA Michael Weaver.

4.2 The Shadow Member: Michael
Carothers/Weaver

Michael David Carothers (born 1980), who goes by the name Michael Weaver, has been an active white supremacist for over two decades. According to an article on Andrew Anglin’s old Total Fascism website, “Upon turning 18, he [Carothers] joined the National Alliance, of which he was a member for ten years.” As well as the National Alliance, Carothers was active in the white supremacist “World Church of the Creator” (WCOTC) for several years. For example, a WCOTC newsletter from the year 2000 listed Carothers as a contact.

Even if the years in the Total Fascism article are slightly off, Carothers was clearly part of the National Alliance while Chester Doles led the Georgia unit in the early 2000s. According to Total Fascism, Weaver “once met [National Alliance leader] William Pierce at a [2002] NA meeting in Dahlonega, Georgia” – an event organized by Doles. Weaver continued with the National Alliance for years after Doles went to prison on federal firearms charges, even being named “Activist of the Year” by the organization in 2008. In December 2010, Carothers attacked a Black man in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia with pepper spray, eventually taking a plea deal. Carothers received a sentence of one year in prison plus nine more years of banishment from the Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit. 

Currently, Carothers maintains the White Information Network blog which he launched in 2010. Weaver often plays the role of publicist and behind-the-scenes organizer in the Georgia white nationalist milieu, as he did for the failed “Rock Stone Mountain II” mobilization and for Chester Doles’ September rally in Dahlonega. Carothers’ racist ideology has changed little as decades passed. His White Information Network blog lists white supremacist murderer James Alex Fields, Jr as a “political prisoner” deserving support. Carothers republishes neo-Nazi propaganda from the National Alliance on a regular basis.

Carothers did not merely attend the initial meeting for APUSA in December. He assists online promotion and communications for the group. Carothers/Weaver and Chester Doles were the only two profiles linked to the American Brotherhood of Patriots militia on VK. (Weaver lost his VK account in February.) A few days after Michael Boggus was introduced as a candidate to the March APUSA meeting, Carothers posted a photo of a Michael Boggus campaign sign in Cartersville to his White Information Network. In April, Weaver also posted a screen-capture of Hubert Owens, Jr. thanking APUSA for its endorsement on his White Information Network blog, with the title “Support American Patriots USA”. Carothers wrote that APUSA candidates are “standing up to antifa” on VNN Forum and Stormfront, both white power sites.

A look at the “Michael Weaver” profile on Facebook shows just how closely he has been following APUSA’s candidates. Of the seven candidates endorsed by APUSA, Carothers follows pages for all except Derrick Grayson, who APUSA just officially endorsed. On a Facebook livestream by Michael Boggus the day of APUSA’s May meeting, Michael’s father David Carothers (“Horst Hessler”) commented: “Greetings on behalf of my son, Mike Weaver”. David Carothers is also a neo-Nazi and used to help his son distribute propaganda for the National Alliance.

On Facebook, Weaver is also connected to APUSA’s Lumpkin County Coordinator Josh Mote, who insists that APUSA is “nothing of a neo-Nazi group.”

4.3 The Leader: Chester Doles

Chester Doles’ claim that he recently had a divinely inspired “profound change of heart, soul and mind” leading him to reject racism is false. Doles made this claim in a speech to the February 22^nd meeting of his American Patriots USA. In the two months directly following the February meeting, Doles’ social media profile on VKontakte featured: 

• A link to Michael Carothers’ “White Information Network” blog.
• An anti-immigrant propaganda image from the white nationalist “Western Loyalist” site.
• Two different reposts from the VK profile of Paul Fromm, a longtime Canadian white supremacist.
• A photo of a New Jersey European Heritage Association (NJEHA) poster placed on a street sign. NJEHA is a small antisemitic, white power organization

• A statement from the Southern secessionist/white supremacist League of the South (LoS) on the “Disease of Globalism”. The text, written by LoS head Michael Hill, targets an “alien elite (largely Jews)” for allegedly taking over the United States and states that only “White men and women” should “run […] our civilization.” Doles shared this link from the VK page of Michael Tubbs, LoS Chief of Staff and leader for its Florida chapter. Tubbs was a ringleader for violence at 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Tubbs had earlier served prison time for his part in the “Knights of the New Order”, which heisted weapons from the US military as part of a plot to spark a race war.

• Two reposts from VK user Roberto Figueras, whose profile picture is a portrait of Adolf Hitler. The first was an “Anti-Antifa” image which incorporates the Totenkopf/Death’s Head symbol used by a division of the Nazi SS. Eight days later, Doles shared a video clip from Figueras captioned as: “Russian nationalists dissolve an anti-racist concert”. The video actually showed a hooligan attack involving clubs and rubber bullet “traumatic pistols” against an open-air rock festival in Miass, Russia in 2010, for which there have been differing explanations. By sharing Figueras’ post, Doles implies that he supports attacks on anti-racist events.  

A similar picture emerges from looking at who interacts with Doles on social media. We have already noted that Doles reposts longstanding white supremacists such as Paul Fromm and Michael Tubbs. During the same two-month period since Doles’ speech claiming that God “turned me upside down and shook me out”, the five most frequent commenters to his VK page were all blatant white supremacists:

• Mark Calvin of Texas (23 comments), whose VK profile features speeches by Hitler and Goebbels as well as a rant about “beady eyed rat Jews”.
• Nick Folkes of Sydney, Australia (7 comments), who formerly led the far-Right “Party for Freedom” in Australia and this year announced, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNCLE ADOLF!” on Hitler’s birthday.
• Garry Solomon of Oklahoma (6 comments), a member of the white supremacist League of the South.
• “Vacuum Decay” of Virginia (6 comments), who refers to people of color as “muddies” and jokes about “return[ing] jews to the ground” with poison gas.
• Tom Shaw of Virginia (6 comments), an obsessive Hitler fan, Holocaust-denier and racist. In one comment, Shaw stated that he had formally applied for American Patriots USA membership.

During the same two months after allegedly abandoning “hate”, Doles repeatedly signaled his agreement with these white supremacists. On March 25, Doles liked a post by Nick Folkes to his wall stating: “The answer is simple ‘NO MORE NON WHITE IMMIGRATION’” – an unambiguous white nationalist position. On the same day, Mark Calvin wrote that he appreciated Chester Doles “raising awareness of k[*]ke scheming”, which also got a like from Doles. Finally, on April 5, “Vacuum Decay” posted an image to Doles’ page with the slogan “Exterminate the foreign virus – hydrogen cyanide” and featuring a figure with a gas mask and a swastika-and-eagle emblazoned helmet. The propaganda image is a reference to genocide. The poison hydrogen cyanide – also known by the brand name Zyklon B – was used in Nazi extermination camps for mass murder. As someone who spent a long time in white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles, Doles understood the reference. He liked the post.

The above shows Doles’ story of divine transformation to be a lie. The tale was highly suspect to begin. Doles has a history not as a Christian or any kind of monotheist, but rather as a racist heathen. Although there are non-racist varieties of Germanic neopaganism, Doles does not subscribe to them – in 2005, Doles wrote from prison that for him “Asatru [the name of his faith] and National Socialism go together, like hand and glove”. Doles does not share Christian iconography on his social media, but rather heathen imagery. Although American Patriots USA has Christian members and a Klan-supporting Chaplain, there is little evidence that Doles has changed from his racist heathen faith, beyond speeches at two APUSA meets that appear to have been motivated by political convenience.

5. Strategy Notes: What’s Going On?

With figures such as Doles, Keena,
Dickenson, and Carothers, white nationalism remains at the heart of APUSA. So,
why would white nationalists promote a multiracial team of “constitutionalist”
Republicans?

Chester Doles outlined his intentions for American Patriots USA early on. Appearing on The Right Voice white nationalist podcast in October, Doles cited deceased National Alliance leader William Pierce to explain his plans. Pierce stressed the importance of having allies “inside the gates”, or within centers of social, political, and economic power, rather than building a racist movement primarily from the margins. Doles believes that building broader coalitions can open doors, eventually leading to influence and opportunity.

On the same broadcast, Doles argued that the Trump presidency has done much to normalize white “tribal thinking” – a less direct way of saying racism – and that Trump therefore deserves support. Doles discussed Black pro-Trump organizer Lucretia Hughes’ appearance at his September rally, which Doles believed to be the perfect “Trojan Horse” for his agenda. Doles is happy to make vague statements against “hate” and to build visible alliances with rightwing people of color, provided that this ultimately helps his white “tribal” position.

APUSA is a response to the current political position of white nationalists. In the years following Unite the Right in Charlottesville, VA 2017 – attended by both Doles and Michael Carothers – it has been increasingly difficult for white nationalists to hold events. Even before Unite the Right, in Georgia the “Rock Stone Mountain” rally of April 2016 was forcefully challenged by large protests, and a “Rock Stone Mountain II” announced for early 2019 collapsed before the event took place. Some white nationalists now look to mobilizations by groups such as Patriot Prayer in the Pacific Northwest as a possible way forward. Patriot Prayer is a multiracial far-Right group whose most prominent leaders are men of color, but Patriot Prayer provides ample space for white nationalists to organize under its umbrella.

Similarly, portions of the militia
movement – actively courted by Doles – are multiracial even as this movement
engages in anti-immigrant and Islamophobic agitation. The militia movement
frequently intersects with white nationalism.

What makes APUSA different from
these above examples is that APUSA is structured around a core of Doles and his
longtime associates – clear white nationalists who have practical control. They
believe that a front-facing multiracial alliance will allow them to build
capacity, push for their goals, and gradually move people toward their
position. The point is not merely to deceive, however. APUSA wishes to lead
broader campaigns and will presumably involve whoever wants to help. Yet the
agenda and strategic vision is still set by Doles’ white nationalist coterie.

The demographics of Lumpkin County, where Doles and APUSA are based, also help to understand APUSA’s strategy. Lumpkin County is 94.8% white, 5% Hispanic or Latino, 1.8% Black and less than 1% each Asian and American Indian. (The numbers add to over 100% since Hispanic people may be of any race.) Georgia’s 9^th Congressional District, which includes Lumpkin County, is overall 87.1% White in a significantly more diverse state. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­Immigration is a key driver of demographic change in this area, and so white nationalists can make significant strides in their agenda locally just by scapegoating and targeting immigrants. Further, since the area remains very white, a “constitutionalist” insistence on local powers over the federal government and also over a more diverse, politically changing state, is a useful proxy for explicit white nationalism. 

The role of antisemitism within Doles’ organization should be emphasized. Participants such as Doles, Carothers, and Keena view a vast Jewish conspiracy as their primary enemy. Doles wrote earlier this year that terms such as “globalist” can be used to make antisemitic narratives more palatable, while at least initially avoiding “the evil J word”. Conspiracy theories flourish within APUSA and on its social media. Those who have been led to believe in shadowy “globalist” conspiracies can then be directed to sites such as White Information Network, which makes the racist and antisemitic worldview explicit.

6. Conclusion 

We have shown how APUSA has tried to
use Republican candidates to launder its reputation and create new
opportunities, while remaining a white nationalist organization in leadership
and intent. 

It is hard to assess how long APUSA’s present alliances will last. A figure such as Michael Boggus – a far-Right militiaman who was already open to working with white nationalists – seems to have gained by linking up with APUSA. APUSA has thanked him by turning their long-desired bike run into a Boggus fundraiser, and by treating Boggus’ campaign as their main organizing issue while 2^nd Amendment Sanctuary County efforts are stalled. For other candidates, there may be limits to how much APUSA can help, beyond assistance with name recognition and potentially speaking at a few meetings.

Although APUSA hosted an elected
official at its March meeting, most of those on the APUSA candidate team exist
on the political fringes, far from any official power. For Doles and company,
getting “inside the gates” is more still aspiration than reality. It is
unlikely that APUSA will push any political candidate to victory, including its
efforts for outsider Boggus. 

The greater concern is that by being
accepted within the GOP grassroots, APUSA’s white nationalist leaders may feel
normalized, find opportunities for growth, and eventually become emboldened.
This in turn could create a hostile and potentially dangerous climate for
others in the region. Campaign events also present a useful opportunity for
APUSA to recruit and further radicalize the Republican voter base. Thankfully,
north Georgia has a history of anti-racist community protest and networks
defending human dignity. We hope this documentation proves useful.

If you have further information on APUSA or other white nationalist organizing in Georgia, please get in touch.