William C. Fisher of Phoenix, Arizona is a longtime white supremacist who claims that “Hitler was right.” Under his online persona of “Preston Brooks,” Fisher references “the Day of the Rope,” a white supremacist fantasy of mass murder, and repeatedly calls for lynching. Fisher is also a grassroots Republican Party activist who serves as a committeeman with the Legislative District 20 Republican Party (LD20 GOP) in Arizona. Fisher’s wife, Kimberly K. Fisher, is also an LD20 GOP committee member. Kim Fisher is currently serving her second term on the Deer Valley Unified School District’s governing board, which is responsible for over thirty thousand students. As we discuss, Kim Fisher must be aware of her husband’s white supremacist agitation. She calls her husband “the smartest man I know” and consults with him on political issues.
Bill Fisher’s Propaganda Output
Bill Fisher has profiles on the Russian social networking site VKontakte as well as the far-Right social network Gab, hiding behind the aliases “Preston Brooks” and “Preston S. Brooks” respectively. Fisher takes these names from Preston Smith Brooks, a 19th century US Representative from South Carolina who is a hero to white supremacists for beating an abolitionist Senator nearly to death. Fisher also uses “Preston [S.] Brooks” when commenting on websites such as Occidental Dissent and Identity Dixie, both of which combine white nationalism and calls for Southern secession. In a later section, we will discuss how we identified William C. Fisher as the person behind “Brooks.”
Before joining the VKontakte and Gab social networking sites – both safe havens for white supremacist organizing – Bill Fisher operated a Twitter account as “Preston Brooks”/@Rebel_Bill. This Twitter account lasted six years from early 2012 until early 2018, gaining at least nineteen thousand followers before it was finally suspended. Fisher’s @Rebel_Bill Twitter account was mentioned in passing in a 2016 Mother Jones article, which noted the account’s “virulently anti-Semitic riffs” and that it had “tweeted an image of a transgender woman using a women’s bathroom with the words: ‘Prosecute or lynch.’” Fisher joined the Russian social network VKontakte as “Preston Brooks” in 2015. In 2016, Fisher registered on the newly created Gab network as “Preston S. Brooks”. Compared to when he had a Twitter account, Fisher has a reduced audience on these two platforms, with under four hundred friends on VKontakte and around 2,300 followers on Gab. Both Gab and the white supremacist part of VKontakte serve as echo chambers. When Fisher urges violence on these platforms, he is addressing an audience already inclined toward racist intimidation.
Fisher’s VKontakte page as “Preston Brooks” regularly shares stories from Occidental Dissent and Identity Dixie, white nationalist/Southern nationalist websites where “Brooks” also comments. The Abbeville Institute, a neo-Confederate group, is also a “Brooks” favorite. Another is the white supremacist and massively antisemitic “Christians for Truth” site, which disseminates propaganda from the Christian Identity movement.
Brooks regularly posts about the Russian state’s war against Ukraine, sharing pieces from the pro-Putin site The Saker, as well as materials claiming that a Jewish conspiracy controls or manipulates Ukraine. Fisher’s stance appears to waver between paleoconservative anti-interventionism (as seen for example on Occidental Dissent), and more active siding with Putin’s aggression, such as circulating an article titled “Why I Support Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” from Identity Dixie.
Calls for Violence on Gab
On Gab – the far-Right social networking site best known for being used by antisemitic mass murderer Robert Bowers – Bill Fisher/“Preston Brooks” invokes “the Day of the Rope” in a number of comments. The phrase “Day of the Rope” references a section in The Turner Diaries, a notorious white supremacist propaganda novel written by neo-Nazi leader William Pierce. In the novel, those suspected of having “betrayed” or “defiled” the white race are hung publicly during this day. Fisher purchased his copy of The Turner Diaries “many years ago” according to a comment on Gab. Through his “Day of the Rope” posts, Fisher suggests that the racist terrorism and mass bloodshed of the novel should be enacted in real life.
Fisher/“Brooks” expresses his hatred of Black people in extremely violent and dehumanizing terms. On Gab, he writes that “N[****]rs don’t have souls,” that “No n[****]r should ever be allowed to sit in judgment of a White person,” and that “n[****]s are the pets of the Jews.” Fisher’s anti-Black hate goes beyond online posts: he states that “I say n[****]r in casual conversation.”
As “Preston S. Brooks,” Bill Fisher writes that “Lynch mobs need to return.” Fisher supports extra-judicial killings by police against Black people, stating: “Cops have been executing useless n[****]r criminals for centuries […] it’s just taking out the trash.”
Bill Fisher hates Jewish people and uses the slur “k[**]e” when referring to them. He believes in the “Zionist Occupation Government” conspiracy theory that Jewish people secretly control the United States government. Fisher uses the antisemitic “echoes” meme to point out what he perceives as nefarious Jewish influence. He accuses a Jewish conspiracy of attempting “white genocide.” Rhetoric of “white genocide” motivated the Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas massacres, as well as other outrages.
Fisher/“Brooks” portrays Jewish people as almost indescribably evil, even circulating the blood libel that Jewish people murder gentile children to drink their blood. This defamation has historically led to explosions of violence against Jewish people.
Bill Fisher has a positive view of Adolf Hitler, proclaiming that “Hitler was right.” Although Fisher does not label himself as a national socialist, he is sympathetic to neo-Nazism, for example writing that “NS [national socialism] and Christianity aren’t mutually exclusive.” Predictably, Fisher is a Holocaust-denier, referring to the Nazis’ systematic genocide of Europe’s Jewish population as a “Holohoax.”
“Brooks”/Fisher fantasizes about the violent deaths of Black people, Jewish people, and a longer list of enemies. For example, Fisher calls conservative commentator David Frum “a traitor […] That soyboy face is meant to decorate the end of a rope.” (Frum has argued to his conservative audience that racism exists and has caused harm.) After Trump-supporter Matt Schlapp paid lip service to “compassion” while arguing against trans inclusion in women’s sports, and used a trans athlete’s personal gender pronoun, “Brooks” told his followers that “Matt Schlapp gets the rope along with his daughter.” (The athlete is not actually his daughter.) Bill Fisher wishes death on transgender people and even their families, in one instance writing that “Moms of tr[***]y freak children get the rope.”
None of Fisher’s murder fantasies and calls for lynching are harmless venting, since these comments address white nationalists on a website (Gab) already linked to an antisemitic mass shooting.
Identification of “Brooks” as William C. Fisher
There is no doubt that “Preston [S.] Brooks” is William C. Fisher of Phoenix, Arizona. On VKontakte, “Brooks” provides a date of birth that matches Fisher’s. “Brooks” states that he is a graduate of University of South Carolina – Upstate, which is another match for Fisher. According to his Gab profile, “Brooks” is a father of three, with one of his children having special education needs. This corresponds to William and Kimberly Fisher’s family. “Brooks” just like Bill Fisher is a US Army veteran of the first Gulf War. Bill Fisher lists Nortel as one of his past employers; “Brooks” has commented on his time with the same company.
On Gab, “Brooks” writes that he has been a “a GOP precinct, county & state committeeman for many years in South Carolina and Arizona.” Searching the phrase “precinct, county & state committeeman” (with an ampersand) on Google leads only to Bill Fisher’s personal Facebook page. In another Gab comment, “Brooks” stated that “I am a GOP Precinct Commiteeman [sic], as is my wife who has also run for office as a Republican.” Both Kim and William Fisher are listed as committee members on the website for Arizona’s Legislative District 20 Republican Committee. In addition to currently being in her second term on the governing board for the Deer Valley Unified School District, in 2020 Kim Fisher ran for Maricopa County Justice of the Peace (Moon Valley Precinct) but was defeated in the Republican primary.
“Preston S. Brooks” mentioned on Gab in late December 2021 that “We had a lousy Christmas because we all came down with Covid.” Kim Fisher wrote to Facebook that “We got sick on Christmas” and specified in another post that it was COVID-19.
Corresponding to his Gab, VKontakte, and old Twitter accounts, there is also a Facebook profile for “Preston S. Brooks (Rebel Bill).” This account has not posted anything since early January 2021. The Facebook profile is clearly the same person as the other “Brooks” accounts, not only because of the name but because of its connections to the same political circles. For example, this Facebook account is “friends” with Renee Griffin, the wife of Bradley Dean Griffin, who runs the Occidental Dissent website. The Facebook profile claims to have studied archeology at the University of Arizona; Bill Fisher states that he received an Applied Archeology degree from there, as well as his South Carolina degree. The “Preston S. Brooks” Facebook profile is “friends” with an old Facebook account for William C. Fisher. It is also “friends” with an old account for Kim Fisher under the name “Kimberly McDonald-Fisher.” Kim Fisher’s current Facebook account follows the “Preston S. Brooks” Facebook profile.
Kim Fisher established an account on Gab in 2019. At the time of writing, the account follows just six accounts, one of them being “Preston S. Brooks.” The account is followed by two users, one of them being “Brooks.” While Kim Fisher only posts to her Gab account infrequently, she must be aware of the steady stream of white supremacist and antisemitic propaganda issued by her husband’s “Preston S. Brooks” account.
League of the South
While he may or may not be a current member, Bill Fisher has voiced support for the League of the South, a Southern secessionist organization that is unambiguously white supremacist. Fisher’s “Preston Brooks” profile belongs to the League of the South’s group on VKontakte. “Brooks”/Fisher is also a regular commenter on Occidental Dissent, a racist website whose owner Bradley Dean Griffin (AKA “Hunter Wallace”) has served as the League of the South’s public relations chief.
League of the South members were some of the most violent white supremacists at 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On Twitter the month before that rally, Bill Fisher shared a call for “Southerners [to] join your fellow SN [Southern Nationalists] in Charlottesville 8/12/2017”. It is unclear whether Bill Fisher actually traveled for “Unite the Right.” After that rally’s violence, Fisher/“Preston Brooks” was the first person to reply to League of the South leader Michael Hill on Twitter, telling League of the South participants: “God bless and keep you all safe from harm.”
After a “White Lives Matter” event in Tennessee later in 2017, Bill Fisher praised rally co-organizers the League of the South on Occidental Dissent, stating that the organization had “the best optics and messaging, and this has obviously worked to their advantage”. Fisher’s use of “their” rather than “our” could mean that Fisher was not a formal member. In another comment posted to Occidental Dissent a few days later, “Brooks”/Fisher expressed disdain toward some of the neo-Nazi organizations allied with the League of the South, labeling one organization as “a freak show for the media circus” and another as “riddled with Feds.” Fisher suggested that instead of trying to pull off ideologically pure white nationalist rallies, racists could make more progress for their cause by operating within “normie politics” as he does.
Kimberly K. Fisher
As we showed earlier, Kimberly K. Fisher must know of her husband’s white supremacist commitments and agitation. Kim Fisher is currently serving her second term as a school district governing board member. She had also hoped to run for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction this year – a position overseeing primary and secondary education for the whole state – but ended her campaign when it became clear she would not receive enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. She remains active within the state Republican Party.
Kim Fisher has claimed on Facebook that “I am not a person who tolerates racism in any direction” yet somehow failed to sound the alarm about her husband’s white supremacist organizing. Instead, Kim Fisher admires William C. Fisher as “the smartest man I know” and has turned to him for guidance on thorny issues.
In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona publicly criticized Kim Fisher over a comment by her comparing COVID-19 health measures to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Such analogies trivialize the Holocaust and are a subtle form of Holocaust-denial. In a statement to the media, Fisher claimed that trivialization was not her goal, but doubled down on the analogy to Nazi Germany. Kim Fisher rhetorically invokes anti-Nazi resistance to justify her efforts against COVID-19 health measures. The hypocrisy is readily apparent: her husband denies the Holocaust, expresses sympathy for Hitler, and defames Jewish people, all while Kim Fisher keeps quiet.
Just as Kim Fisher trivializes the Holocaust while rhetorically making appeals to it, she uses surface language of anti-racism to further racist goals. According to the website for her now-abandoned run for Superintendent of Public Instruction, one of Fisher’s key issues is campaigning against “critical race theory” (CRT) in schools. Kim Fisher believes that “Marxism using Race as their [sic] mechanism” has crept into the education system. While she uses language about “rights for all,” she implies that anti-racist education is an attempt to install a “Marxist Regime.” Kim Fisher’s stance is simply a toned-down version of her husband’s attacks on anti-racism (which he views as “anti-White.”) In a 2021 Facebook post, Kim Fisher claimed that “CRT” would start a “race war”. Meanwhile, her husband has spent years actively organizing for a race war with Kim Fisher’s knowledge and without her public complaint.
While Kimberly Fisher has abandoned her efforts to become State Superintendent of Public Instruction this year, she remains on the governing board of Deer Valley Unified School District until the end of 2024, where she sets policy for forty schools and over thirty thousand students. Kim Fisher has now endorsed Tom Horne for the State Superintendent position. Horne is currently Facebook “friends” with both Bill Fisher and Kim Fisher.
Conclusion
We have exposed William C. Fisher as “Preston [S.] Brooks,” a longtime white supremacist who is fond of making lynching threats. Bill Fisher and his wife Kim Fisher are both Republican committee members for Legislative District 20 in Arizona. As a school district governing board member and public figure, Kim Fisher advances a slightly toned-down version of her husband’s racist and antisemitic politics. Our documentation shows that Kim Fisher knows and tacitly approves of her husband’s efforts for the white supremacist movement.
With our publication of this documentation, Arizona’s Republican Party and the Deer Valley Unified School District governing board can no longer claim ignorance regarding the Fishers. Maintaining white supremacists in positions of political and social power only encourages them. The Arizona Republican Party should publicly disavow the Fishers. Now that Kim Fishers’ complicity with white supremacist organizing is public, Deer Valley Unified School District must begin the process to recall Fisher from her governing board position.
