“Pro-White” Charlottesville Marcher Elected to Washington State GOP Post
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/GettyJames Allsup, 22, who marched in the Charlottesville hate marches last year, has now been elected to a Republican Party post in Washington state, as The Daily Beast reports. Allsup is affiliated with a “pro-white” group and his new post in the Washington state GOP signals a frightening time across the nation as a self-declared white supremacist represents the Republican party.
The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., a “pro-white” march filled with white supremacists, took place in August of 2017. The march took a violent turn when one protester drove a car into the crowd, killing a protester, Heather Heyer, and injuring others. Allsup was filmed at the march as part of the Identity Evropa group that is anti-immigration and alt-right. The group was founded in 2016 and mimics messages from Europe’s identitarians, which is a group that “uses ‘pro-white’ innuendo to push a racist reactionary message, particularly against immigrants.”
Following the march, Allsup resigned as the president of Washington State University’s Republican club, where he had continuously faced backlash from his peers. Many members of the club denounced his “Trumpist tone” and “xenophobia.” His appearance at the Unite the Right march was a step too far for his fellow club members and Allsup resigned. However, this didn’t stop him from speaking on a white nationalist podcast Fash the Nation just a month after the march. On the podcast, he explained his attempts to take control of WSU’s College Republican club, stating, “If you are a college guy, or a college girl, and you are on a college campus, if you have three or four fashy goy friends, you can take over your school’s College Republicans group and move it to essentially being an alt-right club.”
Now, Allsup has decided to have a “pro-white” impact at a larger scale. On June 2, Allsup was elected a precinct committee officer for the Washington Republican Party in Whitman County. His candidacy was uncontested for four days before he was officially awarded the post. So, what exactly is a precinct committee officer? Basically, he will be in charge of going door to door, meeting people and figuring out how they will vote. So, he’s a glorified canvasser. However, he will also vote for members of the Republican’s county central committee, who then influence who is chosen for party official posts statewide. Despite his seemingly insignificant post, Allsup may have big plans to work his way up the GOP ladder. Shortly after Allsup was elected, he appeared on an Identity Evropa podcast where he stated:
Of course I’m not the GOP shill here. I’m not going to tell you that knocking doors for a Republican congressman is going to save the West or save European Americans. That’s not at all what I’m saying, but it is a means to an end. This political involvement is a means to our political ends.
Unfortunately, Allsup’s plans are realistic. University of Washington law professor Hugh Spitzer said, “If you want to take over a political party in this state, the best thing to do is to start at the PCO level and get a whole bunch of people who agree with your views elected as PCOs.”
The Whitman County GOP, Allsup and the Spokane GOP declined to comment for The Daily Beast’s report on Allsup’s election. However, Caleb Heimlich, who is the chair of the Washington State Republican Party, stated:
The Washington State Republican Party does not condone identity politics, in any form, whatsoever. It is antithetical to our core values and stands counter to our goal of getting Washington back on the right track. We condemned this hateful ideology before, we condemn it today, and will continue to condemn it in the future.
Allsup is an official member of the Whitman County GOP, the largest political organization in the county. Spitzer described the election as a wake-up call to the local GOP—it should be a wake-up call to the entire nation.