Whitewash: “American Patriots USA” Enlists GOP Candidates to Launder White Nationalist Agenda

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.

Chester Doles (circled) at “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, VA, 2017 – footage here.
Continue reading “Whitewash: “American Patriots USA” Enlists GOP Candidates to Launder White Nationalist Agenda”

North Georgia: “American Patriots USA” Update

Update 3/27/2020: We have now identified the International Keystone Knights of the KKK supporter discussed in this article as Robert Timothy Dickenson.

Introduction

Since late last year, longtime white supremacist Chester Doles has attempted to build an organization – American Patriots USA (APUSA) – in north Georgia. Doles held a far-Right “Patriots” rally in Dahlonega, Georgia in September 2019 that was greatly outnumbered by counter-protesters, and started APUSA shortly afterwards. Although Doles’ September rally was not the success he’d hoped for, Doles has held regular meetings for his new organization since December. 

Recently, APUSA seized on “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” proposals as their main organizing issue. As this article discusses, APUSA is dominated by active Klansmen as well as neo-Nazis, and is an attempt by ideological white supremacists to broaden their base of support in North Georgia and gain conservative electoral credibility. Our update will also discuss a newly identified business manager supporting APUSA; local militiamen doing security for the organization; a planned APUSA candidate for Sheriff in White County who became a community laughing stock; and finally, a new business linked to the APUSA front group. We hope this information is useful for North Georgia locals challenging Doles’ organizing.

Late November 2019: Doles shares propaganda for the National Alliance, the neo-Nazi organization whose Georgia chapter he led prior to his 2003 arrest on federal firearm charges.
Continue reading “North Georgia: “American Patriots USA” Update”

Report-Back: Opposing September 14th Far-Right Trump/“Patriots” Rally in North Georgia

Update 3/27/2020: We have now identified the International Keystone Knights of the KKK supporter discussed in this article as Robert Timothy Dickenson.

Update 12/1/2019: We have also discovered that Doles September 14th rally was attended by a convicted child molester, Archie Lee Atwell.

On September 14, white power organizer Chester Doles held an ostensibly pro-Trump “American Patriots” rally in the small city of Dahlonega, north Georgia. Doles’ rally, organized and promoted with other white supremacists, attracted somewhere between three dozen and fifty participants. An anti-racist counter-protest on the other side of the downtown square attracted three times that many.

Anti-racist protest, Dahlonega, 9/14/2019

Over six hundred police from 36 different agencies swamped the area, with multiple cops for every person in the protests. During the rally, Doles blamed “antifa” for driving down numbers for his event. 

Mass presence from police and corrections officers, September 14th

A report from the September 14 counter-protest on the IdaVox anti-racist news site provides a good overview of the day. Here, we discuss Dole’s organizing efforts and how they were resisted, beyond just the day of the rally.

Chester Doles’ group – containing several Klansmen and white nationalists – marches in on 9/14
Continue reading “Report-Back: Opposing September 14th Far-Right Trump/“Patriots” Rally in North Georgia”

Documentation: Far-Right “Patriots”/Trump Rally, Dahlonega, Georgia, September 14, 2019 (Gallery 1 of 2)

American Patriots USA supporters Coltyn Sosebee (black t-shirt with hands on barrier) and Joshua Mote (red “Make America Great Again” cap).
Lucretia Hughes (center) chats with Confederate Patriot Rebels (green shirts on left).
Rally organizer Chester Doles (front) marches in with supporters. Klansman Jonathan Miller is wearing sandals and checkered shorts, carrying Trump 2020 flag.
Continue reading “Documentation: Far-Right “Patriots”/Trump Rally, Dahlonega, Georgia, September 14, 2019 (Gallery 1 of 2)”

Documentation: Far-Right “Patriots”/Trump Rally, Dahlonega, Georgia, September 14, 2019 (Gallery 2 of 2)

William Tex Simmons of American Brotherhood of Patriots wearing sunglasses on right.
Continue reading “Documentation: Far-Right “Patriots”/Trump Rally, Dahlonega, Georgia, September 14, 2019 (Gallery 2 of 2)”

Ethan Jones: Racist Recruiter and League of the South Member in Cartersville, Georgia

Over the course of two years, Ethan Edward Jones of Cartersville, Georgia has gone from posting racist memes on the internet and fantasizing about the Confederacy, to membership in the white nationalist League of the South (LOS) and writing regularly for racist Southern secessionist websites. Jones is currently in his final year at Woodland High School in Cartersville. He is not only a prolific propagandist, urging others to join LOS, but he celebrates violence by white supremacists. Since Jones is now an adult and is deeply entrenched within the white nationalist movement, we are publishing this information to alert those around him.

Continue reading “Ethan Jones: Racist Recruiter and League of the South Member in Cartersville, Georgia”

Who Are the White Supremacists Attending February’s “Rock Stone Mountain II” Rally?

Is the upcoming “Rock Stone Mountain II” rally about “resistance to communism” as its current Facebook event page claims, or is it an overt white supremacist gathering? This article highlights a dozen individuals who marked themselves as “going” to the “Rock Stone Mountain” event outside Atlanta, which is scheduled for February 2nd, 2019. Although there is no guarantee that everyone listed will attend, looking at those who plan to show up gives a clear indication of the rally’s white supremacist and extreme-Right character.

We used two Facebook “going” lists for Rock Stone Mountain II for this article. First, we used the list of people who said they were “going” on the current Facebook event page. We also downloaded the “going” list for an earlier Rock Stone Mountain II event page, which was eventually deleted by Facebook. We used this earlier list as a source for the last few names discussed in this article.

Listed as “Going” on the Current “Rock Stone Mountain II” Facebook Event 

  1. John Michael Estes

John Michael Estes (Note that “88” on shirt is alphanumeric code for “H.H.” or “Heil Hitler.”)

John Michael Estes is the primary organizer for “Rock Stone Mountain II”, just as he was for the first “Rock Stone Mountain” in 2016. We have already discussed Estes’ worldview in an earlier article written before the first Rock Stone Mountain rally. Estes is a white supremacist who was radicalized by ordering books from the Aryan Nations while in prison. Estes has since that time moved through a variety of white power circles, from racist “Christian Identity” religion (which believes that whites are God’s true chosen people) to racially-charged versions of Odinism.  Continue reading “Who Are the White Supremacists Attending February’s “Rock Stone Mountain II” Rally?”