Former Identity Evropa state coordinator runs for city council in Oklahoma

Judson Blevins’ enthusiasm in the month preceding the August 2017 Unite the Right rally was irrepressible. Writing in all caps in one of the private channels set up on the gaming chat platform Discord to plan for the white supremacist gathering, he wrote, “DAMN I’M GETTING EXCITED IS IT AUGUST 12^TH YET???!!!”

Blevins announced in that chat that he would be one of four or five Oklahomans present, and that he would be “flying the original state flag of Oklahoma,” while lamenting it was replaced with the present design featuring an Osage buffalo-skin shield and seven eagle feathers reflecting the state’s Native American heritage.

In November, Blevins announced that he’s running for one of the six seats on the Enid City Council, representing the city of about 51,000 people in northwest Oklahoma.

The Enid News & Eagle reported Blevins’ alleged history of white supremacist organizing earlier this month, citing a 2019 report from Right Wing Watch that identified Blevins as the former state coordinator of Identity Evropa.

Identity Evropa was founded in 2016 by Nathan Damigo, a Marine Corps veteran and convicted felon, who modeled the organization on European identitarian groups while targeting white college-aged men for recruitment. The Anti-Defamation League describes the now-defunct Identity Evropa as a “white supremacist groups that is focused on the preservation of ‘white American identity’ and promoting white European culture. They promulgate the idea that America was founded by white people for white people and was not intended to be a multiracial or multicultural society.”

In 2017, Identity Evropa became increasingly aligned with Richard Spencer, representative of the suit-and-tie brand of white power organizing. Damigo delegated organizing duties for Unite the Right to Elliot Kline, who worked alongside primary organizer Jason Kessler to plan the event. Kline, whose former girlfriend testified that he was obsessed with exterminating Jews, was found liable in a default judgment for conspiring to engage in racially motivated violence, and a federal jury later ordered multiple neo-Nazi defendants to pay $25 million to plaintiffs injured in the rally.

Kline was expected to succeed Damigo as the leader of Identity Evropa following Unite the Right, but before the year 2017 was out Kline relinquished control to Patrick Casey. Struggling to cope with the fallout from Unite the Right, which resulted in the murder of Heather Heyer, Identity Evropa rebranded under Casey’s leadership as American Identity Movement in March 2019. By November 2020, American Identity Movement disbanded.

As Right Wing Watch’s 2019 exposé noted, chat logs leaked by the media collective Unicorn Riot show Blevins bragging under the codename “Conway” about a banner drop in Oklahoma City and distributing propaganda for the group at college campuses across the state.

In other chats, Blevins praised Brad Griffin, a propagandist for the Southern white nationalist group League of the South, for advocating for the prosecution of a young, Black man who was brutally beaten by white supremacists in a parking garage at Unite the Right, and using triple parenthesis, an antisemitic symbol, to reference various perceived adversaries.

“That old phrase, ‘You will not erase us, you will not replace us,’ — we have to have that attitude,” Blevins said on an Identity Evropa podcast, according to Right Wing Watch. “Every single day we have to have that attitude. We have to be of that mindset and we have to spread our message to other people.”

Blevins could not be reached for comment for this story, but in a statement to the Enid News & Eagle, he dismissed Right Wing Watch’s reporting, writing, “The labels applied to me are the same applied to any American who speaks out against the ruling liberal establishment. I am proud to have served this country honorably and defended our rights in the United States Marine Corps. I am absolutely opposed to the erasure of America’s history and heritage.”

Blevins’ campaign website outlines standard fiscal conservative positions that betray no hint of his past white supremacist organizing, even going so far as to avoid the kind culture-war rhetoric that has become commonplace in the GOP. The Republican city council candidate’s platform is concisely described under four subject headings: “Responsible spending,” “Encourage efficiency,” “Improve infrastructure,” and “Attract industry.” Under “Encourage efficiency,” the issues page reads: “My work ethic was established during the summers I spent roofing with my dad. I learned that jobs must be done well and completed on time. We should expect nothing less than the same from our city departments.”

In a post in the Identity Evropa chats in 2018, Blevins discussed moving back to his hometown to take over his father’s business.

“Today was my last day for a company I’ve worked at for over nine years,” he wrote. “Two months shy of a full decade, in fact. It was a great job and a great company to work for. I enjoyed the work and the people (99% huhwhite). It paid very well and there were excellent benefits.”

Part of his motivation for returning rejoining the family business, in addition to maintaining his father’s legacy, Blevins wrote, was insulating himself against doxing.

“This is also a big step for me in becoming anti-fragile,” he wrote. “I’m certainly not dox-resistant, there are many business relationships that I now have to build in order to weather the storm of being doxed should that ever happen to me. And there’s no guarantee that I will be as successful as my father was. I may fail. But I decided to give up living a content life when I took the red pill. Striving for greatness is part of our history, and it will define where we as a race and as a nation go in the future.”