In a time when democracy is under threat in America, a time in America when overt racism is reappearing, and a time in America when it’s the best of times for some and the worst of times for others economically, an example of the hope that created America, evidence of the greatness of America, and an illustration of how America can continue to be great has emerged from a place, based on the current political landscape, where hope, wisdom and illustration would least likely be found, a red place.
In January 2023, 2 weeks before a red place city election in a deeply red state, American White Connie Vickers made what was for her a shocking discovery, emphasis on what was shocking for her because Vickers is a rare Democrat in a Republican red city, and what shocked her is increasingly being embraced in all of America’s Donald Trump Republican red places. What shocked Vickers was a photo she came across online of Judd Blevins, a candidate for her red place city Enid, Oklahoma’s City Council, holding a tiki torch while marching alongside an angry mob of men on the University of Virginia campus shouting “Jews will not replace us!”
Blevins was participating in a night rally before the infamous Unite the Right white supremacist protest that took place the next day in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, a racist protest where a white supremacist drove his car into the crowd of people nonviolently protesting the Unite the Right protest, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others, and a white nationalist protest that then-President Republican Donald Trump declared that “there were good people on both sides” protesting.
With only 2 weeks left before her red place Enid city election Connie Vickers spoke out at City Council meetings, warning about Blevins’ candidacy and calling it “an underlying evil that is coming into our town.” Vickers was not the only one attempting to alert Enid citizens of Blevins’s racist past, shortly after he announced in 2022 his candidacy for Enid’s City Council the Enid News & Eagle published a front-page exposé that Blevins declined to be interviewed for instead, he gave the paper a statement alleging that leftists backed by a “George Soros funded” media outlet were behind a campaign to brand him a Nazi.
Longtime traditional conservative Republican Cheryl Patterson (left) is challenging incumbent Trump Republican white nationalist Jason Blevins (right) in a recall election to replace him on a “return to normal” platform.
The front page exposé was inspired by an article published by the progressive news outlet Right Wing Watch that identified Blevins, who at the time was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the Oklahoma state coordinator of Identity Evropa, a now-defunct American neo-Nazi and white supremacist organization established in March 2016, that rebranded as the American Identity Movement in March 2019, before it disbanded in November 2020. After Blevins was identified Antifa activists posted photos of his family and the Tulsa lawn-care business where he worked, as a result, Blevins decided to resign from Identity Evropa and move back to his hometown red place city Enid, Oklahoma. Blevins indicated his future plan when he posted a final tweet as a member of the racist group that said “our guys”, meaning his fellow white nationalists, “should be supported in pursuing local elected office such as city council. Basically positions where one can fly under the radar yet still be effective”.
On Election Day less than 15% of the council district’s 5,600 registered voters came out to vote, of the 808 voters who did show up to vote Blevins won by 36 votes. However, his victory did not discourage Vickers nor Nancy Presnall, an American White and fellow rare red place Democrat whom Vickers had enlisted in the quest to deny Blevins election. She, Presnall, and approximately 100 people met in March 2023 at a community center, and by the end of the evening, they had created the Enid Social Justice Committee (ESJC) and decided on its first order of business: recalling Judd Blevins. According to Enid city law, a City Commissioner must serve 6 months before a recall petition against them can be filed.
This is a group of overwhelmingly American White Enid citizens who came together and organized to say no to racist politics in Enid City Hall
During the 6 months, the ESJC had knocked on enough doors to collect and surpass the number of signatures needed to force a recall election. The number of signatures needed was 30% of the District 1 votes that were cast in the February 14, 2023 city election, which was 808 meaning 243 signatures of District 1 registered voters were required but the ESJC’s recall effort was so well received they got 276 signatures. As a result today April 2, 2024, there is a self-declared neo-Nazi white nationalist public office holder facing a recall election in an overwhelmingly red place city. Regardless of the outcome, the fact that there is a recall election occurring in this red place means the following 3 things:
Hope– Enid, Oklahoma is in a deep red place state where the Trump Republican Party holds 40 of the state legislature’s 48 senate seats, 81 of its 101 state representative seats, and all of the state’s elected state-wide seats. Of the 51,308 citizens who live in red place, Enid City, 74% are American White, only 2% are American Black, and over 60% are registered Trump Republicans, the fact that there is a recall election of a self-proclaimed Trump white nationalist in a deep red city means hope for racial democracy is alive in America.
Wisdom– As mentioned, red place Enid Oklahoma is 74% American White, 2% American Black, and overwhelmingly Trump Republican. There is no chapter of the NAACP in Enid, it’s possible that Al Sharpton and Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League don’t even know of the existence of red place Enid, and neither Oklahoma U.S. Senators James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin nor Congressman Chad Caldwell requested the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Enid. And yet red place Enid took it upon itself to say we are not comfortable with nor think it wise for a racist to make decisions that affect the well-being of our red place city.
Illustration– On the night of February 14, 2023, there were Enid citizens who felt just as unhappy, just as aggrieved, and just as fearful over the outcome of their red place city election as Trump Republicans were about the outcome of the 2020 national elections that Trump lost. But unlike Trump Republicans who expressed their unhappiness, grievances, and fears because their candidate lost, by falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged and committing the failed January 6 Capitol Hill riot to overturn a legal and ethical national election, red place Enid citizen Connie Vickers and her fellow Enid Social Justice Committee members, have illustrated how to combine rights granted by the American Constitution with the principles and protest resistance tools of Kingian nonviolence, to democratically and nonviolently overturn an election that a citizen is dissatisfied with.
Connie Vickers (left) and Nancy Presnall (right), best friends and rare Democrats in conservative red place Enid, Oklahoma are the ones who started the effort to recall a Trump Republican white nationalist
The red place Enid, Oklahoma district recall election is the hope, wisdom, and illustration that created America, it’s the hope, wisdom, and illustration that finally made the created America great, and it’s the hope, wisdom, and illustration, if emulated by all Americans, that will keep the created America great.