Judd Blevins, 42, an Iraq War veteran who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlotesville, Virginia, is facing a recall election on Tuesday, when voters in one of the city’s wards are set to decide whether to keep him in office or opt instead for his opponent, Cheryl Patterson, a grandmother and longtime youth leader at an area church. Although both Blevins and Patterson are Republicans, the race is nonpartisan and open to all registered voters in the ward.
Even though the number of white nationalist groups in the United States stabilized at a little more than 100 chapters in 2022 after reaching a historic high of 155 in 2019, experts who monitor hate-group activity at the Southern Poverty Law Center say the movement has been given legitimacy within the political mainstream. They cite the attendance of U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona at an event in 2022 organized by a white nationalist as an example.
When asked at the forum to explain his involvement in the rally and his ties to Identity Evropa, he responded: “Bringing attention to the same issues that got Donald Trump elected in 2016: securing America’s borders, reforming our legal immigration system and, quite frankly, pushing back on this anti-white hatred that is so common in media entertainment.”