![]() ![]() In addition to the long list of speakers, the day’s entertainment included a couple of musical acts: an evangelical Christian rock band that favored songs about biblical characters, and “Patriot” songwriter Jordan Page, who performed songs about the Constitution and patriotism, as well as one dedicated to far-right martyr Robert “Lavoy” Finicum. Edward Griffin’s conspiracy-theory tome, The Creature from Jekyll Island. One of the more coveted prizes was a signed copy of G. ![]() One Patriot entrepreneur from Yakima, Washington, brought a mobile kitchen trailer for his business, Minuteman Coffee, from which he sold iced drinks that proved popular over the course of the long hot day. About 20 booths set up around the lawn hawked conspiracy theories, let you take a photo with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump (“Our leader in exile” and “The real president”), or buy T-shirts from the far-right street-brawling group Patriot Prayer, whose founder, Joey Gibson, was one of the day’s featured speakers.Īnother booth hawked an array of pro-Trump banners and flags (including the yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag), stickers (“2020 Was Rigged”) and ballcaps (including an array of Trump 2020 ballcaps stamped “Fraud,” “Stolen,” and “Rigged”). The spread-out, leisurely feel to the gathering helped emphasize the sense of normalcy. Americans will not lose the fight for liberty. I don’t care if the tyranny comes from Washington, D.C. “I don’t care if the tyranny comes from London!” he continued. That operative word is trying, because they will not succeed. What I want to talk to you about today is they are trying to destroy the republic. I don’t need to talk to you about that today. ![]() “The technocrat global elitists are using communism and Islam to destroy the republic, okay?” Shea said. Shea, the featured speaker, recognized that he was speaking to an audience that had already swallowed the far-right “red pill” the gathering was meant to promote. It had the look and feel of a mainstream conservative Christian gathering-and given the radicalized state of the post-Trump Republican Party as an antidemocratic entity, that may have been the reality. Mainstream Republican officials-including several currently serving lawmakers, as well as former Washington state legislator Matt Shea-were featured speakers, while the Mineral County GOP had a booth at the front of the event. is not a democracy, but simply a republic.īut the Red Pill Festival, as its organizers dubbed the event, intended to draw likeminded conspiracists from around the region-including Idaho, Washington, and Oregon-wasn’t merely the usual gathering of dubious fringe characters. REGIS, Montana-The gathering of 200 or so people Saturday at this small timber town’s community park spent the day reveling in a familiar array of far-right conspiracy theories and disinformation: America is now under the control of a “communist coup,” Donald Trump was cheated out of the presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic is a “Deep State” operation intended to enslave the world, vaccines are “poison,” public schools indoctrinate children into Marxist beliefs, and the U.S. ![]()
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