Jason Kessler, an organizer for the Unite the Right Rally, was interrupted by counterprotesters on Aug. 13 as he tried to give a news conference. (Elyse Samuels,Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
On the day after a white nationalist rally rocked Charlottesville,Jason Kessler stood behind a bank of microphonesand introduced himself as the organizer of the Unite the Right protest that had sparked the violence in the city.
Screams and boos drowned out Kesslers voice as he tried to addressthe deadlyunrest that had engulfed the Aug. 12 rally. The news conference was ultimately shut down; police officers, whom Kessler accused of not doing enough to stop theviolence, rushed him to safety as angry counterprotesters chased himaway.
Now, Kessler is scorned not only by those who screamed at him outside Charlottesville City Hall on the day after the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer.
Far-rightfigures have since distanced themselves from Kessler, as well, an indication that his fairly new allegiance with the loosely organized alt-right abruptly endedafter a broadside against Heyer was tweeted from Kesslers account nearly a week after she died.
[Watch: Charlottesville counterprotesters shut down a white nationalists news conference]
Kessler, meanwhile, seemsto have disappeared from public view.
Im not talking to reporters right now, he said Monday when reached by The Washington Post, before hanging up.
His Twitter account appears to have been deleted. His blogand that ofUnity and Security for America, a conservative group he founded, are also gone; so is that groupsFacebook page.
Last week,Kessler told Fox Newsthat he was in hiding because he was hit with a stream of death threats after the bloodshed in Charlottesville.
Condemnation poured in over the weekend after Kesslers account tweetedinflammatory remarks about Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed when a car allegedly driven by a Nazi sympathizer plowed into a group of counterprotesters.The disavowals suggested that the alt-right, a movement that blossomed on social media and the Internet, may besplintering online after the disaster in Charlottesville.
[The road to hate: For six young men, Charlottesville is only the beginning]
Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time, read the tweet, which linked to a Daily Stormer article that disparaged Heyer.
Richard Spencer,a leader of the alt-right, which seeks a whites-only state, slammed Kessler, saying attacking Heyerwasmorally dubious and beyond reckless.
Its just the exact wrong thing that anyone should be saying at this point, from a moral perspective and from a strategic perspective, Spencer told The Post on Monday. This woman did nothing wrong. She might very well have disagreed with the rally, but she did absolutely nothing wrong.
Spencer added: I oppose communism as much as anyone, but historical payback is ridiculous. I dont know what he was thinking.
On Twitter, Spencer urged othersto stop associating with Kessler.
It was a sentiment shared by otherswho took to social media to slam the Unite the Right organizer.
Assuming this is a real tweet and his account was not hacked, I will no longer attend or cover events put on by Jason Kessler. Very gross,tweetedJames Allsup, a budding alt-right figure who resigned as head of Washington State Universitys student GOP group after participating in the Charlottesville rally.
Tim Gionet, another prominent alt-right figure who is known online as Baked Alaska,said that insulting Heyer is terribly wrong and vile,tweeting:We should not rejoice at the people who died in Charlottesville just because we disagree with them.
Before going underground, Kessler acknowledged that the tweet sent from his account was offensive, though he did not say that he had written it.
I repudiate the heinous tweet that was sent from my account last night. I have been under a crushing amount of stress & death threats, Kessler wrote Saturday on social media,according to the Los Angeles Times. Im taking ambien, xanax and I had been drinking last night. I sometimes wake up having done strange things I dont remember.
[Lets party like its 1933: Inside the alt-right world of Richard Spencer]
The Times reported that a self-proclaimed hacker and Internet trollsaid on the social media service Gab that he had hacked Kesslers Twitter account.The Post has notconfirmed the veracity of that claim.
The alt-right movement grew through blogs, online message boards and social media accountscreated by followers who believe that white identity is under attack by multiculturalism and political correctness,according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Spencer reserves the National Press Club in Washington at least twice a year for a gathering of alt-right followers, noted the SPLC, whichdescribesthe alt-rights self-proclaimed leader as a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old, a kind of professional racist in khakis.
Kessler, like Spencer, attended the University of Virginia. According to the SPLC, he organized the Unite the Right rallyafter Spencer made headlines in May by leading a torch-bearing eventin Charlottesville.
The SPLC describedKessler as a newcomer to the white nationalist scene.Known in Charlottesville as a local conservative blogger, hepublished an articleon Nov. 24 calling the citys vice mayor, Wes Bellamy, a blatant black supremacist and led anunsuccessful petitiontoremove Bellamy from office.Kessler said he hadunearthed offensive and homophobic tweets written several years ago byBellamy.
[Charlottesville violence prompts black U-Va. athletes to reflect on their experience]
Hefounded the nonprofit Unity and Security for America, whichcalls fordefending Western Civilization. He also sought to establish himself as the lone dissenter in the capital of the resistance that is Charlottesville,as declared by the citys mayorshortly after President Trumps inauguration.
Kessler found an ally in U.S. Senate candidate Corey A. Stewart, a darling of the alt-right who made several public appearances with the local blogger. In February, Stewart, then a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, attended Kesslersnews conferenceabout an effort tooust Bellamy from office.
A few days ahead of the Charlottesville rally, Kesslertold The Post, The genesis of this entire event is this Robert E. Lee statue that the city is trying to move, which is symbolic of a lot of other issues that deal with the tearing down of white peoples history and our demographic replacement.
White nationalists were met by counterprotesters in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, leading Gov. Terry McAuliffe to declare a state emergency. A car plowed into crowds, killing one person and injuring 19 others. (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)
But shortly after the rally turned violent, Kessler came under scrutiny from right-wing websites. Rumors about his political leanings and loyalty to far-right ideologies have since circulated online.
[A neo-Nazis rage-fueled journey to Charlottesville]
Some, including DC Whispers, pointed to suspicions that Kessler was involved in the Occupy movement and was a supporter of President Barack Obama. The website also said Kessler did not become a white nationalist until after Trump was elected.
Who is this guy? Is this a mistake or is he indeed a liberal gone racist? Is he a plant and this whole thing a set up to pit Americans against each other? Lots of questions and very, very few answers, wrote a bloggerfor Rightwing News.
Kesslertold Snopesthat he supported and voted for Obama in 2008 but became disenchantedwiththe administration andDemocrats. He said that hehad attended an Occupy rallyin Charlottesville in 2011 but found that his views didnt align with those of the protesters.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Kessler tweeted in November that many alt-right followers used to be liberals. He also said that he voted for Trump in the primary and general elections.I like Trump more than I did Obama, he wrote on Nov. 6. My Trump enthusiasm is through the roof. I like people who push the edge.
Spencer said that he met Kessler briefly several months ago. Kessler really jumped on the bandwagon after the success of the Charlottesville torch rally in May, Spencer said.
He also criticized Kesslers handling of the Unite the Right rally. Law enforcement officers canceledthe event afterthe clash between rally attendees and counterprotesters.Hes not a very good organizer. Its haphazard, Spencer said. I was skeptical of the whole thing. It took on a life of its own.
Nevertheless, Spencer attended the rally. Aflierlisted him as one of the featured speakers, along withKessler, Gionet (a.k.a. Baked Alaska) and Michael Hill, president of the Southern pro-secession group League of the South. Spencertold The Post days before the eventthat he was concerned about violence, but he said he worried it would come from antifascists, or antifa, activists.
In terms of organization maybe theres some incompetence, Spencer said Monday of Unite the Right. Everyone has to make mistakes, and we learn from them.But disparaging Heyer and rejoicing in her death should not be condoned,he said.
Eli Mosley, an organizer for the white separatist group Identity Evropa, said in aTwitter threadabout Kessler that in the future, event organizers will face extreme vetting like never before to ensure this doesnt happen.How, exactly, such vetting would occur for a movement with no formal membership, no formal leadership structure and mostly online followers, is unclear.
After Charlottesville, Spencersaid, future demonstrations should be tightly focused and organized by people he trusts.This is a serious movement, hesaid of the alt-right,a term he coined. And we need serious people leading them.
Kessler has maintained that he did nothing wrong in Charlottesville.
He told Fox Newslast week that he had never metJames Alex Fields Jr., 20, who was charged with second-degree murderin the deadly crash. Kesslersaid he met with police before the rally and went over safety plans. He also said he had not received calls or visits from police or federal investigators.
Asked by Fox about Heyers death, Kessler said, simply: No comment.
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The man who organized the Charlottesville rally is in hiding and too toxic for the alt-right - Washington Post