March 28, 2024

Jason Kessler Hitting Dead Ends for Radical ‘Unite the Right 2’ Rally


Alt-right activist Jason Kessler talks to supporters in a video he says could be his last, uploaded July 21, 2018. (Screenshot / YouTube.com)


Kessler has been experiencing a series of devastating setbacks.


By Jared Holt / 07.25.2018


Jason Kessler, the alt-right activist who organized the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year where Heather Heyer was killed and is who is organizing a follow-up rally planned in August, has been experiencing a series of devastating setbacks.

Kessler’s woes began when neo-Nazi Patrick Little lashed out at Kessler on Gab, a safe haven for white supremacists online, and said he would not attend “Unite the Right 2” in spite of Kessler making court statements that he planned for Little to attend. “Crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell has also taken to bashing Kessler and swearing off the anniversary rally, asserting that Kessler “is completely incapable of handling this, and it’s way too fucking dangerous.” In a blog post titled “Follow Kessler At Your Peril,” Cantwell wrote:

So thin has become the manpower at Jason’s disposal, he has someone who I will simply say is not a white man handling some upper management position. When it is mentioned to Jason that this indicates a problem for his White Nationalist demonstration, he goes into a fit about not being a racist.

[…]

We need men who are brave enough to continue on in the face of such adversity. I applaud the courage of all those who are willing to do so, and in time we will find a righteous application for your valor.

However, my conscience compels me to warn you that if you follow Jason into this mess in just a few short weeks, I fear your virtues may be wasted on the most predictable failure of the century.

The violent fascists helping Kessler organize the event were also the subject of a massive leakpublished by Unicorn Riot. The participants and messages from a Facebook group message in which multiple organizers discussed “a security team staffed by Vanguard America and neo-nazi Hammerskins” and inquiries about establishing contact with Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights (FOAK), which is the militarized offshoot of Gavin McInnes’ “Proud Boys” hate group.

Yesterday, Kessler withdrew his motion to order the city of Charlottesville to approve his permit to host the Unite the Right anniversary rally in the city. And now, even his white supremacist legal representation has abandoned Kessler.

The legal motion states that Kessler “has not met his financial responsibilities and that the representation has been rendered unreasonably difficult by [Kessler].”

(Screenshot / Public Record)

Kessler being unable to meet his “financial responsibilities,” as the motion reads, could very well have to do with the fact that he has been booted off so many fundraising platforms online that he’s only able to accept cash and check donations.

As for now, Kessler says he will focus his efforts on an identical rally that was planned for the park adjacent to the White House as a backup. But given how deeply fractured that Kessler and his cohort have been among the alt-right, we imagine many of Kessler’s struggles are yet to come.


Originally published by Right Wing Watch, a project of People for the American Way, a program of Open Society Foundations, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.