From War to Thoughts & Prayers

For the better part of half a decade, I’ve documented the violent rhetoric and conspiratorial obsessions of Alaska’s far-right fringe. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, their voices grew louder and more dangerous as they pitted neighbors against neighbors in ways that have reshaped our civic life. It was during this same period that Anchorage saw the birth of a well-financed anti-homeless movement that toppled former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, which had falsely branded him a pedophile.

Throughout 2020-2022, conspiracy theories and far-right rhetoric became normalized talking points at assembly and community council meetings, as the now-defunct "Save Anchorage" movement championed their cruelty toward the unhoused, which the Bronson administration repackaged as "policy." I've often referred to that era as an "interesting time," but in reality, Alaska's far-right movement was ultimately successful at one thing: redefining what passes for civil political discourse, which, unfortunately, is a problem we're still contending with today.

War is Coming

In the hours following Kirk's killing, heavy-hitting national far-right influencers and politicians – spread dangerous and unsubstantiated rumors that the killer was either trans, a democrat, or both. Helpful in fueling MAGA's anti-trans rhetoric was the Wall Street Journal's false and thoroughly debunked "reporting" that shell casings left at the scene of the crime expressed transgender ideology.

Alaska State House Representative Jamie Allard (Q), Eagle River, collects a hefty paycheck courtesy of taxpayers as she sits in Juneau spewing hate and engaging in the obscene. Aside from defending Nazi terminology on license plates, she once tagged virulent white nationalist Nick Fuentes in a Facebook post, although she later deleted it, claiming she didn't know who he was—whoops, her bad!

Allard's seething disdain for Alaskans different from her knows no limits. She once referred to trans people as being "mentally ill." She has grotesquely referred to gender-affirming care as "child mutilation." She tried to censor a queer-friendly book at the Anchorage Public Library and repeatedly referred to public school teachers as "groomers" (sexual abusers) and then turned around and lied about ever having done so.

In all the years she has been an elected official, I can't think of any other politician who has done more to incite and inflame anti-trans rhetoric in Alaska than Jamie Allard - which is why it's unsurprising she stoked Charlie Kirk’s death as the "start of a civil war.” It is an intentional use of language often used to court political violence.

Two days later, Allard penned a Facebook post parroting Trump’s favorite political rhetoric, branding the “radical left” as "violent" and falsely blaming them for Kirk's death. She then dropped a campaign fundraising link in her post, shamelessly using the deceased to bankroll her State House reelection campaign.

The Company She Keeps

Allard keeps close and cozy ties with some of the more notorious anti-trans agitators in the state, including one of her former legislative staffers, Jay McDonald - a former Democrat turned right-wing Republican and failed State House candidate. McDonald once used his free speechez during an Anchorage School Board meeting to lie about the availability of a gender positive library book, causing violent threats from across the country to rain down on Board members. I FOID the emails and voicemails received by Board members. It's worth a read.

After Kirk's killing, and before his killer had been arrested, anti-trans crusader McDonald wrote a Facebook post falsely asserting Democrats had killed Kirk, helping to feed the MAGA conspiracy machine.

Another of Allard's besties - Fairbanks resident Kelly Lindsey Nash, also a failed State House candidate, who just a few weeks ago cosigned a comment calling for the elimination and killing of trans and Two-Spirit Alaskans, began promoting a mass doxing website - set up to target individuals who asserted their First Amendment rights to speak out against right-wing ::checks notes:: "firebrand" Charlie Kirk. This is very normal behavior for Nash - she’s previously bragged about feeding the personal photos and videos of Alaskans to the stochastic terrorist account, Libs of TikTok, and has spent an enormous amount of time on Facebook using multiple fake accounts to target members of Fairbanks' LGBTQ+ community.

Wired wrote a broad story about the extremist website that Ms. Nash is a big fan of. The website claims not to engage in doxing, but they do, and much of the information it shares is inaccurate and unsourced, meaning it serves as nothing more than a mass doxing operation against "the left."

Then, on the evening of September 14^th, Nash further escalated, penning a deranged and sick Facebook rant that far crosses the line of what constitutes civil political discourse. It is worth reading closely because it demonstrates her continued descent into madness and how MAGA operates.

Nash viciously turned her sights on West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran Ivan Hodes after he wrote a Facebook post calling out the violent rhetoric spewing from MAGA world in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. For most people, Hodes’ post would read as a reasonable appeal to lower the political temperature. But to lunatics like Nash, asking conservatives to speak out against violent political rhetoric and police their own ranks is heresy.

She began by calling Hodes a “communist scum motherfucker,” and “douchebag,” for previously “harassing” former Rep. David Eastman and “literally target(ing) any conservatives,” two demonstrably false claims.

Sidenote: Nash is defending Eastman here - a lifetime member of the Oathkeepers who once said there was an economic benefit to the death of abused children, and separately shared a Holocaust denial website to his Twitter account.

Nash also claimed that Hodes was dishonorably discharged from the military - an absolute lie. Hodes has been open about his service and the circumstances behind his discharge. I checked with him and he confirmed it was indeed honorable.

Nash went on to brag about going “toe to toe” with Hodes, presumably referring to an exchange they had at a counterprotest during Trump’s recent trip to Alaska. From there, she launched into a muddled diatribe about supporting the “people” but not the “corporations” of Israel and Ukraine and suggested that Hodes was somehow trying to take her down.

Nash’s entire post is conspiratorial, paranoid, and laced with grievance.

But the most alarming bit comes at the end: “Keep your eyes on this dude. Harass the shit out of him.” It is an explicit order to attack Hodes – cuz, free speech and stuff.

That Nash, who has espoused eliminationist rhetoric, would point her audience toward a specific person and tell them to “harass the shit out of him” is incredibly alarming and intended only to prime her followers into believing that Hodes is fair game for targeted online abuse.

To prove that is indeed the case, here are the receipts.

In response to Nash’s post, Anchorage-based insurance professional Andria Dolan jumped to drop a link to CharliesMurderers - that mass doxing cancel-culture website I mentioned earlier which traffics in unsourced and inaccurate information meant to paint targets on the backs of...well, seemingly anyone the site's operators disagree with.

Nash’s horrible and heinous post is one of the best examples we have demonstrating how far-right rhetoric metastasizes. It starts with one MAGA extremist urging a mob and ends with Alaskans being targeted as political enemies who they claim...deserve to be hunted down online.

The End Game

Now that we know Kirk’s killer was not trans, not a Democrat, but rather a young white man raised in a conservative, religious household who appears to have expressed interest in white supremacist #NickFuentes's alt-right movement, MAGA influencers are scrambling to memory-hole their own words. Many of the same people who demanded war against the left in the hours after Kirk's death are quietly deleting posts that smeared trans people and Democrats - and urging thoughts and prayers for the soul of a man who fits neatly within their own ranks.

This cycle has become depressingly predictable. Each time America endures another senseless act of gun violence, the far-right rushes to weaponize tragedy with lies that target marginalized communities. And each time the truth catches up with them, they delete, deflect, and pretend it never happened.

There’s no question that Americans enjoy a strong First Amendment right. God knows I utilized mine at the height of the blog, but what’s happening now is different and is, without question, a deliberate campaign to weaponize free speech as a tool of violent political rhetoric.

That’s why it’s more important than ever for elected officials, community leaders, and influential voices on "both sides" of the aisle to bring down the temperature. Words matter. Alaska needs leaders willing to model civility, call out the dangerous rhetoric within their own ranks, and remind people that politics is supposed to be more about governance and community and less about targeted harassment and abuse.