New Mexico Republicans to pay 'special tribute' to militia founded by neo-Confederate, alongside Cowboys for Trump leader who said Black athletes should 'go back to Africa'

• New Mexico Republican party officials said they will attend an August 22 rally to register voters and pay "special tribute" to the New Mexico Civil Guard, a right-wing militia.
• The founder of the New Mexico Civil Guard has a swastika tattoo and has served as the local "commander" of the New Confederate States of America.
• Another leader of the group has called the Holocaust a hoax and, citing the conspiracy website Infowars, has argued that there is no such thing as a truly peaceful Black Lives Matter protest.
• The rally will also feature the founder of Cowboys for Trump, who recently said Black athletes who protest racism should "go back to Africa."
• "It's deeply troubling that the local GOP would openly endorse an event honoring a paramilitary group because their activities are so deeply opposed to free and open democratic practice," said Lindsay Schubiner, program director at the Western States Center.
• The Republican Party of New Mexico did not respond to requests for comment.

The mayor of Albuquerque has called for it to be labeled a "hate group," police say its heavily armed presence at anti-racist protests increases the threat of violence, and the local prosecutor has taken legal action to have it banned as an illegal paramilitary group.

But some Republicans are openly embracing the New Mexico Civil Guard — led by a neo-Confederate with a swastika tattoo and a "national anarchist" who denies the Holocaust — with a GOP rally later this month paying "special tribute" to the vigilantes.

"Yes sir, I'm planning it," Couy Griffin, an elected Otero County commissioner and founder of the group Cowboys for Trump, told Business Insider when asked if he would be attending the August 22 event. Griffin, who last month said Black athletes who are critical of the United States should "go back to Africa" — and earlier said "the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat" — is one of several elected Republicans and Republican candidates who will be in Curry County, which straddles the border with Texas, for what organizers bill as both a peaceful protest and a voter registration drive.

New Mexico state Sen. Pat Woods, a Republican, described the rally as a "GOP grand opening event," confirming to Business Insider that it was the same event described in a flyer as "paying special tribute to NM law enforcement and the New Mexico Civil Guard." A fundraiser for the event, since removed from GoFundMe, said the rally would "honor the New Mexico Civil Guard for their bravery and recent heroic, life-saving practices."

That poses a problem for democracy, according to Lindsay Schubiner, program director at the Western States Center, a group that monitors right-wing extremism.

"We would call the New Mexico Civil Guard a paramilitary group," Schubiner said in an interview with Business Insider, noting that such militias originally rose up around the time of the civil rights movement. "They're a paramilitary group that has publicly advertised weapons training exercises and has appeared armed, and in uniform, to counter-protests for racial justice, chilling free speech rights and running a serious risk of violence. All of that is concerning."

"It's deeply troubling that the local GOP would openly endorse an event honoring a paramilitary group," Schubiner added, "because their activities are so deeply opposed to free and open democratic practice."

The rally has been promoted on Facebook by the Republican Party of Curry County and by another speaker, state congressional candidate Audrey Trujillo. Vice-chair of the New Mexico Republican Party, Rick Lopez, is also listed as a scheduled speaker. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Two listed speakers have pulled out of the event, both candidates for the US Congress: Michelle Garcia Holmes, a Republican candidate from Albuquerque, and Alexis Johnson, a Republican from Santa Fe. Garcia Holmes declined to say why she would not be attending; a spokesperson for Johnson attributed it to "honest miscommunication."

The New Mexico Civil Guard came to national attention in June, when its members — armed with automatic weapons, some in camouflage that gave the appearance of being federal agents — were present during a shooting at an Albuquerque protest. That protest, over a since-removed statue in the city depicting Juan de Oñate, a notoriously cruel Spanish conquistador, ended when a former Republican candidate for city council, Steve Baca, allegedly assaulted a female protester and then shot a man.

Police seized a trove of weapons from the paramilitary organization and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller blamed the militia for inciting violence, saying at a press conference that he was working to obtain "federal hate group designation."

"Instead of condemning Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin's recent racist remarks about Africans Americans or speaking out against the New Mexico's Civil Guard's intimidation of peaceful protesters, the New Mexico GOP continues to give far-right groups a platform," Miranda van Dijk, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, told Business Insider. "New Mexicans deserve leaders who will bring us together for open and honest conversation, not candidates who openly embrace division and hatred."

The New Mexico Civil Guard, which did not respond to a request for comment, denies being an extremist organization. But its leaders are friendly with, and some are indeed members of, other groups that have been labeled as such.

In a June 30 podcast, militia founder Bryce Spangler spoke about the Oñate incident with Craig Fitzgerald, a New York transplant who previously headed a state chapter of the National Anarchist Tribal Alliance, a self-styled "third positionist" group that sees racial separatism, including white nationalism, as an alternative to the state. As head of that group, Fitzgerald's political activities, in his words, include "exposing the holohoax" — that is, denying the Nazi extermination of more than 6 million Jews — "and other lies like the official 911 story."

Since coming to New Mexico, Fitzgerald has joined the Proud Boys, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that rejects "multiculturalism."

"We pride ourselves on being Western chauvinists," Fitzgerald said on the New Mexico Civil Guard's podcast, adding that he's not afraid of the word "nationalism."

"We believe that Western civilization, Western culture, is the best, is the greatest — is superior," he said.

"I've never seen anything wrong with them," replied Spangler, founder of the militia.

Also known as Bryce Provance, Spangler has a swastika tattoo on his shoulder. He has also served as the New Mexico "commander" of the New Confederate States of America, a group that maintains the "original confederacy was founded to fight for freedom from tyranny," according to a July 13 lawsuit filed by Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez and Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. The suit seeks to have the group banned for illegally assuming the duties of law enforcement.

While the New Mexico Civil Guard purports to defend the free speech rights of all, Fitzgerald told Spangler that peaceful protests by Black Lives Matter activists were intentionally carried out as a mere "screen" for violence and property destruction, citing the conspiracy website Infowars.

In a separate interview, Fitzgerald, an avowed supporter of President Donald Trump, claimed the militia had been approached by the US government for information on anti-fascist activists.

"We've had federal agents tell the New Mexico Civil Guard, 'Give us any information about antifa that you have,'" he said, suggesting there would be a civil war after the 2020 election. "I think that we're already in a cold civil war," he said.

Lucas Herndon, deputy director of Progress Now New Mexico, a center-left advocacy organization, said he's seen firsthand how the militia seeks to intimidate progressives, not protect their rights.

"They've threatened me directly," Herndon, a native of Las Cruces, said in an interview. At a Black Lives Matter action in his hometown, he witnessed "six to seven heavily armed white guys" standing across the street. So he pulled out his phone and began live-streaming on Facebook. "The next day, the Civil Guard posted screenshots of my personal Facebook, including multiple pictures from my timeline, including one inside of my daughter's room."

That post labeled Herndon a possible "ANTIFA sympathizer," with the quip: "Watch your six y'all" (i.e., watch your back).

"I don't have any delusions about what that means to people like that," Herndon told Business Insider. "Unsettling, to say the least."

It's disappointing, he said, that some Republicans have embraced the group, "but it doesn't surprise me."

Schubiner, who has spent years monitoring such extremist groups, said public officials need to address the threat posed by such groups and "their implicit, or explicit, threats of violence to chill democratic practice." It's concerning that anyone would join a group led by someone known to have a swastika tattoo and a fetish for the Confederacy, she said; doubly so that any elected official would honor them.

The Republican Party of New Mexico did not respond to requests for comment.

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