On July 8, Sam Bushman, CEO of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), took his Liberty Roundtable radio show on the road to Travelers Rest, South Carolina, to take part in “Dixie Fest”—a now annual event hosted by the neo-Confederate store, Dixie Republic.
Bushman’s broadcast occurred on the same day and at the same location as the “League of the South’s Dixie Fest Conference,” in the words of a video circulated by the Florida chapter of the antisemitic, white nationalist, and secessionist group.
Bushman’s broadcast highlighted the ongoing relationship between the CSPOA leader and the League of the South. It also highlighted some of the reasons for this coalition –including an embrace of southern nationalism and the Confederacy, a full-throated defense of Confederate monuments, the repetition of ideas once mustered to defend Jim Crow segregation, and, disturbingly, the promotion of the virulently racist and antisemitic Christian Identity pseudo-theology.
Sam Bushman at Dixie Fest
The CSPOA leaders’ first guest was “Manse Jolly,” the apparent owner of Dixie Republic who used his time on Bushman’s show to recount the origins of Dixie Fest. Jolly explained that the event had started “a few years ago” to “kinda poke Nimarata [Nikki] Haley, our former governor, in the eye. She took down our flag.”
After years of dismissing the issue, and after the June 17, 2015 murder of nine Black churchgoers by racist Dylann Roof, and after the release of photos of Roof holding a Confederate Flag, on July 9, 2015, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had signed a bill removing the Confederate flag from the Capitol.[1]
When Bushman asked, “Why would she take down the flag. What kind of political statement is that, sir?” the following ensued:
Jolly: “Well, if she wanted to further her political career, the powers that be told her that needed to come down off the Capitol.”
Bushman: “What needs to come down?”
Jolly: “The Southern Cross, the battle flag, the Confederate flag.”
Bushman: “So she’s against Jesus. Is that what we’re saying?”
Jolly: “I guess so, her name’s Nimarata.”
Bushman: “Wow, Nimrod Biblically was against Jesus, so there you go.”
Jolly: “She wanted to dictate to the native (sic) people here what our culture should be. And she’s just an interloper.”
Bushman: “Carpetbagger?”
Jolly: “Probably…I know her family, I think, were the, uh, first generation to come here, from India.”
Bushman: “So, the bottom line is she comes from out of country, decides that she’s gonna dictate policy, rejects the local viewpoints and understandings, she misunderstands the intent of the flag, right?”
Jolly: “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, but that goes to 99% of the people. They just government-educated or government-indoctrinated. The victors write the narrative.”
In summary, despite being born in Bamberg, South Carolina, making her a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment, Bushman concluded that Nikki Haley had come “from out of the country” and was a “carpetbagger;” and that because she eventually supported the removal of the most widely known symbol of the slave-owning Confederacy, Haley was “against Jesus.”
As if on cue to drive home his commitment to promoting hardcore racists and antisemites, Sam Bushman’s show ran an ad for Christ Kingdom Ministries “brought to you by confederatechurchofchrist.com.” The Confederate Church of Christ, run by “Christian Knuckles,” is a proponent of the virulently racist and antisemitic Christian Identity pseudo-religion holding that whites are Biblical Israel, Jews Satanic imposters, and people of color inferior.[2]
Bushman’s next guest was Eddie Miller of Blood River Radio—a show centered on the white nationalist lie of “the rising tide of global White genocide.” Miller primarily uses the program to push the fallacy that genocide is taking place against whites in South Africa.[3]
Bushman described, “Well, we’re celebrating the 5th year anniversary [of Blood River Radio]. We ate dinner last night. Had a broadcast to celebrate.”[4]
Bushman kicked off his second hour with more examples of the ideological terrain on which white nationalists and CSPOA-style far-rightists are finding common ground – in addition, that is, to KrisAnne Hall-style “constitutionalism” and deeming the slave-owning Confederacy a positive example of Christianity.
Offering up the kind of revisionist history that saw Bushman equate opposing the Confederate flag with being “against Jesus,” the CSPOA CEO asserted that the “enemies of liberty” have “indoctrinated” people to believe that the South “and their cause” was “evil and bad, that they just wanted to basically force everybody to be slaves.” He continued that supporting the removal of Confederate monuments is a “scorched earth campaign from Satan.”
Elaborating on the “principles that drove these dear ancestors,” he argued that they were fighting for,
“liberty, primarily for self-determination. Primarily free association. See, self-determination and free association are the great grand keys. If you have self-determination and if you have free association, you absolutely have liberty. You can buy and sell from who you want to; you can spend your time and your talents and your finances with who you want to.”[5]
While free association is a valuable right and has protected organizations, such as the NAACP, from undue government interference in their First Amendment-protected activities, this refrain was also wielded in defense of segregation – that is, in defense of state-backed white supremacy.[6] Demonstrating that this was also not just a Southern problem, Bruce Harford, a one-time staffer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), described,
“During the ‘50s and ‘60s, efforts to end housing segregation in the North sparked intense resistance from significant segments of the white population (including some who had supported campaigns in the South for school integration, lunch-counter desegregation, and nonwhite voting rights). Many local governments supported and reinforced pro-segregation attitudes by enacting or strengthening legal barriers that defended ‘property-rights,’ ‘community-standards,’ and so-called rights of ‘free association… Political, economic, and social gains by Blacks and Latinos were portrayed as the illegitimate grabbing of special benefits and privileges at the expense of innocent whites who were (they claimed) the ‘real victims.’ They told white voters that laws, court rulings, public policies, and negotiated agreements prohibiting racial segregation or requiring integration somehow denied them their ‘right of free association.’ By ‘free association’ they meant the ‘right’ to exclude Blacks and other racial minorities from their communities.’[7]
Enter Jim O’Brien, aka Padraig Martin
Illustrating the close relationship between the CSPOA leader’s broadcast and the League of the South Dixie Fest event, at one point, Sam Bushman noted that James Edwards was “hunting me guests” for the show. Bushman then quickly announced that the guest Edwards had found was “Padraig Martin” of Identity Dixie—also a speaker at the League of the South’s Dixie Republic event.[8]
Identity Dixie leader Jim O’Brien, writing for the organization’s website as “Padraig Marting,” promotes the secession of southern states to create an “independent South,” or a “collection of countries, now known as ‘states,’” that are “exclusively white or white-run.”[9]
O’Brien pushes back against white nationalists who argue for pan-white unification on the grounds that “‘Judeo-Bolshevism’ and ‘Globalism’ are synonymous and requires a united front;” though, he writes that “we agree that our adversary is a tribal entity that is deeply engrossed in every facet of governance, finance and the media.” Rather than a single white state project, O’Brien boosts the idea of pan-white cooperation to press for multiple regional efforts to secede from the U.S., proclaiming that “we support all secessionist movements.”[10]
Betraying his own political influences, he wrote, “Even Adolf Hitler agreed with my sentiment.” Historical revisionist-style, that is, inaccurately, O’Brien holds that white nationalists should learn from the WWII-era German Nazis in that Hitler,
“sought to rebuild the natural borders of German-speaking Europe under one banner, while leaving other nation-states to their own devices… Hitler, and by extension, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), never believed that their system was one-size-fits-all. Broader White Nationalists should learn from them.”[11]
Padraig Martin had previously appeared on Sam Bushman’s show to promote the pro-secession book he co-edited. In his Dixie Republic interview with Bushman, Martin explained that the book The Honorable Cause: A Free South set out to “define what a free south would look like.” Bushman asked, “What would it look like?” Martin replied, “A free south will be a Christian nation-state, a collective people that have similar ideals, similar culture, similar history and based on Anglo-Celtic society and culture.”
Padraig Martin is a pseudonym for Jim O’Brien, first identified on Twitter by the 434 Archive Co in January 2023. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described Jim O’Brien as a one-time CEO of Tamerlane Global Services, a Virginia-based sub-contractor that operated in Afghanistan, claiming “specific expertise in moving cargo in conflict zones on the ground.”
In June 2019, James O’Brien, listed by the Department of Justice as from Fredericksburg, Virginia, pleaded guilty in a Florida federal court to “four counts of making false statements.” According to the DOJ, O’Brien admitted that as CEO of Tamerlane, he had falsified documents related to his company’s “letter of authorization” sanctioning its deployment to Afghanistan. O’Brien was sentenced to six months in prison, according to the Miller & Chevalier law firm.[12]
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, by 2018, O’Brien marched twice with the League of the South, including the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2017, James M. O’Brien of Gainesville, Florida, was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon while attending the Charlottesville rally. Charlottesville General District Court records indicate that O’Brien paid a $500 fine for the offense.[13]
As Padraig Martin, O’Brien explained on Bushman’s show that the impetus for The Honorable Cause had come after his arrest and imprisonment in connection to a U.S. government contract in Afghanistan in 2014 and later at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville:
“While I was sitting in a prison cell, I read everything I could on revolutionary movements. I began to re-study…re-invigorate my cause, so to speak, and came up with the idea, the knowledge that every revolutionary movement has to begin by defining itself, and not allowing the enemy to define it. And that’s why the book was written. It was in order for us to define who we are, why our people need to be free, and why we need to secede from what is really a degenerate empire.”
Martin continued that the book was available on Amazon, that Dixie Republic keeps copies of the on hand, and that he would be speaking later to answer questions about the “movement, the cause, what’s going on with League of the South, and also Identity Dixie and other groups that are in support of southern secession.”
Asked by Bushman, “If you had a question for yourself, what would it be?” Martin answered, “I would say, ‘What are the next steps to make southern secession real?’”
Bushman: “Okay, what are they?”
Martin: “I believe the very first thing you need to do is define your platform, define what southern nationalism is…The next stage is to begin working within groups to effectively secede from the, what is essentially modernity, so it’s time to walk away from some of these more lascivious and degenerate behaviors…”
Bushman: “Yeah, like government schools and such [this last word is unclear].”
Martin: “Yes sir, one hundred percent.”
Bushman: “I’m with you…In other words, build our own institutions.”
Martin: “Build our own institutions…A third way to do that is to begin accelerating the collapse of these United States by working towards avoiding being a participant in it.”
Martin went on to say that he had voted for Ron DeSantis. “I like DeSantis a lot, actually,” he added.
Not Bushman’s First White Nationalist Rodeo
Demonstrating the strategic variation in this movement, during his interview with James Edwards, Bushman would clarify, “As you know, I’m not a secessionist by belief, James. I believe that the nation should stay together until Christ, our King, returns” – a statement followed by this conversation:
James Edwards: “I say that my primary concern is preserving our people – preserving the nation. Now nation is a people with a common culture, common make-up, common customs, common traditions, common faith, and I am more concerned with preserving that people than preserving some sort of form of government or preserving the fifty states as we know the United States to be now…”
Bushman: “And you and I agree on that a hundred percent. All we’re talking about is the best tactics to get that…[unclear]…right?”
Edwards: “It’s just like, and if you cannot reform this system, and I think that this current system that is so degenerate and so criminally corrupt, and so anti-Christ… if you cannot…reform that system, which I don’t think you can, at this point…The rot is so deep. I think you just have to excise that and…start fresh…I say it this way: I don’t want to make America great again. I want to move on and learn from the mistakes.”[14]
Sam Bushman often uses his radio platform to deny any connection to white nationalism (even when hosting with white nationalist leader James Edwards). However, Bushman and CSPOA’s ties to white nationalism go back years.
In addition to James Edwards recruiting League of the South-Dixie Fest speaker Jim O’Brien to appear on Bushman’s Dixie Fest show, it has previously been documented that the CSPOA’s board currently includes the Institute on the Constitution’s Michael Peroutka, a former Maryland League of the South leader. David Whitney, a CSPOA “trainer,” is a one-time Maryland League of the South leader.[15] Another CSPOA “trainer,” KrisAnne Hall, previously spoke at a meeting of the Florida League of the South, and “Padraig Martin” had previously appeared on the Liberty Roundtable show.
In 2019, League of the South President Michael Hill appeared on a Liberty Roundtable broadcast from the Nationalist Solutions conference in Tennessee – an event hosted by the white nationalist American Freedom Party (AFP) and the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), an organization initially formed from the mailing list of the Civil Rights-era White Citizens Council. Michael Hill explained in his interview with Bushman that the event had also come about through a spate of last-minute League of the South fundraising.[16]
In addition to Michael Hill, a flyer for the Nationalist Solutions conference listed the speakers as the CofCC’s Earl Holt, James Edwards, AFP National Chairman Bill Johnson, veteran antisemite Kevin MacDonald, Rachel Pendergraft of Knights of the Ku Klux Klan leader Thom Robb’s Knights Party, and neo-Nazi David Duke – the one-time national leader of Robb’s Klan and a proponent not of secession, but of international white nationalist alliance and taking the whole of America for the cause.[17]
At the Nationalist Solutions conference, Bushman told Michael Hill, “We know about the League of the South, we’re grateful for your work…Tell your members that we salute them from the Liberty Roundtable Live, would you please.”[18]
CSPOA’s Sam Bushman can decry the well-documented links between his group and organized racism all he wants. But in using his show to provide a platform for leaders and allies of the League of the South and to Christian Identity racism, if he’s honest, he would have to admit that his organization is entangled in a profoundly racist and antisemitic movement underway in our country.
NOTES
[1] Tucker, Neely and Peter Holley. “Dylann Roof’s eerie tour of American slavery at its beginning, middle and end.” Washington Post. July 1, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/07/01/dylann-roofs-eerie-tour-of-american-slavery-at-its-beginning-middle-and-end/; Blake, Aaron. The story of Nikki Haley and the Confederate flag. February 15, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/15/nikki-haley-confederate-flag-timeline/
[2] Confederate Church of Christ. About Us. https://confederatechurchofchrist.com/about-us. Accessed August 11, 2023. The group’s website made clear that this is a Christian Identity group: “The Beast HATES the white race, because we are the Christian race – the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel who FOLLOW the Savior of True Israel. This is NOT to say that no one else can become a Christian, but it is to say, that we were/are the Sheep, the First Christian Race…Why do you think the “Power of the Air,” the media shows so much HATRED for the White Race? … It’s because Esau HATES Jacob with an unfounded hatred… Again, the BEAST HATES the Truth because the Truth SETS US FREE FROM THEM!! Jesus separated the Sheep, True Israel from the Goats, that is: From the Children of Esau, the Red, masquerading as the Children of Jacob-Israel. But now, they have deceived the world, especially the church into confusion about their identity. They claim to be ‘the Chosen People,” but they reject the Savior of the chosen people… That Jesus separated us, in fact, helped the Christians cope with their evil, to wit: Christian Kings segregated those SNAKES from Christian Society by putting them in ghettoes to which Jews were consigned by Royal Decrees in all the Gentile Nations of Europe during the Middle Ages… The Snakes have hated the White Race since Esau (the Red) hated Jacob (the White), over 1000 years before Christ. They hated Jesus Christ, and now, they hate the Body of Christ, even Christianity. Their hatred knows no bounds. They are Lawless, Liars, and Murderers. They embody the Spirit of Satan. The Beast is the Body of Satan, even as the church is the Body of Christ. They hated Hitler, before he was born. What Hitler did was, in fact, ‘Pay them back, in kind’ for the horror of the Great War; That is the World War for World Government – 1914 -1945. But, the Beast thinks they can do no wrong. They always think of themselves as VICTIMS, and so, they think they are justified in their unjust acts of hatred: called revenge against Jacob, now Christian Israel…”
See also, Christian Knuckles. TWO KINDS of Jews: Sheep & Goats How the REDS became LEFTISTS. Confederate Church of Christ. https://confederatechurchofchrist.com/pdf/Two%20Kinds%20of%20Jews%20-%20final%2014%20Pt.pdf. Accessed August 24, 2023. On the people-of-color as inferior front, Knuckles wrote, “Do you like Air Conditioning? . . . Thank the White Race. Air conditioning was developed by European Scientists, including White Americans, studying Thermodynamics. Do you like Trains and Planes and Automobiles? Thank the White Race. The Asians can copy, but they cannot originate modern technology. (Why do the Chinese steal American technology?) All technology begins in the revelations of God to His true People; thus, God Blesses the world through the minds of White Men.”
[3] Blood River Radio. About. https://www.bloodriverradio.com/about/. Accessed August 11, 2023.
[4] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 1 – 7/08/2023. July 7, 2023. https://www.libertyroundtable.com/2023/07/08/radio-show-hour-1-7-08-2023/
[5] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 2 – 7/08/2023. July 8, 2023. https://conten.blubrry.com/liberty_roundtable_live/lrt20230708b.mp3
[6] Sekou, Franklin. NAACP v. Alabama (1958). The First Amendment Encyclopedia https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/68/naacp-v-alabama
[7] Hartford, Bruce. 2015. Ghettos, Segregation, & Poverty in the 1960s. Civil Rights Movement Archive. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/ghetto15.htm; Civil Rights Movement Archive. Bruce Hartford. https://www.crmvet.org/comm/ghetto15.htm. Accessed August 15, 2023.
[8] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 2 – 7/08/2023. July 8, 2023. https://conten.blubrry.com/liberty_roundtable_live/lrt20230708b.mp3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s579mDPjQK4
[9] Identity Dixie Guest. SOUTHERN NATIONALISM: AN INTERVIEW WITH PADRAIG MARTIN OF IDENTITY DIXIE. September 15, 2022. https://identitydixie.com/2022/09/15/southern-nationalism-an-interview-with-padraig-martin-of-identity-dixie/. In the interview, “Paraig Martin” states, ““We simply do not believe that generic White Nationalism works as a concept because it fails to account for genuine ethnic distinctions and motivations. That which works in North Carolina does not necessarily work in Idaho or Norway. The Carolinian likely sees things through a different lens or perspective. This is one of the reasons I think the Red State Secession movement is okay as a temporary measure, but unlikely to succeed in the long term. The South is different. Still, we support all secessionist movements — be they Texas (TEXIT), California (CALEXIT), Quebec, or even regional sub-secession movements, such as that which is being advocated in New York at present.” Martin, Padraig. A STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF SOUTHERN NATIONALISM. August 29, 2019. https://identitydixie.com/2019/08/29/a-strategic-assessment-of-southern-nationalism/. In this 2019 article, “Padraig Martin” writes, “I am a Southern Nationalist first and a White Nationalist second. What does that mean? As a White Nationalist, I subscribe to the idea that all White people – i.e., people who hail from European lineage – maintain their cultural and genetic integrity in perpetuity. I root for all variations of White people to succeed in this regard – whether they are English, French, German, Polish, Hungarian, etc. As a Southern Nationalist, I specifically support the cultural and genetic integrity of a unique White Christian ethnic group within the geographic confines of the current United States. These two distinctions do not have to conflict, yet for some, they do. Many believe that the current worldwide assault on White Identity requires a unification to defend from a distinct threat. Those detractors of ethno-nationalism state that “Judeo-Bolshevism” and “Globalism” are synonymous and requires a united front. Whereas I agree with the root cause of the issue, I do not believe pan-White unification can work…Cumulatively, I see the threat that all White Nationalists see. Furthermore, we agree that our adversary is a tribal entity that is deeply engrossed in every facet of governance, finance, and the media. That tribal entity need not be repeated. Why? Because it is more important to get this message out than it is to “name them.” Sometimes, we must work within the margins to have a greater impact. That stated, their names are easy to decipher. For those who do not know, simply do some investigating as to the mechanisms of power and then you can decipher who are the true opponents of White Christian Civilization…Consequently, broad based White Nationalism is likely to fail because we simply do not have time to attempt to bridge genuine divides. No one is going to unify all of us under a single banner. Despite what some sociopaths and their sycophants may personally believe, there will never be a single leader marching Whites into a Reconquista. Even Adolf Hitler agreed with my sentiment. Hitler never sought to conquer Europe, despite the lies told by the History Channel. He sought to rebuild the natural borders of German-speaking Europe under one banner, while leaving other nation-states to their own devices. Vichy, for example, after the defeat of France, was remarkably independent as it pertained to domestic affairs. Italy was clearly independent until its defenses fell. Hitler, and by extension, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), never believed that their system was one-sized-fits-all. Broader White Nationalists should learn from them.”
[10] Identity Dixie Guest. SOUTHERN NATIONALISM: AN INTERVIEW WITH PADRAIG MARTIN OF IDENTITY DIXIE. September 15, 2022. https://identitydixie.com/2022/09/15/southern-nationalism-an-interview-with-padraig-martin-of-identity-dixie/; Martin, Padraig. WHY BROAD-BASED WHITE NATIONALISM FAILS – AND HOW TO FIX IT. Identity Dixie. Jaunary 10, 2022. https://identitydixie.com/2022/01/10/why-broad-based-white-nationalism-fails-and-how-to-fix-it/
[11] Martin, Padraig. WHY BROAD-BASED WHITE NATIONALISM FAILS – AND HOW TO FIX IT. Identity Dixie. Jaunary 10, 2022. https://identitydixie.com/2022/01/10/why-broad-based-white-nationalism-fails-and-how-to-fix-it/
[12] Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice. Former CEO of Two U.S. Government Contractors Pleads Guilty to Falsifying Government Documents. June 18, 2019. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-ceo-two-us-government-contractors-pleads-guilty-falsifying-government-documents; Miller & Chevalier. Executives at Risk: Summer/Fall 2019. October 8, 2019. https://www.millerchevalier.com/publication/executives-risk-summerfall-2019
[13] CBS News. 3 arrested in connection to violence at Charlottesville white nationalist rally, police say. August 12, 2017. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-nationalists-rally-charlottesville-live-updates/; Charlottesville General District Court. O’Brien, James M. Case# GC17006037-00. At Virginia Judiciary. Online Case Information System 2.0. https://eapps.courts.state.va.us/ocis/details;oneCase=true. Accessed August 16, 2023.
[14] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 1 – 7/08/2023. July 7, 2023. https://www.libertyroundtable.com/2023/07/08/radio-show-hour-1-7-08-2023/
[15] Wood, Pamela. “Two Arundel candidates labeled as ‘extremist’ by Southern Poverty Law Center.” Baltimore Sun. June 21, 2014. https://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-md-ar-candidate-extremist-claim-20140621-story.html.
[16] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 2 – 6/29/2019. June 29, 2019. https://www.libertyroundtable.com/2019/06/29/radio-show-hour-2-6-29-2019/
[17] Nationalist Solutions. Details. http://nationalistsolutions.com/details/. Accessed August 14, 2023.
[18] Liberty Roundtable. Radio Show Hour 2 – 6/29/2019. June 29, 2019. https://www.libertyroundtable.com/2019/06/29/radio-show-hour-2-6-29-2019/
