West Michigan Far Right Watch for the week of January 20 -27: American Patriot Council exposed and Acton defends revisionist history

Welcome to the next installment of West Michigan Far Right Watch, where we keep tabs on the far right in this area and provide a summary of what they are up to and what kind of messages they are promoting in this community. As a matter of clarification, when we say the Far Right, we mean those in the streets who fight to defend White Supremacy, those who promote far right ideology, and those with political and economic power.

We have 2 examples for this installment. 

American Patriot Council co-founder, Ryan Kelley, as been in the news lately, since activists have been exposing him for his participation in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Local TV stations have reported on this, like WXMI 17, just as we reported on it last week.  We also noted in our post from last week that his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol is in direct violation of one of the core values of the American Patriot Council, based on what is posted on their website, which states:

• We condemn acts of violence, especially to achieve political gain.
• We do not tolerate lawless behavior or illegal actions.

However, for today’s post we want to draw your attention to the American Patriot Council’s most recent blog post. The blog post is entitled, Biden Wastes No Time Beginning Plan for Economic Ruin. The blog post is short and not well written, but what it demonstrates is that the American Patriot Council is just another White Republican hate group that condemn anything the Democratic Party does. In other words, the American Patriot Council is just another hack partisan entity. 

The other issue we want to draw your attention to is a recent post from the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Last Friday, the main Acton editor, Rev. Ben Johnson, wrote a piece that lamented the now defunct 1776 report, which came out of a conference that former President Donald Trump hosted in September, designed to counteract both the 1619 Project and the work of radical historian Howard Zinn.

The Acton blog post defends the Trump administration’s position on US history, with a point by point argument, which does nothing more than say they agree with the 1776 Report. The report itself is a joke and it’s primary objective, apart from being a form of revisionists history, is the argue that the US was founded on freedom and liberty, not on genocide and slavery, as historians like Zinn, so accurately point out. 

At the end of the Acton article, it provides a direct and downloadable link to the 1776 report. This report is painful to read, but it does provide us with more clarity on the ideological framework that so many Americans base their identities in.