The “United the Right” rally in Charlottesville quickly turned into a white nationalist showcasing and it was organized by a man named Jason Kessler. The event, as you are aware, turned violent as alt-right and alt-left clashed with one another. Now, a “rumor” is coming to light which may show that Kessler was once a far-left “Occupy Wall Street” organizer and huge Obama supporter.
What does this mean? Is he perhaps “playing a role” here?
As reported by The Daily Wire:
One of the sources to note the claims is the hyper-partisan Southern Poverty Law Center, notorious for its overt leftward slant; the fact that SPLC would bring up Kessler’s alleged previous left-wing activism lends the claim a bit more credence. Here’s the passage from SPLC’s “extremist file” on the “relative newcomer to the white nationalist scene,” Kessler:
Rumors abound on white nationalist forums that Kessler’s ideological pedigree before 2016 was less than pure and seem to point to involvement in the Occupy movement and past support for President Obama.
At one recent speech in favor of Charlottesville’s status as a sanctuary city, Kessler live-streamed himself as an attendee questioned him and apologized for an undisclosed spat during Kessler’s apparent involvement with Occupy. Kessler appeared visibly perturbed by the woman’s presence and reminders of their past association.
Kessler himself has placed his “red-pilling” around December of 2013 when a PR executive was publicly excoriated for a tasteless Twitter joke about AIDS in Africa. …
Regardless of Kessler’s past politics, the rightward shift in his views was first put on display in November, 2016 when his tirade against Wes Bellamy began.
Rightwing News claims that Kessler “took $1,320 as a consulting fee from a Democratic candidate running for the Senate in 2012. He’s pro-abortion, an environmentalist, a non-interventionist, pro-equality and an atheist, among other things.”
After his “red-pilling” — a reference to the Matrix popular among the alt-right — Kessler began to become increasingly active in the “white nationalist scene” in Charlottesville and online. Kessler, a UVA graduate (2009), began to really make a name for himself in the area through his opposition to Charlottesville Vice Mayor and City Councilman Wes Bellamy, which SPLC notes was the city’s “only black councilman.”