The GOP in America is experiencing a shake-up. Nebraska's July 9 GOP convention saw a purge of its chairman and a wave of resignations because of sincere grassroots efforts to return the party to solid conservative principles. Nebraska GOP Chairman Dan Welch was ousted, resulting in ten other resignations from party leadership. Welch was replaced by Lancaster County GOP Chairman Eric Underwood. Committeeman and delegate Matt Innis and four others were reinstated after letters were sent stripping them of their credentials. Innis was arrested as he tried to enter the Republican State Convention. He was later released.
Mark Innis/Truth Social/GOP Convention 2022
Matt Innis Facebook
UncoverDC spoke with two of the "renegades," and both confirmed that this is not necessarily a MAGA-only movement. Former Navy Seal Jack Riggins, who has stepped up as the communications director for the Nebraska GOP (NEGOP), summarized it well.
"It is a collection," he said, "And I'll be honest, it is a collection of people across the rural and urban centers of Nebraska. There are people who are going to be more vocal. They are known as 'the patriots' because they are louder. But in truth, most of the people are now waking up because it is the right thing to do, to return power to the people and rebuild things from the ground up according to our Party's Constitution. We've got cowboys, ranchers, farmers, and then the city folks. Those are the bankers, teachers, moms, concerned parents, and former military guys like me. It's cliché but what we have is what we had in 1776 when they walked around and said, we need volunteers to fight for freedom."
Innis Arrested on Saturday at NEGOP Convention
Innis was allegedly arrested at the convention's door because he has been vocal about the establishment politics that have taken root around Governor Ricketts, who has been in office for eight years. On Saturday, he had received a text message asking him to come to the floor but was met at the door by a Kearney off-duty police officer who pushed him and then "miraculously landed on his butt." Innis was charged with 3rd Degree Assault and Second Degree Criminal Trespass, both misdemeanors. He was taken to the Buffalo County Jail and booked for the offenses. He later posted bail and was eventually allowed on the floor, but only after he was threatened with another arrest if he tried to go back in.
Innis and five other populist delegates had also received an email from the NEGOP credentialing committee earlier in the week telling them their credentials were being pulled for various reasons. Innis says that Dan Welch, the State Chairman who resigned, advised the committee not to send the letters, but they did it anyway. However, Innis says that Welch should have spoken up. "Welch should have been outspoken about it. He chose not to be. This is the person who is in leadership for the party." Instead, he allowed Ricketts' cronies, Axiom Strategies Sr. VP Jessica Flanagain and Taylor Gage, Executive Director of the Nebraska Republican Party, to step in. Flanagain has a storied history of being the handler for Ricketts. According to Innis, she handles "all the political stuff for Ricketts." In fact, Flanagain was Ricketts' campaign manager in 2018.
Letter to Innis
Innis said he has been exposing Flanagain and "the monopoly by Axiom" all year, and that is what put him in deep yogurt. He ran an effective campaign using satire and memes "to educate the people" on the inner workings of political campaigns and fundraising. He also spearheaded a very successful campaign to get the word out about CRT in Nebraska schools.
Innis Reinstated
Eventually, Innis said Chairman Welch stepped in, convincing people to allow Innis to go on the floor and be reinstated. Innis said there was "thunderous applause" when he walked in. The video below shows some of the discussion with Dan Welch about how the people inside were violating the Party's Constitution by not allowing Innis and others to enter their resolutions on the record.
Innis explained that the letters and the effort to keep certain people out were the final straw. Many people have felt for years that the NEGOP was moving further away from the will of plain, everyday folks. To be clear, neither Innis nor Riggins thinks Ricketts has been a poor governor overall. It has been the issue that has sprung up around him inside the party.
According to Riggins and Innis, the Lincoln establishment Republicans have formed a clique of insiders who have often been tone deaf to the needs of rural people in Nebraska. Innis feels "it's like a cancer that has just grown underneath each governor, each state senator, and the people have had enough of it." What happened Saturday has been brewing for a long time. Concerning the state party, Innis said, "the people caught onto it. They threw the farmers out. The farmers can smell that. The people in power figured out how to get those people out of the voting box. They have felt underrepresented in the party for so long."
Matt Innis Speaks Truth to Power
Innis Meme Campaign/Facebook
Part of Innis's appeal to his supporters has been his ability to humorously and effectively use social media to poke Nebraska's political cronies. Innis said he has been exposing Flanigan and "the monopoly by Axiom" all year, and that is what put him in deep yogurt. He has run several effective campaigns based on satire and memes "to educate the people" on the inner workings of political campaigns and fundraising. He also spearheaded a successful campaign to get the word out about CRT, and other woke policies in Nebraska.
Matt Innis/Truth Social
Grassroots Movements Take Root In Unlikeliest Of Places
Tony De Cesare is a conservative grassroots flamethrower who means to change how things are done in the unlikeliest of places, Baltimore County, Maryland. He and his partner-in-crime, Kate Sullivan, have quickly grown the Patriot Club of America (PCA) in a "patriot's basement" in early 2021.
The pair have been running circles around the local establishment GOP with Sullivan's "Operation LionHeart" medical truth campaign and other grassroots initiatives. They and others are running for the Republican Central Committee and will be on the primary ballot on July 19. De Cesare says PCA has the numbers to "tilt GOP leadership to America First conservatives." Referencing PCA, De Cesare told UncoverDC,
"Since 2021, the organization has grown to 2,000 members that are focused on conservative America First policies. The PCA has recruited 5 school board candidates, multiple candidates for the Republican Central Committee and County Council. They have helped to identify and recruit solid, unapologetic conservative candidates to represent the people, not the political establishment. The PCA's support of children and schools, law enforcement and election integrity has created a groundswell of active grassroots Republicans and their model has served as a template for other conservative organizations."
PCA provided meaningful volunteer support to the People's Convoy when it was stationed in Hagerstown, Maryland, at the Speedway. PCA has also been integral to the America First campaign involving gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox and his running mate, Gordana Schiffanelli. The campaign eschews mandates, CRT in schools, and promotes medical freedom.
Schiffanelli's bio is impressive, to say the least. She is a "law professor at the Annapolis Naval Academy, a legal immigrant who escaped communism in Eastern Europe, mother, wife to a United States Green Beret, and Maryland's newest Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor." Cox and Shiffanelli are running a challenging race against Kelly Schulz, an establishment candidate who has been endorsed by the term-limited Governor Larry Hogan. The primary is on July 19.
Wilson County in Tennessee did the same thing two years ago at their convention. Citizens in the county formed a parallel party called the Wilson County Conservative Republicans, founded by former Conservative Senator Mae Beavers. Beavers ran for Governor in 2018 and withdrew because of Bill Lee's successful campaign. They then formulated a slate of candidates for the convention and took over the County party. Brad Lytle is now the Wilson County Republican Party Chairman. He told UncoverDC that the County Party has continued to "organize people at the precinct level" to fill seats with solid conservatives at the county level. Their platform is unequivocally rooted in beliefs set forth by America's Founding Fathers.
Senator Doug Mastriano ran a powerful grassroots campaign to win his gubernatorial primary in May in the swing state of Pennsylvania. He won 44% of the vote against second-place holder Attorney General Josh Shapiro. Shapiro has said Mastriano was pushing the "Big Lie," a popular phrase used mostly by the left to deny election fraud in the 2020 election. He won mainly because of a campaign rooted in Christian family values, his push for election integrity, and his unapologetic rejection of abortion. Most of his donations came from small-dollar donors. The Daily Item reports,
"So his win, insiders told Spotlight PA, cannot be attributed to prolific fundraising or institutional support but to a grassroots movement slowly built through sharing those beliefs in earnest social media videos and during intimate gatherings, often in speeches riddled with sarcasm, historical allusions, and attacks on his perceived enemies in the media and across the political spectrum.
The first sign of this power, sources said, was when Mastriano submitted 28,000 signatures to qualify for the statewide ballot in Pennsylvania. He needed only 2,000."
Mastriano was one of the first political officials to entertain the notion that the 2020 election may not have been exactly honest. The Senator was a key figure in orchestrating and conducting the election integrity hearing with former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani in Gettysburg, PA, on Nov. 25, 2020.
With more evidence of fraud in the 2020 General Election emerging almost daily, citizens at the grassroots level are becoming much more muscular in their willingness to step up to the plate. Many conservatives now realize their voices have been suppressed by people in their own ranks. Candidates who support fiscal responsibility, limited government, voter verification, education free of woke agendas, medical freedom, and election integrity will likely emerge in greater numbers as the winners in the 2022 mid-terms.
As Riggins said,
"The media wants everyone to believe that this is a Trump thing, that it's just Trump people. No, this has nothing to do with that. This is just people, who over the years, are upset about being left out and being told that they don't get to participate because they're not the people that we want in our party.
We want your money. We want your vote, but we just want you to be quiet and go sit in the corner. These are volunteers, not establishment people who are paid to toe the line. These people cannot be manipulated."
