On Saturday, June 8, during a Pride Month celebration in Centralia, a self-proclaimed white supremacist group that calls itself the “Evergreen Active Club” showed up to protest and share racist statements they’d later post in a video online.
The Anti-Defamation League lists active clubs, which are loosely organized throughout the country, as groups of “fighters training for an ongoing war against a system that they claim is deliberately plotting against the white race.”
Later on June 8, leaders from the Lewis County Republican Party set up a booth one block away from a drag show at the McFiler’s Chehalis Theater.
Lewis County Commissioner Lindsey Pollock, in the days following, drew comparisons between the two groups’ behaviors and said both were set out to “intimidate a minority group.”
This week, during a public comment period in a county business meeting, local Republicans repudiated her criticisms and distanced themselves from the club. Several called her statement slanderous and demanded an apology. Ten party members spoke aloud during the comment period and one additional person donated their time to the party chair. In a followup interview, Pollock doubled down on her statements.
Brandon Svenson, the party chair, said the intent of the pop-up booth in Chehalis was to garner signatures on an initiative to overturn a recently-passed Senate bill that creates confidentiality between shelters and transgender children leaving home to seek gender-affirming care. Critics have lambasted the legislation, saying it harms parental rights by not requiring that shelters notify parents and guardians.
Erin Volz, vice-chair of the party, in her public comment, noted that the party intentionally set up shop near the drag show because they felt it wrong that children ages 13 and older were allowed at the event if they had an adult chaperone.
A news release from the county Republican Party this week stated: “It is disheartening to witness Commissioner Pollock’s rhetoric, which undermines the hard work and dedication of those involved and alienates the very people who voted for her.”
Svenson stressed that the pop-up booth wasn’t affiliated with the active club in any way. He said the hate group was “in the wrong,” and neither he nor the other party leaders condoned the group’s behavior.
Pollock read her prepared statement on Tuesday, June 13.
She opened with: “Last weekend, Neo-Nazis and leaders of the Lewis County Republican Party harassed Pride celebrants in Centralia and Chehalis.”
As is the case for all partisan local- and state-level elected officials in Lewis County, Pollock was elected as a Republican.
“This band of bigots does not speak for me nor do I believe it speaks for any fair-minded Republican. Pay no attention to the claim that they were just there to protect parental rights,” she wrote in the statement. “They were there to intimidate a minority group and hijack the legitimate effort of parents to eliminate political coercion from our public schools. When leaders of our Republican Party make common cause with Nazis, they forfeit their claim to speak for us. Their leadership is malignant, repulsive and deserving of public repudiation.”
The same day she made her statement, in a response via email, Pollock said she was “unaware as to whether the party leaders had actual contact with the white supremacists. The party leaders were making folks at McFiler’s uncomfortable with their presence and photography.”
Svenson confirmed one party member was taking photos of drag show attendees.
“I don’t know why that individual took pictures,” he said. “I recommend against this sort of thing. I don’t expect it should happen again.”
Volz, in public comment on Tuesday, June 20, said she and others at the pop-up booth “took a short video of our booth and conversations.” Volz also said passersby were hostile to the party members at the booth.
“We especially had nothing to do with the Tacoma-based hate group that harassed the gay community in Centralia six hours earlier,” Volz said.
On Tuesday night, when reached by a reporter, Pollock defended her statement. Noting Svenson’s quote, which was in a previous article by The Chronicle, she said, “I think that’s a pretty clear admission that the leaders of the Lewis County Republican Party were engaged in harassing the folks that were patronizing a downtown Chehalis business. That is not a good reflection of our party. The party of Lincoln and Reagan. It’s just not something we should be associated with. This is an action of a minority within our Republican Party, and my concern is, if left unchallenged, it will discredit and ultimately destroy our party.”
She noted that members called the group “Tacoma-based” in public comment and said, “I'm curious as to how they knew that they were from Tacoma.” In a follow-up text, she said she meant to say “Pierce County” more generally.
According to the Stumptown Research Collective, a Portland-area organization that compiles information on local hate groups, the Evergreen Active Club is based in the Tri-Cities but its reach spans the state. Pollock said this was the conclusion she came to from looking into the group as well.
“I don’t know that (the Republicans and the active club) were directly associated. It’s very interesting that you would choose to collect signatures at 7 p.m. in Chehalis,” Pollock said.
The news release from the Lewis County Republican Party mentions its “active partnership with organizations like ‘Gays Against Groomers,’ while rejecting hatred towards the gay community. We commend our community members’ grassroots efforts in engaging in democratic participation and their dedication to initiatives aimed at protecting parental rights.”
Pollock said she was “wholly in support” of the initiative the party was gathering signatures for, but stressed that use of the term “groomers” to describe drag performers was “a very inappropriate, derogatory line of thinking.”
One of her seatmates, Commissioner Sean Swope, used the same language in a Facebook post critical of material at a Timberland library last week — prompting Kyle Wheeler, president of the Lewis County Dignity Guild, to deliver a large sign with a rainbow version of the county’s logo during Tuesday’s meeting. Accompanied by a photo of a pamphlet titled “resources for LGBTQ+ kids,” which tells readers they have the right to privacy, Swope wrote, “This is grooming behavior.”
“He was not saying it on behalf of the commission,” Pollock said of Swope’s post. “Again, we get back to this theme of calling drag performers ‘groomers.’ And I think I would remind folks that, you've got some people who are very against men in dresses reading to children. And on the other token, you have folks who are very against men in robes reading to children. So, it spans the gamut in this county.”
