An official working on former President Donald Trump's campaign was fired by the Pennsylvania Republican Party after his ties to white supremacy were exposed.
24-year-old Luke Meyer, who served as the Trump Campaign's regional field director for Western Pennsylvania, was discovered publicizing his extreme perspectives online under the pseudonym "Alberto Barbarossa."
Meyer, as Barbarossa, co-hosts a podcast titled "Alexandria" alongside Richard Spencer, a neo-Nazi leader known for coining the term "alt-right" and organizing the infamous 2018 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. During a Washington D.C. speech in 2016, Spencer publicly quoted Nazi propaganda and has since given the Nazi salute in many public spaces.
"Why can't we make New York, for example, white again? Why can't we clear out and reclaim Miami?" Meyer asked on his podcast in June. "I'm not saying we need to be 100 percent homogeneous. I'm not saying we need to be North Korea or Japan or anything like that. A return to 80 percent, 90 percent white would probably be, probably the best we could hope for, to some degree."
After being uncovered by Politico reporter Amanda Moore, Meyer lashed out at the journalist, saying "I am glad you pieced these little clues together like an antifa Nancy Drew," before adding: "It made me realize how draining it has been having to conceal my true thoughts for as long as I have."
Meyer further revealed his belief that his white supremacist sentiments were already ubiquitous amongst the GOP, stating that, despite his termination, he expected he may be rehired by the party at some point.
"Like the hydra, you can cut off my head and hold it up for the world to see, but two more will quietly appear and be working in the shadows," Meyer wrote in an email to Moore. "Slating Trump to speak at [Madison Square Garden], putting 'poisoning the blood' in his speeches, setting up Odal runes at CPAC, etc. In a few years, one of those groypers [white supremacists] might even quietly bring me back in, with a stern warning for me to 'be more careful next time.'"
For their part, the Pennsylvania GOP strongly condemned Meyer's views, stating that they would never have recruited him if they had known about his online alter-ego.
"The employee in question was background-checked and vetted, but unbeknownst to us was operating separately under a pseudonym. If we'd had any inkling about his hidden and despicable activity he would never have been hired, and the instant we learned of it he was fired. We have no place in our Party or nation for people with such shameful, hateful views," they said in a statement provided to Politico.
Originally published by Latin Times.
