Former GRA Leadership Member’s “Blood and Soil” Rant
My step-daughter is obsessed with Stranger Things right now. She has been binge watching it when she’s not at school, so, naturally, she has asked questions about what certain words and phrases used in the show mean. A few days ago, she asked her mom and me what a “mouth breather” is. We defined it as “someone who is intolerant of others, irrationally fearful of change, or unable or unwilling to adapt to change.”
Intolerance or the irrational fear of change or the unwillingness to adopt appears to drive much of the culture war battles that are fought both in Congress and in the Georgia General Assembly. Examples include the fact that American society has gotten much more diverse, people born after 1982 represent a majority of the population, the population as a whole is less religious than at any point in the past, and the LGBTQ+ community is growing considering they don’t have hide in the closet anymore.
The rise of Trump in the Republican Party—from clinching the nomination in 2016 to his presidency to his current campaign—and his frequent dog whistles nativists and white nationalists have made people who hold those detestable views feel empowered. In other words, it has become normalized. Those who feel Trump has empowered them may not be your traditional conservative Republicans, but these clowns have aligned themselves with conservative politics and the Republican Party.
This is why the National Federation of Republican Assemblies felt like it could get away with citing the racist Dred Scott decision as a favorable precedent in a birther resolution absurdly questioning the eligibility of Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy to serve as president. The Dred Scott decision isn’t even precedent anymore, and it hasn’t been for nearly 150 years. Then you have the Georgia Republican Assembly, which passed a birther resolution of its own aimed at Haley.
The political fringe has been brought into the mainstream. Look, it’s a problem for both Democrats and Republicans. Democrats are dealing with this when it comes to antisemitism and radical environmentalism. The thing is, if you watched the Democratic National Convention, the party was projecting a center-left vision because elections aren’t won on the fringe. It was quite the contrast from the Republican National Convention, where fringe was brought into primetime television.
Fringe politics attract people who have some grievance that they can’t get past. Sometimes, that grievance is based on race or culture, religion, sexual orientation or gender, or something else entirely.
A friend of mine, Jason Hart, documents the fringe elements of the conservative movement. Hart doesn’t approach this from the left. He’s a traditional conservative who appears to be frustrated by the fringe elements of the movement. A while back, Hart posted a piece about a group called the Bull Moose Project, which is just another far-right populist group in an increasingly crowded field.
David Carlson was part of the Bull Moose Project, although I don’t believe he’s affiliated with them any longer. Carlson was chair of the chapter relations outreach committee for the Georgia Republican Assembly as recently as April 2024. He’s no longer listed as a member of the leadership of the group. It’s not clear that he’s still an active member.
Carlson maintains a Substack, DC Perspective, where he opines on various things. Well, perhaps the proper word is “maintained.” He hasn’t posted anything since August 2023. It looks like he scrubbed some posts as well. In one of those now-deleted posts, dated July 2021, Carlson offered his take on patriotism. The post is available via PDF or the Wayback Machine.
He wrote, “I am patriotic and celebrate America because of what it was and might be again one day far from now. Our faith, language, culture, traditions, race, works of art. In short our blood and soil is what produced America the America that is no longer here, yet I celebrate nonetheless.” (Emphasis added.)
Now, the phrase “blood and soil” is not innocent. It was a literal Nazi slogan. The phrase has been used by some on the far right. Trump also dog whistled in a tirade that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country.” In other words, Carlson knew what the phrase meant when he used it in his post.
Still, Carlson would go on to be part of the Georgia Republican Assembly’s leadership in 2023 and part of 2024. He claims that he rejects Nick Fuentes—a fascist incel who, in a world with a just God, wouldn’t have a following—and that people who try to make him out to be a white nationalist are “bad faith actors.” Keep in mind that Carlson used the term “blood and soil.” He did that. Presumably, no one made him do it. He’s also complained about “vows by leftists to destroy ‘whiteness.’” Ironically, he wrote this in the same post where he said he’s matured while never once offering an apology.
Whether Carlson’s rhetoric has anything to do with no longer being in the Georgia Republican Assembly’s leadership, I can’t say. Maybe he moved on to focus on something else. For example, Carlson currently serves as treasurer of the Georgia Young Republicans. (Screenshot here.) Only the existing leadership of the Georgia Republican Assembly knows the answer. We can infer that it didn’t because the Georgia Republican Assembly isn’t shy when it comes to racially charged rhetoric. Its chairman, Alex Johnson, who is also president of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, is trying to defend the indefensible position of citing the Dred Scott decision in an idiotic resolution.
By the way, does anyone know if Georgia Republican Party chairman Josh McKoon is still a member of the Georgia Republican Assembly?
Note: This post has been updated to reflect Carlson’s role with the Georgia Young Republicans.
