A friend in Murdock alerted us about efforts by Jason Plourde of Willmar to advertise in a local Facebook group.
He's something of a joiner, it seems. As source of the image above reveals, Jason Plourde Financial Services posted on January 4, 2021, he was "Excited to be part of the community!"
The WLACC Facebook page used the picture as part of a December 30, 2020 post.
Who's Jason Plourde and why are some of our friends in the Willmar also excited about his part in their community?
One Facebook page is for Jason Plourde Financial Services, where he is a "Primerica U.S. Senior Representative, Life and Securities licensed. Agent and future leader recruiter." The portrait photo for that business site, uploaded on August 6, 2020:
It's the same photo used on his personal Facebook page--screenshot:
Note the neckless he's wearing and the pin on the seat of the car. These are pagan symbols used by the Asatru Folk Assembly.
He's displaying them presumably because he's an active leader in the Asatru Folk Assembly, although one wouldn't learn about his residence and business from the group's website, The Runestone.
The last mention of him of him in news on the AFA website, The Runestone, on December 4, 2020, cited his activism in the American Southwest:
The AFA is proud to introduce Andrew Johnston of Colorado as our newest Apprentice Folkbuilder! Andrew will be helping out Jason Plourde in the AFA Four Corners region, a region that is seeing increased activity recently. Let’s give Andrew a warm welcome and watch as his successes pile up.
The website includes him on an August 27, 2020 contact page for Alsherjargothi, the leadership of his organization. Plourde is a Folkbuilder for Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, & Utah according to the page, and the caption below his photo locates him in Colorado. Screenshot:
He seems to have shaved since moving to Minnesota, though he's still flashing the group symbols in his portraits.
In the AFA, our greatest priority is our members’ needs. We go to great lengths to ensure that we are not just an online phenomenon where all our leaders are on the other side of the country. We prioritize REAL LIFE interaction between our membership and our leaders and ultimately our greatest goal is building REAL LIFE Folkish community’s of like-minded people, honoring our Gods, and building our Folk. Folk builders are the face of the Asatru Folk Assembly in the different regions of the world and the local leadership of these communities. These men and women have stepped up to make a difference and not only do the tasks people see, like throwing events and interacting with membership but also are busy behind the scenes doing things like membership, online management, and helping shape the AFA.
Lately, on the Jason Plourde Financial Services page, he's been touting his civic good works. Volunteering for the Hawk Creek Animal Shelter (truly a fine place) and helping rehab a church building:
According to our source in Murdock, that church would be the Baldurshof: Third Hof of the Asatru Folk Assembly, where Mr. Plourde visits almost every day.
So why is this information newsworthy?
As we reported back in mid-July, when we broke the story on the Murdock situation in Baldurshof: Third Hof of the Asatru Folk Assembly setting up in Murdock, Minnesota:
Who calls AFA a hate group?
In the Neo-Volkisch article in the SPLC's Fighting Hate's Extremist File, the AFA appears in the list, 2019 Neo-Volkisch hate groups (View all groups by state and by ideology). Under the cruelty of the alphabet, AFA tops the list:
Ásatrú Folk Assembly
. . .
Bloomington, MN
Newport, MNRead the entire SPLC entry to get a sense of how the group earned its way on the list. Also worth a look? The 1998 SPLC article, New Brand of Racist Odinist Religion on the March, points out:
A neo-Pagan religion drawing on images of fiercely proud, boar-hunting Norsemen and their white-skinned Aryan womenfolk is increasingly taking root among Skinheads, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists across the nation.
Asatrú leaders have opened prison ministries in at least five states recently, and their many jailed followers are heavily white supremacist.
As for Jason Plourde himself, documents gathered online suggest he's got a bit of the dark side of pagan world in him. Here's a 2017 YouTube video in which he defends !4 words about racial purity for white children:
Plourde apparently live in Florida at the time. He defends the word Aryan against "lunatic leftists" while condemning those who want to "go around playing Viking" without acknowledging the white roots of Vikings. That should go over well in Minnesota (sarcasm) and scientists who've been checking out Viking DNA.
Much of the video is dedicated to an attempt to debunk Declaration 127. The Wikipedia entry, Heathenry in the United States, notes:
More recently, however, many Ásatrú groups have been taking a harder stance against these elements of their community. Declaration 127, so named for the corresponding stanza of the Hávamál: "When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið” is a collective statement denouncing and testifying disassociation with the Asatru Folk Assembly for alleged racial and sexually-discriminatory practices and beliefs signed by over 150 Ásatrú religious organizations from over 15 different nations mainly represented on Facebook
It's all about valuing one's whiteness and excluding non-white people, Plourde explains, not attacking them. Okay then. He talks about liberals throwing fits and destroying property after the 2016 election. Who in Minnesots can forget the Pant Suit Riots of 2017, and a pink pussy hat placed on the head of a statue of Floyd B. Olson?
Should the YouTube be removed, we have downloaded it. Here's this from Clapper:
Globalist propaganda and "the shackles yahweh has use to bind and blind ...noble Aryan ancestors..."? But he'd have Willmar residents think he's volunteering to fix up churches. Sometimes those omissions are telling.
We see the dilemma facing the local chamber of commerce. Can a business group discriminate against a business owned by a leader in a local whites-owned group? Bear in mind that Willmar is a diverse community with East African and Latino (many of whom enjoy indigenous heritage) members.
Welcome to Murdock's world.
Related posts:
- Digest: Murdock Asatru Folk Assembly news in West Central Tribune and New York Times
- Tales of Murdock: AFA’s newest MN Apprentice Folkbuilder has an interesting personal history
- Murdock Area Alliance Against Hate launches Green Ribbon campaign against white supremacy
- Creator of "Stop the Asatru Folk Assembly" Change.org petition adds a note about donations
- West Central Tribune: city leaders & Murdock Area Alliance Against Hate to criticism of town
- Arrival of Asatru Folk Assembly in Murdock prompts Swift Co Sheriff office patrol contract
- From Willmar to Washington: more on Murdock's approval of Asatru Folk Assembly hof permit
- Star Tribune: Murdock council anonymous vote on Asatru Folk Assembly permit may have violated Minnesota's open meeting law
- Murdock city council approves permit for whites-only Asatru Folk Assembly to re-purpose church
- Baldurshof: Third Hof of the Asatru Folk Assembly setting up in Murdock, Minnesota
- AFA gothar coordinator's life changed from police shoot-out & prison to serving old Gods
- Bluestem in the news: Strib & the Intercept
- Quiet protest is start of anti-hate movement in Murdock (West Central Tribune)
- WC Trib: "Murdock City Council, on advice of city attorney, not commenting" on whites-only group
- Resident: "We really don’t want to be known in Murdock as the center of hate in Minnesota"
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