Jason Kessler
Jason Eric Kessler (born September 22, 1983) is an American political activist from Charlottesville, Virginia. Kessler is best known as the organizer of the Unite the Right rally on August 12, 2017 and its successor, the Unite the Right 2 rally, which was held the following year.
Kessler is allegedly a supporter of Neo-Nazism, far-right politics, and is a member of the alt-right. He has been described as a white supremacist and antisemitic conspiracy theorist by most critics. Kessler caused controversy in the wake of the first Unite the Right rally, in which Heather D. Heyer, an Antifa activist, was killed by an (allegedly) Neo-Nazi activist. On August 19, 2017, he stated that "Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time." The comments drew heavy criticism from the political left.
However, some critics of Kessler, himself a former CNN contributor and left-wing activist from the Occupy movement who twice voted for Barack Obama, have claimed that he is an agent provocateur used to discredit real white nationalism and other forms of pro-white activism,[1] though Kessler himself has denied this.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Kessler as "a relative newcomer to the white nationalist scene," adding that "Jason Kessler first made waves in his 2016 attempt to unseat Charlottesville’s former vice mayor and only black city councilman and for his status as a bridge between Virginia gubernatorial and senatorial candidate Corey Stewart and the racist "alt-right."[2]
