GCC Affiliated Political Candidate Matt Van Bogart Following The Covid-Denier Playbook

Grace City Church affiliated candidate Matt Van Bogart, who is running for Wenatchee School Board, has been following the GCC playbook in…

Grace City Church affiliated candidate Matt Van Bogart, who is running for Wenatchee School Board, has been following the GCC playbook in his responses to Covid-19 public health measures for a while now.

I had heard rumors Van Bogart was a GCC follower throughout the summer, but didn’t have much to prove that until recently. In addition to him parroting GCC’s lines that downplay the severity of the virus and the danger it poses to public health, Van Bogart also likes to low-key shame people who fall victim and even expire due to Covid or complications with the disease.

In a comment below this post from the Wenatchee World on Facebook, Van Bogart wrote:

“Most of these people are overweight, have crappy diets, do not exercise and don’t get rest. And yet, no one talks about that.”

If you find yourself in this situation you shouldn’t have had such a “crappy diet” from Van Bogart’s perspective.

Here’s a screenshot of his comment, for good measure.

Van Bogart and GCC leaders have been trying to downplay the pandemic, now the most deadly in American history, for a while now. Way back in March 2020, as Van Bogart was trying to get onto the board of a local non-profit, he sent the Instagram account for that non-profit a direct message telling them to “shut up” about Covid-19 and “stop making it a thing.”

MVB’s Instagram account, @braapin_bogie, is set to private but his profile picture is still the same as it was when this screenshot was taken.

It’s an interesting strategy to win friends and influence people in order to get on boards and win elections. That time the strategy failed, from what I am told, because they did not let him join the board.

He’s just following the GCC rhetoric though, and you can find similar language in GCC’s “9 Protests Against COVID Vaccine Mandates” document penned by pastors Josh McPherson and Kyle Strong, which was released in August 2021.

“We do not accept moral mandates or take our moral cues from the immoral,” they write on page 23. “Those individuals who perpetuate and propagate gross injustice lose credibility when speaking to matters of morality. Those who support abortion, decriminalize illicit drug use, encourage attacks on law enforcement, sexualize children through public instruction, promote destructive ideologies to the youth, and advocate child gender transition procedures have forfeited their right to speak from a place of moral authority.”

This is written, ostensibly, as a protest document against Covid vaccine mandates. You can read the whole thing and even download the PDF on Grace City’s website here. I saved a copy for myself because things I link to on GCC’s website have a habit of changing or disappearing.

But how do I know Van Bogart is a GCC member?

A lot of rhetoric coming from those on the right who consume amounts of rightwing talk radio and other media are saying similar things after all.

Well recently a woman we’ll call Cindy reached out to me about the Van Bogarts and GCC after she had a weird exchange with Van Bogart’s wife.

“She said they moved to Wenatchee for a more conservative lifestyle and that they were trying to make sure our community stays that way by getting involved and ending all the craziness,” Cindy said, adding: “Yes, she is a member of GCC.”

I have changed her name at her request because she fears retaliation from the family or the church, which is reasonable. I will say I know the woman personally and know that she’s on the level.

Another link is something I noticed on MVB’s notebook during KPQ’s candidate forum which was live streamed on Facebook recently. He had a GCC sticker stuck on the cover.

A stylized version of the silo at GCC’s compound in Sunnyslope is their logo. It’s also on all their documents, which is why I immediately recognized it.

I wish I could commend MVB for learning how to wear a mask properly between the August school board in which he threatened to be there with “ten times the amount of people” next time and the date of this candidate forum. But I can’t commend him for that. Although he’s wearing a mask in the KPQ interview, it’s only because Maria Iniguez asked him to put it on.

Ironically it’s his refusal to abide by the state mandate that helped me recognize him at the board meeting in August. He’s pretty short and was seated near the back of the crowd, but I’m pretty tall and when I stood up on my tippy-toes I recognized his unmasked face plain as day.

The last thing that ties him to GCC is the who’s who of Grace City followers listed among his contributors on the state PDC website, where candidates must file their financial disclosures.

Most notable is Shawn Ballard, owner of Ballard Ambulance and a prominent GCC member who folks in the Sunnyslope neighborhood tell me was instrumental in acquiring the land where their compound is located currently.

I sent the link to the contributors to some ex-members who identified other names they recognized from the church, but that’s for another time. You can see MVB’s PDC filings that include the full list of contributors and how much he’s raised here.

Time will tell if the GCC playbook will work for MVB, and we’ll know sooner rather than later because ballots hit mailboxes in Wenatchee this week and election day is Nov. 2.