Liberty State Proponents Matt Shea and Jack Robertson Warn of Communist Plots and a Coming Civil War
Almost a year before being welcomed to Wenatchee, Washington by Chelan County GOP Chairman Cary Condotta for a 'Liberty State Rally'
On June 29, 2018, Washington State Representative Matt Shea took the stage at the annual “God and Country Celebration” in the remote community of Marble, Washington, and spoke about the “forces of communism” arrayed against Christians like him and the folks assembled, and how they must band together to establish a new state called “Liberty” in a place some people call “The American Redoubt.”
He said God had already established the boundaries for the new state, which would be located on land taken from Eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
But they’d have to have some uncomfortable conversations to achieve this political and spiritual goal.
“I want to talk to you about a simple idea that might make you cringe a little at first. That idea is that liberty must be kept by force,” Shea said.
According to Shea, the stakes are high, and their political opponents on the left are literal communists.
“I gotta tell you something the forces of communism, and by the way, please let’s not argue that point anymore, they’re communists! ‘Hey Matt, how can you be so bold?’ Because they are actual communists!” he said.
You can listen to an excerpt of that here.
He went on to clarify that when he said “liberty must be kept by force” that doesn’t always mean by violence – but it could.
“Now I talked about liberty must be kept by force. Some people think that might mean force of arms. No. That is not really correct. If it’s absolutely necessary, I think we all believe in that, don’t we?”, he asked.
“Yeah, we do!”, a man in the crowd said as others muttered in the affirmative.
Then came a core trope for the extreme right – the gun confiscation fantasy.
“You know, I gotta tell you something if they came to my door and said: ‘Hey, we would like to take your guns.’ That’s not going to happen,” he said. “But that’s not what we are talking about, when we talk about liberty must be kept by force.”
Here’s an excerpt of that portion of his speech that Friday evening.
Shea admitted that he had met his share of folks who were skeptical of the project. Was is actually feasible?
He assured them it was, and trying to create a 51st state was a better use of their time and efforts than trying to affect political change in Washington state under the status quo.
“We cannot change the existing paradigm. We have to create a new one that renders the old one obsolete,” he said. “That’s what Jesus Christ did, isn’t it?”
He asked them if it takes more effort to create a new state, or “to unwind the old one?”
“Create, create, create!”, a woman in the crowd said.
The other featured speaker for the evening, Radio Free Redoubt broadcaster Jack Robertson, using the pseudonym John Jacob Schmidt, also addressed the issue of feasibility when he took the stage following Shea.
Robertson, aka Schmidt, said he had speaking to two highly regarded experts about the concept and they both said it was “inevitable” that the movement would succeed.
One of those experts, Lord Christopher Monckton, is a climate change denier who has falsely claimed, among other things, to be a member of the British House of Lords, a Nobel Prize winner, and the inventor of a cure for HIV.
“They’re looking at the Liberty state movement, and they’re looking at the state of Jefferson. They’re looking at the California separation movements,” he said. “They were observing the northern Colorado separation a few years ago, which failed.”
Like Shea, Robertson was frank about who their enemies were and what they should be ready to do. He addressed the need to be armed and have a stockpile of ammunition right at the beginning of his speech.
“Now of course, you guys all know you should have an AR-15 and a thousand rounds of ammo right? Because Antifa is kicking up and ya gotta be ready to defend, right?”, he said. “Defend, why? Defend for when the bad guy comes, right?”
But the bad guy is already here, he said.
Then he asked: “How many of you have pulled your trigger on your AR-15 in the fight that we’re in yet?”
A moment of silence followed.
After that he pivoted and talked about his wife leaving him, before turning to the theme of preparation for violence and “the war that is coming.”
“It’s a fact that what we see on the political landscape, on our cultural landscape, are indicative, indicative, of a coming civil war,” he said. “If you studied war, a lot of you people here do, you see communist revolutionary tactics.”
He talked about a return to the days of the Weather Underground, law enforcement officers being gunned down in their cars while eating lunch (although he provided no details on when/where these alleged murders occurred), Congresswoman Maxine Waters and of course, Antifa.
It was a verbal charcuterie board of trigger words for the type of crowd he was addressing.
But he assured them that they would “annihilate” their enemies when it comes to that.
“We are going to annihilate them – tactically we’re superior,” Robertson said. “We’re superior in every way, but they’re the dirty little communist tactics we’re talking about.”
A Nineveh Situation, and A Safe Haven
Threats from communists, Antifa and elderly black women in Congress are part of the reason why it’s imperative Shae, Robertson and the “God and Country” crowd must succeed in their goal of establishing a new state in the American Redoubt.
According to Shea, they’re uniquely positioned “geographically and culturally” to accomplish their aims.
He said they’re in a “Nineveh situation” and all they had to do is get the people of Eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to “repent,” get rid of the bureaucrats and then write a new constitution.
“We have to establish our safe haven which I believe is Liberty state. I believe that can be a beacon for the rest of the world because guess what we get to start talking about, freedom again,” Shea said. “We write a new constitution, we get to start talking about what freedom really looks like, don’t we?”
After that year’s conference at Marble, audio began to leak to the press and some of the quotes and clips in this piece were covered and published by media outlets like The Inlander.
Then in October 2018, a document Shae had authored titled “A Biblical Basis For War” was leaked and Shea (still a state representative at the time) received international media attention for his extreme views, as well as his support of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
In one part of the document, Shea lays out ground rules for enemy surrender and what to do with males who do not submit:
i.i. “Must surrender on terms of justice and righteousness:
1. Stop all abortions;
2. No same-sex marriage;
3. No idolatry or occultism;
4. No communism; and
5. Must obey Biblical law.
iii. If they yield – must pay share of work or taxes.
iv. If they do not yield – kill all males.”
I have provided a link to the full document for subscribers after the paywall below.
The things Shea said at Marble, and the revelation of the “Biblical Basis For War” document caused many mainstream republicans in the state to distance themselves from Shea and his brand of Christian nationalism after that.
But not former 12th district legislator and current Chelan County GOP chairman Cary Condotta, who helped organize and host a “Liberty State Rally” in Wenatchee at the BPOE building months later, in May 2019.
The BPOE building has been a hub for rightwing activism since it was bought by Jeff Kurpuis, who I have covered before.
Almost a year after the “God and Country” celebration at Marble and five months after the release of the “Biblical Basis for War” document, Condotta was still voicing his support for Shea and Liberty State on Wenatchee’s Evening News on May 13, 2019.
You can watch that excerpt here.
Condotta expanded on his support for Liberty State on his own show the following week, and addressed the feasibility issue.
“It’s a very difficult process, and it’s probably a long-shot at best, but it is important to remember the cultural differences between the East and West side of this state and the history of those differences,” Condotta said. “We align ourselves more with Idaho and Montana and Wyoming and always have. That is the history clear back to the beginning, and the left coast has become the furthest left of any place in the United States, so there is a huge divide between the East and West and it must be addressed at some point.”
There’s that word again – “culture.” They all say it, but they don’t explain what they mean.
You can watch that segment here:
Condotta did not address any of the controversy surrounding Shea during either broadcast.
But Condotta’s fellow republicans were not ignoring Shae’s rightwing extremism, and after an internal investigation the Republicans in the state legislature expelled Shea from their caucus in Dec. 2019 for “engaging in domestic terrorism.”
Some members went on record and encouraged Shea to resign from the legislature altogether.
“He absolutely should resign,” Republican Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox, of Yelm told the Spokesman-Review. “His role as a House Republican is over.”
Shea did not resign, but he didn’t run for reelection either. After departing the state legislature in disgrace he became the senior pastor of “On Fire Ministries & Kingdom Christian Academy” in the Spokane Valley, where he recently dusted off and raised the Liberty State flag during one of his sermons.
You can see video of that in the Tik Tok video below from Stronger Together Spokane, which is an organization “dedicated to combatting religious extremism in Spokane, WA. We believe in diversity, religious freedom, and equal rights for all human beings,” according to their YouTube channel.
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As a former member of the state legislature himself, as well as a Chelan County GOP leader, it’s reasonable to assume Condotta knew about the controversy surrounding Shea by the time he was set up as the featured speaker at the Liberty State rally in Wenatchee in spring 2019.
So I reached out to Chelan County GOP Chairman Condotta via the Chelan County Republican website to ask if he still supports Shea and the Liberty State movement, and if he and Kurpuis plan to host Shea for another “Liberty State Rally” in North Central Washington now that he has renewed his calls for the establishment of a 51st state.
I will update this post if he responds to my request for comment.
Here’s a link to the Facebook event page for the 2018 “God and Country” celebration. The 2019 event was cancelled and they have not publicized any “God and Country” events since.
I will write about other aspects of the weekend later because there’s a lot to go through, and we’re just scratching the surface here.
Paid subscribers can find photos from the 2018 “God and Country” celebration as well as a link to the full transcript from Friday night of the event at Marble, and a PDF of Shea’s “Biblical Basis for War” document below the paywall break.