Conservative activist connected to MAGA riot to train Minnesota Republicans
Scott Presler is a 6-foot-5 rising star on the right known for his Fabio-like hair and organizing volunteer trash cleanups and voter registration drives in large cities, where he decries Democratic leaders who he says help “foreign nationals” and “illegal aliens” instead of veterans.
He planned so-called “stop the steal” rallies and was on the Capitol grounds the day of the insurrection, which he has described as “the largest civil rights protest in American history.”
The Minnesota event will be held at a Sauk Rapids country roadhouse that displays a large collection of Confederate memorabilia and whose owner was convicted in connection with hitting a Black man with his Ford Bronco.
The chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, David Hann, mentioned Presler’s event in a recent newsletter, calling him a “nationally recognized speaker and activist, widely considered to be an expert in grassroots organizing.” He said Presler will talk about canvassing, voter registration and chasing alternative methods of voting like absentee and mail-in voting.
Asked about the event, interim executive director of the state Republican Party, Andy Aplikowski, said in an email the state party has no connection to the “planning of the event” and referred questions to a local party official, who has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Presler claims he’s trained over 10,000 activists in 30 states.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed Presler the lead activism strategist for anti-Muslim hate group ACT for America, saying he was the main coordinator of the group’s “March Against Sharia” rallies in 2017.
“The nationwide events attracted various factions of the radical right, including white nationalists, neo-Nazis and anti-government extremists — all of whom were united by anti-Muslim animus,” SPLC reported.
The Minnesota event will be held at Rollie’s Rednecks and Longnecks, which has an extensive collection of Confederate memorabilia on display.
Minnesota was the first state to volunteer troops to the Civil War effort, and 1st Minnesota Infantry Regiment played a crucial role in the all-important victory over the pro-slavery regime at Gettysburg.
“Those eight companies of the 1st Minnesota are entitled to rank as the saviors of their country,” President Calvin Coolidge said while dedicating a memorial to William Colvill in Cannon Falls in 1929.
The bar — which bills itself as one of the top honky-tonks in the nation — was briefly deleted from the state’s tourism website after some residents objected to the bar’s glorification of the Confederacy, the Star Tribune reported in 2020.
The bar is owned by Roland Hogrefe, who was convicted in 2011 of striking a Black man with his Ford Bronco in St. Cloud after he swerved at and exchanged insults — including racial epithets — with a group of Black men walking along a road. He ran into a man who had come out of his apartment to see what the ruckus was about. A juvenile related to the victim fired three shots at Hogrefe’s Bronco as it left the scene.
He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an injury accident, and was sentenced to 366 days in prison — with all but 90 days suspended.
Rollie’s website recounts how the restaurant’s founder got country singer Stonewall Jackson (who was named after the infamous Confederate traitor) to play at the restaurant when it opened, as a tribute to his father, who was a “huge fan” of the singer.
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